Jund Korvold Standard Deck Guide

Do you like attacking the meta’s best decks with something it wasn’t expecting, and have a good matchup? Do you like killing people with cards designed for Brawl? Do you want to relive the days where Cauldron Familiar was unbanned? If so, I have the deck for you! Jund Korvold takes the very powerful Food package from Eldraine, and adds in Korvold, Fae-Cursed King as a card advantage machine and win condition wrapped into one! Let’s take a look at the deck.

[sd_deck deck=”6WAQJpQtT”]

The most obvious comparison with this deck is with Mono Green Food (if you want to read about that deck, you can find my good friend Sorquixe’s article here). Although Mono Green tends to be a more “powerful” deck with huge threats in Feasting Troll King and The Great Henge, Jund gives you significantly more interaction and flexibility. Flexibility is the hallmark of a powerful deck as, on ladder or in a tournament, you’re likely to face a huge variety of strategies, most you’re likely prepared for, but some you may not be. This is the list I’m happy with but this strategy can be relatively malleable depending on what you’re expecting. To know how to change the deck though, you first have to know the role each card plays.

Lastly, if you’re interested in trying this in Bo1, you can try the list below! I eschew some of the more grindy elements for more removal in the main deck. Furthermore, many of the top decks have artifacts and enchantments, so playing 4 Gemrazer main is a huge advantage compared to Bo3.

[sd_deck deck=”rHfxJ30EU”]

CARD CHOICES

2 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate: It still flabbergasts me how terrible Vivien seemed compared to Nissa, Who Shakes the World, but Viv is now the top planeswalker in Standard. It’s unfortunate that she doesn’t synergize super well with anything in the deck, but she’s just so powerful she deserves the inclusion. Furthermore, with 25 creatures, you should be able to cast creatures off the top relatively often. Vivien used to be Garruk in this list, as sacrificing Wolves was excellent with Garruk, but the extra mana and lower general impact makes me prefer Vivien in this spot.

4 Gilded Goose: A staple in the Food package. Gilded Goose pulls a lot of weight with Trail of Crumbs, Wicked Wolf, and makes 2 permanents for Korvold.

4 Lotus Cobra: Although Cobra has recently fallen out of favor, the card is still extremely powerful. A mana accelerant and a color fixer, having Cobra in any 3 color green strategy is almost mandatory for game one. Why just game one? When you don’t have your deck configured against your opponent’s strategy, going fast is one of the ways to circumvent having the wrong pieces of interaction in game one.

1 Scavenging Ooze: There aren’t a lot of green sources to make great use of Scavenging Ooze, but having one copy of it has a lot of merit in the deck. With only one, you don’t have to worry about what you eat with it as you don’t have another one to potentially find off the top, and it’s a great tutor target for Vivien. If the meta necessitates it, you can definitely add more.

2 Murderous Rider: It’s a versatile removal spell that can be found off Trail of Crumbs. Furthermore, you can use it as sacrifice fodder or a lifelinker after the fact or in a pinch as well.

4 Woe Strider: Almost abandoned since Cat has been banned, but we’re looking to bring it back. Having main deck Escape cards is really powerful right now with Rogues prevalence, and the sacrifice ability is also excellent in general. Making 2 bodies is great with Korvold and the sacrifice ability will allow you to draw more cards and get more counters! Small tip that’s extremely relevant, the Goat Woe Strider makes it an amazing mutate target for Gemrazer!

2 Gemrazer: The Great Henge is a really strong card and we want answers to it. Between Gilded Goose, Lotus Cobra, and Woe Strider, there are alot of strong mutate targets available in this deck. It’s niche, but giving your creature trample can also make a big difference in your ability to race. For example, if your Rogues opponent has the Lurrus/ Merfolk Windrobber lock, give your Korvold trample and swing for a huge chunk!

4 Wicked Wolf: The biggest payoff for going food, Wicked Wolf does alot for little investment. A kill spell and an indestructible creature is very difficult for Gruul and Rogues to handle, so it’s the Wolf’s time to shine.

4 Korvold, Fae-Cursed King: The major reason we’re bothering to go Jund in the first place. Korvold is an extremely powerful card and this deck looks to leverage it as much as possible. Whether you get to play it ASAP or later in the game, you’re near guaranteed at least one card off the exchange. However, with some sacrifice fodder out, you can make a huge flier and refuel your hand in one fell swoop!

