General Promoting Blue as a support colour for tempo/aggro

[Erik Twice]

I'm reworking the blue section of my cube and one of my goals is to help make blue play better with other colours. This requires broadening blue so that it can better work in a support role for creature based decks, normally tempo or aggro.

For example, I want to make Blue a better player in the UG pair, specially in Survival of the Fittest decks, and make UW a bit broader beyond blink.

I also want UB to also be more playable as a creature-based pairing instead of just heavy control.

How do you achieve this?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Here's a link to an old thread on the subject from some years back.



Since then I think we've gotten some good blue flyers, which I think is a good way to promote blue aggression. UW Flyers is a classic deck that I think utilises blue aggression in a pretty 'honest' way, with tap/bounce as a blue way of clearing blockers and cheap evasive creatures as credible threats.

 

[Brad]

I run a UB aggro-value deck based on this kind of stuff. I double up on most one drops, because I'd rather have the guys I need than random 2/Xs. Benthic Biomancer was really solid the last time I used it. Filters the hand, often gets a little value, and attacks for 2 on turn 2.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Don't forget our good buddy Spectral Sailor, the best Azure Mage ever printed.

 

[Erik Twice]

A small tweak I thought about recently was replacing this:



For this:



I also very much agree that Skaab Ruinator helps a lot.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Spirits in general are really good for this.

 

[Erik Twice]

Here's a deck I just drafted on Cubetutor. Didn't manage to get reanimation spells but it looks solid and show how UB may might into this:

UB Tempo from CubeTutor.com

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think all my 3-0 attacking blue decks were on the backs of weird 3/4 fliers for 3 mana. Blue has some mana-efficient beaters, but usually they have some downside you can offset.

 

[Brad]

I think all my 3-0 attacking blue decks were on the backs of weird 3/4 fliers for 3 mana. Blue has some mana-efficient beaters, but usually they have some downside you can offset.

I think a lot of the X/1 fliers for X are pretty valid, depending on the environment. Getting a couple free 2-3 point hits is a nice chunk. You could even do WU fliers, which has several decent lords.

Also, Adeliz, the Cinder Wind plus Stormchaser Mage is easy UR aggro. Pteramander, depending.

 

[FeedEd]

What about Grand Architect? It is a bridge between fast mana for artifact and blue beatdown

 

[Velrun]

So I run this cool boy



To me Un-cards are dangerous. I am always scared and I playtest those cards three times as much as other cards before they go into my cube. With Blurry Beeble I had to take into account who my local play group is and the result is that to us it is simply a Looter il-Kor that can also block attacking creatures.

I would strongly advice NOT running Beeble unless you know it will play fair and treat each opponent equal. However if you like effects that don’t treat opponents equal (Examples: Hexproof from color on Knight of Grace, protection from color on Chameleon Colossus or can’t target color on Doom Blade) then you can go ahead and run Beeble anyways.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

So I run this cool boy

I just added this girl to my cube



Pretty sweet card honestly!

And if you want to keep to existing cards, this one has been really sweet for me in the past in a blue-based tempo shell:



Cheap evasion that easily grows to 2 power, or more. It works great with ninjas as well, thank to its cheap redeploy cost (though you obv don't really want to return it once it accrued a few counters).

 

[sigh]

we really like beeble over here. And it's an artifact, which comes in really handy more than I would have thought!

 

[Brad]

100% chance I'm pre-boarding on some glasses if Beeble were in my cube.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

vs

Fight club! Should you run either or both?

 

[Velrun]

See my reasonings above for running/not running Beeble. It 100 % depends on your play group.

I personally dislike Shadow as a keyword unless you run multiple Shadow creatures. To me it is pseudo parasitic.

 

[Erik Twice]

I simply assume Looter il-Kor is unblockable. In fact, I would think twice about running him if he wasn't!

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Let's frame the fight differently then; Assuming both of them are unblockable is it reasonable to run both if we want to promote a more aggressive blue section?

 

[Brad]

I ran UB aggro on Sunday. Decided to go all-in, full on aggro deck, 6 1 drops, Bazaar Trademage, full on beaters with some yard interaction.

