Jundy Boyz: Rakdos Alchemy with a Splash of Green

I wanted to share my version of an Alchemy Jund deck that took me to 97% mythic this season, with a win rate of 64%. It has not since been adapted to face the new Grinning Ignus/Cabaretti Revels combo deck which I subsequently used to reach mythic #137 in Traditional Alchemy Ranked. I had a lot of fun adapting it against all the other decks in the meta. Since I suspect, there are probably changes coming to address certain aspects of the infinite combo deck to make it less dominant, I think it could still be a good archetype moving forward.

What’s it all about?

The first thing you’ll notice is that this is basically a Rakdos deck, splashing green. I wanted to make the best deck possible and unfortunately, I didn’t find many green cards powerful enough to include in this type of deck, but I wanted to test at least one new Alchemy card I haven’t played before or seen many others playing either. The other green cards were chosen specifically to target other decks I faced that I started running into problems with.

jundy-boyz-rakdos-alchemy

Staples of the Deck

• Fable of the Mirror-Breaker should need no explanation, it’s become a multi-format all-star and I don’t see it stopping anytime soon. It particularly shines in this deck due to the capability of copying Citystalker Connoisseur on your opponent’s upkeep and locking them out of their draw step if you’ve managed to get them to have no cards in hand.
• Painful Bond is an extremely powerful draw spell, even with the nerf in which you now perpetually lose a life when you cast cards with mana value 3 or less (It used to be the opposite). It helps refuel your hand and there is a lot of potential life gain in the deck so you shouldn’t run into many situations where it’s difficult to cast the cards you draw from it.
• Undercity Plunder was immediately one of the best cards to come from Alchemy: Kamigawa and is so powerful against certain decks. Molten Impact was another card to come from that set, and it’s one of the strongest removals in the format. I went with an even split of two of each in the main and sideboard. It’s hard to tell if that’s the correct formula, but there are certain matchups where you don’t want too many of one, and others where you might take Plunder or Impact out entirely and have 4 of whichever fits your needs. With werewolves, for example, I typically take out the discard and add in the removal.
• Citystalker Connoisseur is such a powerful card with so much potential value. You get a decent sized threat with death touch, a blood token, and the opponent must discard. With the aforementioned synergy with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, it should come as no surprise it’s included in most Alchemy decks running black.

Splashing Green

I won’t go over every single card deck, but I wanted to talk a bit about the few green cards I’ve been trying.

• First is Effluence Devourer. I’ve been impressed with this card, it’s a 3 mana 4/3 that you can Blitz, meaning you can attack with haste, and you’ll draw a card at your end step. It also allows you to pay 2 mana to create a 4/4 green ooze creature from your graveyard after it’s been blitzed. Careful though, if the opponent blocks it and kills it before your end step, you won’t get the card or the additional creature. It must be sacrificed to receive those benefits.
• Next up is Riveteers Charm. I found this card to be a decent Swiss army knife for the deck, allowing you to remove some of the opponents’ larger threats that may be out of The Meathook Massacre’s range, exiling their graveyard, or just drawing cards.
• Finally, we have Unleash the Inferno, and I’ve been happy with this card. Dealing 7 damage to a creature or planeswalker is so good, and the ability to destroy an enchantment or artifact with the leftover damage comes up a lot. Think runes, Esika’s Chariot, Wedding Announcement, Cabaretti Revels, and the list goes on.

Mana base

The deck runs 26 lands total, with five of them being spell lands. Having four Hagra Maulings and one Spikefield Hazard does occasionally hurt the decks overall consistency in having untapped lands when you need them. You could replace them for more channel or creature lands, but personally I like having the extra removal. The Hagra Maulings are especially important in the mirror match where your opponent starts casting Citystalker Connoisseur because the mana curve caps at 4 mana. So having extra spells that cost 4 mana means you’ll have better decisions about what to discard when the time comes.

Sideboard Discussion

The sideboard includes some important tools that may seem confusing at first, such as why is there one Power Word Kill in the main deck and one Infernal Grasp in the sideboard?

• Power Word Kill has won me over versus Infernal Grasp lately due to the loss of life being extremely important in certain matchups. However, grinding the ladder towards Mythic, you’ll undoubtedly run into a lot of life gain decks running angels in which the Power Word Kill immediately becomes useless. So, the ability to swap them out for each other is there specifically for that reason, should it come up.

I don’t have an in-depth sideboard guide for the deck as I ran into such a variety of different decks climbing to Mythic, but I have a couple tips that worked well for me. Against decks such as Anvil or similar decks that try and burn you out, I took out most of the discard and brought in every potential source of life gain, while maintaining enough removal to deal with their threats. Against the mirror, I brought in Cosmos Elixir and the Orvar the All-Form while taking out Undercity Plunder, since I didn’t want them conjuring it from my deck with their own. For the rest of the decks I faced, I don’t have a formula set in stone, and the deck still feels like it needs some polishing, but I had a great run to Mythic with it and I’d recommend trying it out!