Format: Standard | Total Price: ~$124 (75 cards) | Featured Card: Rottenmouth Viper

Why This Deck / The Value Pitch

Jund Sacrifice took 1st place at today’s Standard Challenge 16 (2026-09-16) and has posted multiple 5-0 League finishes over the past week — it is, right now, the deck to beat in Standard. The full competitive build runs about $243 for all 75 cards, most of that tied up in a five-land shockland/surveil-land manabase. Cut that manabase down to a mix of budget duals and basics and the exact same 36 spells that are winning matches today come in at roughly $124 — right around half price.

The engine is simple: cheap creatures that want to die (Greedy Freebooter, Biotech Specialist, Callous Inspector) feed sacrifice and discard payoffs (The Sackville-Bagginses, Obsessive Pursuit), while Rottenmouth Viper punishes anyone who tries to out-grind you on cards. It’s a deck that rewards good sequencing more than an expensive mana base, which is exactly why it survives the budget cut so well.

Full Decklist — Total: ~$124 (75 cards)

Maindeck: 60 cards (26 creatures / 6 sorceries / 4 enchantments / 24 lands). Sideboard: 15 cards.

Creatures (26) — $31.58

  • 3 Callous Inspector — $0.54
  • 4 Gene Pollinator — $1.16
  • 4 Greedy Freebooter — $2.32
  • 4 Biotech Specialist — $1.16
  • 2 Mutagen Man, Living Ooze — $3.88
  • 4 The Sackville-Bagginses — $2.00
  • 2 Umbral Collar Zealot — $0.68
  • 3 Rottenmouth Viper — $18.84

Sorceries (6) — $13.14

  • 3 Deadly Precision — $0.60
  • 3 Lively Dirge — $12.54

Enchantments (4) — $2.04

  • 4 Obsessive Pursuit — $2.04

Lands (24) — Budget Manabase — $47.72

  • 4 Blooming Marsh — $14.96
  • 2 Overgrown Tomb — $16.70
  • 1 Stomping Ground — $6.69
  • 1 Blood Crypt — $8.77
  • 8 Swamp — $0.80
  • 5 Forest — $0.50
  • 3 Mountain — $0.30

Sideboard (15) — $29.12

  • 3 Duress — $0.27
  • 2 Shoot the Sheriff — $2.72
  • 3 Strategic Betrayal — $1.98
  • 2 The Ooze — $9.80
  • 2 Surrak, Elusive Hunter — $2.38
  • 3 Professor Dellian Fel — $11.97

Total: Maindeck ~$94.48 + Sideboard ~$29.12 = ~$123.60 for all 75 cards

Platform Import Format (paste-ready)

Deck
3 Callous Inspector
4 Gene Pollinator
4 Greedy Freebooter
4 Biotech Specialist
2 Mutagen Man, Living Ooze
4 The Sackville-Bagginses
2 Umbral Collar Zealot
3 Rottenmouth Viper
3 Deadly Precision
3 Lively Dirge
4 Obsessive Pursuit
4 Blooming Marsh
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
8 Swamp
5 Forest
3 Mountain

Sideboard
3 Duress
2 Shoot the Sheriff
3 Strategic Betrayal
2 The Ooze
2 Surrak, Elusive Hunter
3 Professor Dellian Fel

Strategy Guide

Early Game (Turns 1-3)

Deploy your cheap sacrifice fodder on curve — Greedy Freebooter and Biotech Specialist come down as early as turn two and immediately start generating value from dying. Don’t be precious with these bodies; the whole plan wants them to trade or get sacrificed. Callous Inspector doubles as an early blocker if you’re on the draw against another aggressive deck.

Mid Game (Turns 4-6)

The Sackville-Bagginses and Obsessive Pursuit come online here, turning your stream of expendable creatures into card advantage and incremental damage. This is also when Rottenmouth Viper should be hitting the table — it taxes opposing card draw and starts closing games fast once you’re ahead on board.

Late Game (Turn 7+)

By this point you should be well ahead on cards thanks to Obsessive Pursuit and the sacrifice loop. Lively Dirge and Deadly Precision clear the way for a final attack, and Mutagen Man, Living Ooze can go over the top of grindy matchups as a resilient late threat.

Win Conditions & Combos

  • Death by a thousand cuts: Sacrifice fodder plus The Sackville-Bagginses generates a steady stream of card advantage and incidental damage until the opponent simply runs out of answers.
  • Rottenmouth Viper lock: Once Viper resolves, opponents drawing extra cards start taking real damage — many games end with Viper alone closing out the last 10-15 points of life total.
  • Obsessive Pursuit engine: Turns your expendable creatures into a renewable card advantage engine that out-grinds slower decks over a long game.
  • Deadly Precision plus Lively Dirge: Clear the last blocker or removal-immune threat standing between your board and lethal.

Upgrade Path (as budget allows)

  • +2 Wastewood Verge (~$20) — surveil-land fixing that smooths draws in the late game, replacing 2 basics.
  • +2 Blazemire Verge (~$19) — same effect for the black-red half of the manabase.
  • +4 Starting Town (~$42) — the full competitive build runs this utility land as a near-auto-include; add as your budget allows since it upgrades land quality rather than replacing a spell slot.
  • +2 Overgrown Tomb / +2 Stomping Ground (~$30 combined) — bumping back up to the full shockland count for smoother turn-two color starts.
  • +1 The Ooze in the sideboard (~$5) — a second copy gives more resilience against exile-based removal in grindy matchups.

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