Excellent games require thoughtful balance.
Player vs Player games are always made or broken upon the alter of balance. Whether it be Terran vs Zerg vs Protoss in Starcraft or Ryu vs Blanka in Street Fighter II, the entire PvP experience hinges on that game’s ability to give each of its contestants an equal, yet totally unique chance at winning. Bear with me here – I’ve never been a fan of racing. In a race, contestants are locked into a single path with very few or no options when it comes to forging a path to victory. Participants just run or drive or gallop in one direction as fast as they can. There is no strategy involved, no one is going to do anything “tricky” or particularly surprising. It is simply a live test of “how fast can these people get from point A to point B?”
Magic, though it may feel like it sometimes, is not a race. The diversity of “avenues to victory” is often overwhelming. At any time, either player could bust out magic that you haven’t seen in 10 years. Part of what I love about the game is its ability to stay fresh and unpredictable while at the same time staying true to it’s cornerstones. It is a fluid game. Top decks may seem unstoppable for a time only to get completely crushed at the next Grand Prix event. Since it is always in motion Magic is able to “correct itself” every three months if any one deck gets completely out of control. For the most part, I think WotC has done a good job of mixing it up. Whether you’re a fan of the multicolored Alara block or not, it would be tough to argue that standard, as it stands, isn’t exceptionally diverse with several stellar deck choices out there. Wizards has a tough job when it comes to balancing a game with over 10,ooo pieces. They take the time to balance it for sealed, standard, multiplayer, draft and two-headed giant. But my quarrel today is with their neglect of quite possibly the most important balance of them all – Color Balance. In particular what this recent imbalance has done to my personal favorite hue of magic - Blue.
Color balance is an important part of the game as many casual players (the same players Wizards is now marketing towards) appreciate the simplicity and flavor of a good burn deck or zombie deck or yes, even a good old fashioned blue control deck. The ability to create viable versions of these classics in standard, or even extended formats is very important to your average casual player. In Magic 2010 Red burn seems to be back on track, Green is rolling knee deep in awesome creatures, Black looks to be cool again and White… well.. white is Magic the Gathering right now. But blue?… It is a shame any time one or more colors becomes “unplayable” as a mono colored cornerstone. It removes that element of flavor and diversity from the game. I would be just as critical (okay maybe not just as critical) if green were unplayable as a mono-colored variant. But that has never and and will never happen. I am happy for red wizards everywhere post-M10. Red burn is back with a vengeance and that old flavor tastes just as sweet as it did years ago -it will never get old. Its just a shame WotC seems reluctant to do the same for each of the colors.
Faerie decks are blue, eh?
I know most of you just don’t feel sorry for poor, helpless Blue. You’ve been deceived, traumatized and exploited one too many times by that selfish color. And aren’t people still playing faeries in Top 8’s all over the planet? I understand where you’re coming from. Blue is on top of the tournament scene any time it gets the chance. There is a delicate dance that wizards has with Blue. Giving the color its due without letting it get out of control (pun intentional). But is the fact that blue has been good in the past reason to kill the color all together? What happens when Fae, Mulldrifter et al. rotate out in 60 days? And should we really consider the Thoughtseize/Bitterblossom net-decks as part of the supposed “Blue” dominance? Particularly in a post Volcanic Fallout / Great Sable Stag era?
Each color is entitled to be “the best” at multiple things. Red with damage, White or Green with healing and so on. Blue was once the master of all things control. From drawing cards to counterspells to the good old fashioned bounce, Blue was the master of it’s domain (and no that wasn’t a Seinfeld reference). But with recent sets and most obviously with M10, Blue is no longer the the master of any domain. It’s territories have been divided and sold off to the highest bidder (mostly White).
Wizard’s has decided that “control” is no longer a Blue staple. In fact, Blue won’t even finish 2nd in the control race. While we’ve seen cards like Shunt and Avoid Fate for some time now, Blue had always been the control champ. It was the exception rather then the rule to see another color bust out something like Orims Chant . But today, not only are we inundated with cards that completely destroy the counter such as Great Sable Stag, Volcanic Fallout and Vexing Shusher, we’re also seeing counters in other colors.
