Pointed Discussion

Sweet art. Still an amazing card.

5/5

This new art is about a billion times better.

Hooray! They used the promo art instead of the oddly emaciated elf on the Alara Reborn edition.
Of course, neither artwork really expresses how terrifying this card is. Put her in your decks. Play her. Gloat.

bringing the rarer art out to play so more people get a chance to see it. I like.

I got the planechase cascade deck mostly because I wanted these crazy beasts, but then I saw the new art and cascaded my pants.

Yeah, love the new art, never stopped loving the card. I don't care how many abilities and keywords they come out with - Infect, Miracle, Hexproof, Whatever... Haste will always be the best.

Hate the lack of black border on gatherer though, what gives ?

I never really got why this card is so popular, but I guess thats me. usually, the cascade doesn't work out for me...

5/5 for having braids, unlike some other artwork.

I'm definitely buying this reprint. The art is so good.

This time TimmyForever didn't even give a reason for 0.5/5-rating. I guess you can't make up terrible reasons for hating some cards.

Brahoken card. As a rule of thumb any card that gets more then a 4.7 on gatherer is broken and I give it an 0.5 for poor balancing

I may not be part of the player segment WotC aims products like Planechase, Commander, Duel Decks etc. at, but I do love these products for single cards because they allow me to get sweet alternate art non-foil versions of awesome cards such our friend Bloodbraid Elf here.
(Ghostly Prison is another great pick from this planechase release.)

@CorkBulb: While i agree that this is a great card, the part about buffing the elf with a spell you cascaded into is however impossible. Since the cascaded "buff-spell" is put onto the stack before the elf resolves it can't target it

Great new art on a great card! The new art really displays the power of this card. She looks like she's ready to kill, and she probably is!

I run this in my red/green speed aggro deck (duh) and I usually cascade into a Colossal Might or a lightning bolt, which just makes my opponents cry. All the cards in the deck except this one are CMC 3 or less, and all the creatures have haste, so I'm gonna get something extra to smash with. Then if I'm lucky enough to play another one next turn, it's usually GG. This usually winds up being my finisher along with the other creatures. The haste just makes it all the better, since you can attack if you cascade into a buff spell playing it on her if you don't have any other creatures.

My only complaint is the P/T is a bit low, but for the abilities vs the CMC it's above the curve.

4.5/5 great card

EDIT: Ah right, you cannot cast a buff spell onto the elf since cascade triggers "as you cast", not "as it enters the battlefield". Still, Lightning Bolt....

I think people hate on the card not because of it's actual power level of the creature itself but, because of the mechanic. I played this card during Alara, it's wonderful, but, it's just another cascade card. Cascade was a pretty busted, especially in a good deck. But, a 3/2 haste for body is honestly not that great any more. He doesn't even trade with Attended Knight, which is only really going to be used in limited. And what he does trade with i.e. Gravecrawler & Elite Vanguard cost to cast. He should have been a hill giant with cascade but, w/o the haste. Having only 2 toughness on a 4 cmc creature doesn't sit well with me, especially in green.

4/5

So much power in this card. So much power that no one saw coming. I STILL don't fully understand why this thing is so feared. I mean, Cascade is scary and all, but still.

Must be the 3 hasty power. Brutal. Absolutely brutal.

Guys, the reason people feared and loved this card was that it sat at a convenient middle point to be cascaded into and to cascade into other things. There's a lot of 5 CMC cascade spells that would have their effect, flow into this, and this in turn would go into something else. For example, Bituminous Blast, Bloodbraid Elf, Blightning. For 5 mana you just did 8 damage to your opponent, dropped a creature with haste onto the field, and had them discard two cards.

You're not just getting a 3/2 with haste for 4 mana - lands don't count for cascade so basically you'd be getting a 3/2 with haste and some other card that could be awesome - from a creature to a buff to a burn.

Quickly growing tired of seeing this card in Modern format event coverage...

@psychichobo: bituminous blast doesnt hit players.

The sheer amount of reminder text on this card amuses me.

This is one of those cards that is never a dead draw. I find a way to work it into most of my decks because no matter what point of the game you are in, this thing is always a welcomed sight. Even when I pull two of them on my opening hand I can't help but smirk because I know by turn 3 or 4 I will be dropping it and getting ahead of my opponent. 2 for 1 card. 5/5

Banned in Modern as of 1st of February. Because Jund was dominating too much, and she's a 4-of in Jund decks.

Bloodbraid Elf is now banned in modern. This is a tremendous blow to the Jund decks, and only more proof of how good this creature is.

Cascade for me is so far the worst idea someone ever had in magic the gathering. It is a mechaninc that is easy to make a deck that utilizes it (it just combos with anything under a certain cost), it doesn't involve the opponent or even the game itself actually it is just you drawing cards and it has given some decks (eg hypergenesis) that were hated much more than loved. I am glad to see these cards leaving modern one by one.

Wizards saw that Jund decks were dominating, so they decided to ban the most affordable card in the deck. :/ why does wizards always pander to collectors? just grow a pair and ban dark confidant and tarmogoyf already!

Sorry, Honey...
Banhammer!!

Goodnight, sweet prince.

i guess the banning in modern is to help diversify the format i was told that wizards is aiming to make the game more grindy so i present modern stasis zur's weirding + ensnaring bridge + leyline of sanctity

Bloodbraid Elf is now banned in Modern. This is a minimal blow to the Jund decks, and only more proof of how stupid that deck is. :)

(This is a bit like banning Squadron Hawk in Caw-Blade. Except there's no specific Jace, the Mind Sculptor card to ban off the top of my head. Any 56 cards in the deck are kind of the "Jace Card" of it when put together, with the last 4 looking "Ban-worthy" when you use them with those 56. Jund is deliciously dumb. ^_^

Banned in Modern!

