This is kinda connected with the previous thread that I made where I said that I find myself playing green constantly despite not liking the color that much from a flavor perspective.
I find a lot of that has to do with the an issue in the color pie of these color combinations. BU has been historically a very powerful color combination and the reason for that was simple. Discard, counterspells, card draw, removal, library manipulation, tutors, rituals, etc. made those two colors clearly have the most powerful slice of the color pie. Now that things have been fixed though this color combination is kinda left in the dust to the point where you rarely see any UB/x decks anymore.
Mark Rosewater wrote in an article what the problem with designing BU cards for Wizards is
What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
Blue and black tend to be the kings of card advantage. Blue is primary in card drawing and black is secondary (tied with green). Blue has counterspells and bounce. Black has discard and creature destruction. The two colors are excellent at slowly, and sometimes not so slowly, gaining the upper hand, often subtly enough that less-experienced players aren't even aware of it.
What this means is that blue and black thematically click together well. The two colors have a clear flavor and feel that mesh well. Blue is sneaky and cunning. Black in underhanded and ruthless. Mix them together and you have a guild you might not want to trust.
What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
While philosophically the two colors mesh well, mechanically they are the two ally colors that have the least in common. Now, this is a pain for making hybrid cards, but shouldn't a clear mechanical identity make gold cards easier to design? The problem here is that while blue and black don't overlap much in actual mechanics, they have a lot of abilities that are close to the other but just a little different.
I'll walk through some of them to demonstrate:
Card Drawing: As I said above, blue is #1 and black is tied for #2. But blue always does its card drawing straight up, often these days at instant speed. Black always has to trade something for its cards—most often life. Black usually does this at sorcery speed.
Evasion: Blue and black both have flying. Blue also has unblockability and islandwalk. Black has intimidate and swampwalk. Black also has deathtouch, which doesn't technically give it evasion but heavily encourages the opponent not to block.
Library Denial: Blue "mills," meaning it makes the opponent put some number of cards from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard. Black "extorts," meaning that it goes into the library and exiles particular cards. The flavor here is that blue makes you forget in general while black lobotomizes you.
Hand Denial: Blue and black are the only two colors that can easily deal with a threat before it hits the battlefield. Blue has the ability to use counterspells while black has the ability to force the opponent to discard.
Tutoring: Blue and black are the two colors best at getting specific cards out of your library and into your hand. Blue tends to be more focused, with cards directing you what kind of card you can get, while black has the more blanket tutors, sometimes with an additional cost associated.
Stealing Creatures: Blue takes the opponent's creatures while they are alive, while black takes them after they've died.
Learning the Opponent's Hand: Blue has spells that peek. Black gets glances as part of certain discard spells where it needs to see the hand, such as Duress or Coercion, to make choices of what gets discarded.
Indeed these color match perfectly from a flavor perspective but mechanically they do a lot of the same things just differently. This problem is the reason why Wizards has assigned milling to this color combo and I can't tell you how sick I am of this color pair being hosed this way. I could punch a puppy for every card like Phenax, God of Deception and sadly it's not even a rarity.
That brings us to BG
This color combo has become without a doubt one of the most powerful ones in the game. You can look at Standard or Modern or Legacy or whatever else. You will surely find good decks in that color combo.
It started with "The Rock" and then moved over to things like the infamous Jund or Abzan and so on. The reason for that is also simple. Despite being an enemy color combination these two colors work perfectly together.
Black brings the disruption, removal and card advantage and green brings the big, efficient bodies that can dominate the board and can kill the opponent quickly and it also provides cards with some kind of card advantage.
The end result? Attrition-based decks that grind the opponent out and then end the game with efficient, big threats(Deranged Hermit, Spiritmonger, Tarmogoyf, Siege Rhino, etc.)
Now don't get me wrong I love this color combination and the decks it enables but Im just so annoyed by the fact that an enemy color combo works so much better together than an allied one. I don't think that is how the color pie is supposed to be but here we are now.
Somebody else who is annoyed how BU gets shafted all time because of this and who wishes that Wizards would finally find a good solution to this?
Not every color combination is going to be the strongest all the time. If you assume that every allied 1, 2, and 3 color combination rotates equally, then you'd expect UB to be the best every 15 seasons, and it was like 8 seasons ago where the faeries deck was the best.
I honestly don't get how people keep complaining about Blue and black getting shafted, especially after ravnica/theros standard where mono-blue and mono-black were at the top of the food chain, and where esper decks were viable.
Not every color combination is going to be the strongest all the time. If you assume that every allied 1, 2, and 3 color combination rotates equally, then you'd expect UB to be the best every 15 seasons, and it was like 8 seasons ago where the faeries deck was the best.
I honestly don't get how people keep complaining about Blue and black getting shafted, especially after ravnica/theros standard where mono-blue and mono-black were at the top of the food chain, and where esper decks were viable.
i'd imagine its more to do with u/b as a color pair relating to multicolor cards. individually, nah each color is pretty fine. its when they pair up for a multicolor card that we run into this just slap mill onto it mentality.
