Hearthhull, the WorldseedHearthhull, the Worldseed | Art by Daniel Ljunggren

Hearthhull, the WorldseedHearthhull, the Worldseed has overtaken Korvold, Fae-Cursed KingKorvold, Fae-Cursed King as the top Jund () commander on EDHREC.

We projected Hearthhull and its over 18,000 decks (or should we say, fleets?) to dethrone Korvold back in January. However, Korvold proved persistent up until this moment. But why is a card that, on its surface, defies so many Jund stereotypes such a popular Jund commander? Read on, and we will examine the popularity of this awesome Spacecraft!

The Rise of Lands-Matter Strategies

The simple answer to the question is that Hearthhull, the Worldseed is a fantastic Lands-Matter commander. Several years ago, while I hate to admit the length of it, Lord WindgraceLord Windgrace was an extremely popular Jund commander. Another card that seemingly defied Jund norms, the planeswalker card lent itself well to land decks.

From my own experience, people often even maligned the play styles that Lord Windgrace offered.

Now, why am I discussing an older planeswalker commander when I need to talk about this Spacecraft? Simply put, both are cut from the same cloth of Jund Lands-Matters commanders. Put another way, Windgrace walked so that Hearthhull could run.

It's also interesting to note, as a slight aside, that Windgrace has just under 10,000 decks at its command (9,989 as of the time of writing) and a rank of #174 in terms of popularity. Thus, I stand by this particular assessment. I'd even go so far as to say that because of Hearthhull, Lord Windgrace's continued popularity was stunted.

However, based on the timeframe of all of this, there's no way to 100% confirm that.

Jund Archetypes and Stereotypes

Many people seem to want to view Jund decks as aggressive, swing first/talk later sort of decks. It comes with the territory of the Gruul () color identity, paired with the cruelty of monoblack decks. This is a stereotype, likely rooted in color pie philosophy and the upswing of Gruul-style decks thanks to the Ravnica guild.

Be that as it may, I'm here to say that Gruul, while being rather one-note, isn't Jund, and that's rather important as a distinction here. On the one hand, Jund Aggro most certainly exists, especially thanks to the proliferation of very strong decks in the history of Magic's other formats, like Modern and even Standard.

However, three-color archetypes can be more diverse than this, as evidenced by cards like Hearthhull, the WorldseedHearthhull, the Worldseed and (perhaps as a stretch, admittedly) Xira, the Golden StingXira, the Golden Sting. Both lend themselves to very different playstyles than simply "point and smash." Xira can be a Control deck, while our lovely Worldseed can lend itself either to Control or Combo in addition to holding its own in Aggro builds.

With all of this in mind, Hearthhull is versatile enough to land in a good spot as the now-most popular Jund commander.