Can't we make a compromise Wizards?
With the nixing of Cryptic Command, there is no longer a viable Blue counter in Magic the Gathering, Standard. It is clear now since Cancel has been reprinted several times in the last 5 years that the 2 drop counter is not in Blue’s future. This is a decision I can learn live with. But what about a viable option that doesn’t require me to play a particular creature type to be effective such as Remand or even Cryptic Command? While most think of control as simply saying “no” to fun, true Blue wizards understand that the color in it’s mono colored, pure form is much more than that. Its about getting card advantage, drawing out the game and bouncing permanents until you find yourself with the upper hand. None of this is possible in Magic 2010, for Blue. Instead, Blue is graced with several nearly unplayable flying creatures (which are great in sealed btw!) and a few overpriced sorceries and enchantments. While Time Warp is much appreciated, I would have certainly traded it from White for Silence (a card that could have easily been blue with a quick name change) in a heartbeat. Every time I see a Blue outline peeking out of the rare slot in a pack of Magic 2010, I cringe. Is it going to be Hive Mind or Mind Spring? Or perhaps it’ll be a Polymorph?! It’s a sad state of affairs when Jace Beleren, though certainly a great card, is far and away the most intriguing blue card in the set.
My point is this. At all times each of the colors should be able to form a decent mono-colored, classic deck. A balanced, hasty burn deck for Red. A monster Green creature pump deck or a fiendish discard creature destruction Black deck. These should always be possible in standard and extended play. Color identity encourages player identity which is a big part of our personal connection to the game. But those of us who identify with Blue magic now find ourselves without even a Boomerang to our name. Unsummon cuts the mustard about as well as Remove Soul does as a Counterspell replacement.
Blue missed the M10 train to "Color-pie Station."
It is a dark time for blue wizards everywhere. Perhaps you don’t care. Perhaps you haven’t played mono-colored anything since 8th Edition. Perhaps the words “casual player” make you want to vomit. But consider this- what are you going to be playing when the Lorywn block lands rotate out? There is no guarantee that Zendikar will offer any help to the dual and tri-colored decks out there. Reflecting Pool may not always be there for you, my friends. You don’t have to be a blue wizard to appreciate the need to equality and (I’ll say it again) balance within the color power structure. With the latest core set, the Magic train is steaming hard and fast towards color-pie station, its just a shame that Blue isn’t aboard for the ride.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
So what do you think? Are you concerned about color balance post-M10? Do you feel sorry for Blue? And what will Zendikar bring to the table for Blue and Modern Control decks? Feel free to opine with your thoughts.
Loading ...
Like this article? Try these:
While I mostly agree with you, I can’t help but think you might be taking it over the edge a little bit. While yes, we don’t have any big creatures (minus the overly expensive blue creatures from previous blocks) and we don’t really have very much removal. I still think you under estimate the power that Blue has now.
While Time Warp is good, maybe you don’t believe how good it really is. In standard you can run Savor the Moment along with Time warp to get an additional 8 turns. Now, while that’s really cool, what are you going to do with those 8 turns? Attack with a Mulldrifter? I would like to think you can do better.
One of the cards you failed to realize some of the power blue has. Sleep, for example is probably one of the best blue cards from M10. This allows the Extended format a stasis like effect when combined with Panoptic Mirror. But hey, why do that when you can just take infinite turns with the mirror + time warp?
Blue may have lacked power in the standard format, but in the extended I believe it will reign supreme. I believe Zendikar will help blue out, but enough to replace cryptic command? Probably not.
As someone who doesn’t play constructed in any viable format besides “free-for-all” with an emphasis on 3+ player multiplayer, I don’t see what the big deal is.
When was the last time a standard environment wasn’t ruled by maybe two different decks?
So blue has been weakened and will probably exist as a support color for a while. But this isn’t taking into account what Zendikar will create.