The deck won't really operate like that unless you picked up quite a few yard-freebies like Bloodghast and Prized Amalgam to really up your clock, but you won't have the yard velocity to hit those early unless you're running full-on dredge anyways.

You lack the burn from red decks or the disruptive hitters of the white decks. Your creatures aren't as big as the green decks. You could run some counterspells, but you're pretty desperate to find a high density of enablers, payoffs, and early pressure. So... how the hell do you win?

I think the correct aim for the deck should be to apply some pressure early on. A few hits from your early guys can get them to a precarious life total. From there, you lean into the yard to continue your pressure while their lowered life total makes blocking a nightmare. Gisa and Geralf to accumulate a board. Recursive one drops getting haphazardly thrown into combat. Deep Analysis to rebuild. Your opening hand needs too precise a balance of recursion, discard/mill, high power ratios, and lands to reliably expect you're going to bash face. You have to be ready to grind them out.

You also need to be prepared to play a looting effect, discard jack shit, then draw step pick up your Bloodghast and realize you probably just lost 2-6 damage over that. It happened in 3 of 9 games this weekend on a turn 2 loot. Probably cost me 2 of those games lol.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I've had one very old UB tempo list as a winning decklist, but boy did I run cards I wouldn't recommend anymore back then. Opposition, Pack Rat, Phyrexian Metamorph (too easy a first pick, consistently matches the strongest thing on the board for only 3 mana), and Whip of Erebos (teamwide lifelink is a slog). Also, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, which I got to ultimate one game with Venser, Shaper Savant on the battlefield, and Withdraw in hand. Suh-weet! Also, it ran Tangle Wire, which I'm still a huge fan of, because it solves itself, eventually, but really allows an aggro deck to build up pressure.

 

[safra]

I ran UB aggro on Sunday. Decided to go all-in, full on aggro deck, 6 1 drops, Bazaar Trademage, full on beaters with some yard interaction.

The deck won't really operate like that unless you picked up quite a few yard-freebies like Bloodghast and Prized Amalgam to really up your clock, but you won't have the yard velocity to hit those early unless you're running full-on dredge anyways.

You lack the burn from red decks or the disruptive hitters of the white decks. Your creatures aren't as big as the green decks. You could run some counterspells, but you're pretty desperate to find a high density of enablers, payoffs, and early pressure. So... how the hell do you win?

I think the correct aim for the deck should be to apply some pressure early on. A few hits from your early guys can get them to a precarious life total. From there, you lean into the yard to continue your pressure while their lowered life total makes blocking a nightmare. Gisa and Geralf to accumulate a board. Recursive one drops getting haphazardly thrown into combat. Deep Analysis to rebuild. Your opening hand needs too precise a balance of recursion, discard/mill, high power ratios, and lands to reliably expect you're going to bash face. You have to be ready to grind them out.

You also need to be prepared to play a looting effect, discard jack shit, then draw step pick up your Bloodghast and realize you probably just lost 2-6 damage over that. It happened in 3 of 9 games this weekend on a turn 2 loot. Probably cost me 2 of those games lol.

Your point about the early damage is crucial I think. But let's think about what blue has access to that other colours don't when it comes to aggro. Sure, it's not much, but if it's not overly pushed, unblockability is an interesting gameplay puzzle. Another way to look into making blocking a nightmare might be to lean into cheap fliers, and looter il-kor type guys, and then figure out how to buff them:

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Evasion and equipment is a classic combo! That and access to cheap cantrips (preordain, ponder) and counterspells (counterspell, force spike) to help keep your evasive creatures connecting.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Your point about the early damage is crucial I think. But let's think about what blue has access to that other colours don't when it comes to aggro. Sure, it's not much, but if it's not overly pushed, unblockability is an interesting gameplay puzzle.

I've not seen anyone mentioned them yet, but there's a few blue creatures in my cube that I love for this type of gameplay.



All of these have some way of forcing damage through, which incidentally works great with saboteur cards like...

 

[Erik Twice]

By the way, everytime I think of this archetype I think of this:

 

[genericco]

my favorites: