I was thinking of playing Sylvan Messenger and no Lead along side Bloodbraid Elf. 41-42 Elves. Go All Elven all the Time.
Might end up being too slow. Sounds good in theory but it may not work. Losing CoCo is huge, you don’t establish the same board presence without it.
I agree. My issue with messenger is that I often have to slow roll the cards I've drawn because I want the messenger for attrition matches, matches where I only have so many lands and a paltry board presence to play what I draw.
Been messing around with humans and not having a catch up mechanism like coco is just brutal if you draw land heavy vs these attrition decks. If you can't deploy threats faster then they can deploy answers, it's a no go. Eot coco, into untap elf stuff is always great. Even with humans' disruption I feel wanting for that instant speed ability to capitalize on my opponent not reading the board state right. How much more in elves?
I'm skeptical of BBE because our individual card quality is so mediocre. I mean if people are moving away from nettle, does she solve enough of the Card advantage + quality issue to warrant coco dead hits and cascades into dorks? At least nettle gives you early game explosion and ramp with heritage. There are also inherent risks if you sideboard junk like heroic intervention over say selfless spirit. If she was a warrior instead of a berserker, I'd be singing a different tune for another deck.
BBE's best cascade when behind is lead the stampede if you need CA and dig for a silver bullet, it's archdruid before you set up a strong turn, or its ezuri where you have the mana to pump lethal, sotp when you can drain for the win (12-16 hits main deck maybe?) - also note that cascading to elite/sotp on an empty board does not net you a token/drain for more because BBE resolves after.
BBE's worst cascades are dorks, nettles, sideboard spells that you don't want to cast that turn, elite/sotp for no value, or cascading into what you need but it's countered because you didn't cast it with cavern mana (that you probably used to force the BBE through). The haste is almost entirely irrelevant in most board states imo. We're a critical mass deck and set up alpha strikes or drains.
You could make an argument for a more lord heavy build with imperious perfect or elvish champion but I think we want some 2 cmc lords before considering. However, hitting a metalic mimic will give BBE the counter. It's just a vastly different build imo because space in the deck is tight as it's currently structured.
I'm back. This time with a very saucy post. I think for us to properly what Bloodbraid Elf (hence, BBE) brings to the table we need to break things down as much as possible, and as simply as possible. So with that in mind, lets begin.
1. What got unbanned:
Jace the Wallet Sculptor and BBE.
2. Where do the unbanned cards go?
Jace will likely end up in every U based control deck, and even in the Bant shells that want a little more action. BBE will go to Jund, Big Zoo and possibly us (the aim of writing this, really!).
3. What effect does this have on the meta?
Expect to see a rise in midrange and blue decks again. People will want to play with the new toys. As a reaction to this, expect big mana to come out in force to punish the midrange players. Hyper aggro like Affinity and pure combo like Storm will still exist as a check to both midrange and big mana, which leads me to the next question.
4. What part of the meta should we occupy?
The million dollar question for us. Should we shift to hyper aggro and focus on GW, or to a resilient CA based aggro deck in GB/Jund? I think this one for the moment will be personal preference, but I have been a firm believer in resilient CA based aggro that GB/Jund occupies.
So now that I've sorta addressed what my primary concerns are with the unbans, I'll move to what I've been working on - Jund Elves. I've said for a while now that "If BBE was unbanned, I'd snap play it." So here I am.
On a card evaluation level, its best to think of BBE as a 5-8th copy of Collected Company as:
a) on average, it nets 4 power, which is the average coco hit.
b) its floor is 4 power, meaning its floor is higher than coco.
c) its ceiling is 6 power, meaning its ceiling is equivalent or higher.
d) at times, its uncounterable thanks to Cavern *but the cascaded spell is not*
*********a note on perceived selection
A lot of people have argued with me about BBE not being an equivalent to Coco because they can choose the cards as opposed to the cascade from BBE. But to that point, I'll argue that:
a) you don't choose the top 6 cards of your library, just like you don't choose what you cascade to with BBE.
b) you flat out can't miss with BBE.
c) Coco can be countered, with the caveat that it's instant speed.
*********I've also seen a lot of arguments about BBE vs Chord and I'll attempt to address those too:
a) You don't play BBE and Chord in the same deck, that's just a fact.
b) Chord is brilliant when you're ahead, not so brilliant when you're behind. BBE instantly reclogs the board.
c) Chord and BBE are two different axis of the deck, neither is wrong or right, but Chord will bring you to the footsteps of hyper aggro while BBE will lead you to the halls of card advantage and value.
So back to the main point, if we were to treat BBE as Coco 5-8, then there are two approaches to incorporate BBE into the deck: Jund or RG. I'll go into Jund first, as RG is something experimental both myself and @MadBoxxes on the discord have been trying to work out, and Jund is something I've theoretically worked out ages ago; which I'll try to break down in parts:
Part 1: The bulk of the deck - Creatures and Non-Creature Spells
In an effort to fit in BBE, I've cut Chord from my list entirely. The remainder of the list I've taken from my stock GB lists (which I've talked extensively about both in this thread and the old thread):
This gives us the greatest density for Coco while incorporating BBE as Coco 5-8. My usual lists also shave a Nettle for an Eternal Witness but this is the simplest the creatures could be. Coco will be our only non creature spell in this variant.
Part 2: The Mana
So I've tried tinkering around with multiple fastlands, Unclaimed Territory and other ways, but the cleanest manabase I've settled on so far is fetchlands and cavern. The following config has been my go to:
Why this config? It leaves us 13 black sources to cast Shaman of the Pack, 9 black sources to cast Thoughtseize out of the board, and 9 sources to cast BBE. In the Jund configuration, it'll mostly be GB and splashing R exclusively for BBE.
