Brackwater Elemental
Creature — Elemental
When this creature attacks or blocks, sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.
Unearth 
(: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step or if it would leave the battlefield. Unearth only as a sorcery.)
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Conflux
- Price
- $0.11
- EDHREC rank
- #28690
Brackwater Elemental puts a 4/4 body into play for three mana — but the downside clause, which forces it to return to your hand at end of turn unless you paid the unearth cost, makes it a one-shot attacker or blocker in most contexts. It's a tempo card masquerading as a threat, and most formats have better options at this slot.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Brackwater Elemental sees virtually no play in Commander, where a 4/4 that bounces itself is a bad rate when compared to permanents that stick and snowball over multiple turns. In Pauper it has a marginally more interesting case — cheap aggressive bodies matter more in a one-game format, and the unearth mode can push through lethal damage in a race — but even there it rarely makes the cut over more consistent threats. Legacy and Vintage have no interest in it. The card is a bulk common across every format where it's legal.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.11 bulk tier
At $0.11, Brackwater Elemental is deep bulk — the kind of card that costs more to ship than to buy. That price is stable precisely because demand is flat; there's no competitive shell driving it anywhere.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.