I’d say Jund tends to lose because they bend over backwards to make the game about an axis that it’s not. Looting/Rev over Confidant at least demonstrates an understanding of what’s important in Modern. FWIW, classic Jund won the Open yesterday. As for Delver, the little guy went 13-0 before losing in the Top 8 of that same Open.

If there’s a format for “worse X” decks, the numbers continue to demonstrate that it’s definitely Modern. Perhaps nothing could convince you to play a non-Humans fish deck, but plenty of other Modern players are 5-0ing with Spirits, D&T, etc. Of course, don’t take my word for it; just head on over to the mothership!

Not sure what you mean by “tempo is dead” when Humans is the best-performing creature deck in the format and tempo, the in-game mechanic, is Modern’s most critical component. Would you care to elaborate?

I’m not disagreeing with you about card advantage being the least important axis of consideration in Modern.
But Jund is a deck designed to make a game ABOUT that and then win the fight (which is why it loses to
Tron – Tron topdecks better than anything).
To then play looting and cut dark confidant…

I understand why people brew and it’s a great report. I just think there’s also great wisdom in the magic maxim to never just play a worse (x) deck.
Nothing could convince me to play, say, fish when humans exists. Elves has a combo element and a reach element that give it a reason to be worked on.

Two of these brews are trying to be tempo and that’s a good angle which is a big gap in the Modern line up…BUT There is a reason Zoo and Delver have stayed dead and it isn’t failure to find right mix.

Tempo being essentially dead in Modern is a tragedy and don’t think it’s solvable without a new printing on the level of delver or cruise.

Look forward to your content as always.

These decks are by no means straight-up improvements on the shells they take after; the purpose of Brew Report is to showcase Modern innovation. So Reveler Jund may very well be a worse Jund. At the end of the day, though, it did work “enough” to 5-0, and we disagree entirely about card disadvantage in this format: http://quietspeculation.com/tempo-modern-card-advantage-trap/

That Jund deck seems to be giving up card advantage early for card selection vs. the faster decks, and then scooping the advantage back up later with the Command-Reveler package.

I’ll cede that Humans is among the best creature decks in Modern, but having an overall better-positioned option available doesn’t make it absolutely wrong to play something else. For a recent example, just yesterday, Jeff Hoogland went 9-0 on Day 1 at SCG Indy with UR Delver. https://twitter.com/JeffHoogland/status/1023366207750250497

Modern is about playing what you love and correctly predicting the metagame. I feel that Legacy’s more the format where the better decks tend to triumph. 🙂

I mean the jund deck possiby just a worse jund, but it’s making the proposition that Reveler is as powerful as Bloodbraid, which while probably wrong, is far from an absurd predicate and i’d Love to run the experiment.
Unfortunately, it also seems to think Faithless Looting is brainstorm, and there it is very very wrong.
I do not want to play card disadvantage in my grind deck, period. Especially card disadvantage that sits on ugly spots on the curve, leans on the graveyard and has no other payoff.
Reveler should be in a deck that pays you off big playing bad cards like looting (deaths shadow or lingering souls), or in a blue deck…but delver needs a reason to exist that hasn’t been printed or unbanned. /opine

Other creature decks are trying to compete on power alone – and there’s only one dudes deck that’s good enough to play at that level: Affinity. This is because affinity is essentially a legacy list legal in Modern.

Modern you need to have either:
1) interaction built into your very core (humans, Jund, pure control), or
2) you need to be as powerful as Tron, affinity or linear combo.
Any deck that’s ever been tier 1 has been in those camps. Otherwise you’re a fringe deck.
Eldrazi stompy is sort tier 1.5 as a hybrid – powder lets you have unfair access to either the deep disruption half (fast chalice /relic into dismember/TKS) or the power half (busted fast mana hands). When you’re find a hand with the wrong half you looks silly, but I still would much prefer to play it than any of these decks except maybe the jund one.

My mistake! Fixed.