Part 3: The sideboard -
The real attractions in being GB based is Thoughtseize as our ace in the hole, so I'd like to play at least three copies. I also believe Burn will be more of a struggle due to the increase of damage we take from our lands, so that leads me back to Kitchen Finks. Scavenging Ooze is a great sideboard option for us and without Chord, that leads us to a life without Reclamation Sage or Phyrexian Revoker. Nissa has performed overtime in the grindy matchups and she'll be a great help in those matchups if we need the assistance (and against Burn where she outclasses everything on board). The artifact sweepers maintain crucial to our success and a couple of dismembers never hurt (although, they could easily be Abrupt Decay). Relic is also always a good option, and theres a chance we might want Pithing Needle as well.
Its pretty early days, but I can see RG being a future path as well for those faithful to the green bois. I can also see playing Bolts main instead of Atarka's, but its early days. RG looks attractive just due to the options Red provides us in terms of Ancient Grudge, Blood Moon and Bolt alongside BBE.
Conclusion:
Its early days but we need to decide what role we should occupy in the meta, and that's the million dollar question we need to answer. I'll be posting next with maths on BBE vs Coco. I believe in occupying the grindy slot, but I'll leave it to @vipowl to sell the other side. In the meantime, keep brewing. Its only up from here.
I'm back. This time with a very saucy post. I think for us to properly what Bloodbraid Elf (hence, BBE) brings to the table we need to break things down as much as possible, and as simply as possible. So with that in mind, lets begin.
1. What got unbanned:
Jace the Wallet Sculptor and BBE.
2. Where do the unbanned cards go?
Jace will likely end up in every U based control deck, and even in the Bant shells that want a little more action. BBE will go to Jund, Big Zoo and possibly us (the aim of writing this, really!).
3. What effect does this have on the meta?
Expect to see a rise in midrange and blue decks again. People will want to play with the new toys. As a reaction to this, expect big mana to come out in force to punish the midrange players. Hyper aggro like Affinity and pure combo like Storm will still exist as a check to both midrange and big mana, which leads me to the next question.
4. What part of the meta should we occupy?
The million dollar question for us. Should we shift to hyper aggro and focus on GW, or to a resilient CA based aggro deck in GB/Jund? I think this one for the moment will be personal preference, but I have been a firm believer in resilient CA based aggro that GB/Jund occupies.
So now that I've sorta addressed what my primary concerns are with the unbans, I'll move to what I've been working on - Jund Elves. I've said for a while now that "If BBE was unbanned, I'd snap play it." So here I am.
On a card evaluation level, its best to think of BBE as a 5-8th copy of Collected Company as:
a) on average, it nets 4 power, which is the average coco hit.
b) its floor is 4 power, meaning its floor is higher than coco.
c) its ceiling is 6 power, meaning its ceiling is equivalent or higher.
d) at times, its uncounterable thanks to Cavern *but the cascaded spell is not*
*********a note on perceived selection
A lot of people have argued with me about BBE not being an equivalent to Coco because they can choose the cards as opposed to the cascade from BBE. But to that point, I'll argue that:
a) you don't choose the top 6 cards of your library, just like you don't choose what you cascade to with BBE.
b) you flat out can't miss with BBE.
c) Coco can be countered, with the caveat that it's instant speed.
*********I've also seen a lot of arguments about BBE vs Chord and I'll attempt to address those too:
a) You don't play BBE and Chord in the same deck, that's just a fact.
b) Chord is brilliant when you're ahead, not so brilliant when you're behind. BBE instantly reclogs the board.
c) Chord and BBE are two different axis of the deck, neither is wrong or right, but Chord will bring you to the footsteps of hyper aggro while BBE will lead you to the halls of card advantage and value.
So back to the main point, if we were to treat BBE as Coco 5-8, then there are two approaches to incorporate BBE into the deck: Jund or RG. I'll go into Jund first, as RG is something experimental both myself and @MadBoxxes on the discord have been trying to work out, and Jund is something I've theoretically worked out ages ago; which I'll try to break down in parts:
Part 1: The bulk of the deck - Creatures and Non-Creature Spells
In an effort to fit in BBE, I've cut Chord from my list entirely. The remainder of the list I've taken from my stock GB lists (which I've talked extensively about both in this thread and the old thread):
This gives us the greatest density for Coco while incorporating BBE as Coco 5-8. My usual lists also shave a Nettle for an Eternal Witness but this is the simplest the creatures could be. Coco will be our only non creature spell in this variant.
Part 2: The Mana
So I've tried tinkering around with multiple fastlands, Unclaimed Territory and other ways, but the cleanest manabase I've settled on so far is fetchlands and cavern. The following config has been my go to:
Why this config? It leaves us 13 black sources to cast Shaman of the Pack, 9 black sources to cast Thoughtseize out of the board, and 9 sources to cast BBE. In the Jund configuration, it'll mostly be GB and splashing R exclusively for BBE.
Part 3: The sideboard -
The real attractions in being GB based is Thoughtseize as our ace in the hole, so I'd like to play at least three copies. I also believe Burn will be more of a struggle due to the increase of damage we take from our lands, so that leads me back to Kitchen Finks. Scavenging Ooze is a great sideboard option for us and without Chord, that leads us to a life without Reclamation Sage or Phyrexian Revoker. Nissa has performed overtime in the grindy matchups and she'll be a great help in those matchups if we need the assistance (and against Burn where she outclasses everything on board). The artifact sweepers maintain crucial to our success and a couple of dismembers never hurt (although, they could easily be Abrupt Decay). Relic is also always a good option, and theres a chance we might want Pithing Needle as well.