The role of the base set is to give staples to decks. That is all. When was the last time a necessary kill card was in the base set? That’s what expansions are for.
Complaining that MTG2010 set doesn’t have a replacement for Cryptic Command is downright laughable, four sets are being replaced with one. Of course not everything will be there immediately. To expect a base set to fill the gap created by the absence of Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmoor and Eventide is impossible.
People have been claiming that blue is getting weaker for the last decade and why is this time any different?
@bluebarron Sleep is definetly a decent card. Its just a shame to replace CC (which does that and so much more for the same price) with Sleep.
@jestergoblin of course this hasn’t taken into account Zen. There is no way to take that in to account. Its just a shame that Shards – M10 hasnt produced even a handful of chase blue cards.. the likes of Silence or Baneslayer or Ball Lightning. Those are things to get excited about. Blue has very little in M10. Its unfortunate that you take my comments as “complaints about blue being weakened”. If it were a minor shift based on CC’s reprintability this wouldnt be an issue. But Blue has no viable staple deck option post M10. Again.. Zen may be a Blue haven of some kind but here, now with the information we have, blue has nothing of value in this latest core set. As you said.. Core sets are designed to give each color its staples and something to get excited about.. surely you’d agree that M10 does not do that for Blue, whilst doing so brilliantly for every other color.
Looking at recent past core sets, Blue is hardly ever very strong in this mid-summer releases. 10th edition didn’t have a lot of staples for Blue, either.
It’s in the expansions where Blue gets the power. Why? Because expansion sets have tricks and mechanics that the core set (mostly basic stuff) does not. What colour tends to get the trickiest and (usually) best tricks? Blue, of course.
Flashing faeries, the best command, the best suspend cards (Ancestral Vision, Riftwing), AFFINITY, etc.
Wait until Zendikar and we’ll probably see Blue get a whopping share of powerful stuff. I agree that the anti-faerie hate (even though I hate hate hate faeries decks) is over the top, but Blue is hardly a weak colour these days.
Blue is suffering a swing of the pendulum as it has ruled the roost for quite a long time look for it to be on the downswing for at least a year.
Yeah, I still don’t think the fact that it is 1/2 of a popular fae net-deck means that it should get ZERO fun/flavorful cards in a core set.
I’m curious, what did blue LOSE when 2010 rotated in? In terms of cards that were actually played.
Reinhart,
I’m new to your blog and I must admit, I have mixed feelings about your quality as a writer. The first thing of yours I read was your refreshingly thoughtful and balanced “dialogue” about the M10 rule changes. I immediately flagged you in my mind as a rational author that I could read with relative confidence. Now I see this, a largely emotion-based rant about the alleged fleecing of what appears to be your favorite color. Your arguments seem fueled more by personal feelings of insult than by practical concern for the health of the game as a whole.
However, what really make me more wary of you than I started is that, after admitting some good cards (like Sleep and Time Warp) you then continue to express yourself by saying that blue got ZERO (all caps and everything) fun or flavorful cards. That type of all-or-nothing mindset greatly reduces my perception of your credibility, especially when you’re trying to convince your readers of something.
All that being said, I do have sympathy for you (after all, your emotional response is still valid – it’s just not to be confused with rational analysis). Blue did get fewer obviously powerful cards in M10 than the other colors. Then again, should blue’s power ever be obvious?
@jestergoblin: blue lost boomerrang, replaced by another unsummon, which was already standard from Shards. Blue also lost Evacuation. One of the 2 board wipes that would actually work against token decks.
On top of that, Blue lost Time Stretch, which was great in conjunction with Hideaway abilities, and it lost Time Stop which I think is better replaced by Time Warp.
I think blue lost a lot of it’s defenses in saying that it’s bounce spells have almost all but died. Where as the milling ability of blue going from Ambassador Laquatus to Tramautize + Tome Scour has went up. This isn’t a bad shift, just not a good one when tokens is one of the more dominant archtypes.