Good night, sweet prince, and flocks of...um...Abrupt Decays sing thee to thy rest? Hoards of Deathrite Shamans? Flights of Lingering Souls? Huh, guess that really proves how effective this banning is going to be...

I really wish that I could have played with her now that she is banned. I shouldnt really be complaining because now my RDW deck will be better.

Bloodbanned Elf.

and now Jund players everywhere cry a heap of tears...

@ Arachibutyrophobia: Wouldn't they look pretty stupid if they banned in Modern the only card previewed for Modern Masters?

Also, Wizards pretty much has to pander to collectors in some ways- yes it's technically 'popular' right now- really stinking popular actually- but MTG has a pretty huge turnover rate of players. They gain new players but they also lose new and old players and a lot of their money comes from Old Players building and saving for their Legacy and Commander careers. So they aren't going to be making the most careful choices for Modern and Standard because they pretty much know at this point that Legacy and Commander are what they want players to be playing if they actually want really Returning Customers.

They make a big deal about Standard and Modern, but it's as much for getting Old Players to try New cards as it is to get New Players to play at all. If they really thought they could work on Modern and Standard being their Best Formats, and having that Actually Work, they'd...well, they'd plain Stahp making Legacy-playables. They keep makin' em though. Just enough to keep us all on our toes and interested. How much of their interesting stuff is based on "What Exciting Reprints can we get?" vs how much is "What Exciting New Thing is coming?"
It's close to even split Old vs. New, and it would be way heavily skewed towards everything being New New NEW if WoTC didn't think that the Collectors and Old Players were a seriously important demographic to cater to.

Also, Goyf might be bannable but Dark Confidant isn't. For what it's worth, Necropotence isn't banned in Commander. "Life for Cards" is a REALLY good strategy, but it's not apparently sharply enough broken to be "Kill on Sight" in Development or the DCI. We actually get to have it as aggressively as Sign in Blood in Standard. I'm not saying that Bob isn't really really good. Him and The Skull are both Fantastic in Modern (Bob) and Commander (Skull) respectively, but it seems that Legacy is the only place where this is "Too Much Power" and it's outright not allowed.

I can see why it was banned but goddamn I wish I'd been able to make a modern deck around it first...

@arachnibutryophobia: No they banned this because it's tremendously powerful. It can come out of nowhere and win the game and creatures at 4 mana shouldn't be able to do that. When somebody plays a Dark Confidant or a Tarmogoyf, they don't win out of nowhere. It was a 4 of in every Jund deck for a reason.

The best thing I've done in Magic is Bloodbraid to Violent Outburst to Lightning Bolt.

I still hate that this never wound up being a warrior, it would have been crazy in a warior deck; it curves in nicely right after Obsidan Battle-Axe and cascades into other hastey warriors like Boggart Ram-Gang. Add a Bramblewood Paragon and you'd have had yourself one hell of a party.

@Ligerman30
No. If this was just 4 mana cascade and nothing else, it would be bad. If this was just a 3/2 haste for 4, it would be bad.

The reason this card is so strong is because if you look at a 3/2 haste, it could easily cost 3 mana. It wouldn't be a particularly good card, but it would be a decent common.

With that, you get a cascade tacked on for 1 mana.

Now, the creature is still weak at 3/2, but when you cascade, you could hit a multitude of things.

You can hit removal - clear a blocker that will kill it.
You can hit a creature - getting them to trade with this will let your other creature through later.
Various other things - you get a big value boost on your 3/2 haste (if you land a good 3 mana spell, you basically paid 4 mana for a 6 mana spell).

This card is typically used in aggro decks. Your 1, 2, and 3 drops will still be in effect when you play this card. That means that even if they have a blocker that can trade with it, they may have to let your putrid leech or tarmogoyf through.

This card is hated on because it brings a ton of value to an aggressive creature, which means aggro decks get great value cards.

Imagine bloodbraid elf read:
3/2 haste, when you cast it, destroy target nonland permanent and each other permanent with the same name. (maelstrom pulse).

That's pretty damn busted.

I wonder just how come she is banned, but Tarmogoyf isn't.
(Aside from the fact that he's included as one of the big stars of Modern Masters along with Dark Confidant,
which would make his print ironically contradicting if he got banned.)

Alternate Art > Original Art

Also, I'd that. Harder than anything else in the game.

She's judgementally looking at the old art.

Bloodbraid Elf into Blightning. This was in Standard back then.

2RG 3/2 haste, when it etb, target opponent discards two cards and takes 3 damage.

Card advantage: +2. This is on par with a pure draw spell in blue (Concentrate). But wait, there's more!
Damage: 3 to 6 depending on if she connects.
Board presence: you get a 3/2.

So this is like a Concentrate that Lava Axes your opponent and lets you play a free mid-sized creature. It's like a mini-Cruel Ultimatum, except that it sits at a comfortable four mana, which means you don't need to worry much about defending yourself as in the case with Cruel Ultimatum. As long as you aren't a goldfish on your second and third turn, spamming Bloodbraid Elves / Bituminous Blast is both your best defense and your route to victory.

And now you know why Jund was, for a time, pretty much the only deck in Standard.

One of the best creature cards ever made.