Its pretty early days, but I can see RG being a future path as well for those faithful to the green bois. I can also see playing Bolts main instead of Atarka's, but its early days. RG looks attractive just due to the options Red provides us in terms of Ancient Grudge, Blood Moon and Bolt alongside BBE.
Conclusion:
Its early days but we need to decide what role we should occupy in the meta, and that's the million dollar question we need to answer. I'll be posting next with maths on BBE vs Coco. I believe in occupying the grindy slot, but I'll leave it to @vipowl to sell the other side. In the meantime, keep brewing. Its only up from here.
I definitely agree you can not replace CoCo. Period. That Green/Red build is interesting with Atarkas Command. Have you had the opportunity to playset it at all? I’m curious by it. I, personally, wouldn’t run BBE in the GB builds, Chording for Shaman is what makes the deck so good. And not getting the extra damage with BBE on the battlefield is not exciting.
I haven't personally had any time to playtest RG, but it does look very interesting on paper. Chording for Shaman isn't the best part about GB, its the gradual advantage you get with Shaman, which BBE feeds directly into. BBE and Shaman get along quite nicely together as a 6 power combination.
if i'd choose to play BBE, i would take your Jund version.
from this article (secret 4) i conclude that Lead should be at least in the sideboard. i would cut Nissa for them.
I can understand Scavenging ooze, since it's more likely that there's mana left to spend after BBE, although i would still play some Loaming Shaman
I would might still choose to put Rec sage in the side instead of decay.
Another thought is that from secret #2, conditional cards, i would replace dwynen's elite with Talara's Battalion.
Talara's Batallion is more situational than Dwynen's Elite, and Elite is better in our explosive starts (T1 Heritage, T2 Elite + Lord // T1 Dork, T2 Heritage + Elite + Lord). Elite needs to stay. Even on an empty board, Elite + BBE is still 5 power which is better than the average Coco hit in most circumstances. Loaming Shaman tends to perform a lot better with Chord as opposed to BBE, and Scavenging Ooze does some work in the Burn matchup which might be more problematic now due to the fetch mana base.
I'm a bit uncertain about the role of Lead in our sideboard with BBE in the deck. I do know I'd like to be cascading into some Kitchen Finks in the grindy matchups and generally speaking that should be enough with having "twice as many cocos". But if you're set on Lead it can certainly be worked into the sideboard - you simply can't fit both Lead and Kitchen Finks at the same time. There aren't enough slots.
As for sideboarding roles, I'm pretty thoroughly convinced the problem matchups with the Jund Elves list would be decks faster than us, so I'd likely play something like this in the board week one after some thought:
3 Thoughtseize - Big mana, frail combo, tapout control all fall victim to having their thoughts seized.
3 Abrupt Decay - Creature/Permanent based matchups - Bogles, Affinity, Lantern, Humans - you name it, its useful.
3 Lead the Stampede - Decks that ***** on us with value, we try our best to outvalue them. With 4 Visionary and 8 effective Coco's, Lead is sweet icing.
2 Scavenging Ooze - Probably not enough Oozes to deal with Graveyard decks, but hey, who knows? Also chips in against Burn.
2 Dismember - Decks faster than us, has different coverage to Abrupt Decay (having a nice mix of removal in the board is always nice).
1 Creeping Corrosion - Bye Artifacts.
1 Fracturing Gust - Bye Artifacts and Enchantments.
Note how the sideboard is mostly black centric as I doubt our ability to cast any red spells with only 5 red sources, we can't really fit in any Grudges or Moons which is the exciting part of the RG list Madboxxes is working on atm. Having access to Blood Moon and Bolt and Grudge sounds like a great deal of advantage.
edit: I can also see packing 3 Leyline in the board for the graveyard matchups as that's generally an area where GB was attackable, and we can't cascade into them which is nice.
I’m just struggling to figure out how BBE builds are better than our current builds. It whiffs on CoCo both as a creature and with Cascade. So there’s 0 synergy there. Also, while I completely get where you guys are coming from saying it’s CoCo 5-8, but I still don’t think that’s completely accurate. BBE will almost always net us a mana dork. Leaving us with a 3/2 haste and mana Elf. CoCo let’s us dive 6 deep and select the pieces we actually need at instant speed. If we already have 4 mana available to cast BBE, I don’t think this gets us any closer to winning. Being able to chord at instant speed to get ANY creature in the deck, in my opinion, speeds the deck up. But I guess that’s where testing will come in to see if BBE is relevant at all.
On the topic of: removing chord will make our fast MUs worse. Any version that isn't running the combo such as GB already had a bad MU even with chord. With GB the way to fight fast decks was with TS or Spot removal and that doesn't change by replacing chord with BBE. In fact it gets much better because you can now cascade into those spells whereas with chord it's a nonbo.
There's also no reason to fully revolve around BBE because that's only one card in a deck that's already been performing for years without it. Going aggro with Talara's and Wren's Run is an entirely different strategy that hasn't had success in the past afaik. This deck's strategy is still to be explosive, go wide, and use our big mana spells (coco/bbe/chord) to threaten lethal.