@bluebaron So blue lost 4 cards – none of which are counterspells?
I’m willing to bet Boomerang will be back or Hoodwink will show up again in Zendikar.
Evacuation is a big one, I’ll give you that.
Time Stretch is gone, but Hideaway is disappearing in two months, so I think that’s sort of moot.
Time Warp versus Time Stop, both serve similar functions.
So blue lost Evacuation and Boomerang.
Yes, this is the end of the world for blue mages everywhere. Especially now that my favorite combo ever has been reprinting in 2010, Mountain + Lightning Bolt.
@Jiggy Certainly, on the spectrum of analytical to emotional writing this article falls more towards the personal side of things. While the inspiration behind the article may be emotional I do believe (and I covered this fairly well, I thought) that the side-lining of an entire color of magic does, in fact, hurt the game as a whole. That is where my concern lies. I would hope that the occasional rant or two on an MTG blog wouldn’t deter you from visiting the site on occasion.
i completely and fully agree with you reinhart. i am a full fledged blue player. when the fae (i run mono blue, btw, the way they should be) leave i am gonna be heart broken, sure, i’ll be able to do casual play, but, come on man, its just not the same, blue is control, it always has been, why change that. and for WOTC to put it on the bench is just wrong. i know wat it is, wen they gave blue the fae, they realized that they created a monster, so now they are trying to stifle it. they are scared of blue. run scared wizards, run scared. panzies
oh yea and just so you know, i feel the same way cuz they are taking merfolk away too
and also for all you faerie haters out there, slivers were way worse than faeries. its just sad to see the tribal wars coming to an end. thats all
@Reinhart:
Most certainly, this is your blog and you may write whatever you please, and I have no intention of leaving any time soon. I hope I didn’t come across as judgmental; on the whole, I do enjoy your writing. Furthermore, your response to me clearly shows that you are someone interested in being reasonable (a true blue mage, indeed).
I would completely agree that the side-lining of a color would be detrimental to the game. My concern, however, is that your rational claim that said side-lining has happened is based on your emotional, rather than rational, evaluation of M10 blue.
I suspect (though I could be wrong) that the lack of “wow” cards in M10 blue (compared to Ball Lightning and Baneslayer Angel) created an emotional belief that blue got shafted while the other colors got boosted, whereas an uninvested look might reveal a different assessment. Red got Bolt and Ball, but what else? Blue got three counters at common (could a Magic history buff tell me if that’s ever happened in a single core set before?), Sleep and Time Warp (the latter is a great follow-up to the former) together, and Ponder as another solid common. None of it is jaw-dropping, but it’s a lot of solid stuff.
Your thoughts?
I feel your pain… Being a control lover, I miss the days where having two islands untapped made opponents think twice before casting.
I’ve even found it tough to play a beatdown deck, when I’m used to having all sorts of goodies in my hand to mess with my opponents mind.
The only consolation I get is playing my blue/black traumatizer…
But I still have faith…
Long live blue wizards!! Down with white!
Regards… Miguel
Honestly I dont think blue got nerfed with M10, honestly answer me this,
What blue cards did you play with from 10th Edition, its a small list isnt it, and I bet 95% of those cards ae back in M10, add in a few nice new tricks like Sleep and you can see that blue is just as strong, if not stronger that it was before M10,
Also I you have to be crazy to play try mono green, blue or black in todays standard,
“My point is this. At all times each of the colors should be able to form a decent mono-colored, classic deck. A balanced, hasty burn deck for Red. A monster Green creature pump deck or a fiendish discard creature destruction Black deck. These should always be possible in standard and extended play.”
This has never been possible, ever. Never mind that the idea of a classic deck for each color varies from person to person (Jamie Wakefield will have a much different view of the classic Green deck than my friend whose been running an Elf combo deck no less than eight years before it was popular), the colors have never been so balanced that a mono-colored deck could always do well in Standard. Mono-Green was ridiculous until after Weatherlight dropped. Mono-White was a joke for years until Rebels reared their ugly head, and by that point mono-Green wasn’t viable at all (and mono-Red was the control deck, of all things).
