General Making Blue Do Things

[Jason Waddell]

Are there ways to abuse that here?

One issue with these unique build-arounds is that they're really not worth building around unless you have multiple copies, since you can't rely on having access. I feel like you need a suite of overlapping effects to obtain it, or a card that is flexible enough to actually warrant breaking singleton for.

 

[Jonas]

I think there would be actual table-flips if I put stasis in my cube.

 

[Konge]

I might give CFB a try, I've always used Trollandtoad, since they had cheap international shipping and decent selection/prices. And yeah, MKM sucks for bulk purchases. And cradle was also 30$ on Troll, it's insane.

About the blue. What about the artifact.dec? Can it be made to work without Moxen? It's related to the Tezzeret thread, but that's been a bit all over the place

 

[Jason Waddell]

I've been thinking about bringing Tezzeret, Agent of Balls back in, to bring in competing demand for lifegain enabler, Vault Skirge.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Can you make it an important colour in the Zombie/Birthing Pod suite?

 

[Chris Taylor]

Kinda...


More seriously: The two halves of the gravecrawler deck are recursive creatures, and sac outlets. Black is basically the only color that has recursive creatures, and I'm pretty okay with that. Blue has a few notable sac outlets, but the ones that come to mind off the top of my head make the game pretty miserable or are miserable themselves:



These seem interesting:

 

[Jason Waddell]

Kinda...

I already run both of these though.

 

[Jason Waddell]

If only this guy were a zombie...

 

[Jonas]

That vicerid is a vicious killer! *snip snip*

 

[Jason Waddell]

Apprentice might be playable without a mana activation cost.

 

[ahadabans]

Holly crap. Mana Vortex is awesome. Damn why does it have to cost double blue??!!? Might still work though as Ux tempo can probably handle that cost.

 

[Konge]

Funny, I was thinking the Rusalka without the mana activation cost and the more conventional blue looting (draw -> discard) would be nifty.

 

[CML]

Is that the goal? Isn't it aggro < midrange < control < disruptive aggro < aggro ?

Um, are there any like, blue prison decks we can build? How many tops and brainstorms does one need to pull off Counterbalance? That's a stupid idea, right?
What are ways that blue control has been interesting over the years?

err, "has a fighting chance"

prison decks in cube, oh boy. the fun thing about tangle wire and smokestack is that they usually stop doing stuff at some point and the game goes on in a warped and weird and enjoyable state. i hate countertop, way too durdly -- one player has all the decisions and all the fun; not great

the most interesting blue control deck IMO was Faeries, which did a ton of damage to itself and nearly always died before it killed you. brainstorm some ideas here

o god stasis

 

[Chris Taylor]

err, "has a fighting chance"

prison decks in cube, oh boy. the fun thing about tangle wire and smokestack is that they usually stop doing stuff at some point and the game goes on in a warped and weird and enjoyable state. i hate countertop, way too durdly -- one player has all the decisions and all the fun; not great

the most interesting blue control deck IMO was Faeries, which did a ton of damage to itself and nearly always died before it killed you. brainstorm some ideas here

o god stasis

It did a bunch of damage to itself? Through what, bitterblossom? Which it could champion away rather easily?

 

[Dom Harvey]

Also Thoughtseize, Underground River, being attacked

 

[Chris Taylor]

Oh yeah, underground river. Okay, I believe it now

 

[Lucre]

Oh god those assholes have all my cards! I know I had like 8 remands and at least two of those were foil. I cannot imagine what some of my crap from the early modern sets must have been worth by now. I am definitely going to have to call some sort of meeting between the old gang to see what's happened to all the cards.

Ravnica Block had lots of good cards! Remand is one that has a hard time flourishing in even moderately cutthroat formats like modern.
What do people have against blue anyway? It's great! are you sick of modular 3 and 4cc spells?
Tempo cards are a super cool way for blue to have a big role in some decks
Draw fixing is a super cool way for blue to have a big role in some decks
Providing targets for your grindy value tricks are a moderately cool way for blue to feel important
Being an enabler for cool niche crap like graveyard and spells matter (storm) is pretty sweet.
Did I mention how great the 3 drops are? 3s are important because you can do something else the turn you cast a 3cc spell once you are well into a game. Having a good 3 that replaces itself is kinda like having an extra turn! 3s are also often a little harder to dismiss than a 2 or 1cc spell.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Out of curiosity, has anybody ever pulled off the Vedalken Shackles + Sac Outlet deck?

