Choosing Your Commander - Jund

Next, we look at one of the more interesting three-color combinations in black/red/green, otherwise known as the Jund shard.  These colors have a lot in common in that they love to sacrifice things and then recur them from the graveyard for reuse later.  Of all the color pairings, Jund is probably the most inherently destructive combination, capable of destroying any type of permanent either one at a time or en masse.

Adun Oakenshield:  Adun is a pretty good general for any deck that really wants to recur its creatures.  Although there are already decent option in these colors that do that (namely Oversold Cemetery and Genesis), it can be nice to have this kind of effect always at the ready if your deck depends on it.

Bartel Runeaxe:  A vigilant 6/5 that cannot be enchanted is actually not that bad for 6 mana, but he is just purely outclassed by tons of other cards at that mana cost.

Darigaaz, the Igniter:  Darigaaz is a fine dragon, capable of dealing lots of damage and giving you a nice excuse to attack the player sitting with tons of cards in their hand.  My issue with it as a commander is that general damage only counts combat damage, so his ability becomes somewhat irrelevant.  Still sometimes you will hit 40 faster than 21 on any given player, especially if that player is that open to being attacked by Darigaaz in the first place.  It's also nice to have a built-in punishment against players with humongous hands thatnks to Command Tower or Praetor's Counsel.

Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund:  Having Haste and 7 power makes him a good candidate for being able to kill players with general damage at least some of the times.  His ability to steal opposing Dragons is interesting, but moreso is his ability to steal back a Dragon that others may have taken from you.  There are also lots of exchange control effects that would allow you to give the opponent a Dragon you control, only to steal it back later with Karrthus.  It's a shame that most of the exchange control cards and creature type changing cards (Imagecrafter would be perfect) are blue, but there are a few out there worth looking at.









Kresh the Bloodbraided:
I like Kresh on several different levels.  The first is that he is inexpensive to play, so you can guarantee being able to play him at least once or twice a game most of the time.  The second is that his ability is indiscriminate and doesn't require you to jump through a lot of hoops to utilize as you are basically being rewarded for something that you want to do anyway; kill opposing creatures and sacrifice your own creatures for profit.  Third is that he is a very real threat to kill players via general damage due to how big he can get.  Kresh is a very simple and straightforward general that ends up having lots of strategic depth due to how many different ways you can use and abuse his ability.

Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper:  Sek'kuar plays right into the same themes that Kresh and other Jund cards like to follow; sacrifice your stuff for fun and profit.  I think that there are better commanders suited for that purpose, but Sek'Kuar is excellent at supporting that theme in any deck that can run him.  There is also the possibilty of running some sort of Shaman themed deck that focuses on creature sacrifice and recursion, and I think there would be an interesting spot for him in an Elemental themed deck doing the same thing.

Vaevictis Asmadi:  The upside is that when he connects, he connects for a ton.  The downside is that like the other 'Elder Dragons' he just costs too much for what you can get nowadays.

Xira Arien:  If Wizards were to print this card nowadays, it would be blue, black and green instead of red, black, and green.  I like that it can target any player so that you could target an opponent if need be.  I think Xira Arien misses the cut due to the fact that you can get much more card advantage for less of a mana investment with other cards as your general.