Not every color combination is going to be the strongest all the time. If you assume that every allied 1, 2, and 3 color combination rotates equally, then you'd expect UB to be the best every 15 seasons, and it was like 8 seasons ago where the faeries deck was the best.
I honestly don't get how people keep complaining about Blue and black getting shafted, especially after ravnica/theros standard where mono-blue and mono-black were at the top of the food chain, and where esper decks were viable.
i'd imagine its more to do with u/b as a color pair relating to multicolor cards. individually, nah each color is pretty fine. its when they pair up for a multicolor card that we run into this just slap mill onto it mentality.
Find the really bad one. It isn't that hard. This is a consistent trend when it comes to BU cards. People in spoiler season already do call all BU cards bad or having something to do with mill(and therefore being bad) before they are being spoiled and often they are even right...
Really we need more cards like Diabolic Vision, Essence Vortex and less of what WOTC is giving us for UB spells. UB Creatures is another story...
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Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
I actually think the whole allied and enemy color pair idea is essentially obsolete. There's some interesting flavor there, but there's no particular penalty for putting enemy colors together in the same deck and no particular bonus for putting allied colors together, so I'm not sure what the point is supposed to be. To me it's just fine from a game design perspective to say there are five different colors that each have different philosophies, advantages and weaknesses. The ally/enemy idea just doesn't really add anything.
For that matter some of the enemy pairings seem just as logical and natural as any allied color pair, such as WR and BG.
I definitely think that BU cards have some awkwardness, as described by MaRo, but for people who like to play with Dimir colors the options aren't limited by any means. To be fair, you're often playing a third color alongside them, but with the mana fixing available in Standard and Modern right now the splash isn't that surprising.
Last Standard season was chock full of Esper decks, which were only really playing white for Ojutai. Straight Dimir control wasn't out of the mix, nor is it now. And in Modern Grixis decks are all the rage: you can pick Delver, Twin, or control and go from there. Sure, they have red, but you get to play with all the powerful Dimir cards as well! And it's not like anyone is just playing BG either, those decks are almost always splashing as well.
The reason for bad UB cards really has nothing to do with flavor. You get bad UB cards because UB is traditionally strictly control, and because Wizards hates control now, the color's abilities are changed.
I think it'd be cool to see mill move more to artifacts and less to UB. I would indeed rather see some cool UB cards like Soul Manipulation.
I don't agree that enemy color pairs should be worse than allied color pairs though. I think all 10 pairs should be balanced equally. If 5 of the pairs are supposed to be worse by design, then they will be tier 2 or tier 3, and then at that point it's better not to print cards for the pairing at all.
People used to tell me that there is a "pendulum" in Magic. The pendulum on UB being good is taking a heck of a long time though... I have just accepted this and moved on to bigger, better things. I used to criticize GW, saying that it is the meekest color combo in Magic and just boring (and weak) to play in any format. In the recent years, I have learned to play GR Brian Kibler, GW Bogles in Modern, and Junk Company in Modern. I remember at the time of GR in Standard (Flinthoof Boar, Strangleroot Geist, Hellrider, Thundermaw Hellkite, Arbor Elf), I was very surprised that he made a deck in GR that I actually enjoyed playing.
I don't actually expect UB to be good any time soon. So instead of colors that I like to play, I have learned to stick with archetypes that I like to play. The days of UB Faeries and UB Grave Titan Control are long over.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
U/B simply does what magic currently doesn't support. What are the most U/B feeling mechanics:
Transmute which we will never see agan.
Fateseal which we will never see again.
U/B is now about evasive creatures (not flying though because that is U/W) and mill. Sadly mill can't be terribly viable as it seems impossible for r&d to tune for both 40 card and 60 card (which to be fair is acceptable).
U/B is the color combination of the mind and the library, of discard and countermagic which are two incredibly hated mechanics by newer/poor players. That leaves us with mill.
It's not that U/B decks can't be viable competitively, it's just that many U/B cards simply feel bad when compared to the others in cycles. We see amazingly flavorful cards like Reap Intellect and Psychic Intrusion yet they are unplayable because they are potentially "unfun".
And that is the crux of the issue, U/B does things that are seen as "unfun" to players. Which is a damn shame.
I think that both B and U are very strong colors and have their fair showing in all formats. I will however agree that UB cards have been lackluster in the last few sets. The only contructed playable UB spells in the last 3 years have been Nightveil Specter, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, Silumgar, the Drifting Death and his older self Dragonlord Silumgar (and Nephalia Drownyard, if you want to be very lenient). Interestingly, all of these are permanents, while I generally associate UB with instants and sorceries. RTR blocvk was a huge let down for Dimir fans with a dreadful mechanic.
So why is it like this? MaRo stated in several podcasts that UB is the hardest color combination to design for and is very limiting in what it can do without drastically breaking the color pie. The problem with UB's central mechanic (mill) is that it aims for a different win condition than every other color combination. This isolates UB mechanically and limits overlap to other colors.