 

[CML]

in the infancy of modern there was a miren, the moaning well + vedalken shackles thing going on. it was a more tilting eternal witness + cryptic command afaik

here we don't have that but i think all your cubes should be running helm of possession, a CML signature card, and all the decks that run it do stupid things with it

 

[Chris Taylor]

Oh god those assholes have all my cards! I know I had like 8 remands and at least two of those were foil. I cannot imagine what some of my crap from the early modern sets must have been worth by now. I am definitely going to have to call some sort of meeting between the old gang to see what's happened to all the cards.

Ravnica Block had lots of good cards! Remand is one that has a hard time flourishing in even moderately cutthroat formats like modern.
What do people have against blue anyway? It's great! are you sick of modular 3 and 4cc spells?
Tempo cards are a super cool way for blue to have a big role in some decks
Draw fixing is a super cool way for blue to have a big role in some decks
Providing targets for your grindy value tricks are a moderately cool way for blue to feel important
Being an enabler for cool niche crap like graveyard and spells matter (storm) is pretty sweet.
Did I mention how great the 3 drops are? 3s are important because you can do something else the turn you cast a 3cc spell once you are well into a game. Having a good 3 that replaces itself is kinda like having an extra turn! 3s are also often a little harder to dismiss than a 2 or 1cc spell.

Here's my beef lucas:

• Blue control is fine, and people are still on the fence about tempo in my cube.
• Blue does jack all on T1/2

Draw Fixing (Looting, scry etc) is a nice thing to have, but it makes strategies better, not open new strategies (You'll need to do a lot of selling for me on looters + value as a deck. ALL the good madness cards are green/red, for reference)

Blue always seems to be the "helper color" in decks, and just kinda gets played because it's good, or because you have a bunch of counters.

Also, having talked to rob and the guys recently: Nobody knows where any of our old magic shit is. I'd probably be sitting on a stockpile similar to the one you describe if I knew where to find it. The old cube in the pink sleeves has mostly been integrated into their thousand card monstrosity, but there's no foil remand in there, let me tell you. I got my FNM foil one a while back, it looks sweet

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Out of curiosity, has anybody ever pulled off the Vedalken Shackles + Sac Outlet deck?

I've had the helm of possession, phyrexian metamorph on helm deck

 

[CML]

I really can't recommend Helm of Possession more highly, it's the best design along for creature-stealers along with Dominating Licid. It seems like that kind of effect had its heyday in Tempest block?

I don't know what to do with blue either, the Zombie color thing doesn't work at all over here -- I could throw in some more U zombies from Grimgrin to Tattered Drake to "special U gravecrawler" and still nobody would go for it

 

[Dom Harvey]

Obviously there aren't many blue Zombies, but there's room for a blue Birthing Pod deck.

Crucial ingredients:
- Pestermite/Deceiver Exarch to untap Pod
- Riftwing Cloudskate as a 'cheap' 5-drop to Pod into a good 6 (Consecrated Sphinx? Geralf's Mindcrusher?); see also Phyrexian mana guys, Affinity, Evoke (as high-end Pod cards that aren't dead early e.g. Mulldrifter) etc.
- good cards to Pod away: ideally ETB creatures like Aether Adept, Vendilion Clique (also see: persist/undying guys like Stormbound Geist or Glen Elendra Archmage)
- good cards to Pod into: Master of Waves is a big one here (seriously, try it), and I'd strongly recommend Body Double.
- clones: Phantasmal Image, Phyrexian Metamorph, Sakashima's Student

 

[CML]

yeah, that falls under the category (bleh, categories) of 'blue midrange dude decks,' which are popular here and include the often-played sea gate oracle, venser, shaper savant, mulldrifter etc. venser, the sojourner and galepowder mage are baffling exclusions from other people's cubes, maybe there exists no 'blink' deck but there are 'value-oriented' midrange decks that have their typical flaws of being weak to mass removal and over-the-top threats. Pod is nice in those, gives them a card quality engine if not also inevitability -- and is a ton of fun to play.

is pestermite a defensible inclusion? it seems on the weak side to me

 

[Konge]

We ran Pestermite for a while, just because it's so modal. However, it was often disappointing and ended up being cut.