4-Drop Shop: Bloodbraid Elf
Credit: Dominick Domingo, Raymond Swanland, Steve Argyle. WOTC. If Liliana is the queen of Jund, then surely the banned-in-modern Bloodbraid Elf is the long-lost princess. This 4-Drop was so dominant in the archetype (and thus the Jund-dominated meta of a few years ago) that it actually got banned before the "perhaps-best-creature-ever-printed" Deathrite Shaman was. Many people (mostly Jund-fans) have since complained that BBE was targeted unjustly for a problem that was actually caused by our little elf shaman. Their logic usually goes as follows: Sure, BBE is very strong, but so are Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf . Why ban one strong card that costs a whole four mana when the whole deck is made of crazy powerful cards that cost only two mana? Going shaman into t3 BBE is a little much, but BBE on turn 4 is not unfair. Ultimately, the real question posed by those who are pro-BBE unban is this: Is Jund a legitimate archetype in modern MTG? And ...