MTG Salvation

I am starting to think that Bloodbraid Elf feels bad in our deck mostly because it doesn't pair very well with Dark Confidant. They're both card advantage engines with no real synergy with each other. It feels bad flipping an Elf off of Bob and hitting Bob off of a cascade trigger doesn't always mean much.

I have tried the Jund list without BBE, which I did enjoy, but what if we went in the other direction? I'm thinking to support BBE maybe Sakura Tribe Elder could slot into the Bob slot to help cast it a turn earlier while also smoothing out the mana and letting us run a few more 4 drops. Maybe even run Blood Moon out of the sideboard.

Just an idea I had that I wanted to bounce off you guys. I could draft up a possible list but I am thinking like 4-6 4 drops and 23 lands with the 4 Steves. Seems fun.

Thanks everyone for the congratulations! Really appreciate the good words.

Quote from hellkite12 »

Congratulations on your finish.

Yes Jund wihtout BBE works, just as it hab befor the unbanning, but i think the deck (without bbe) did not get better. It was Tier 2.5, able to win a tournament but not verly likly. Wiht BBE it felt like Tier 1.5, good and likly to win a Tournemant. I think that the overall gp hartford meta was ok for Jund (in the 24 Lands configuration) and that we just all need to practice the Hollow One Matchup a lot.

I think that hollow one is beatable with Jund (55-45 for them) if we are able to figure out the right timing and sideboard plan. Obstinate Baloth is not the card we want, as they only run 4 Inquireries that actually discard him, so the probability of it happening is not very high. They attak us from two angels, 1st fast and cheap big dudes (hollow one and Angler) 2nd recoursive threads. This is hard for us, since our best big thread removal is LotV, wich does not work if they have a recoursive thread. So i think locking them out on these and leaving in some number of LotV could be a good plan.

I agree with you hellkite, in terms of power level BBE Jund is the objectively better deck. The only reason I was looking to test out a non-BBE list was because the meta seemed to be shifted towards linear aggro and the meta at GP Hartford was definitely representative of that assumption. I think that's why I was able to do well because most of my matchups were against decks that BBE would've either been boarded out for more removal or just been cast as a win-more type card.

Quote from andyburgos »

First of all, congratulations on your day 2! I'd also feel good with that record, myself

The lower curve does help. I agree that Liliana, the Last Hope usually underperforms and that's why my singleton resides in the sideboard. I don't feel she justifies another 3 drop in the main board.

I do disagree on the abrupt decay take. My comments are based on personal preference, of course, but many Boggles matches are won through favorable trades using abrupt decay as the game changer. It is also nice to have it vs. young pyro mancer based control decks. Of course, in many matches it is sideboarded out...

As a personal note, this week I'll try a list with 3 BBEs, 14 one drops and only 6 three drops as an attempt to improve my game vs. Humans and Hollow one. I feel that my cascades could get totally irrelevant, so I'd really like to have your take on your mana curve (other than not running 4 drops at all, that is).

I do think moving Lili Last Hope to the board seems to be correct. And yea I don't think that Abrupt Decay can be cut from the deck or anything like that, it's just that over all my matches it was mostly just a worse Fatal Push, while occasionally hitting a non creature permanent. Maelstrom Pulse performed better for me over the weekend.

I think the lower curve is really important in the Humans and Hollow One matchup. Especially Hollow One because their most important turns are turns 1 and 2. So cheap interaction to kill their Adepts or take the Burning Inquiry type cards from their hand is high priority. Scavenging Ooze is the single best card we have against them I have found, landing one on turn 2 with multiple green sources usually means we can get there. As for humans, Grim Lavamancer and Dark Confidant are really strong against them. Being able to keep a full grip while shooting down their x/2s and x/1s is what won me my match against it.

Quote from FlyingDelver »

So maybe play 3 copies of BBE and add a low cost threat like Grim Lavamancer to the main. Would free up a SB slot which could be used to potentially run a card like Kalitas, which seems really good against Humans and Hollow One alike.

