MTG: "The Blue Standard"

[WilliamWhite1]

Hello Escapist.

You have probably seen a couple of my threads from before, entailing the gaming experience of FPS games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

That game evolved.

But so has Magic: The Gathering, eh? Not too long ago, we saw the rise of Baneslayer Angel, and it soon became the rough equivalent to slapping down a fifty dollar bill on the table and attacking with it. Serra Angel was supposed to be good at five mana, but apparently it wasn't good enough. In the midst of Cascade, aggro decks are becoming easier and easier to create. Worldwake released the four-costing Abyssal Persecutor, a new 6/6 flier with hardly a problem, Searing Blaze, essentially a double lightning bolt, and a red sweep in the form of Chain Reaction. My question is: what did blue get? A new Jace Beleren? Gentlemen, a four drop unsummon, brainstorm, or Fateseal 1 is not what us blue players want.

Therefore, my greater question is: what in the world happened to us blue players, hm? When Lorwyn was in standard, the mono-blue mill deck was winning tournaments through the combination of Twincast and Sanity Grinding. Blue mana users loved casting their Broken Ambitions, Unsummons, Dream Fractures, Evacuations, and original Jace Belerens. We could have easily destroyed Jund, since their Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Blightning would have both been countered, or at least stalled, a la Cryptic Command.

We need better spells, blue players of MTG. Or else we may never stand up on our own in Standard play. Red has burn, Black has vampires, White has life gain and Luminarch, Green has huge creatures. What do we have? Hedron Crab? What do we think of this situation?

Humor me.

-- William White

 

[Jazzyluv2]

Hello Escapist.

You have probably seen a couple of my threads from before, entailing the gaming experience of FPS games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

That game evolved.

But so has Magic: The Gathering, eh? Not too long ago, we saw the rise of Baneslayer Angel, and it soon became the rough equivalent to slapping down a fifty dollar bill on the table and attacking with it. Serra Angel was supposed to be good at five mana, but apparently it wasn't good enough. In the midst of Cascade, aggro decks are becoming easier and easier to create. Worldwake released the four-costing Abyssal Persecutor, a new 6/6 flier with hardly a problem, Searing Blaze, essentially a double lightning bolt, and a red sweep in the form of Chain Reaction. My question is: what did blue get? A new Jace Beleren? Gentlemen, a four drop unsummon, brainstorm, or Fateseal 1 is not what us blue players want.

Therefore, my greater question is: what in the world happened to us blue players, hm? When Lorwyn was in standard, the mono-blue mill deck was winning tournaments through the combination of Twincast and Sanity Grinding. Blue mana users loved casting their Broken Ambitions, Unsummons, Dream Fractures, Evacuations, and original Jace Belerens. We could have easily destroyed Jund, since their Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Blightning would have both been countered, or at least stalled, a la Cryptic Command.

We need better spells, blue players of MTG. Or else we may never stand up on our own in Standard play. Red has burn, Black has vampires, White has life gain and Luminarch, Green has huge creatures. What do we have? Hedron Crab? What do we think of this situation?

Humor me.

-- William White

a game like MTG or any game based on a system of counters and combos will always go for fast relatively fast safe jabs.

MTG does it through updated cards(new meta games form)

starcraft does it through new maps(again, new meta games form)

fighting games do it through new Bread n butter combos

fps do it through strategy/mechanics evolving

It's just evolution of a single game.

COD4 was bloated and poorly design, a train of gimmicks, as is MW2, that is why it will not last as a multiplayer game.

A solid base must be established for a solid multiplayer game, as long as no one strategy rules, then it atleast passable. Personal style must be allowed to be shown through the game for it to be great.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

I haven't played MtG since Onslaught, but if what you say is true then I'm sad. Blue was always my favorite color, being not always the easiest color to play but very powerful at the same time.

But MtG always goes through cycles like that. Sometimes one color just ends up somewhat outside the curve, being over- or underpowered (anyone remember the days when Black reigned supreme?), but while the balance may sway a bit from time to time, overall it's pretty solid. Blue may be unimpressive right now, but sometimes it only takes a few good cards to turn a color from underrated to a serious threat.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Blue is a colour in MTG that is about control. All the other colours can get away with fast kills. Blue is all about slowing the game down to acheive a win.

There is already a buttload of cards that do that for blue.
The last thing blue needs is another Force of Will to dominate tournament play.

I stopped playing MTG competitively a long time ago, I just have fun with my friends. We've got enough cards between us to have a good time.

