Jund Snows Best
Into the North and Rampant Growth are incomparable
Into the North illustrated by Richard Sardinha
For the first tournament of Season 8, and the largest in Fantasy Standard history, Zonks22 emerged victorious with a Jund Snow list! Utilizing ramp and removal, the deck can play huge threats ahead of schedule and look to close the game soon after. Let’s take a closer look at how the deck works.
Ramp
Ramp spells amass mana early to play higher-powered spells ahead of schedule.
Ramp spells amass mana early to play higher-powered spells ahead of schedule. Because the deck is looking to play many double-pip and triple-pip cards, it is important that each piece of ramp does find any color the deck needs. Birds of Paradise allows the deck to play a tap land on turn two and still deploy one of its 17 two-drops. While terrible to top-deck late, the bird can act as a blocker when the deck needs just a little more time to spend its mana. Into the North can fetch utility lands like Mouth of Ronom (when more removal is necessary) and Scrying Sheets (to amass mana and dig towards threats). Coldsteel Heart is one of the cards that can be found off of Scrying Sheets and it adds to the snow count for Skred.
Removal
A plethora of diverse removal helps Jund Snow reach the late game.
While ramp accelerates Jund Snow towards deploying a huge threat, removal helps the deck survive along the way. Abrupt Decay not only removes early attackers, but acts as a versatile piece of disruption against cheap artifact and enchantment combo pieces that the deck would otherwise be too slow to compete with (such as Ashnod’s Altar and Intruder Alarm). Mizzium Mortars and Skred are cards that also deal with early creatures, but can scale well into the late game that Jund Snow is playing for. Even the lands can deal with creatures as Mouth of Ronom gives the deck another action to take with its copious mana.
Threats
Each threat must be answered timely or it will quickly end the game.
Anything else problematic can be taken out with Vraska the Unseen or Woodfall Primus, which act as removal spells that leave behind a threat. Vraska must be answered as she upticks, costing the opponent crucial pressure needed to close out the game. If she is left unchecked, Jund Snow can easily remove enough blockers to end the game with Assassins. Woodfall Primus’s persist ability helps mitigate the weakness of running few threats, as it acts as two threats in one. Desecration Demon acts as a fast clock against control and combo decks and as a stone wall against midrange decks. Aggro decks can typically ignore it as they finish the game too quickly, but if they end up being short some damage, the Desecration Demon doesn’t give them a lot of time to find those few remaining points.
Into the North
Into the North is so much more than “another Rampant Growth”
Zonks22 takes advantage of the snow synergies available, and Into the North is one of the strongest payoffs. I was always happy to cast this card while playtesting the deck for this article. It grabs duels while ramping, powers up Skred, and can fetch instant-speed removal or a card-advantage engine. Congrats again to Zonks22 for their victory— who snows what they’re up to next?
Quick Tourney Stats by Archetype and Color
Basic Archetype Spread
6 Aggro decks with 216 average points
3 Combo decks with 241 average points
5 Control decks with 149 average points
4 Midrange decks with 261 average points
Color Spread
7 White decks with 196 average points
9 Blue decks with 164 average points
7 Black decks with 224 average points
6 Red decks with 196 average points
7 Green decks with 269 average points