Edit: RG does look interesting with BBE into Atarkas. Maybe the aggressive strategy (wrens run, talara's) would work with that color combination.
you are talking about regularly casting Talara's battalion, and i agree.
i hope i'm not rude for asking but, did you read the article?
the 4 "secrets" describe deckbuilding around BBE.
The conclusion says:
"In the end, if you take nothing else away from this article, I hope the idea that throwing four copies of Bloodbraid Elf into Jund and calling it a day is not the way to go. The archetype is going to change for the better, and the people willing to do the work to figure out how to best utilize Bloodbraid Elf are going to be the first of the new generation of Jund experts."
What i observe from your arguments is that you're looking through the eyes of the "before casting BBE", not looking to fully utilize BBE.
- Dwynen's elite is situational when cascading into it, since you might not get the token. Talara's Battalion isn't, it will always come in.
- I would cut your 2 Nissa and replace them with Lead. Secret 4 talks about the sideboard where lesser SB options of 3mana are better than not cascadable options.
- From BBE's perspective, Loaming shaman is better than ooze, since it directly does something. hence the "secret2, conditional". (the condition is that ooze needs mana to do something). Still, my previous argument about ooze would make me play a 2/1 or 2/2 split.
In the end, what i'm trying to explain is (as did the article):
The deck will not improve much by simply replacing Chord (or lead for that matter) with BBE.
We should figure out how to fully utilize BBE to really improve the deck.
You mention "explosive starts" while you want to add BBE to improve midrange.
I think you have to let some explosiveness go if you want to go into the BBE route.
The fact that it's quite difficult to fully utilize it in this deck makes me question BBE in general.
There are to many mediocre hits of cascade, where Chord might actually be able to win the game.
I do agree that Chord is bad when behind, where BBE would indeed be better.
But i think Lead or Sylvan Messenger would still be the better option unless we're able to build the deck around BBE.
I did read the article, but we're not Jund, we're Elves. Jadine's article is great when you're a proper midrange deck. When you're a linear based deck that uses BBE for value, you can't afford to deviate from the plan.
Don't get it twisted, we are a linear deck first. Always keep that in mind. Talara's Battalion is exponentially worse without the BBE cascade and is not servicable with it (notably, dies to bolt, doesn't go wide, doesn't replace itself or draw a card or go infinite). Just on raw card evaluation, Talara's Battalion is nothing but bad. If a card is bad on raw card evaluation, its not making it into the deck.
BBE being in the deck doesn't remove t1 Heritage t2 Dwynen's lol, it just makes T3-4 better. If you want to properly build a deck around BBE, then build actual Jund! Emberflux has the rest of what I was gonna say already, so I'm not gonna repeat it.
We're not a deck that will fully use BBE's cascade to its potential. We're simply using it to refill/fill the board. We will however use BBE's body and typeline the best, occasionally squeezing out a 4/3 or a 5/4 haste.
on RG:
I've already backpeddaled from Atarka's Command and straight to Bolts. The cheapness of the card in initial goldfishes show up and while it doesn't do nearly as much damage in a vacuum, its versatility in matchups (imagine cleaning up T1 Overseer or an Inkmoth all in, yummy) gives it the nod on future playtesting. I'll jam some with it again this weekend.
I’m just struggling to figure out how BBE builds are better than our current builds. It whiffs on CoCo both as a creature and with Cascade. So there’s 0 synergy there. Also, while I completely get where you guys are coming from saying it’s CoCo 5-8, but I still don’t think that’s completely accurate. BBE will almost always net us a mana dork. Leaving us with a 3/2 haste and mana Elf. CoCo let’s us dive 6 deep and select the pieces we actually need at instant speed. If we already have 4 mana available to cast BBE, I don’t think this gets us any closer to winning. Being able to chord at instant speed to get ANY creature in the deck, in my opinion, speeds the deck up. But I guess that’s where testing will come in to see if BBE is relevant at all.
I tried to address this in my long post on the page back. It doesn't need to synergise with Coco as it occupies 'the spell slots' in the deck. If I'm honest, BBE not hitting Coco is an upside if you're trying to stagger your board and grind, then hitting Coco only leads to a massive overextension for punishment via Wrath.
Coco also has the issues of perceieved selection which I also tried to address in the long post. You can't control what cards are ontop of your library, be it the Cascade cards or the Coco cards. The fact that Coco lets you choose which one is irrelevant as long as the average remains the same. When you get two dorks off a Coco do you say you 'chose' to get those? The fact that BBE also doesn't hit lands makes it a guaranteed 2 Coco hit which eliminates the 5% chance of Coco hitting 1 dude only or completely whiffing (based on 34 creatures).
Also, just statistically speaking, lets take the Jund list I put out there as an example. Lets say we play BBE, and cascade on a deck with 34 hits (our 34 creatures).
16/34 cards in deck are dorks, generally unwanted hits. This happens 47.06% of the time.
8/34 are what I dub 'mediocre hits' but they're still quite good - Visionary and Elite. This happens 23.52% of the time.
10/34 are excellent hits, Archdruid, Ezuri, Shaman. 29.41% of the time, we hit gold.
Now note that even the dork hits are the same strength as an average Coco in terms of power gained. Coco math is a little (a lotta) more complex than that, but if in general ~53% of cascades are decent hits, I'm willing to run with it. When I do have the maths feeling right about Coco, then I'll make a nice post about it too.
While yes, Chord does make us faster, its a matter of whether we need to be quick or resilient in the meta to come. There are decks significantly quicker than us either way. But if you do go the Chord route, the Vizier route is the only way to go at the moment. I am unsure what the answer to the question of speed vs resilience is, but I'm going to work the angle I know and at least try it. I'm not gonna let status quo ruin attempts at innovation.
