Jund Tower in Ixalan Standard

Hello everyone,

I’m sure everyone is busy buying the perfect gift for their loved ones and family. For us Magic players, the best gifts are deck boxes, sleeves, accessories and of course, tons and tons of singles and sealed products.

Before we go crazy this season, I’d like to share a couple for more decks before I too go on a holiday break.

Since the printing of Abrade, we haven’t seen a deck revolve around Dynavolt Tower. Energy decks have all flocked to the creature variant which is still the mightiest meta deck in the field. But as always we at TFA try to make old archetypes viable again.

I tried it before Ixalan and it was a sweet deck to play. You can find it here.

If you play Dynavolt Tower, you need a lot of spells to generate the energy needed to fire it. Though we won’t be utilizing the creatures that make energy, we will focus on spells. The good thing here is that we turn all our opponent’s spot removal into dead cards. On game 1, this deck building strategy becomes a huge advantage.

Going back to Abrade, we should have ways to get back our Dynavolt Tower if it gets destroyed. Fortuitous Find lets us take back an artifact or creature, or both which is a huge bargain for 3 mana.

Since most decks these days take the aggro route, playing copies of Fog buys you turns while you set up your Towers. In the mid through late game, drawing these also allow you to generate enough energy to deal with bigger threats, or make your opponent commit more to the board. Once they do play their threats thinking our Towers can’t deal with them, you play your sweepers. We’re playing all 4 copies of Haze of Pollen just because we can cycle it in case we don’t need it later in the game.

Take note that if they choose not to commit, then they allow our towers to pick their threats out one by one – neither situation puts our opponent in a good spot to be honest.

Sweltering Suns does a great job sweeping off Longtusk Cubs, Siphoners, Winding Constrictors, Virtuosos, Toolcraft Exemplars and many more. Bontu’s Last Reckoning is another panic button that allows us to reset the game if we get overwhelmed. While for bigger threats Hour of Devastation sweeps them up nice and tight, including Planeswalkers.

We will play 1 creature in the deck and I want someone who can close the game quickly on its own, difficult to get rid of, functions as another removal outlet, and a card advantage engine. Voila, The Scorpion God fits this description to a Tee. It does an awesome job shooting down thopters and servos so we don’t waste 5 energy on critters.

So here’s my Jund Tower decklist!

Artifact: 4

4 Dynavolt Tower

Craetures: 3

2 The Scorpion God

Spells: 30

4 Attune with Aether
3 Fatal Push
4 Harnessed Lightning
2 Commencement of Festivities
4 Haze of Pollen
4 Die Young
2 Fortuitous Find
2 Sweltering Suns
1 Bontu’s Last Reckoning
3 Hour of Devastation
1 Nissa, Vital force

Land: 23

4 Aether Hub
3 Blooming Marsh
3 Canyon Slough
2 Sheltered Thicket
3 Rootbound Crag
3 Dragonskull Summit
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain

Sideboard: 15

4 Duress
3 Carnage Tyrant
3 Appetite for the Unnatural
3 Lay Bare the Heart
2 Lost Legacy

The deck theoretically has a strong fighting chance against any deck that runs creatures. We pack 13 removals and sweepers not including the damage from our Dynavolt Towers and Scorpion God.

We are however at a disadvantage against decks that run no or few creatures like Approach of the Second Suns deck. This is why my sideboard is focused to deal with these decks in general.

Duress, Lay Bare the Heart and Lost Legacy are all sided in strip the control player’s hand off of counter spell, card draw and win conditions. We will still have the Dynavolt Towers in so we don’t become vulnerable if they decide to swap Approach with Regal Caracals.

Against control decks that might side in more Negates and Disallows or Torrential Gearhulks to play around our discard spells which they will expect, they will regret siding out Fumigate or Settle the Wreckage when we surprise them with a Carnage Tyrant. Counter this!

Appetite for the Unnatural pays respect to Ixalan’s Binding and Cast Out which can hose our game plan if they do get our Towers exiled underneath them.

The deck looks pretty simple and loops quite apt against today’s creature-heavy meta. Give it a whirl and let me know what you think!

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and a Happy Holidays to those who don’t 🙂

Vanson