 

[GuideBot]

Long time blue/white (control ma ***** up!) player here; dropped outta the game after the shards block.

Had a quick scan of the present state of play, and daymn, things look bad for blue. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the new way combat damage is allocated mean that you can't bounce a creature after damage on stack? That pretty well creams one of blues best abilities, the bounce. Hot daymn.

I don't know what to tell ya bro. Play white or black. Or red. Just not green.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

Haven't really played since Odyssey block and the redesign (no, I WON'T get over it, lol), but I remember them talking about taking Counterspell out of Standard or something. Did that ever happen, did it have any effect?

Last deck I remember putting together was a variant of a squirrel/opposition deck... Control plus smash smash smash.

Had a quick scan of the present state of play, and daymn, things look bad for blue. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the new way combat damage is allocated mean that you can't bounce a creature after damage on stack? That pretty well creams one of blues best abilities, the bounce. Hot daymn.

What? They did what!?

 

[GuideBot]

Yes. They took out counterspell. They put in cancel, which is the same, only it costs UU1. In all fairness, that has spawned a whole lot of more interesting counters and counter strategies.

 

[ItsAPaul]

Treasure Hunt is the best draw spell since Fact or Fiction, Halimar Depths is insane, and Snapper is what control has been asking for forever. Sounds like you're a bit too greedy.

Also, I've never lost to a baneslayer. It's not pro anything that matters.

 

[WilliamWhite1]

Long time blue/white (control ma ***** up!) player here; dropped outta the game after the shards block.

Had a quick scan of the present state of play, and daymn, things look bad for blue. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the new way combat damage is allocated mean that you can't bounce a creature after damage on stack? That pretty well creams one of blues best abilities, the bounce. Hot daymn.

I don't know what to tell ya bro. Play white or black. Or red. Just not green.

Yes, you are correct. Damage is no longer on the stack, which means that we can no longer use bounce and destroy creatures, simultaneously. Bounce is slightly weakened by this. After all, Unsummon used to be really great for us, because we could choose to stop their attack or block and destroy their creature, then keep ours alive. Plumeveil made things fun.

I can't lie; black-blue is a good combo, and so is white-blue. Hell, we're in Grixis Control, which is still a top deck. But I want to see us have a mono deck again. Something like Red Deck Wins or Black Vampires.

Haven't really played since Odyssey block and the redesign (no, I WON'T get over it, lol), but I remember them talking about taking Counterspell out of Standard or something. Did that ever happen, did it have any effect?

Last deck I remember putting together was a variant of a squirrel/opposition deck... Control plus smash smash smash.

Had a quick scan of the present state of play, and daymn, things look bad for blue. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the new way combat damage is allocated mean that you can't bounce a creature after damage on stack? That pretty well creams one of blues best abilities, the bounce. Hot daymn.

What? They did what!?

Indeed, they took damage off the stack and changed lots of terminology, but that isn't nearly as important as, yes they did, they removed our bread-and-butter mono-blue spell, Counterspell.

It hurts, you guys. Come on, we can't lie here and say that we lost a lot from Standard. We don't have Counterspell, we don't have Evacuation, we don't have Plumeveil, Broken Ambitions, Cryptic Command; we can't run blue mill or blue control without some kind of amazing two-for-one counter. Something flexible like Cryptic or plain good like Counterspell. I'd rather not make due with something as limited as Negate or Essence Scatter, or something situational like Hindering Light.

Treasure Hunt is the best draw spell since Fact or Fiction, Halimar Depths is insane, and Snapper is what control has been asking for forever. Sounds like you're a bit too greedy.

Also, I've never lost to a baneslayer. It's not pro anything that matters.

To be fair, Jund is the top deck of the day, and behind it is Boros Bushwhacker, 4CC, Black Vampires, Naya, and Red Deck Wins. Perhaps it is greedy to assume that we need more counter. It's fair to assume that blue doesn't need a deck of its own. But is it fair to also say that blue used to be more dominant than ever when Lorwyn was standard? I don't think it's right that we lost all sorts of counter after Lorwyn cycled out and got stuck with things like Spell Pierce and Punish Ignorance.

You need to set up your draws for Treasure Hunt, and it's a Sorcery, whereas Fact or Fiction is an Instant, and better draw. Calcite Snapper is a 1/4 shroud, that's fine -- but what in the world is it going to do against Bushwhacker, where Lynx becomes a 4/3 on turn two? Jund's Putrid Leech, effectively a 4/4? We don't need blockers, dude, we need better counter and bounce. I was happy with Into the Roil -- half of Cryptic for the price of Cryptic? Done. But where's the rest of our good stuff? Where's our endgame? Cancel? Really? When Counterspell did that for two and Dream Fracture drew us a card?