I did read the article, but we're not Jund, we're Elves. Jadine's article is great when you're a proper midrange deck. When you're a linear based deck that uses BBE for value, you can't afford to deviate from the plan.
Don't get it twisted, we are a linear deck first. Always keep that in mind. Talara's Battalion is exponentially worse without the BBE cascade and is not servicable with it (notably, dies to bolt, doesn't go wide, doesn't replace itself or draw a card or go infinite). Just on raw card evaluation, Talara's Battalion is nothing but bad. If a card is bad on raw card evaluation, its not making it into the deck.
BBE being in the deck doesn't remove t1 Heritage t2 Dwynen's lol, it just makes T3-4 better. If you want to properly build a deck around BBE, then build actual Jund! Emberflux has the rest of what I was gonna say already, so I'm not gonna repeat it.
We're not a deck that will fully use BBE's cascade to its potential. We're simply using it to refill/fill the board. We will however use BBE's body and typeline the best, occasionally squeezing out a 4/3 or a 5/4 haste.
on RG:
I've already backpeddaled from Atarka's Command and straight to Bolts. The cheapness of the card in initial goldfishes show up and while it doesn't do nearly as much damage in a vacuum, its versatility in matchups (imagine cleaning up T1 Overseer or an Inkmoth all in, yummy) gives it the nod on future playtesting. I'll jam some with it again this weekend.
I've been thinking more on RG. Is Red sufficient for such a broad meta? It seems like it would falter quickly against fast decks. I'm thinking Naya would be better for white's silver bullets. The manabase ratio will be the same as the one you posted for Jund - which I agree with entirely - except Red will be the leading color for bolt, blood moon, etc.
Both Jund and Naya seem strong on paper. Jund has the strength of SotP, hand disruption, and efficient removal whereas Naya has the strength of bolt/atarkas and strong silver bullets (magus/blood moon, eidolon/ethersworn, kataki, selfless, etc) but nothing to contribute to the strong Elf synergy like SotP. I believe if the meta is full of midrange/control then Jund would be the clear choice; however, if the meta is full of tron/combo then Naya would be better suited. With that being said it raises the question of: Would Naya BBE be worth running over GW Combo when both decks have the same 'good' match ups? I'm personally leaning towards no based on GW Combo's several competitive REL top 8 finishes.
In any case I think for the rest of this month Jund is most optimal because the majority of players are feeding on the hype of Jund Midrange and UWx Control.
I feel like Atarka’s Command would be better than Lightning Bolt in this shell. You get the burn and bushwhacker effect off a cascade, that’s pretty sweet. Seems pretty good. You could just win on the spot.
With this new Jace unbanning, I think BG becomes the Goto list. I am biased since I’ve been playing BG forever, but TS becomes so attractive post board. Also, I think the linear decks will be more focus on beating Jace/control,rather than creature decks like us. Finally, I don’t think BBE is necessary, but we can go Lead style deck for value and speed. Lead can win turn 4 (only half a tempo slower) and will overwhelm Jace decks.
Again, all my wins have been in BG, so I am biased. But it certainly is promising.
With this new Jace unbanning, I think BG becomes the Goto list. I am biased since I’ve been playing BG forever, but TS becomes so attractive post board. Also, I think the linear decks will be more focus on beating Jace/control,rather than creature decks like us. Finally, I don’t think BBE is necessary, but we can go Lead style deck for value and speed. Lead can win turn 4 (only half a tempo slower) and will overwhelm Jace decks.
Again, all my wins have been in BG, so I am biased. But it certainly is promising.
I too am a BG player. Now my question is BBE or Chord in that build? BBE guarantees a creature for 4 mana. Chord you need a combo of 6 mana/creatures to tap to net 1 creature. GB builds don’t run those silver bullets in the side either, so maybe BBE is the way to go? Jund elves?
There's plenty of information on why BBE is good for Shaman builds in these last two pages. BG/Abzan Elves used to be my favorite builds but now I firmly believe Jund is the way to go. Here's what I'm personally running.
For the crazies that wanna do Naya over GW combo, here's a list I tuned. I found that it really only needs white for eidolon and ethersworn which are nuts against storm/ad nauseum.
This Naya list kinda reminds me of Andrew Sullano's GW Elf Company list he placed with a few years ago. It was purely focused on going wide and overrunning. I really like Kessig in here that I even thought about adding a 19th land as the 2nd copy.
I’m not too sure about BBE. It is hard to combo (heritage Druid) with it since we need to keep a red/black up. It disrupts our flow and make it difficult to cast sideboard cards. I’m thinking just straight up GB with Lead since meta will shift towards sweeper, Jace lists. I’m actually trying Lead(for value) and Fauna Shaman (getting bullets or extra shaman of the pack) in replacement for visionaries (my opinion as the weakest link). Been working so far.
PS I also think getting up to 4 mana consistently with only 18 sources may be difficult
same for me about BBE.
50% dork cascades doesn't sound appealing to me.
Adding a third color just for that isn't appealing either.
At least with Coco you have 4/6 hits of which 50% is dork, meaning 2 good hits on average.
Chord can just win the game, needs no lands untapped, and i always board them out for Lead when facing removal suites.
I personally wouldn’t run it with Lead the Stampede, I’d rather just run it alongside CoCo as 5-8. The elf you get off the top is just as random as the 2 elves you get with CoCo. The only difference is that you know you get a 3/2 haste elf on board. I haven’t had the opportunity to test it out yet, but it can’t be that bad right? Maybe Chord is just strictly better.. idk yet.