I am thinking of this:

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Lands [24] 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Bloodstained Mire 1 Wooded Foothills 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 3 Raging Ravine 2 Overgrown Tomb 1 Blood Crypt 1 Stomping Ground 1 Twilight Mire 2 Swamp 1 Forest Creatures [15] 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Dark Confidant 3 Scavenging Ooze 3 Bloodbraid Elf 1 Grim Lavamancer	Noncreature Spells [21] 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Thoughtseize 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Fatal Push 2 Terminate 1 Abrupt Decay 1 Maelstrom Pulse 1 Kolaghan's Command 4 Liliana of the Veil	Sideboard [15] 2 Fulminator Mage 2 Collective Brutality 2 Kitchen Finks 2 Ancient Grudge 2 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet 2 Anger of the Gods

I am a big fan of this list FlyingDelver. I might test it out myself tomorrow to see how it runs, my LGS has more midrange and control so BBE is definitely good there. I need to pick up a Kalitas, everyone seems to be high on this card right now.

Hi guys,

Reporting back after GP Hartford. I finished 10-5 which I am very happy with - my personal goal was to make day 2. The list felt solid, the only time I missed Bloodbraid Elf was when I was in top deck wars against Grixis Shadow and Blue Moon. Otherwise, Goblin Rabblemaster was an absolute all-star for me along with the overall lower curve.

Here was the 75 I registered:



I'll leave a list of my match results below. I need to take some time to make a write up for each round.

R1 Hollow One L 0-2 (0-1)
R2 UB Mill W 2-0 (1-1)
R3 Burn W 2-1 (2-1)
R4 Bogles L 0-2 (2-2)
R5 Grixis Shadow W 2-0 (3-2)
R6 Storm W 2-1 (4-2)
R7 Eldrazi Tron W 2-1 (5-2)
R8 Affinity W 2-0 (6-2)
R9 Humans W 2-1 (7-2)
R10 UW Control W 2-0 (8-2)
R11 Affinity L 0-2 (8-3)
R12 Grixis Shadow L 1-2 (8-4)
R13 Blue Moon W 2-1 (9-4)
R14 Naya Vizier L 1-2 (9-5)
R15 Jeskai Saheeli W 2-0 (10-5)

Outside of the Bogles match it did not feel like I was completely out of any match. And as I mentioned before the only time I wish I had the elf in my deck was when I got to a point of both players top decking. Even then, I was able to top deck better than my opponents most of the time. Goblin Rabblemaster was an awesome top deck in these situations and it usually closed the game out when it happened. Grim Lavamancer and Scavenging Ooze also did well for me throughout the weekend.

Cards that seemed to under perform for me were Liliana the Last Hope, Abrupt Decay, and Anger of the Gods. This might've just been that their utility didn't come up that often in my particular matches so I'm not sure.

Of the 20 Jund lists that made day 2 it seemed that most, if not all, of them ran Bloodbraid Elf (including Reid Duke and Jadine Klomparens). I am sure that if these players are still jamming 4 Elf in the deck that it's most likely the correct move but I will say that it can also be done without it. Jund is always about how you build it to challenge the field and I felt I was able to compete with the 75 I brought.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you all think.

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to chime in as I have been lurking this thread since I’ve picked up the deck a little over a month ago.

My opinion is that Bloodbraid Elf isn’t right for our deck. I think it’s best suited in the Ponza and Scapeshift decks that get to ramp it out early (RIP Deathrite). I’ve also found that upping the curve has negative impacts on our aggro matchups because we are just all around slower and sometimes taking a lot of damage off Bob. I find the old lists with 0-2 4 drops run much smoother.

I have enjoyed casting Bloodbraid Elf when I’m in a winning position, but trying to come back from behind with an RNG based mechanic in cascade has left a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

I took this list to a 3-0-1 finish tonight at my LGS and will be running this configuration at GP Hartford. So I’ll follow up with how I do there.