I believe that mono-Blue is just as viable as the other colors in M10 Constructed, but the Blue player will have to leverage superior play skill, technical play, and subtle card advantage against the players of other colors. Which is the way it ought to be, in a perfect world…
look, the way i see it, there is always casual play, sure, im gonna miss tearing someone apart with my faeries at a tourny, but hey, eventually, blue will be back. and until then, im gonna continue whoopin up on people in casual
As has been noted, the dreaded rotations of the broken Cryptic Command and its fae friends have not yet taken place. Zendikar will no doubt have good Blue to replace it.
That said, there’s nothing wrong with Essence Scatter, Negate, and Flashfreeze. Plenty of counterspells for just two mana. Flashfreeze in particular would have served you well in the top 8 of this past weekend’s U.S. Nationals.
Tournament side-boarding is one thing. Trying to include new counters in a casual environment is another.
I agree with Fractal, things haven’t gotten too out of hand yet. You still have Cryptic Command and the Faeries.
I couldn’t agree more with this article and I think any naysayers above are either missing your point or incapable of understanding it. M10 is a CORE set. Sure cryptic is out there and wizards screwed the pooch on the tribal balance of faeries, but expansions are fickle and experimental. As an experiment of my own, somebody make the best M10-only mono-blue deck that you can and put it up against the best mono-any other color deck that you can muster. Even if you sideboard some hosers, by turn 6, you’ll be so knee deep in lose that you won’t believe it. Blue has always been slow, but at least that used to pay off. Now blue still has no early game, a clunky over-priced mid game, and a cruelly-pathetic late game that will reward you for surviving 5-7 turns with… a djinn of wishes??? Also, let’s remember wizards deemed it fair to make blue have no non-creature removal other than negate/cancel (cancel being too unwieldy for standard and negate being really only a fitting sideboard card). This is huge. Thank god for ponder, but seriously, they push the envelope all over the place for white and red, yet they continue to nerf blue past the point where it can stand up to the baneslayer angels et al. Wizards has nerfed blue to the point where it quickly becomes unplayable as a mono. (fyi, Your Starcraft reference nails it)
Blue has that 3/4 Illusionary Servant; should a mono-blue M10 constructed deck run it? Maybe it’s fragile, but in the absense of targeted removal (or Giant Growth), it does really well in defensive creature combat or straight beatdown. I also think that Sleep is probably fairly effective on both offense and defense, especially when followed up by Time Warp. Another excellent 5-drop is Mind Control; Baneslayer Angel is about the least scary thing your opponent could play.
Actually, how about a very proactive blue deck? Counterspells don’t combo all that well with the Djinn, especially situational ones, so what if we just stick to spells that actively dominate our opponents, like Sleep, Time Warp, and Mind Control? We could maybe walk all over the removal-light colors of Green and White that way.
@Presence: Blue may actually be slightly better off now, as 10th Edition was even worse than M10 is for blue, and is now leaving standard. The only important card blue lost in standard was Ambassador Laqutus, and look what they still have. Fractal mentioned some cards that could work well in a mono-blue deck. Maybe it wouldn’t be so great, but compare it to the checklist for Arcanis’s Guile, blue’s 10th Edition deck. I think the M10 deck would come out ahead.
I would strongly disagree that Ambassador Laquatus was a worse loss than Evacuation.
Not to mention the biggest void in M10 blue is bounce. No Boomerang substitute!?
@jess I disagree when you say that a M10 deck could take on a tenth deck. Tenth had a lot more board removal and pretty much the same counterspells (minus negate). Instead of sleep, it had evacuation and instead of time warp it had Time stop (which can serve as a counter + time warp if used right). The biggest difference is Tenth had a lot more card draw and it had at least 1 decent swinger. Mahamoti Djinn. While not nearly a formidable card in standard, in sealed this guy was a beast.
