Jund Explore Deck FNM for the win!!!

It's been more than a month since I last played in a Friday Night Magic Tournament. So I didn't have any competitive deck at hand. Luckily, my good friend, Jose Victor Salvatierra, passed this one out and I got the chance to borrow his deck for the fnm. And I landed in 1st Place after a long absence in sanctioned tournaments. hehe
I think I was very lucky in the games. I obviously had a lot of misplays but I managed to hold on for the win. What is unique in this build is the Explore cards in the maindeck. Most Jund decks don't run explore but I think it is a great card to boost your land in the present 27-land build of Jund decks. This is the deck list of the Jund Explore deck that I used.


Jund Explore

creature [16]
4 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Broodmate Dragon
4 Putrid Leech
2 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Sprouting Thrinax

spells [15]
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
4 Blightning
2 Explore
3 Maelstrom Pulse

land [27]
3 Dragonskull Summit
3 Forest
2 Lavaclaw Reaches
2 Mountain
4 Raging Ravine
2 Rootbound Crag
4 Savage Lands
3 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs

planeswalker [2]
2 Garruk Wildspeaker

Sideboard [15]:
3 Goblin Ruinblaster
2 Bituminous Blast
3 Malakir Bloodwitch
2 Jund Charm
2 Deathmark
1 Dragon's Claw
1 Mind Rot
1 Pithing Needle

Match-up Summary:
Round 1 VS W/U Control (Win 2-0): (1-0)
Not an easy match-up for jund decks. Oblivion rings and Day of Judgements keep the board in his pacing. But a late game maelstrom pulse desroys his O-rings to free up two of my Sprouting Thrinax. In game 2, 2 early putrid leeches put too much pressure in the board dealing too much damage before he could release his DOJ. then Bloodbraid elf sealed the win.

Round 2 VS WUb Open the Vaults (Win 2-0): (2-0)
Basically a bad match-up for me. Luckily, I was building this same deck for my standard deck so I basically identified the plus and minus for the deck. This is an auto-win against jund decks if he can cast open the vaults on turn 6 with Filigree angel and other artifacts in his graveyard. So my goal for the game is to keep him from having 6 mana for open the vaults. In game 1, again, early putrid leech and thrinax kept the pressure. I had a misplay of choosing blightning over pulse when he can produce 5 mana. OF course, he would leave the Open the vaults at hand and hope to draw a land. Fortunately, the draw was not a land. I played pulse to destroy his borderpost. Top-draw Bloodbraid elves then sealed the win. Game 2. Sided in ruin blasters. Destroyed his lands and borderposts using ruinblasters and pulse that kept OPen the Vaults out of reach = Win.

Round 3 VS Vampires (Win 2-1): (3-0)
Basically an all out war. But one weakness of vampire decks is that you must remove most if not all of his creatures from the board. If there are not many vampires in play, the Nocturnus is not much of a threat. In game 1, had early putrid leeches and he had no answer. I just bolted all his early vamps. Game 2, played a bad 5-land hand with a putrid leech and explore. I basically did not draw removals for his Nocturnus. Game 3, learned my lesson, added in Bitblast for additional removal in my arsenal of spells.

Round 4 VS W/U Polymorph (Draw): (3-0-1)
Game was up and down. And the deck didn't cooperate not to mention my head was aching already because I did not have time to eat dinner before the game. He had lots of board sweeps like DOJ and martial coup in addition to removals. Spreading seas also slowed the game down for me. He cannot polymorph into his bombs because of spot removals like lightning bolt and terminate. Time ran out and the game was draw.