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 "legitimate" doesn't mean "good enough to play" in this case, but rather "acknowledged as a deck that WOTC will allow to thrive."

And I think it is a fair question, because Bloodbraid Elf was the best that Jund could be.

What is Jund?

There are a bunch of answers to this. "A pile of good cards." "A control deck that has midrange finishers." "A deck that attempts to 2-for-1 the opponent as much as possible."

All of these are true in some respect, but they are not, individually, enough to encompass the archetype. I think of Jund as a deck defined by its use of tempo.

Tempo you say? You mean like those Delver decks?

Actually, I mean like the reverse of those delver decks. (But it's still a tempo strategy.)

Classic blue-based tempo decks try to win the game by stalling the opponent juuuust long enough for an evasive threat, played early, to bring their life total to 0.

Jund does the reverse. It doesn't stall the opponent, it answers what the opponent plays (or takes it away before they play it), and then when the other deck has run out of gas it sticks a threat or throws a few bolts to end the game.

In blue tempo strategies, card advantage is key. Vapor Snag isn't a permanent solution to most threats, but if you can draw two of them in the first couple turns, you're pretty much golden. A grip full of Remands and Disrupting Shoals can prevent just about any strategy from taking off, but only for a little while. If you start running out of cards, you are gonna run out of tempo. Why? Because you are trying to win with active tempo. Tempo gained by preventing expensive things from happening using very cheap stall effects.

When it comes to Jund's tempo, the win conditions are mostly passive. Goyf wins games if left unchecked because it grows without you needing to spend any cards or mana on it. Bob draws you cards without needing to sink mana, and will eventually draw into a wining threat in a deck as stacked as Jund. These are passive tempo because they demand the opponent spend tempo answering them rather than advancing their own strategy. If they don't, the card(s) will generate too much value over the course of the game to reasonably beat.

You can see this tempo battle play out in how often a matchup that includes Jund becomes "hellbent," which is old-school-card-ability-turned-slang for "both players have no cards in hand and are just hoping to pull good cards off the tops of their decks."

This happens because Jund spends its cards getting rid of its opponent's cards, a lot, and Jund's opponents need to spent their time answering Jund's threats, a lot.

By the time you actually play your threat, you opponent probably doesn't have an answer, or even a creature to block with. In this way, Jund is quite like draw-go control. Both decks tend to have a "turning point" in their games where the opponent's strategy falters, and the more controlling deck can then take over. To contrast this with blue-style tempo, that kind of deck is trying to avoid a different kind of turning point, much more akin to burn or aggro: you were in control of the game and then you ran out of gas, allowing the opponent to take over.

So that's what "Jund 'em out" means. You destroy their board, they destroy yours, and then it's "first to topdeck gains control of the game," and finally it's "last person to draw an answer loses."

And you're Jund, so you obviously have the best topdecks and lots of answers. You'll probably win.

Boom. That's Jund.

Weren't We Discussing Bloodbraid Elf or Something?

Yes! Here is where she comes in. BBE combines the "turn" in Jund with the "finish." It essentially skips a step. It changes "first to topdeck gains control of the game" to "first to topdeck wins" because BBE comes with a free topdeck.

Almost any non-land card in Jund can win a game if life totals are low and Jund isn't behind on board. BBE essentially says "even if you are behind on board, you can probably win by playing me because I come with a high likelihood of a free removal spell, and...oh yeah I'm a 3/2 haste."

If you are ahead on board, BBE is essentially a bolt on legs that will give you at least another bolt for free. That's 6 immediate damage off a 4-drop, and half the damage sticks to the board.

Not only is the "floor" for BBE so high because it would be run in a "pile of good cards," but it also triggers its cascade ability on cast. In other words, countering BBE only stops the 3/2 haste, not whatever spell she peals off the top of your deck. Outside of two counters being available to your opponent, BBE is a guaranteed card's worth of value in a deck where each card's value is very high.

Conclusion

Bloodbraid Elf is the real deal. She is the ultimate Jund creature because every other creature that is ever considered in modern Jund is subconsciously measured against her.

Does this creature give me two cards of value for one card's worth of cost? Does this creature resist a lot of removal, or at least guarantee me some residual value if my opponent has removal? Does this creature have an impact on the turn it enters play?

The only thing classic Jund creatures have that BBE doesn't is emergent value, like Gofy's free power and toughness growth, Bob's continuous card advantage, or scavenging ooze's life gain, graveyard hate, and self-buffing. Otherwise, BBE has it all. (Update: And why do you want emergent value on a 4 drop anyway? The game should end the turn you play it. Emergent value is for 1 and 2 drops that will be in play for multiple turns before the game ends.)

How do I feel about it being banned?

Fine, actually.

Lili is enough Jund in one card to be the hallmark of the archetype. Having the perfect 4-drop as well is asking for an unbeatable deck. As far as WOTC's decision to keep Jund from being as strong as it could be, I think Jund players need to recognize something.

Even though Jund is the poster-child for a "fair" deck, it can only survive in an eternal format by playing cards that are on the bleeding edge of power level. Jund cards are far from "fair." They are some of the most individually powerful cards in the game. That's the way it has to be. If you aren't generating infinite mana or infinite damage, and you aren't cheating a 15-mana creature onto the field by turn 4, and you aren't using an entirely different win condition that you can manage faster than reducing the standard 20 life total, then you need to have, truly, a pile of good cards.

Really good cards. Like "many people have called for WOTC to ban these cards at some point in the history of magic" level of good. *cough*cough* Goyf *cough*cough* Bolt *cough*cough*.

WOTC saying that one or two cards are simply too good for this format we love is understandable. So long as they leave us with enough good stuff to fill out our 60 cards, Jund will survive.