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Might end up being too slow. Sounds good in theory but it may not work. Losing CoCo is huge, you don’t establish the same board presence without it.
I agree. My issue with messenger is that I often have to slow roll the cards I've drawn because I want the messenger for attrition matches, matches where I only have so many lands and a paltry board presence to play what I draw.
Been messing around with humans and not having a catch up mechanism like coco is just brutal if you draw land heavy vs these attrition decks. If you can't deploy threats faster then they can deploy answers, it's a no go. Eot coco, into untap elf stuff is always great. Even with humans' disruption I feel wanting for that instant speed ability to capitalize on my opponent not reading the board state right. How much more in elves?
I'm skeptical of BBE because our individual card quality is so mediocre. I mean if people are moving away from nettle, does she solve enough of the Card advantage + quality issue to warrant coco dead hits and cascades into dorks? At least nettle gives you early game explosion and ramp with heritage. There are also inherent risks if you sideboard junk like heroic intervention over say selfless spirit. If she was a warrior instead of a berserker, I'd be singing a different tune for another deck.
BBE's best cascade when behind is lead the stampede if you need CA and dig for a silver bullet, it's archdruid before you set up a strong turn, or its ezuri where you have the mana to pump lethal, sotp when you can drain for the win (12-16 hits main deck maybe?) - also note that cascading to elite/sotp on an empty board does not net you a token/drain for more because BBE resolves after.
BBE's worst cascades are dorks, nettles, sideboard spells that you don't want to cast that turn, elite/sotp for no value, or cascading into what you need but it's countered because you didn't cast it with cavern mana (that you probably used to force the BBE through). The haste is almost entirely irrelevant in most board states imo. We're a critical mass deck and set up alpha strikes or drains.
You could make an argument for a more lord heavy build with imperious perfect or elvish champion but I think we want some 2 cmc lords before considering. However, hitting a metalic mimic will give BBE the counter. It's just a vastly different build imo because space in the deck is tight as it's currently structured.
1. What got unbanned:
Jace the Wallet Sculptor and BBE.
2. Where do the unbanned cards go?
Jace will likely end up in every U based control deck, and even in the Bant shells that want a little more action. BBE will go to Jund, Big Zoo and possibly us (the aim of writing this, really!).
3. What effect does this have on the meta?
Expect to see a rise in midrange and blue decks again. People will want to play with the new toys. As a reaction to this, expect big mana to come out in force to punish the midrange players. Hyper aggro like Affinity and pure combo like Storm will still exist as a check to both midrange and big mana, which leads me to the next question.
4. What part of the meta should we occupy?
The million dollar question for us. Should we shift to hyper aggro and focus on GW, or to a resilient CA based aggro deck in GB/Jund? I think this one for the moment will be personal preference, but I have been a firm believer in resilient CA based aggro that GB/Jund occupies.
So now that I've sorta addressed what my primary concerns are with the unbans, I'll move to what I've been working on - Jund Elves. I've said for a while now that "If BBE was unbanned, I'd snap play it." So here I am.
On a card evaluation level, its best to think of BBE as a 5-8th copy of Collected Company as:
a) on average, it nets 4 power, which is the average coco hit.
b) its floor is 4 power, meaning its floor is higher than coco.
c) its ceiling is 6 power, meaning its ceiling is equivalent or higher.
d) at times, its uncounterable thanks to Cavern *but the cascaded spell is not*
*********a note on perceived selection
A lot of people have argued with me about BBE not being an equivalent to Coco because they can choose the cards as opposed to the cascade from BBE. But to that point, I'll argue that:
a) you don't choose the top 6 cards of your library, just like you don't choose what you cascade to with BBE.
b) you flat out can't miss with BBE.
c) Coco can be countered, with the caveat that it's instant speed.
*********I've also seen a lot of arguments about BBE vs Chord and I'll attempt to address those too:
a) You don't play BBE and Chord in the same deck, that's just a fact.
b) Chord is brilliant when you're ahead, not so brilliant when you're behind. BBE instantly reclogs the board.
c) Chord and BBE are two different axis of the deck, neither is wrong or right, but Chord will bring you to the footsteps of hyper aggro while BBE will lead you to the halls of card advantage and value.
So back to the main point, if we were to treat BBE as Coco 5-8, then there are two approaches to incorporate BBE into the deck: Jund or RG. I'll go into Jund first, as RG is something experimental both myself and @MadBoxxes on the discord have been trying to work out, and Jund is something I've theoretically worked out ages ago; which I'll try to break down in parts:
Part 1: The bulk of the deck - Creatures and Non-Creature Spells
In an effort to fit in BBE, I've cut Chord from my list entirely. The remainder of the list I've taken from my stock GB lists (which I've talked extensively about both in this thread and the old thread):
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Shaman of the Pack
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Bloodbraid Elf
This gives us the greatest density for Coco while incorporating BBE as Coco 5-8. My usual lists also shave a Nettle for an Eternal Witness but this is the simplest the creatures could be. Coco will be our only non creature spell in this variant.
Part 2: The Mana
So I've tried tinkering around with multiple fastlands, Unclaimed Territory and other ways, but the cleanest manabase I've settled on so far is fetchlands and cavern. The following config has been my go to:
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Windswept Heath
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pendelhaven
1 Stomping Ground
Why this config? It leaves us 13 black sources to cast Shaman of the Pack, 9 black sources to cast Thoughtseize out of the board, and 9 sources to cast BBE. In the Jund configuration, it'll mostly be GB and splashing R exclusively for BBE.
