You Down with BBE? Yeah, you know me!


An historic day in the land of modern magic. Jace, the Mindsculptor and Bloodbraid Elf have been unbanned! What will this mean? Will everything fall to fateseals and cascades?

I hardly think so. Personally, I think Jace and BBE will make the biggest splash in midrange, an archetype that has suffered for over a year for lack of cards that are up-to-snuff. What about Death's Shadow decks you ask? They aren't the "classic" modern midrange decks. They have cantrips left and right, they're built around life total and graveyard synergies, they require setup and are in danger of drawing "do nothing" cards. In effect, they work a lot more like legacy tempo decks than like modern midrange decks. Midrange has failed to keep the linear decks in check as of late.

At last (again), Jund will have a 4 drop (BBE) that can produce enough value to end the game before Snapcaster decks and Karn decks can force a grind, or linear decks can pull out a win.

I think this will settle, in several months, on a more aggressive, red-focused version of jund. But that is total speculation.

Alternatively, we may finally see a UB jund-style midrange deck that can hold its own, using Jace as the curve-topper and out-grinding other midrange or long-game decks that can't find an answer soon enough. It functions in a very similar way to Liliana, who can lock control decks out of the game with her symmetrical +1, and turn the corner on other midrange decks with +1s and -2s. Arguably, it is more powerful, but I've always thought they were better described as "differently" powerful.

We'll see the what the power level of modern decks has become in the face of these two new/returning powerhouses. Personally, I think we could see an even better meta than we had for the last year (in general, not just for Jund), but there will certainly be some growing pains.

But hey, I don't play magic to have the same cards hit the table every day. Breaking new ground is necessary.

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