--

As for never losing to a Baneslayer, I'm of the impression that Baneslayer isn't the greatest thing in the world anyway. It costs a lot of money, but it's not the scourge of players like everybody says it is. That said, I haven't seen a mono-blue deck beat Baneslayer either. I've beaten it with white-blue Jacerator, and that's as close as I've seen.

 

[j0frenzy]

I haven't played Magic much since the end of Time Sprial block. Honestly? I'm not surprised. Blue was getting a bit overpowered then. Part of the rebalancing act Wizards does every set is trying to emphasize different colors. I don't remember much good coming green's way during Kamigawa. It happens. You just have to be flexible.[
quote="BlindMessiah94" post="9.178571.5180155"]Blue is a colour in MTG that is about control. All the other colours can get away with fast kills. Blue is all about slowing the game down to acheive a win.

There is already a buttload of cards that do that for blue.
The last thing blue needs is another Force of Will to dominate tournament play.

I stopped playing MTG competitively a long time ago, I just have fun with my friends. We've got enough cards between us to have a good time.[/quote] I don't recall blue always slowing the game down. I miss my blue aggro deck. That was a fun deck. (Hint: it involved 4 psionic blasts and draining whelks).

 

[crepesack]

It's pretty obvious. Circuit players and close followers of the game call it "power-creep", the natural and inevitable increase in power of cards. WOTC themselves have mentioned that they also wanted to shift MTG from the degenerate combos and instant/sorcery/enchantment based game play to faster, creature-land play with non permanent spells as support (i don't know where the article is for this). But overall the main reason is this-
For creatures, power creep has steadily strengthened creatures.
As for non-permanents the effect is the opposite, instants and sorceries have gotten weaker and weaker.
Why? For one it's very hard to keep non-permanent power in check. It's much harder to balance out an effect that occurs instantaneously versus a spell that, once leaving the stack, CITPS. To make more powerful instants you would have to inundate the game with counter measures, more counter spells. It's really a never ending cycle.

In the days that I played a lot, magic was a war of attrition, who could gain the most card advantage and then finally end the game with that morphling. In attempts to draw new players, WOTC has decided to shift to fast play and mindless alpha strikes.

There are still very viable blue decks in T1.5 though, and merfolk have replaced a lot of traditional blue control aspects and mill has finally earned itself a place in tournament archetypes recently. So over all, blue was never meant to be a power player in the end, its basic principles of attrition and control go against the values of the novice player, the mechanics of the stack are complicated and the majority of new players are timmy's who want to see big numbers and fast.

BTW my meta is multiplayer aggro so control has never really stood up a chance. But of course i'm a fan of lock down/combo decks I find them very witty. Especially if they end in MAD (8x cloudpost ,hurricane, glacial chasm(may or may not be present, if i don't have time to tutor it i jsut end the game) combo.)

Personally i think if you're not into T2 play you can just buy some old T1 and 1.5 cards and find some friends and have fun.
(stasis energy chamber/reactor combo is my favorite)

My answer to your question? Black/ blue control seems the most obvious and T2 viable route. And I am very very glad 5cc is no longer the tourney power house, what a load of bullocks that was.

 

[ItsAPaul]

To be fair, Jund is the top deck of the day, and behind it is Boros Bushwhacker, 4CC, Black Vampires, Naya, and Red Deck Wins. Perhaps it is greedy to assume that we need more counter. It's fair to assume that blue doesn't need a deck of its own. But is it fair to also say that blue used to be more dominant than ever when Lorwyn was standard? I don't think it's right that we lost all sorts of counter after Lorwyn cycled out and got stuck with things like Spell Pierce and Punish Ignorance.

You need to set up your draws for Treasure Hunt, and it's a Sorcery, whereas Fact or Fiction is an Instant, and better draw. Calcite Snapper is a 1/4 shroud, that's fine -- but what in the world is it going to do against Bushwhacker, where Lynx becomes a 4/3 on turn two? Jund's Putrid Leech, effectively a 4/4? We don't need blockers, dude, we need better counter and bounce. I was happy with Into the Roil -- half of Cryptic for the price of Cryptic? Done. But where's the rest of our good stuff? Where's our endgame? Cancel? Really? When Counterspell did that for two and Dream Fracture drew us a card?