Blue may have lost power, but I think Magic is getting ready for the new block rotation. So perhaps it’s not the ideal plan for blue right now. But with M11, I’m sure the color wheel will eventually even itself out.
The fact of the matter basically comes down to blue only lost TWO cards when 2010 rotated in. Boomerang and Evacuation. That was it. 10th edition has 134 MORE cards then 2010. 2010 has one-third less cards then 10th. The fact that only two cards got cut is very lucky.
Blaming 2010 for what is going to happen in October is still a pointless argument.
The real question here is why is the base set so small now? Before this the smallest base set was ALPHA with 295 cards, then Beta at 302.
Blue lost Telling Time, Time Stop, Tidings, Boomerang, and Evacuation as the most critical, so let’s not say blue didn’t lose. Blue lost. What blue gained is Time Warp over Time Stop (no complaints here), Ponder for Telling Time (why not both?), Mind Spring over Tidings at rare (give me Tidings, but I’d still take both as blue is the card draw color), and no replacement whatsoever for Boomerang or Evacuation. Blue gets the djinn (a pretty useable strictly better air elemental which I’m not complaining about), Hivemind (the worst rare in the set, hands down. Completely shuts down counterspell decks… which makes just tons of sense for blue, right?), and some whack Sphinx that I guess is pretty solid but incomparable to the other mythics in the set. Oh and Wizards thinks it’s a big laugh to make cards like Disorient which are about 3 mana overcosted for an almost useless ability anyway… unplayable in any format. Well done, guys. What does white get? The best 5 drop creature ever printed, a strictly better Crusade (I thought crusade was already broken??), Silence, Harm’s Way… god, it pains me to put it all into perspective. Its time for the return of THE Counterspell… is Wizards trying to get our minds ready for that realization?
Reinhart, I would agree that it would be bad to “sideline,” as you put it, one of the five colors – if that was what was actually happening. Your standards are, to put it bluntly, unreasonable.
Okay, so they overpowered white a bit. That doesn’t mean blue is underpowered. In 10th, blue had tons of spells that let you draw cards, but nothing good you could actually draw with them. Blue has much better creatures now, plus Time Warp. I don’t think blue really got “fleeced” here.
I have to disagree, although I do sympathize. I think blue got some cool flavor cards and good standard fare. the sphinx and djinn are cool for casual games. The djinn is really fun with a lot of players and a tricky situation. The sphinx is equally fun and interactive and requires good bluffing abilities (go for the second best creature?)
I’m playing 4 Ponder and 2 Time warp in my standard esper control deck. They have helped me win a lot. Sleep is in the sideboard for tokens (and four scourglass maindecked! I hate tokens!) It is possible to build a good control deck using blue and other colors.
Besides,I don’t think mono blue decks ever dominated the standard format much–except maybe back before the restricted list was introduced and when force of will came out. Even the first world champ mixed white (serra’s, stp, kismet and splashed green with a blue base.
One thing I do think they have dead-wrong is 5cc for mind control. Give me a break; What is there really control anyway? A fairy token, or a 1/1 creature you don’t have the mana to activate, or an elf that cascaded up another creature, or a big flyer that beat the hell out of you with haste already? I’ll give it to fractal the baneslayer would be a nice catch! (I also like your “proactive” blue deck, that’s how I run my control now, blue white black, no counters.)
I think Zendikar is supposed to be monocolor-oriented so we will probably see some more good blue, maybe a new counter, maybe a new djinn or efreet. It would be so easy for them to release good od counterspell in that set as they did in ice age etc. I think they could have put a better counter in the base set. I would have not had a problem with the return of power sink and spell blast, being that cancel is in the block.
You can’t really knock jump and those trash commons: every color has always had them. Blue, has always had scant few tournament worthy creatures. They usually come from the expansions: serendib efreet, morphling, etc.
We still have clone.
I’ll just be glad when magic changes back from a bunch of pennies on a table to a card game again and will gladly play blue any way they serve it!
