Lately I’ve been playing Xira Arien in Tiny Leaders. She’s played as a Jund Lands deck and it’s worked out well thus far.
Xira Arien Jund Lands for Tiny Leaders
Lands (22):
Forest
Swamp
Bayou
Taiga
Badlands
Stomping Ground
Overgrown Tomb
Blood Crypt
Verdant Catacombs
Wooded Foothills
Bloodstained Mire
Tranquil Thicket
Barren Moor
Buried Ruin
Bojuka Bog
Maze of Ith
Wasteland
Volrath’s Stronghold
Glacial Chasm
Dust Bowl
Ghost Quarter
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Creatures (2):
Army Ants
Eternal Witness
Planeswalkers (1):
Liliana of the Veil
Artifacts (5):
Crucible of Worlds
Sands of Delirium
Mox Diamond
Ensnaring Bridge
Zuran orb
Enchantments (3):
Exploration
Sylvan Library
Seismic Assault
Instants (4):
Hero’s Downfall
Constant Mists
Abrupt Decay
Beast Within
Sorceries (12):
Toxic Deluge
Inquisition of Kozilek
Rhystic Tutor
Thoughtseize
Gamble
Gaea’s Blessing
Faithless Looting
Smallpox
Maelstrom Pulse
Black Sun’s Zenith
Life from the Loam
Dreadbore
Sideboard (10):
Deathrite Shaman
Pithing Needle
Elixir of Immortality
Pernicious Deed
Engineered Explosives
Choke
Blood Moon
Gloom
Dread of Night
Relic of Progenitus
The deck has two major weaknesses and two minor weakness that I’ve found.
The first major weakness is it has issues closing out games. Too often, you spend so much time durdling trying to lock up the game that it’s hard to win. The two win conditons are Sands of Delirium and Seismic Assault. Putting in the Punishing Fire combo and Dark Depths combo would likely increase the speed of wins but I don’t have them at the moment. Other options are Helix Pinnacle or Zombie Infestation. The deck too often goes to time while you try to win the game but I’m trying different options to see what works best.
The second major weakness is the deck folds to aggro. Zo-Zu or other aggro decks murder this before you can get LftL online. It’s just a fact of life.
The minor weakness the deck has is you can get stuck into a non-idea situation and there are many dead draws. Too often you need to find a specific card to get out of a situation and it’s locked in the deck somewhere. I haven’t found a good way to solve this problem as of yet.
The final minor weakness is the deck is very vulnerable to graveyard hate. Anafenza’s built in graveyard hate may destroy a typical reanimator package but does nothing to us. But something as simple as Rest in Peace would destroy the deck. My local meta isn’t running much graveyard hate, but they could easily hate the deck out of existence. If I keep putting up good results, it wouldn’t be out of the question to have to move to another deck due to the hate.
There are three major revisions I would like to make to the deck:
1) Dark Depths Combo (Dark Depths + Thespian’s Stage). While it’s not as auto-win as it is in legacy because players start with 25 life, it’s still a beating. Two turn clock closes out games quickly once I’ve taken over. Keep winning and I’ll soon have enough store credit to purchase a Dark Depths 🙂
2) Fulminator Mage needs to replace Army Ants. I’m primarily waiting for Modern Masters 2015 to come out because I’m betting that Fulminator Mage gets reprinted and drops significantly in price.
3) Punishing Fire Combo (Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows). Again, an easier burn package to play compared with Seismic Assault. Seismic Assault is a pain to play due to requiring 3x Red mana. This is slower, but equally powerful. I’m not as sure if this is an auto-include compared to the other options above. Like Fulminator Mage, I’m waiting until Modern Masters 2015 to come out and spike the price downard.
For all these weaknesses, there is one strength: it has answers to everything. It can stop a midrange beatdown, wipe the board, gain some life, destroy their lands, and proceed to grind out a win. The deck is very redundant and can survive parts getting exiled or thoughtseized.
Another bonus of this deck is it dodges most of the removal in the format. All creature removal is dead vs the deck. We’re getting value off enchantments, artifacts, and instants/sorceries. With the threat density of non-creatures, we’re going to overload their removal and thus be left with something awesome to get ahead.