--

As for never losing to a Baneslayer, I'm of the impression that Baneslayer isn't the greatest thing in the world anyway. It costs a lot of money, but it's not the scourge of players like everybody says it is. That said, I haven't seen a mono-blue deck beat Baneslayer either. I've beaten it with white-blue Jacerator, and that's as close as I've seen.

Only Naya, Vampires, and RDW are good decks from what you said. Bushwacker is dead (0 decks in standard events since Worldwake, probably 0 right before it too) and you seem to have pulled 4 CC from nowhere since there is no 4 CC deck. Hell, there's not even a 3 color control deck right now. Snapper isn't perfect, but if you're looking for a creature for a control deck, you can't do better. Maybe you should main 4 Essence Scatter if you're that worried about Putrid Leech, and Lynx is only played in WW which blue shouldn't have a terrible game against (though O ring will remove >1 planeswalker each if you let it). I honestly don't see how Into the Roil is bad since you're not getting Cryptic Command in type 2 again.

Also, why aren't you playing W/U Control? Patrick Chapin has spelled out how to play it multiple times by now.

 

[WilliamWhite1]

Only Naya, Vampires, and RDW are good decks from what you said. Bushwacker is dead (0 decks in standard events since Worldwake, probably 0 right before it too) and you seem to have pulled 4 CC from nowhere since there is no 4 CC deck. Hell, there's not even a 3 color control deck right now. Snapper isn't perfect, but if you're looking for a creature for a control deck, you can't do better. Maybe you should main 4 Essence Scatter if you're that worried about Putrid Leech, and Lynx is only played in WW which blue shouldn't have a terrible game against (though O ring will remove >1 planeswalker each if you let it). I honestly don't see how Into the Roil is bad since you're not getting Cryptic Command in type 2 again.

Also, why aren't you playing W/U Control? Patrick Chapin has spelled out how to play it multiple times by now.

I am playing W/U Control. I play both Turbo-Fog-Luminarch AND Jacerator. And there IS a 4CC deck; Cruel Control has been around for a good long while, my friend. It's intent is to be slightly slower than Jund, but to have all the answers. I'll admit that without blue, it wouldn't be that great a deck, Hell, it couldn't run Cruel Ultimatum that way.

I didn't say Into the Roil was bad -- I said I was happy with it. A good half of Cryptic for the price of Cryptic, in common form! That's not something I'm upset with.

You're not a bad Magic player, I can tell from your responses that you're a serious follower of MTG. But I think you're missing my point -- I want to return to the days when Blue could stand on its own. None of this U/B mill with Bloodchief. None of this W/U Jacerator with fog effects. None of these two-drop counters that only counter one thing or another.

As I said before, you're right. I'm greedy. Perhaps too greedy. But I know many blue players as well who are just screaming bloody murder for Boomerang, Counterspell, and Evacuation to return.

 

[WilliamWhite1]

I haven't played Magic much since the end of Time Sprial block. Honestly? I'm not surprised. Blue was getting a bit overpowered then. Part of the rebalancing act Wizards does every set is trying to emphasize different colors. I don't remember much good coming green's way during Kamigawa. It happens. You just have to be flexible.

I don't recall blue always slowing the game down. I miss my blue aggro deck. That was a fun deck. (Hint: it involved 4 psionic blasts and draining whelks).

That deck sounds hilarious.

You've inspired me to try to build something like that.

 

[Vigormortis]

Honestly, I say it's about time blue got the shaft. Now, I'll be honest. From the moment I started playing MTG back in '95, I've been a green mage. (and to a lesser extent, blue and artifact) And, from that moment to today, blue has consistently been the one color of the pie that has received the most powerful and broken spells in the game. It's not the only color with overpowered cards, no doubt, but it has the most over-all. Hell, look at the "power 9". Only three of those nine are not artifacts and all three are blue. It's good to see Wizards finally giving more "casual" colors their due.

All of that said, blue is far from dead this print cycle. Despite it having abilities from other, already powerful cards, the new Jace is one powerful card. You also mentioned Hedron Crab. Despite it's weak appearance, that thing can be a powerhouse in today's standard format. In combination with things like Archive Trap, Trapmaker's Snare, and other draw/mill effects, it can tear through many of the control (and even a few aggro) decks. Though, without a splash of another color, it doesn't have much in the way of reactionary answers.

