Jund Walkers Midrange (deck 7b in series) (Frontier)

*I have been making a series of decks that are three colored midrange decks. My usual approach is I first build a deck (A) that is built by starting with the best midrange cards in the color and then expanding from there. Then, I often build other decks in the colors (B) and (C), and so on. These are created by choosing a more defined strategy or synergy, and expanding from there.

What does the deck do:
The deck is centered around using planeswalkers in the midgame.
The objective is to clear the path through disruption and removal, and then dominate stage 2/3 of the game through endless planeswalkers.

What inspired the deck:
To be frank, if you play Jund colors, the midgame creatures always tend to be the same couple as it is foolish to play much weaker creatures just to build an alternate deck.
Jund has some very powerful planeswalkers. I believe that they actually work very well together and curve out quite nicely.

Step 1: Bring on the planeswalkers. (10 total)

a) Chandra, Torch of Defiance. 4 copies.
toolbox.
puts the opponent on the clock.
*allows us to more easily cast our other planeswalkers.

b) Nissa, Vital Force. 2 copies.
Plays a great beatdown game.
ultimate's so quickly. if she does it is hard for the opponent to fight through it.
*the fact that she returns our other planeswalkers from the graveyard is just amazing.

c) Chandra, Flamecaller. 2 copies.
major beatdown card.
can help fix up your hand if you are holding PW's that are already in play or useless early game cards.
*can be an emergency board wipe.

d) Ob Nixilis, Reignited. 1 copy.
card draw is important.
removal is really nice on entry.

e) Angrath, the Flame-Chained. 1 copy.
discard is big against control and midrange.
the act of treason ability is great for targeting 3cmc creatures.
*played Angrath over Sarkhan due to the fact there is a lot of exile creature removal in the format (due to Hazoret, The Scarab God, Gideon,...) that Sarkhan is more easily removed then back in his standard days. Also, we are not playing midrange creatures so they will have it to use.

Omissions
i) Liliana, the Last Hope. light on creatures
ii) Garruk, Apex Predator. Flamecaller is better for less
iii) Sarkhan Dragonspeaker. explained above
iv) Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. too expensive
v) All others. not good enough without creatures or just not good enough

Step 2: Play cards that get a benefit from playing planeswalkers.

a) Oath of Nissa. 3 copies.
digs three for a land or planeswalker
allows us to not be too concerned about cmc colors in casting.

b) Oath of Chandra. 3 copies.
good early removal.
should cause 2 life loss a couple times throughout the game.

c) Oath of Liliana. 2 copies.
sacrifice effect comes in handy in many situations.
should net you a couple zombies throughout a game.

Step 3: Look at hand disruption cards for the early turns.

a) Despise. 2 copies
*just grabs something great before the opponent can even react.

b) Transgress the Mind. 3 copies
*grabs all the formats most powerful staples and wincon's.

c) Doomfall. 1 copy.
gets any nonland card and exiles it. On turn three that is juicy.
forcing the opponent to exile a creature is a pretty solid plan B.

Step 4: Let's see about drawing some cards in the early turns.
Oath of Nissa gives us some card selection, however we are going to need more.
7 of our planeswalkers draw cards to some effect in the late game and Nissa gets permanent back.

a) Read the Bones. 2 copies
digs deep to get what we need on turn 3 or later.
easy to cast, unlike Sign in Blood.
*Cathartic Reunion is so bad against counterspells.

Step 5: Mass removal.
while we are tearing apart hands and drawing cards there will be creatures that hit the board. They have to be dealt with by sweepers to get as much value as possible.
Flamecaller can also wipe a board in an emergency situation.

a) Languish. 2 copies.
On turn 4 it just wipes away almost anything that has hit the board.
kills Hazoret against "Ramunap Red" style decks (a bad matchup for us).
*what it doesn't kill will be handled by spot removal.

b) Sweltering Suns. 2 copies.
this takes us from a bad matchup vs aggro to a winning one (with Languish)
I've played these 3cmc sweepers main board in the past, in fast formats, and nobody ever expects it in game 1. Players over-extend way more often game 1 thinking they will be faced with spot removal or at worst turn 4 or later mass removal.
On the draw, getting a three for one is totally backbreaking for the opponent.
If you have to, you can use it as spot removal. Nothing wrong to use a 3cmc spell to kill a 3 toughness creature. There are some really good ones in the format.
You will never kill a creature you control on turn 3 and even later you at worst kill tokens generated by planeswalkers.
If it's a dead card, you just cycle it away.

