Homebrew Pick of the Week: Bloodbraid Elf

This week I decided to pick a card that has caused quite a stir in constructed deck building since its release 2 months ago as part of the Alara Reborn expansion set...

Bloodbraid Elf is filled to the brim with potential and that potential has not gone unnoticed by the Magic community. A new deck called "Five Color Blood" has been surfacing at the most recent Grand Prix, Regionals and Pro Tour events and has been doing extremely well. It has great matchups against other popular decks that are currently being piloted by tournament goers. The "Cascade" ability along with its potential to hit for 3 hasty points of damage as soon as it enters the battlefield are what makes this card extremely potent and explosive. With a converted mana cost of 4 it has the ability to dig into your bag of tricks and pull out some of the best spells and play them for free. That being said, on to the bullet points!!

Strengths

• Haste- It can hit hard and fast for 3 as soon as it enters the battlefield.


• Cascade- Can go in and grab your other powerful spells with a converted mana cost of 3 or less and go to town!


• Red/Green Coloration- Some of the best cards in Standard are red and green (and black) and Bloodbraid Elf plays nicely with all of them. It fits perfectly in R/G , R/B (with splash green), Jund and Four color builds in addition to the popular Five color builds.

Weaknesses

• Deck Building- One must remain cautious while building decks around cascade cards because you never know what you are going to get while flipping cards off the top of your deck. For this reason the Five Color Blood decks that are surfacing have very specific 3,2 and 1 drops aimed at complimenting the cascade ability. This is not really a weakness of the card but you really have to think about your deckbuilding strategy to get the most out of it.

Abusability

• Three for One's: Cascade from a card like Bituminous Blast into Bloodbraid Elf for a three-for-one combo. I especially like the cascading into a Kitchen Finks :)


• Cascade into Removal: Cascade into a Maelstrom Pulse or other cheap removal cards to decimate their defences before attacking with your hasty Green/Red Creatures


• Hasty Creatures: Cascade into other hasty creatures such as Boggart Ram-Gang or Jund Hackblade for blisteringly fast aggro bum rushes!


• Direct Damage and Control: Cascade into powerful direct damage and/or control spells like Blightning or Incinerate to get some extra damage in for free.

This card makes for some awesome plays and can really turn a game around if you are in a pinch. The fact that the cascade ability goes off even if they decide to counter your elf (cascade triggers when you play the spell not when it resolves) forces your control-playing opponents to make difficult decisions about how to play their counter spells. I'm not surprised that so many decks are being built around this card and I'm excited to see what it can do with the new Magic: 2010 cards. Later this week for the Hombrew Decklist I will showcase a Jund Cascade list that I've been messing around with for a while. Should be pretty interesting!