Jund Souls of the Lost in Modern

by Johnny Cycles, February 8th, 2024

Souls of the Lost from Lost Caverns of Ixalan is seeing some play in a new take on a familiar archetype featuring another rare from the set, Inti, Seneschal of the Sun. This Rakdos Cookbook deck is looking to gain extra value from discarding cards like Street Wraith and Ovalchase Daredevil to trigger Inti, grow Souls of the Lost, give it trample, and attack. I’ve played against versions of this deck a handful of times and I think the archetype is still settling into its ideal 60. However, the moment I saw Souls of the Lost in action, I wanted to play it. And, I wanted to play it with Footfall Crater, my super secret Lukka Surprise tech! The card is sneaky good in that deck and, if possible, I think it’s better in this Jund Souls of the Lost deck. Before I get into all of that, though, here’s the decklist!

Decklist – Jund Souls of the Lost

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (20)

4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
4 Stitcher’s Supplier
4 Questing Druid
4 Souls of the Lost
4 Tarmogoyf

Artifacts (4)

4 Mishra’s Bauble

Enchantments (4)

4 Footfall Crater

Spells (10)

4 Fatal Push
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Thoughtseize

Lands (22)

2 Blood Crypt

4 Bloodstained Mire

1 Boseiju, Who Endures

1 Forest

2 Swamp

2 Ziatora’s Proving Ground

Sideboard (15)

3 Assassin’s Trophy
4 Tear Asunder
1 Brotherhood’s End
3 Pulse of Murasa
4 Leyline of the Void

Deck Tech

Primary Game Plan

We want to fill our graveyard as quickly as possible with cards like Stitcher’s Supplier, Mishra’s Bauble, and fetch lands to grow Souls of the Lost to massive proportions. And, as we learned in our Sultai build of this deck, letting our opponent untap before we attack with a game-ending Souls of the Lost or chump block prolongs the game to our detriment.

Enter Footfall Crater! This card is why we’re playing Jund (shots fired Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer!). Both the haste and trample this enchantment from Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths gives our Souls of the Lost means we are frequently one draw away from winning the game. No, it’s not Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, but a hasty, trampling 14/15 does the job almost as well, comes down earlier, and isn’t fizzled by as much removal.

But that’s not all Footfall Crater does. We get to cycle any extra copies we have both to dig for what we need and to grow both our Souls of the Lost and Tarmogoyfs.

Tarmogoyf has some major text-box envy…

Speaking of Tarmogoyf, the former Modern all-star isn’t used to playing second fiddle to any 2-drop, but Souls of the Lost gets bigger faster, easier, and without as much deck-building restrictions. That’s not to say Tarmogoyf doesn’t shine in this deck. A hasty 5/6 with trample may not win games on the spot, but it frequently ends them within two or three turns. Furthermore, opponents who bring in ways to nerf our graveyard still feed the beast that is Tarmogoyf with their own. This means we aren’t completely hated out of the game by Relic of Progenitus or Leyline of the Void.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Questing Druid round out our creature package. The stupid monkey is the best 1-drop creature in the game, not just the format. If you haven’t seen Ragavan in action, then you haven’t played much Modern. Beyond the obvious, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer enables our Souls of the Lost in an important way. We have to sacrifice a permanent or discard a card to cast Souls of the Lost. The Treasure tokens we get from Ragavan are good to sacrifice, while extra copies of the legendary Monkey Pirate are good to discard. All that being said, I’ve rarely resolved as many sad Ragavans as I have playing this deck. So many times I’ve been in the position to win if I could draw Souls of the Lost, only to draw another copy of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.

Questing Druid gets the nod over Orcish Bowmasters for a couple of reasons. First, the card draw in Seek the Beast gives us a much needed way to dig for threats or Footfall Crater. Since it’s at instant speed, it also gives us a way to bait out a Counterspell on our opponent’s end step if we have our combo already in hand. Second, Orcish Bowmasters is too slow of a clock in most match-ups. We have the ability to grow Questing Druid to a 4/4 or 5/5 pretty easily. Add in trample, and we have our third life-total-threatening 2-drop.

The rest of the deck is pretty typical Rakdos removal and interaction. Our sideboard has some graveyard hate of our own and removal that gives us answers to our opponent’s graveyard hate. It’s possible we should cut back a little here for Veil of Summer. We play three Pulse of Murasa to keep us from drawing dead against Burn. It can also be good against some of the Control decks running around or removal-heavy decks like Rakdos Midrange.

Ideal Hand and Game Play

This is easy so I’ll keep it brief.

Turn 1

Turn 2

Turn 3

By the time we swing in with a hasty, trampling Souls of the Lost on turn 3, we can already have up to 13 permanents in our graveyard. And while a 13/14 on turn 3 isn’t technically game over, it will usually set us up to win the following turn. Please note that we ALWAYS want to sacrifice our Stitcher’s Supplier when casting Souls of the Lost in this spot. I thought this was obvious until I played against opponents who did not sacrifice Stitcher’s Supplier. It’s possible that in a more value-from-discard deck, it’s better to pitch a card. In the late game when Souls of the Lost is already lethally large, or against some decks (Mill, for instance), or when we need a second chump blocker to stay alive, we will not sacrifice Stitcher’s Supplier to cast Souls of the Lost.

The deck has some very explosive starts that can effectively end games as early as turn 3. However, when this doesn’t happen, we often play a grindy, Jund-style game for a few turns until our 2-mana overpowered creatures attack through removal and blockers. Just as often, our opponent takes out our first few threats, while we fill our graveyard, stick a Footfall Crater, and wait to resolve a massive Souls of the Lost. It doesn’t matter the turn, a hasty, trampling 15/16 is always a legitimate threat.

Weaknesses

Having played a bunch of practice games (see below), there are certain effects we really don’t want to see. Removal that doesn’t care about toughness is one of them. Fatal Push, Supreme Verdict, and Leyline Binding are all great answers to Souls of the Lost. Cards that return a creature to their owner’s hand can also slow us down enough to cost us the game. Teferi, Time Raveler, Otawara, Soaring City, and Brazen Borrower are examples of this effect. Graveyard hate can also hamstring us enough to get our opponent the W. Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus, and Soul-Guide Lantern are commonly played cards in this category. Chalice of the Void on 2 would also be very difficult for us to overcome, but I haven’t run into this problem yet.

Looking at the above list of problem cards, we’re hoping to avoid 4- and 5-Color Control. We can slog through Rakdos Scam, but their answers line up well with what we’re doing. Izzet Murktide will be less likely to answer a resolved giant Souls of the Lost. Burn is almost a 0% win for us before sideboard. We have to have our best draw and even then, Burn is less likely to hurt themselves with fetches and shocks. Thus, even a hasty 13/14 on turn 3 will often leave our opponent alive and us dead on their next main phase.

Conclusion

This deck is super fun to play. In a lot of ways we’ve combined the best of Jund with the best of our Lukka Surprise deck. We have low-to-the-ground creatures who are either overpowered or grind us out value and lots of interaction in the form of hand disruption and removal. And we have a game-winning 2-card combo that can literally all be resolved on turn 4 for the win. This dynamism does present some challenges to the pilot, as you’ll see in my practice games. There are many decision points and places to make mistakes, from when to mulligan to which land to fetch up on any given turn. And those don’t even include the unforced errors most of us make. I know I lost some games due to these, but that’s why we practice!

As always, thanks for reading and watching! I hope you enjoy the games! I’ll post video of the deck in a league in the near future. In the meantime, let me know in the comments what you think of the deck. What cards would you definitely play instead?