Building BBE Jund Wrong

Image Credit: WotC & Ryan Barger

First of all, I'd like to point out that my predictions from last blog about how the unbans would affect the meta are shaping up to be true. Still early yet, but Jace has certainly proven highly par, in the shells that he has be tried in, and BBE is powerful, particularly in Jund, but not overwhelmingly so.

Secondly, I think the current Jund lists running around are not ideal. People are trying toooooo hard to put 3-drops in for BBE cascade hits.

Let's review the text for cascade:

Cascade (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.)

The first bolded section ends up meaning this: you can't miss. You can hit a spell that isn't useful, but you can't hit a spell you can't cast.

The bolded "may" means that you never have to remove your own creature if you cast BBE onto a board where you are the only one with creatures. Cascade can't net you a negative board impact.

So let's review some of the advice I've seen in BBE Jund articles over the last month:

Don't cast BBE onto an empty board!This is only correct if you have another spell you can cast instead, or if you are trying to play around something (like jeskai holding up a counterspell and a bolt). Otherwise, definitely spin the wheel. Passing a turn to do nothing rather than plant a 3/2 haste plus something (most of the time) is just wrong.

BBE makes your 3-drops better!Only if you hit them, and only if they are good in that situation. Otherwise, your 3-drops are worth exactly as much as they were before. If they are worth more, it's because they are modal or broad in some way. K Command is gaining real estate because it's hard to cast it when it has no good combination of modes. Collective Brutality is the same way, even though it's a 2-drop. If you want to use more modes and have cards to pitch, it just gets better. Otherwise, drain 2 is useable no matter what. That's the reason Dreadbore is potentially preferable to Terminate now. There are twice as many kind of permanents to hit with it. Modal spells are definitely better. 3-drops? No more than 2 or 1 drops.

Speaking of 3-drops, woh mama more Lilianas!I've scoffed at every 1-of Liliana, the Last Hope I've seen in mainboards online. She is not even close to Veil power level. Old Lili is amazing against control, combo, and midrange, okay against ramp, and weak to small creature aggro (see: humans, elves, merfolk, and affinity). Last Hope covers that weakness, but nothing else. She's a great sideboard card, but maindeck? No thanks. Jund is already favored against all those small creature decks. 

Last Hope is a win-more flex slot where we could have cards that give us more win conditions. And all those people saying Last Hope's -2 is great in the grind are way overestimating how much Jund actually wants to grind. I'd much rather play a card that lets me win faster than one that delays my losing. I'm 100% convinced that if you are cutting a bolt, and adding a Lili the Last Hope, you are actively losing win percentage.

Avoid 4-drops at all cost now! You can't Cascade into them!Again, you just skip right over the 4-drops during the Cascade trigger. Yes, it puts them on the bottom of your library, but you're already landing a BBE, and probably a free spell. The opportunity cost associated with bottoming your 4-drop once in a while is minimal to the benefit you could see from playing them. And not to mention: you can always crack a fetch to reshuffle that baby back into the library.

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Speaking of 4-drops, I have recently added two Chandra into my maindeck. I need to do much more testing with her, but on paper I think she looks like a really good flex slot option.

First: she shores up our grindy matches against slow blue decks without slowing us down. She's hard to remove, and provides a card advantage engine that is also a clock. I'd rather see a Lili of the Veil on turn three or four, but if the blue mage had answered everything I've played and it's turn 12... BBE and Chandra are the only things that have a chance of getting me back in the game.

Second: although Jace is not nearly as ubiquitous as people expected, he is still powerful. In those same slow blue matches, facing a Jace on an empty board is almost certain death for a Jund player. Again, BBE and Chandra are the only threats likely to break a fateseal+counterspells lock. And even better, both BBE and Chandra can come down turn four immediately after they play Jace and you are pretty much guaranteed to win the race.

Third: she gives us reach and card advantage in the mirror, which also often go long. BBE is the better 4-drop to land in that situation, but assuming you play the maximum legal number of four copies, adding in two Chandra just ups your odds of being the player that top decks the winning card.

Fourth: I've been beaten by a surprise Blood Moon enough times to know that if you are playing red and you aren't playing at least one threat that can be played on a board full of mountains, you are losing out on free wins that are otherwise stolen by very durdly prison decks or weaker midrange decks.

With all of that said, here is the list I'm testing right now: Bloody Jund