————————————-
“lets do the time warp again”
Well written, even I don’t totally agree…
Last weekend I celebrated my bachelor party in a non-traditional way, playing magic! 8 of my close friends (all 8 of us are either brothers to each other, or friends of each others brothers. We have been playing Magic since 1993. This was an awesome reunion with perfect timing of a new core.
We each had a “Theme Deck” of our choice, and then were given 18 boosters to play/trade/ etc….Most of us went mono colored “old school.” I went blue.
Though I agree I had trouble with Green’s pumping and Red’s haste burn, I did great vs. Black and White. I think with some additional tweaking and cards, I can be right back in the fray with the Red and Green.
I for one think Wizards did an excellent job returning the flavor, fun and core essence of the game! Thanks for a great bachelor party weekend!
For the record though: It does sure seem like white got alot of control (bluish) cards….
Yeah, and I don’t really have a problem with “friendly” colors sharing some abilities. If any other color was going to get raw control cards it would be white, no question. It’s just that the crown has now been given to white. Blue no longer has its “thing” anymore. Much like black has its creature destruction, graveyard manipulation and discarding.. blue no longer has the crown of “control”. Its just sad to see and I wouldn’t wish it for any color.
I’ve been away from the game for quite some time, and I am starting to forget the joy of toying about with some of the older blue spells — such as Washout, Capsize, and Forbid.
It is nice to see the game is still alive and kicking, but it may not be considered well by some until the year rolls away. Perhaps by then, we’ll be left with a few more additions to the 2010 core set? One can only hope.
I am a true blue control player and it saddens me that boomerang was gone… Boomerang has long since been one of my favorite bounce card for the sole reason it can bounce a any permanent specially those important ones that weren’t countered when they were cast. Essence Scatter and Negate are Type-Specific counterspells(Essence Scatter for creatures and Negate for non-creatures) but why can’t you have both. Cancel is good as another set of counterspells regardless of the 3 casting cost. But since coming October, the fae would be gone and so does Broken Ambitions(replacing Rune Snag when Shards came out). When I first saw the M10 spoiler for blue I can’t seem to make a decent blue control deck taking to mind that Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block will cycle out. So far all I can seem to hope for being a Control deck is to go multicolored. Blue/Black Control is always good but its not the same when you are a Mono-Blue Control. I think blue control started to decline in power after domination in the TimeSpiral Block up to the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block. I just hope blue control will be back in Zendikar since it is mostly a monocolor themed block. As for blue being screwed in M10, i think its not totally screwed but none the less… Ranking the colors through out… Blue is way behind the other colors.
I for one, feel that perhaps blue got a little stifled in the 2010 set. I mean that only in the mono-colored play sense. On its own, blue might not have that much to offer when you talk about strictly 2010. However, I think maybe this happened because when you look at nationals, and you take into account all of the current top 8 players, at least 5-7 of them are running ESPER. I agree that unsummon is a poor choice over boomerang, and that Silence would have made an excellent blue spell, but i can also see that without them, blue in standard is still quite effective thanks to cryptic, thanks to broken, and thanks to jace. some players play mono-colors. that is completely fine. just know that the last few sets to be released were harping on duel or tri colors. give it time and i am sure the game will balance out. after all, wizards always seems to find a way to pull it off.
[...] powerful single color in MTG and the field isn’t even close. One look at the poll ending this article and we see Magic 2010’s impact on white. M10 is the current core set, and the most [...]
Somebody call the Waaaaaahmbulance! Get over it. Wait for Zendikar before jumping to conclusions. M10 is just one piece of the puzzle.
you still need that waaaaaahmbulance mr. Wahh? :p
BLUE FTW
While I’ve enjoyed and scorned Counter/Control decks since Unlimited…I’ll have to say that I’m not surprised in or upset by the direction Blue took for 2010. I don’t consider it hobbled much as rather it’s been toned down a bit and made more adaptable to pairing with other colors. Sleep is an excellent partner for a Howl of the Night Pack…
Mono Blue may be put on hold for this run…but I will adapt…
Every deck except for my treefolk deck is completely or partially blue. Now with so many new players around me, I strongly encourage them to play blue, but it’s kinda getting hard to actually convince them now, isn’t it? Blue will always be my favorite color, ever since I got my merfolk deck, which was so fun to play, even if I lost. Many players I know wanted to have a merfolk after I got mine, cause some cards like Merrow Commerce(Overpowered), supported the theme deck’s original strategy too well. Even now when Zendikar came out, Lullmage Mentor still supports Lorwyn Merfolk’s tapping strategy. I love Blue, people!