Step 6: Spot removal.
playing 4 mass removal main board, helps immensely.
Oath of Chandra is small creature removal.
Doomfall and Oath of Liliana are sacrifice removal.
all six hand disruption cards can target creatures.
*8 planeswalkers can kill creatures while Nissa can generate a massive blocker.

a) Fatal Push. 3 copies.
*we need to get to the midgame without being on the brink of elimination and Push does that better than any other removal.

b) Vraska's Contempt. 2 copies.
need an exile effect.
need a planeswalker removal effect.
need something that kills any creature, as many of our removal spells have toughness and cmc limitations.
gaining life is actually very valuable to us, even if it is only 2.

Step 7: Sideboard.
we are playing a few cards that can be dead draws in the main board. Looking to fix those up first.
then, looking to play strong sideboard cards for certain scenario's.

a) Murderous Cut. 1 copy sideboard.
Sideboard for Fatal Push.
kills what Push can't.

b) Duress. 2 copies sideboard.
*Sideboard for Fatal Push.

c) Read the Bones. 2 copies sideboard.
Sideboard for Sweltering Suns
life loss will not matter in control matchup

d) Rekindling Phoenix. 2 copies sideboard.
*Sideboard for Languish.

e) Sorcerous Spyglass. 2 copies sideboard.
*just so good against so many big threats (planeswalkers, Scarab God, vehicles)

f) Unlicensed Disintegration. 2 copies.
just want instant speed options that kill creatures without restrictions.
direct damage very unlikely to trigger, however it is still the best option we have.

g) Tormod's Crypt. 2 copies.
I only need to worry about wiping out the opponents graveyard since they will get little use out of mine since I play no creatures in the main board. The Scarab God control will have very few targets.
intended for blue decks playing delve or The Scarab God and God Pharaoh's Gift decks.

h) Languish. 2 copies.
I want to really make creature heavy decks pay the price.
Completely one-sided in our favor.

Step 8: Build the mana base.
*Mana sources needed- 18 red, green 16, black 18

a) Bloodstained Mire. 4 copies.
b) Wooded Foothills. 4 copies.
c) Smoldering Marsh. 3 copies.
d) Cinder Glade. 3 copies.
e) Swamp. 2 copies.
f) Mountain. 2 copies.
g) Forest. 2 copies.
h) Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. 1 copy.
i) Blooming Marsh. 2 copies.
j) Rootbound Crag. 1 copy.
k) Dragonskull Summit. 1 copy.

Normally I'd like to have more ways to play a green or black land untapped turn 1, however it is not vital that we play our 1cmc cards before turn 2 every game.
Urborg and Oath of Nissa help out with difficult mana restrictions.
*Urborg also makes it so we do not have to crack fetch lands if we want to conserve life, since they will then tap for black.

Final Thoughts

A) I like playing these types of decks. I'm not a planeswalker guy, but if I'm going planeswalkers I tend to prefer going all in with them.

B) This deck achieves something that makes it very difficult to play against: the opponent will typically have so many dead cards in their deck. Let's examine this further.
i) Fatal Push- totally dead.
ii) Grasp of Darkness- totally dead.
iii) Abrade-totally dead.
iv) Harnessed Lightning- totally dead
v) Crackling Doom- totally dead
vi) Essence Scatter- totally dead
vii) sorcery speed sweepers- totally dead (except Hour of Devastation...make them discard that mess).
viii) Settle the Wreckage- weak (catches tokens on the attack, but ramps us so we'll take that trade)
iX) The Scarab God- weak (will only have their own creatures to target)
X) Reflector Mage- weak (generic 2/3 creature)
these are just the format staples, there are a ton more cards that see play that do next to nothing against this deck

C) The deck has a nice balance to it: it draws cards, disrupts the opponent, does well against aggro, protects itself against removal, plays nasty threats that must be answered.

D) The decks biggest weakness is against control since we have a lot of dead removal cards against them. The bonus is that they have a lot of dead cards against us so it equals out to some extent. Our greatest advantage is we sideboard in a load of cards to improve our matchup while they probably only have a couple answers for planeswalkers in their sideboard. If they are all in on creature removal and sweepers I'd say game 1 is 50/50, maybe even a slight nod to us depending on what type of control they are. If they are playing The Scarab God, then the matchup leans heavily our way.

E) The deck has great synergy. Playing the Oath's early are great on their own as removal or card draw, but they also just sing in the midgame when you start dropping planeswalkers regularly.