Jul 15, 2010
The name is another ode to Patrick Chapin, I hope everyone realizes he had his popular Next Level Bant deck named “Next Level” for a reason. He is a good marketer.
I posted on twitter earlier that I had created a deck idea that’s fresh and new, and better yet it uses post M11 cards. I want to disclaim that this deck has received very light testing but had enough interest that I’m posting it now. I plan to play this to death once Magic the Gathering Online releases M11, until then it will go through a couple FNM’s and some home games.
The idea of this deck is to beat down in a midrange, and late game through the many aggressive natured cards. I’m normally a Jund player, but being on the butt end of a Blightning is a huge pain. Especially when you’re in colors that don’t draw. I wanted this to be similar to Next Level Bant in a way, but with more abusable options while holding back cards in your hand to continue bringing the heat. It’s very hard to miss a turn two play with the curve the way it is. So this deck builds board presence while maintaining a hand full of cards. The way our crappy creatures are able to keep up are through all the best equipment in standard right now, as well as finisher cards like Eldrazi Monument. I decided on a 1 of Titan because even in Standard they are card advantage and good beaters too. And the ability to Tutor up a finisher when you need to through Fauna Shaman makes 1 of creatures much more relevant.
The idea originally started with thinking of the ways to abuse Fauna Shaman, as she’s my MVP of M11. Vengevine is the obvious abusable mechanic, and the next most obvious is probably Bloodghast while the not so obvious is Squadron Hawk . So why not include them all? That’s where the idea started. After that I really considered what are the most devastating plays in standard? And Blightning is probably the #1 answer. I wanted to fix that and maintain huge card advantage after and before a Blightning. To abuse Vengevine for the card advantage, you truly need an easy way to bring him back. We’ve seen this in Jund where he just doesn’t quite work as well as we’d want him to. Luckily a lot of the card advantage creatures and spells I could find were low costed to abuse Vengevine. And the idea continued from there. It still has a long way to go and I’ll keep this post updated with progress and videos once they become available.
Without further explanation here is Next Level Junk – First shot.
Next Level Junk
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One not so noticeable interaction is a turn 2 Squadron Hawk. You can fetch up 3 Squadron Hawk and flood your hand to discard Bloodghast or Vengevine. And really it’s not much of a Magical Christmas Land situation because all you need is 1 Squadron Hawk in your opening hand and at least 1 Vengevine or Bloodghast to discard.
One of my main concerns is Baneslayer Angel. I may end up sideboarding Plummet.
Please leave all comments and ideas if you get a chance to look over this! It can only get better with everyones help. Enjoy.
IDK, this deck seems so much worse than NLB or NLNaya because you forgo the two most powerful cards in standard: Jace and BBE. I don't see how black adds anything to the deck: Bloodghast is v. underwhelming all the time; Pulse is good, but honestly either deck can have a small splash for it if you really really wanted it. I will grant that this deck loves to get blightning'd, but post SB, that cards going straight out, then you're left with sub-par creatures that don't do much on their own.
Man, I've been rockin' junk for a few months now, but I'm not sure about this list. I see a lot of list that are trying to abuse Fauna Shaman but I feel the strategy isn't as fast as we think it should be and it is too easy to disrupt with removal. With that said, I'm sure it gets pretty sick if they don't kill her. Cool that you are trying out the new fad in a color combination we don't see too much at this time. :)
Why oh why would you ever think to post a new decklist of any kind? With the exception of Jund, every other deck is crap in standard. Hahahaha, hope you catch the sarcasm in all that.
I like the way you are going with this list, as Bloodghast with any of those equipments is a monster that won't ever go away...Squadron Hawk will be THE Wall of Omens in this set, mark these words. The different potential interactions with that guy are ridiculous.
If I weren't so hyped up by the return of Mana Leak, I'd sleeve this bad boy up for an FNM. But alas, I believe Merfolk are more than due for an epic return to dominance.
Hey I cannot wait to get my hands on M11 cards so I can sleeve this up and try it out! Smi77y are you open to modifications being submitted? Great list though and I'm truly liking this site keep up the good work!
Definitely would love some modifications and discussion. I've already made a couple changes to the list. Thanks!
Why do u have 2 scute mobs?
1 is already to many with only 1 ranger, if u want to play 2 scute mobs u neeed 3 + rangers and 1 is max. because they are awkward.
Please don't add Plummet for opposing Baneslayers. Doomblade is there at your service :-)
I'm not a Junk player, so further no suggestions from my side.
I prefer non vengevine junk. As mentioned by others, other colors just do vengevine better. Fauna shaman is good, but the whole bloodghast / vengevine thing is too dredgevine for me. If I want to abuse grave yard recursion I'll just play that deck instead. Most lists are now running green for the shaman. So you also have access to pulse there if you want to play a list which abuses recursion but still gets the best all purpose removal spell.
I think the best junk card from M11, right up there with fauna shaman, is *dark tutelage* followed by sun and grave titan. I've been running two but I'm upping it to three, because it's just that good.
Junk has access to the lifegain capabilities (slayer, collar, sledge, nighthawk...) to abuse the tutelage (hey, now you can even tutor for your stoneforge mystic with your fauna shaman), and it is a deck which sorely lacks for card advantage and often loses to burning out the hand on decks which run more removal and card drawing mechanisms. Not only that but no other color scheme has the tools to deal with run away tutelage like junk (pulse, pridemage, slime, etc). With tutelage you'll never burn out into top deck mode.
@jozsef Those are sound points, I like the ideas. I might try to give Dark Tutelage a try in the tourney practice rooms.