Part 3: The sideboard -
The real attractions in being GB based is Thoughtseize as our ace in the hole, so I'd like to play at least three copies. I also believe Burn will be more of a struggle due to the increase of damage we take from our lands, so that leads me back to Kitchen Finks. Scavenging Ooze is a great sideboard option for us and without Chord, that leads us to a life without Reclamation Sage or Phyrexian Revoker. Nissa has performed overtime in the grindy matchups and she'll be a great help in those matchups if we need the assistance (and against Burn where she outclasses everything on board). The artifact sweepers maintain crucial to our success and a couple of dismembers never hurt (although, they could easily be Abrupt Decay). Relic is also always a good option, and theres a chance we might want Pithing Needle as well.
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Fracturing Gust
0 Creeping Corrosion
0 Dismember
0 Abrupt Decay
0 Pithing Needle
0 Relic of Progenitus
Now onto RG:
Madboxxes and I have been figuring out the numbers for a RG list that looks something like this:
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Windswept Heath
1 Pendelhaven
1 Stomping Ground
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Archdruid
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Collected Company
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Blood Moon
Its pretty early days, but I can see RG being a future path as well for those faithful to the green bois. I can also see playing Bolts main instead of Atarka's, but its early days. RG looks attractive just due to the options Red provides us in terms of Ancient Grudge, Blood Moon and Bolt alongside BBE.
Conclusion:
Its early days but we need to decide what role we should occupy in the meta, and that's the million dollar question we need to answer. I'll be posting next with maths on BBE vs Coco. I believe in occupying the grindy slot, but I'll leave it to @vipowl to sell the other side. In the meantime, keep brewing. Its only up from here.
I definitely agree you can not replace CoCo. Period. That Green/Red build is interesting with Atarkas Command. Have you had the opportunity to playset it at all? I’m curious by it. I, personally, wouldn’t run BBE in the GB builds, Chording for Shaman is what makes the deck so good. And not getting the extra damage with BBE on the battlefield is not exciting.
Talara's Batallion is more situational than Dwynen's Elite, and Elite is better in our explosive starts (T1 Heritage, T2 Elite + Lord // T1 Dork, T2 Heritage + Elite + Lord). Elite needs to stay. Even on an empty board, Elite + BBE is still 5 power which is better than the average Coco hit in most circumstances. Loaming Shaman tends to perform a lot better with Chord as opposed to BBE, and Scavenging Ooze does some work in the Burn matchup which might be more problematic now due to the fetch mana base.
I'm a bit uncertain about the role of Lead in our sideboard with BBE in the deck. I do know I'd like to be cascading into some Kitchen Finks in the grindy matchups and generally speaking that should be enough with having "twice as many cocos". But if you're set on Lead it can certainly be worked into the sideboard - you simply can't fit both Lead and Kitchen Finks at the same time. There aren't enough slots.
As for sideboarding roles, I'm pretty thoroughly convinced the problem matchups with the Jund Elves list would be decks faster than us, so I'd likely play something like this in the board week one after some thought:
3 Thoughtseize - Big mana, frail combo, tapout control all fall victim to having their thoughts seized.
3 Abrupt Decay - Creature/Permanent based matchups - Bogles, Affinity, Lantern, Humans - you name it, its useful.
3 Lead the Stampede - Decks that ***** on us with value, we try our best to outvalue them. With 4 Visionary and 8 effective Coco's, Lead is sweet icing.
2 Scavenging Ooze - Probably not enough Oozes to deal with Graveyard decks, but hey, who knows? Also chips in against Burn.
2 Dismember - Decks faster than us, has different coverage to Abrupt Decay (having a nice mix of removal in the board is always nice).
1 Creeping Corrosion - Bye Artifacts.
1 Fracturing Gust - Bye Artifacts and Enchantments.
Note how the sideboard is mostly black centric as I doubt our ability to cast any red spells with only 5 red sources, we can't really fit in any Grudges or Moons which is the exciting part of the RG list Madboxxes is working on atm. Having access to Blood Moon and Bolt and Grudge sounds like a great deal of advantage.
edit: I can also see packing 3 Leyline in the board for the graveyard matchups as that's generally an area where GB was attackable, and we can't cascade into them which is nice.
Has anyone tested the RG version with Atarkas Command?
There's also no reason to fully revolve around BBE because that's only one card in a deck that's already been performing for years without it. Going aggro with Talara's and Wren's Run is an entirely different strategy that hasn't had success in the past afaik. This deck's strategy is still to be explosive, go wide, and use our big mana spells (coco/bbe/chord) to threaten lethal.
Edit: RG does look interesting with BBE into Atarkas. Maybe the aggressive strategy (wrens run, talara's) would work with that color combination.
GBRJund Elves
GWDevoted Elves
WDeath & Taxes
GWUBRHumans
EDH:
GTitania, Protector of Argoth
I did read the article, but we're not Jund, we're Elves. Jadine's article is great when you're a proper midrange deck. When you're a linear based deck that uses BBE for value, you can't afford to deviate from the plan.
Don't get it twisted, we are a linear deck first. Always keep that in mind. Talara's Battalion is exponentially worse without the BBE cascade and is not servicable with it (notably, dies to bolt, doesn't go wide, doesn't replace itself or draw a card or go infinite). Just on raw card evaluation, Talara's Battalion is nothing but bad. If a card is bad on raw card evaluation, its not making it into the deck.
