General Noncreature Blue One Drops

[Fulcrum]

So let's say that your cube design leads you to cut these cards to make things like Tormenting Voice and Grapple With the Past good and less niche. What takes their place?



I really dislike having curves that start at 2. What interesting cards are there at the 1 cmc slot?



Which 1 cmc counterspells are playable and which ones aren't? Do different formats want different counters?



What cantrips are fair and interesting if we want stuff like Cathartic Reunion to be really good?



Obviously all of this stuff depends on your format and junk like that, but I really would like to get opinions/ experiences on some of these cards as well as other more obscure cards at this slot that are secretly good/ interesting.

 

[ahadabans]

is a neat effect. I like a lot of what you listed though. Silent Departure is solid. Piracy Charm is flexible. And if you like Distortion Strike, there's also

which is a nice cantrip when you don't have an attacker (cast it on your opponents dude EOT).

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater though. Brainstorm is unique and it's really only good if you have some shuffle effects.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Don't forget aether spellbomb.

 

[sigh]

Careful study is great! Strictly worse than Faithless Looting, but that's ok, because we are aiming to let red and green spells breathe more. I'm also still feeling out Serum Visions because it's one of the lower impact of the blue can trips, so it's more likely to still be fine.

One cycling costs might also be an important consideration, with:

I might try Censor over Force Spike because that cycling cost is so nice

 

[Salmo2]

Censor has been playing pretty well for me. It feels like a slightly-worse Miscalculation, which is good since Miscalculation is great.

 

[ahadabans]

is another weaker cantrip. It's instant too, so plays nice with draw/go strategies.

 

[Velrun]

May I suggest?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

is another weaker cantrip. It's instant too, so plays nice with draw/go strategies.

I played the shit out of this card back in the day, it's pretty sweet! It also really, really needs a reprint, now that it's Oracle wording actually says "Scry 1"!

 

[Fulcrum]

is a neat effect. I like a lot of what you listed though. Silent Departure is solid. Piracy Charm is flexible. And if you like Distortion Strike, there's also

which is a nice cantrip when you don't have an attacker (cast it on your opponents dude EOT).

Quicken is such a polarizing card for me. I've played a miser's copy in RUG Scapeshift and even won a mirror match with it as well as in RTR-Theros Standrad UW Control where it was a house with Sphinx's Revelation. On the other hand, it's always been a 23rd card when I draft the MTGO cube and plays out like Reach Through Mists like 95% of the time. It might be one of those constructed only cards.

I like brainstorm but I basically included it because it always gets lumped in with Ponder and Preordain whenever this topic comes up.

Careful study is great! Strictly worse than Faithless Looting, but that's ok, because we are aiming to let red and green spells breathe more. I'm also still feeling out Serum Visions because it's one of the lower impact of the blue can trips, so it's more likely to still be fine.

One cycling costs might also be an important consideration, with:

I might try Censor over Force Spike because that cycling cost is so nice

Serum Visions seems like it's right on the line of being fine/ too good depending on what your format wants to do. It's probably one that requires testing in the specific format.

I also like the cyclers and I would be super interested in hearing how the sphinx works out.


Opt and Sleight of Hand are neat, low power blue cantrips. I'm always scared of Sleight of Hand because it sees a little play in modern but that's probably because it's the fourth choice and the top 2 cantrips in that format are banned. It's probably fine. Probably another one of those cards that needs testing.

I think these guys are also interesting. I forgot to include them in the OP. How deep do we have to go to make Obsessive Search playable? I kind of like that it goes well with Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice, and Cathartic Reunion. Peek might make people feel bad. Leap is like a less interesting Shadow Rift. I threw Gitaxian Probe in but there's always a lot of discussion about how healthy it is for formats.



Edit: Forgot this little gem.

 

[RavebornMuse]

If you're sincerely committed to pushing the sifting-style cards but still want a blue section with 1-drop noncreatures, I think this is pretty much where you want to be:



The first three are all interesting effects that scale well into the late-game, whereas the last two are just solid plays at any point and feed into different strategies. Fundamentally, you'll want to make selections that make sense with what you have planned for each of your color pairings; what tools does each guild that touches blue want, how fast are they, how badly do they want a 1-drop blue play, etc.

I would caution strongly against Peek/Probe, as both disrupt the tension of the game (hand reveals, especially on T1, are miserable) for virtually no net fun, and a lot of these "almost-Ponder" variants are going to distract from the sifting tools you're trying to push as viable. Remember, players expect blue to be the best at drawing cards; if you give them too many of these "compromise" pieces like Serum Visions, there's a fair chance they'll continue to ignore your card selection tools in other colors out of habit, and that counts doubly so if you're not drafting frequently, or if you're drafting with more average-skilled players.

I like Shadow Rift, Distortion Strike, and even Leap (barely), but these cards only really make sense if blue cares about connecting with any of its creatures; I learned from my last list that giving combat tricks to a color that is too invested in control just leaves them as draft chaff, but if you give a blue-touching guild incentives to swing, they can be pretty sweet. If you're running any of them, I'd recommend you run two; the redundancy will be good in decks that want them, and it's a clearer signal in-draft if players keep seeing blue tricks. Three would probably be excessive, and 1 is just really inconsistent (none of this advice on counts matter if you're running a massive list, of course, where variance will screw you out of most real strategic building).

Similarly, Mental Note, Thought Scour, and Careful Study will be good choices if your environment ties blue into a graveyard-matters (or for the latter, discard-matters) style of play, and I could easily see packing all three, because they're a lot of fun and they have great effects.