7 Reasons Why Nissa Monument is a Tough Matchup for Jund
November 11, 2009 | Posted by Dee
If you’ve been following Standard, you’ve probably heard of the latest big T2 tournament to hit the scene, the Nashville 5K by Starcitygames from last weekend. This tournament had 340 players and it featured three green decks in the top eight that had Nissa Revane and Eldrazi Monument (results here).
Here’s the Nissa Monument deck list.
| Mono Green Aggro Nissa Monument | |||||||||||
Creatures (26)
Spells (10) Lands (24) | Sideboard (15) |
| |||||||||
Before the tournament, Jund was considered the best and most popular deck, so it’s a good idea to find out if this new deck has a good matchup against Jund.
I just played five matches against Nissa Monument with my Jund deck and it feels like Nissa has the advantage. I would say 55/45 or 60/40 in Nissa’s favor.
I went 2-3 in matches and 5-7 in games but in one game, my opponent misplayed which could’ve changed the outcome. And in another game, I got lucky by cascading into Terminate or else he would’ve had board advantage with Ant Queen.
Here are 7 reasons why the matchup seems to be in Nissa’s favor.
1. Great Sable Stag + Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Stag is already pretty good against Jund but when you make it a 4/4, it’s practically unkillable. Bolt can’t kill it and Bloodbraid and beast tokens can’t trade with it.
2. Fast Early Starts
Jund doesn’t have any accelerators but Nissa has four Llanowar Elves and two Noble Hierarch. These one drops allow Nissa to have explosive starts like turn one Elves, turn two Archdruid, and turn three Ant Queen and Oran-Rief. But even a turn three Nissa or Garruk is pretty good against Jund.
Jund is vulnerable to these starts because of its unstable mana base that often slows it down. I remember many times when I’ve had to mulligan my opener because I didn’t have all three colors. And then my six card hand could still only produce two colors but I had to keep it because going down to five was too risky.
Or here’s another common occurence. Your first land drops are Savage Lands and M10 lands, so you’re a turn behind on mana development because your lands are coming into play tapped.
3. Big Creatures With Powerful Abilities
Big creatures likes Sphinx of Jwar Isle and Baneslayer Angel have always given Jund problems. Nissa has her own big creature that’s even more threatening than those two: Ant Queen. You may scoff at this 5/5 and say she only belongs in limited and casual games. But with Monument and Oran-Rief, Ant Queen can quickly dominate the board with infinite insect tokens.
Plus, she blocks all of Jund’s creatures except for Broodmate.
4. Creature Pumpers
Between Oran-Rief and Archdruid, Nissa’s creatures grow while Jund’s creatures stay the same size. The pumpers allow Nissa to rule the combat phase.
The lowly Llanowar Elves and Elvish Visionary can trade with Bloodbraid after one pump. Nissa’s Chosen can already trade with Bloodbraid Elf, but when it grows to a 3/4, it blocks Bloodbraid and Thrinax all day. Another great play for Nissa is making 4/4 beast tokens, which can trade with Leeches and dragons.
Garruk also allows you to use Oran-Rief twice in one turn so you can grow Archdruid out of Bolt range to a 4/4. And Garruk + two Oran-Rief is insane, giving your new creatures +4/+4 counters.
5. Too Many Powerful Non-Creature Permanents
You may think that Jund can handle 3 Garruk Wildspeaker, 4 Nissa Revane, and 3 Eldrazi Monument with 4 Pulse and 4 Blightning and its own Garruks. But you often have to Pulse other targets like Ant Queen, Archdruid, Master of the Wild Hunt, or even a 4/5 Nissa’s Chosen.
Eldrazi Monument is most devastating out of the three. The artifact usually spells game over for Jund unless it has Pulse. It keeps the creature generators (Garruk, Nissa, Master of the Wild Hunt, or Ant Queen) from dying because of indestructability and flying. Flying stops dragons from killing Garruk and Nissa and indestructability… well, it makes Master and Ant Queen immune to Jund’s removal.
6. Really Good Mana
This is similar to the second reason. Nissa is a mono color deck so it’s going mulligan less. It doesn’t have to worry about color screw whereas a three color deck like Jund can have colored mana issues. Also, Nissa only has four come into play tapped lands whereas Jund has Savage Lands and M10 lands.
7. Hard to Sideboard Against (Attacks from Many Different Angles)
When you look at all the reasons as a whole, you’ll realize that Nissa attacks Jund from many different angles. This makes it hard for Jund to sideboard against her.
I sideboarded -3 Bit Blast for +1 Jund Charm and +2 Terminate, which may be wrong, but I felt like Bit Blast was too slow and it doesn’t even kill Ant Queen.
Other possible sideboard cards have drawbacks.
For example, Naturalize and Goblin Ruinblaster are pretty bad if they don’t draw Monument or Oran-Rief, respectively.
Earthquake could be good if it wasn’t for cascade.
Acidic Slime could work but it’s expensive.
And then, what do you take out?
You can’t take out Bolt because of Stag.
You probably don’t want to cut any creatures or Garruk since Jund’s creature count is not very high. Plus, Garruk needs to stay in because of their Garruk.
Pulse and Blightning kills planeswalkers so they stay in. And Terminates can kill Ant Queen.
All in all, it’s an uphill battle for Jund and we may be looking at the new best deck especially since Nissa seems to have a good matchup with other top decks like Vampires, Boros Bushwhacker, and Red Deck Wins.
7 Responses to “7 Reasons Why Nissa Monument is a Tough Matchup for Jund”
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What about Demolish out of the side? I know its a “bad” card, but it answers monument and oran-rief. Nice timely article, btw, thanks!
Hm, that might work. But I think going after Oran-Rief may not be the best strategy since you trade a spell for a land and Nissa will rarely be mana screwed from land destruction. Nissa has 24 lands, 10 mana accel dudes, Garruk, and Visionary.
That’s just my quick judgment though and I could be wrong.
Well mabey naya. Has a chance. Path is good. Also planar clensing might see a resergance cause it wipes evrything. Maby a new ww could trade with this deck. also life gain might becxome importany again
They will want to play Eldrazi Monument the turn they can win more often than not. I’d consider 2-3 spots for Naturalize in the board. It does well vs white control so it’s not a completely dead card in all other matchups.
The problem with Naturalize is that it’s a dead card if they don’t draw Eldrazi Monument.
The card I’m considering is Caldera Hellion, since I’ve seen it in some of the top lists on Magic Online.
Caldera Hellion wouldn’t do much if they throw down a monument. Maelstrom Pulse+fallout could be good. Fallout in response to monument hitting the board could set them back even if it doesn’t kill ant queen or Stag. Then pulse the monument on your turn. Its still tough to pull off since you essentially need both cards in your hand for this to work, but both cards are completely main-deckable and aren’t too shabby should the monument never see the board either.
Fallout vs Jund Charm is an interesting debate but pretty much every winning Jund deck I’ve seen has played Charm.
Jund Charm can fight Crypt of Agadeem decks while Fallout can hurt walkers. I think Jund Charm is slightly easier to cast. And the life loss is a drawback versus Boros Bushwhacker and Red Deck Wins.