I played magic back in ‘01-’06 then took a break. I’ve played every color and most styles during that time. Though black is my favorite color, I have to give blue its due. There was nothing more entertaining then listening to my opponent wail in frustration as I controlled the board with a mono-blue control deck. From bouncing his cards back to his hand, stealing the cards I wanted, to countering everything that was a threat. Though I got out of magic for a few years, while serving overseas I got back into it as a means to pass the downtime and play it online. I missed most of the previous sets and only see it when I’m casually playing against other people online. I’m pretty much only playing M10 and Zendikar cards now and have noticed the change in the color pie and the weakening of blue. I have managed to build adequate mono-colored decks in all colors but blue. Blues seems to have only a handful of really useful cards, but even those seem to have drawbacks. They are too weak to use efficiently or their casting cost is to high to be used effectively. Hopefully the next piece of the puzzle remedies this and gives mono-blue decks a fighting chance.
White, Black, Red, and Green:
R/B/G: Jund is BA. Card advantage, it can play aggro if it wants, it controls enough to play Broodmate Dragon….it will rotate soon, thank god.
Boss Naya: Also BA. better than Jund? worse? pretty damn close, both super powerful.
Bant Allies: You have to kill everything with creature type ‘Ally’ however you can. the ultimate extension of ‘little guys getting together to make an army/strength in numbers’. some combo power if you want go that way. probably not a threat to Jund or Boss Naya
Green on its own: Elves + X FTW.
Red on its own: BURN, with or without Goblins.
White on its own: takes the best ideas of green and blue, but doesn’t get the mana ramping so its not ‘too broken’, but the mana is nice and fast, so it kindof is.
Black: Vampires, or general discard + X.
the other colors are in good places right now. strong on there own, but perfectly answerable. They all play creatures heavily, and every creature has a weakness- they can die to something. Not all of them die to doom blade, not all of them die to lightning bolt, some don’t even die to path. but one of those three should do it if the other two dont. worst case scenario: blow EVERYONE up with a board wipe (black, red, and white all have it, white has the best)
Blue? How the hell do you answer Blue?!
Card Advantage, Card Quality: Blue gets what it needs, when it needs it, FAST. Jace Mindsculptor Brainstorms. Jace Belern Howling Mines, Ponder almost Brainstorms, and lots of blue creatures do small time draw. And there’s always cantrip spells.
Blue has plenty of late game flyers, Air Elemental being the worst, but plenty good enough on its own if you want. An unanswered Sphinx, especially one with Shroud, is…dangerous, to say the least.
Unsummon is better than Boomerang against creatures, and creatures are almost all there is to threaten Blue.
Archive Trap is sick. As in, it makes target opponent sick when they get hit with it.
the ONLY thing blue is missing to make a dominating control deck is: bum bum bum drum roll!!!!
really strong counterspells.
cancel is not good if its the only one, but is plenty good if it gets friends to stand next to. I predict that sometime very soon, Wizards will give us a good counterspell, and Blue will rise and shine….
The Blue way to win:
draw either what you need to win, or another counter/bounce, or another draw.
counter/bounce anything your opponent plays
play something that wins the game (either Mill them or Flying Creature damage)
as long as you have a counter/bounce in hand, and mana open, they dont win.
blue lacks in quantity, but makes up for it in quality. right now in standard there are enough quality blue cards to make a mon0-colored deck, if we get just one more playable counter and maybe one more bounce…