If you’re a Modern player right now, you may understandably be feeling a bit fatigued by the current metagame. Boros Energy continues to dominate, essentially the same as it always has been, while Izzet Prowess is remarkably similar to the deck also crushing Standard right now. Beyond that, established Combo decks like Belcher and Amulet Titan ostensibly provide some variety, but nothing we haven’t seen before. In a Modern format such as this, the Jund God-Pharaoh’s Gift deck we’ll be looking at today is a breath of fresh air.
This list abuses the titular artifact, widely considered a Commander-only card, to reanimate some of the scariest threats in modern Magic. It also runs the ample disruption and removal you’d expect from Jund, in order to survive the early game. It’s a well-tuned list with plenty of unexpected synergies, which explains how it was able to 5-0 a Modern Gold League earlier this week. If you’re bored of the Aggro/Combo dichotomy in the format, this could be the refresher you need.
Jund God-Pharaoh’s Gift In Modern
The Jund God Pharaoh’s Gift deck we’ll be looking at comes via Jeppebc, who piloted it to a 5-0 finish in Wednesday’s MTGO Modern Gold League. At heart, it’s a Reanimator list, but it goes about achieving its goals in a fairly unusual way.
The main plan with this deck is to get the titular God-Pharaoh’s Gift into play and use it to bring out either Ulamog, the Defiler or Archon of Cruelty from the graveyard. Since Gift exiles each creature it reanimates, the token copy of Ulamog it makes will see itself in exile and get 10 +1/+1 counters. This means it swings in as a Hasty 14/14 with Annihilator 10, which should be more than enough to end the game. Archon doesn’t quite have the same impact, but it does still pressure your opponent’s resources a ton, and should get you the win over a few turns.
The main problem with this game plan is that Gift is very expensive to cast. Seven generic mana is pretty much out of reach for a non-Tron deck, after all. To get around this, Jeppebc makes use of a full playset of Shifting Woodland. This is a reanimation piece you can run in your manabase, and one that can even pay for part of its own ability cost since it doesn’t need a tap.
In order to pull off its game plan, then, Jund God Pharaoh’s Gift needs to have Shifting Woodland in play, Delirium online, and both Gift and a reanimation target in the graveyard. Outside of Emperor of Bones as an alternate reanimation method that also enables the Ulamog exile line, the deck is pretty much all-in on this plan.
Deploy And Disrupt
Naturally, that means a lot of the deck slots are dedicated to self-mill and looting effects. Faithless Looting is the classic gold standard, while Malevolent Rumble is a serious runner-up. Both put a lot of cards into your ‘yard, and Rumble even gives you a blocker or some extra mana if you really want to pop off early. Fear of Missing Out is another great card in this category, setting up your graveyard while also enabling crushing double-attacks on your reanimation turns. It even counts as two card types, which helps when aiming for a quick Delirium.
Jeppebc also runs some graveyard-filling effects that double up as disruption for your opponent’s plans. Witherbloom Command mills three while dealing with a wide range of creatures and problem artifacts. Collective Brutality lets you pitch key pieces from your hand, in exchange for removal, hand attack, or life drain. Bitter Triumph is universal removal that can also pitch a card, or just bolt you instead in a pinch. All of these cards are fantastic inclusions, since they let the deck develop its own plan while not falling behind in the early game.
Speaking of, Jeppebc rounds out the deck with some classic disruption and removal, straight out of Jund’s regular wheelhouse. Four Thoughtseize helps deal with the many Combo decks running around in Modern right now. Fatal Push gives you a way to interact with Aggro, since you really don’t run much in the way of early game creatures. Cards like this are essential to keep pace in Modern, and they also help fuel Delirium. One of these, a Fetchland and a FOMO are enough to get you there, after all.
A New Direction For Reanimator?
Jeppebc’s Modern God-Pharaoh’s Gift list is very solid all around. While using Shifting Woodland to reanimate Gift then using that to reanimate a key creature sounds convoluted, the payoff is that it wins you the game pretty much immediately. This puts it closer to something like Goryo’s Vengeance rather than a grindier Reanimator deck like Living End.
In the current Modern meta, this is a great place to be. The best-performing decks in the format right now are all Aggro and Combo, with Boros Energy and Izzet Prowess in the top spots, followed by Belcher and Amulet Titan. What these decks all share in common is the ability to end games very quickly, often early on in the game. Jund God-Pharaoh’s Gift is able to do something similar once it gets an Archon or Ulamog out, so it can definitely compete on that axis.
It’s also quite well-equipped to handle the other meta top dogs, especially when you factor in the sideboard. Three Duress can come in to give extra disruption in the Combo matchups, while Damping Sphere and Fulminator Mage put in serious work against Eldrazi Ramp. Combined with the existing disruption and removal in the main deck, there are few matchups where the deck doesn’t have a fighting chance. Aggro will still be tricky, of course, but with strong draws a turn four Gift can still get you the win.
It’s great to see a new deck doing well in Modern, and even better to see one doing so with the help of a mostly-forgotten artifact. Offbeat strategies like this are what makes Magic: The Gathering so interesting to follow.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage!