I do see your point though. However, I don't think it's a bad thing. I honestly think no one color should be able to stand alone, and overpower, any other color or color combination in any given format. Blue is a dead color this cycle, it's just be (finally) weakened down to the level of the other colors. Magic has always been about endless deck design possibilities and varied fun. Where's the variety and fun if everyone's only playing 1 or 2 decks and they're chock full of islands? Look at standard back in the Mirrodin/Darksteel arena. If you weren't running Affinity, you were running Anti-Affinity. (and for a time, unless you didn't want to win, you ALWAYS ran Skullclamp)

I don't know what to tell ya bro. Play white or black. Or red. Just not green.

And why not green? Seems to me there are more forests sneaking their way into off-color decks than any other land. Green has some of the best cards, as of late. I point you to arguably one of the best critters (if not the best) ever printed. Tarmogoyf.

 

[j0frenzy]

I haven't played Magic much since the end of Time Sprial block. Honestly? I'm not surprised. Blue was getting a bit overpowered then. Part of the rebalancing act Wizards does every set is trying to emphasize different colors. I don't remember much good coming green's way during Kamigawa. It happens. You just have to be flexible.

I don't recall blue always slowing the game down. I miss my blue aggro deck. That was a fun deck. (Hint: it involved 4 psionic blasts and draining whelks).

That deck sounds hilarious.

You've inspired me to try to build something like that.

It was a Type 2 deck from when Time Spiral was the most recent block (so Ravnica block, Time Spiral block and Cold Snap). It was inspired by this deck http://wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/bb80
But honestly, I had opened three psionic blasts and two draining whelks. I needed to do something with those.
And then I found all the cheap counter spells at the time. It was kind of broken.

 

[Axolotl]

They finally nerfed the most overpowered colour? Good next thingwe know maybe white will be playable.

 

[ItsAPaul]

I am playing W/U Control. I play both Turbo-Fog-Luminarch AND Jacerator. And there IS a 4CC deck; Cruel Control has been around for a good long while, my friend. It's intent is to be slightly slower than Jund, but to have all the answers. I'll admit that without blue, it wouldn't be that great a deck, Hell, it couldn't run Cruel Ultimatum that way.

I didn't say Into the Roil was bad -- I said I was happy with it. A good half of Cryptic for the price of Cryptic, in common form! That's not something I'm upset with.

You're not a bad Magic player, I can tell from your responses that you're a serious follower of MTG. But I think you're missing my point -- I want to return to the days when Blue could stand on its own. None of this U/B mill with Bloodchief. None of this W/U Jacerator with fog effects. None of these two-drop counters that only counter one thing or another.

As I said before, you're right. I'm greedy. Perhaps too greedy. But I know many blue players as well who are just screaming bloody murder for Boomerang, Counterspell, and Evacuation to return.

I had grixis built (three colors since I wouldn't win with four in a deck) but traded it off before worldwake was released since I saw that had no place in the meta, and lo and behold, it's completely gone. Cruel Ultimatum isn't good enough for the deck to not be able to utilize Everflowing Chalice, not to mention that it's definitely not worth 7 mana any more. This is also not considering that Basilisk Collar destroys the deck all by its lonesome, and both white weenie and boss naya make heavy use of it. If you mean the 4 color deck that played cruel and violent ultimatum, that died when Reflecting Pool and Vivids rotated.

About the fact that there should be a mono blue deck, tell that to sphinx not being as good as baneslayer or Iona.

 

[UPRC]

Haha, I haven't played MTG since Homelands and Mirage! I can't believe how much the game has changed, but it's fantastic to see Serra Angel still being mentioned. I had several of them in my old white deck and loved them.

I still remember my most glorious moment being when I opened a Homelands booster pack and found Baron Sengir inside. EVERYONE wanted to buy that off of me.

 

[vf501]

I pretty much stopped buying after Time Spiral block. That was the true peak of MTG Standard and a nice throwback to the Urza/Masques/Invasion block days. I only picked up a few of the good not so gimicky Lorwyn stuff and didn't really touch it much, Onslaught did the tribal thing better.

Incinerate was and still is kick arse and was welcome in 10th even though the new core is out and I've not bothered to check it out. I usually play Open formats with friends now days with T1 banned allowed. They have told me not to play a few of the un-fun decks though. Wizards MTG team pretty much lost it after Time Spiral, became too gimicky.

As for blue, yeah its heyday is over. Pretty much nerfed after Onslaught/Mirrodin/Ravnica. I still ran a Standard legal R/U Burn Card draw deck though, when Lorwyn came out. Played properly it was quite cheesy and decimated most decks.