1 Agadeem’s Awakening: This will be a Swamp 90% of the time, but if you ever get to actually cast this for any value, it’ll be insane.

2 Bloodchief’s Thirst: Good against little idiots, and Gruul and Rogues play plenty of those.

1 Heartless Act: Good against bigger idiots.

4 Trail of Crumbs: The last of the Food payoffs, Trail is an amazing card advantage engine for the measly price of a single food. Even if you can’t find a Gilded Goose or Wicked Wolf to sacrifice your food on the cheap, Korvold makes great use of the extra food lying around.

25 Lands

SIDEBOARD

3 Agonizing Remorse: For when you just need to look at your opponent’s hand and take the best card. Best against decks that are playing cards that are way better than the others (think Into the Story in Rogues).

3 Heartless Act: Having a lot of removal is good against creature decks, who would’ve guessed?

2 Elspeth’s Nightmare: I love this card. A removal spell, a Duress, and a Tormod’s Crypt for 3 mana! Plus, you can find this off of Trail of Crumbs! Extremely powerful when you’re able to get all 3 modes to be relevant.

3 Klothys, God of Destiny: With Rogues ubiquity and Rakdos’s increased metagame share, playing 3 mana win the game is pretty good. This isn’t very effective if drawn way later in the game, but if you stick this turn 3, it’s extremely difficult for those strategies to beat.

2 Thrashing Brontodon: More Naturalizes on a stick! We board out Lotus Cobra most of the time, so we need ways to kill enchantments when the creature count goes lower.

1 The Akroan War: Really excellent against large creatures, and with 8 sacrifice outlets in the deck, it’s unlikely you’ll have to give their creature back at the end of the saga!

1 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate: If you need more wincons in grindy matchups, here she is.

MATCHUPS AND SIDEBOARD GUIDE

MONO RED AGGRO

In	Out
+3 Heartless Act	-2 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate
+2 Elspeth’s Nightmare	-4 Lotus Cobra
+2 Thrashing Brontodon	-1 Agadeem’s Awakening

For this matchup you cut the slower cards and put in more interactive elements. Lotus Cobra is too good of a Bonecrusher Giant target and can’t attack or block well, so it gets the boot. Try to keep hands that are heavy on interaction since you can easily finish them with a Korvold or a Wicked Wolf.

GRUUL AGGRO

In	Out
+3 Heartless Act	-2 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate
+1 The Akroan War	-4 Lotus Cobra
+2 Thrashing Brontodon

The plan is pretty similar to the Mono Red Aggro plan, but Gruul is more effective at grinding than Mono Red is. This matchup is generally good as Wicked Wolf and Korvold are extremely difficult to answer for Gruul, but the recent addition of The Akroan War, the matchup can definitely be scarier. However, we have 4 artifact and enchantment removal to help ensure there will be nothing more than removing a blocker for one turn.

DIMIR ROGUES

In	Out
+3 Agonizing Remorse	-2 Murderous Rider
+2 Elspeth’s Nightmare	-4 Lotus Cobra
+3 Klothys, God of Destiny	-2 Gemrazer

This is probably Jund’s best matchup as our threats can be difficult to answer and having Woe Strider lets you keep your graveyard clear. Post board, the matchup improves significantly as well with Agonizing Remorse and Elspeth’s Nightmare to help clear the way for your high impact spells and Klothys to just eventually kill them.

RAKDOS MIDRANGE

In	Out
+1 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate	-1 Heartless Act
+2 Elspeth’s Nightmare	-4 Lotus Cobra
+3 Klothys, God of Destiny	-2 Gemrazer
+1 Agonizing Remorse

Rakdos is similar to Jund with the game plan, except our deck grinds way better than Rakdos. The only real concern from Rakdos is Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, so having some answers left for it is paramount. If you can keep Kroxa from attacking you, this matchup should be a breeze.

BLUE YORION DECKS

In	Out
+1 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate	-2 Bloodchief’s Thirst
+3 Agonizing Remorse	-4 Lotus Cobra
+2 Thrashing Brontodon

This is once again a very general game plan, but there’s a lot of different variants of Yorion so it’s hard to encapsulate them all. However, the general plan is to remove your low impact cards and put in better interaction spells against them.

That’s all that I have for today! If you like my content and want to see more of it, you can check me out on Twitch! Thanks and have a great day!