BBE being in the deck doesn't remove t1 Heritage t2 Dwynen's lol, it just makes T3-4 better. If you want to properly build a deck around BBE, then build actual Jund! Emberflux has the rest of what I was gonna say already, so I'm not gonna repeat it.
We're not a deck that will fully use BBE's cascade to its potential. We're simply using it to refill/fill the board. We will however use BBE's body and typeline the best, occasionally squeezing out a 4/3 or a 5/4 haste.
on RG:
I've already backpeddaled from Atarka's Command and straight to Bolts. The cheapness of the card in initial goldfishes show up and while it doesn't do nearly as much damage in a vacuum, its versatility in matchups (imagine cleaning up T1 Overseer or an Inkmoth all in, yummy) gives it the nod on future playtesting. I'll jam some with it again this weekend.
I tried to address this in my long post on the page back. It doesn't need to synergise with Coco as it occupies 'the spell slots' in the deck. If I'm honest, BBE not hitting Coco is an upside if you're trying to stagger your board and grind, then hitting Coco only leads to a massive overextension for punishment via Wrath.
Coco also has the issues of perceieved selection which I also tried to address in the long post. You can't control what cards are ontop of your library, be it the Cascade cards or the Coco cards. The fact that Coco lets you choose which one is irrelevant as long as the average remains the same. When you get two dorks off a Coco do you say you 'chose' to get those? The fact that BBE also doesn't hit lands makes it a guaranteed 2 Coco hit which eliminates the 5% chance of Coco hitting 1 dude only or completely whiffing (based on 34 creatures).
Also, just statistically speaking, lets take the Jund list I put out there as an example. Lets say we play BBE, and cascade on a deck with 34 hits (our 34 creatures).
16/34 cards in deck are dorks, generally unwanted hits. This happens 47.06% of the time.
8/34 are what I dub 'mediocre hits' but they're still quite good - Visionary and Elite. This happens 23.52% of the time.
10/34 are excellent hits, Archdruid, Ezuri, Shaman. 29.41% of the time, we hit gold.
Now note that even the dork hits are the same strength as an average Coco in terms of power gained. Coco math is a little (a lotta) more complex than that, but if in general ~53% of cascades are decent hits, I'm willing to run with it. When I do have the maths feeling right about Coco, then I'll make a nice post about it too.
While yes, Chord does make us faster, its a matter of whether we need to be quick or resilient in the meta to come. There are decks significantly quicker than us either way. But if you do go the Chord route, the Vizier route is the only way to go at the moment. I am unsure what the answer to the question of speed vs resilience is, but I'm going to work the angle I know and at least try it. I'm not gonna let status quo ruin attempts at innovation.
I've been thinking more on RG. Is Red sufficient for such a broad meta? It seems like it would falter quickly against fast decks. I'm thinking Naya would be better for white's silver bullets. The manabase ratio will be the same as the one you posted for Jund - which I agree with entirely - except Red will be the leading color for bolt, blood moon, etc.
Both Jund and Naya seem strong on paper. Jund has the strength of SotP, hand disruption, and efficient removal whereas Naya has the strength of bolt/atarkas and strong silver bullets (magus/blood moon, eidolon/ethersworn, kataki, selfless, etc) but nothing to contribute to the strong Elf synergy like SotP. I believe if the meta is full of midrange/control then Jund would be the clear choice; however, if the meta is full of tron/combo then Naya would be better suited. With that being said it raises the question of: Would Naya BBE be worth running over GW Combo when both decks have the same 'good' match ups? I'm personally leaning towards no based on GW Combo's several competitive REL top 8 finishes.
In any case I think for the rest of this month Jund is most optimal because the majority of players are feeding on the hype of Jund Midrange and UWx Control.
GBRJund Elves
GWDevoted Elves
WDeath & Taxes
GWUBRHumans
EDH:
GTitania, Protector of Argoth
Again, all my wins have been in BG, so I am biased. But it certainly is promising.
BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4
I too am a BG player. Now my question is BBE or Chord in that build? BBE guarantees a creature for 4 mana. Chord you need a combo of 6 mana/creatures to tap to net 1 creature. GB builds don’t run those silver bullets in the side either, so maybe BBE is the way to go? Jund elves?
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pendelhaven
1 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
// Creatures
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Shaman of the Pack
4 Collected Company
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
2 Fatal Push
2 Fracturing Gust
3 Leyline of the Void
4 Thoughtseize
For the crazies that wanna do Naya over GW combo, here's a list I tuned. I found that it really only needs white for eidolon and ethersworn which are nuts against storm/ad nauseum.
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
// Creatures
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Collected Company
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Blood Moon
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Elvish Champion
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Magus of the Moon
3 Relic of Progenitus
This Naya list kinda reminds me of Andrew Sullano's GW Elf Company list he placed with a few years ago. It was purely focused on going wide and overrunning. I really like Kessig in here that I even thought about adding a 19th land as the 2nd copy.
GBRJund Elves
GWDevoted Elves
WDeath & Taxes
GWUBRHumans
EDH:
GTitania, Protector of Argoth
PS I also think getting up to 4 mana consistently with only 18 sources may be difficult
BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4
I personally wouldn’t run it with Lead the Stampede, I’d rather just run it alongside CoCo as 5-8. The elf you get off the top is just as random as the 2 elves you get with CoCo. The only difference is that you know you get a 3/2 haste elf on board. I haven’t had the opportunity to test it out yet, but it can’t be that bad right? Maybe Chord is just strictly better.. idk yet.