My guess is that it would take a completely new mechanic to get UB out of its current isolation. Something that either interacts with the opponents library and their hand or some more intricate graveyard interactions that would encourage selfmill or at least takes advantage of the abundance of mill themed cards.
Once again I want to stress that I do not think U or B are weak colors, they are very strong combined in one deck and in other combinations. It is multicolor UB that is lacking, and it has been for some time.
Not every color combination is going to be the strongest all the time. If you assume that every allied 1, 2, and 3 color combination rotates equally, then you'd expect UB to be the best every 15 seasons, and it was like 8 seasons ago where the faeries deck was the best.
I honestly don't get how people keep complaining about Blue and black getting shafted, especially after ravnica/theros standard where mono-blue and mono-black were at the top of the food chain, and where esper decks were viable.
i'd imagine its more to do with u/b as a color pair relating to multicolor cards. individually, nah each color is pretty fine. its when they pair up for a multicolor card that we run into this just slap mill onto it mentality.
Find the really bad one. It isn't that hard. This is a consistent trend when it comes to BU cards. People in spoiler season already do call all BU cards bad or having something to do with mill(and therefore being bad) before they are being spoiled and often they are even right...
Eh... consider how strong that card is against a UB control deck, though. This cycle of gold cards... they are very strong against the archetypes of their own colors. The reason UB's card is "weak" is only that UB isn't played at this very moment. Wait and see what happens in a few months. It might wind up being the strongest.
U/B simply does what magic currently doesn't support. What are the most U/B feeling mechanics:
Transmute which we will never see agan.
Fateseal which we will never see again.
U/B is now about evasive creatures (not flying though because that is U/W) and mill. Sadly mill can't be terribly viable as it seems impossible for r&d to tune for both 40 card and 60 card (which to be fair is acceptable).
U/B is the color combination of the mind and the library, of discard and countermagic which are two incredibly hated mechanics by newer/poor players. That leaves us with mill.
It's not that U/B decks can't be viable competitively, it's just that many U/B cards simply feel bad when compared to the others in cycles. We see amazingly flavorful cards like Reap Intellect and Psychic Intrusion yet they are unplayable because they are potentially "unfun".
And that is the crux of the issue, U/B does things that are seen as "unfun" to players. Which is a damn shame.
That may be but then Wizards is having a huge double standard.
I can currently loop Thoughtseize with Den Protector and nobody is really bothered by that interaction besides some control players.
Last Standard season was dominated by a Mono-Black deck which discarded and killed everything you had and then beat you down it just played a Turn 2 Pack Rat against you which was potentially game over already.
In Innistrad-RTR Standard Im sure the most "unfun" card was Bonfire of the Damned. "I navigated the entire game carefully and eventually came out ahead and was about to win but then my opponent topdecked Bonfire of the Damned..." is a common story from that time.
You mention a card like Reap Intellect and yet UW got Sphinx's Revelation and BR got Rakdos's Return. When these spells resolved in big numbers you were guaranteed to not have any fun anymore.
Even leaving this topic alone there are also other things that just bother me.
What's for example up with Duskmantle Seer? Why is this card bad? Yeah we get it that Dark Confidant is far too powerful but having that text on a 4 mana mythic rare gold card is even too much to ask? Yeah but let's give Orzhov or Selesnya ridiculously good and pushed cards like Obzedat, Ghost Council, Blood Baron of Vizkopa or Voice of Resurgence.
What's up with Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker? Doesn't the title "Mind Drinker" imply that you gain something? Nope, just another card with some useless mill slapped on. At least he is a 5 mana 2/4 flyer. Still better than a rare sorcery that just mills like Mind Grind.
Dimir was terrible as a whole in the entire RTR block. I have trouble remembering even a single Dimir card that saw serious play. Cipher was completely unplayable.
I even played a pre-release event choosing Dimir and of course I got steamrolled because Dimir was full of bad cards while the people choosing Boros had an easy way to victory because their cards where so good they just crushed everyone.
Galerion, you're not wrong. But I don't see it changing. As someone who only plays U/B it is incredibly frustrating. And don't get me started on the Vorthos issues with the color combination.
Yooo, i play Boros all my life and last year i started building a modern UB heavy control deck for modern. Yep, Galerion is absolutely right. The U and B mixing needs a new breath fresh mechanically.
First, for the record i love what the combination represents (manipulation, denial, methodical gaining, etc). Also, yes, if i was asked to create the most evil-cruel-inhuman character for MTG, he would be UB, and this is also the battle plan for UB decks. This is why it so hated by the majority of players. My boros can win you 2-0 in eight minutes and they still don't complain as much as when losing to UB control....
Now, returning on topic, the main problem are the gold/hybrid cards. Ok, in recent years there have been praiseworthy cards like Agony Warp, Shadow of Doubt (which is about 10 years old right now!), Notion Thief and Countersquall, but this where it ends pretty much. Funky or cute cards can also be found but they end up being just ''funky'' or ''cute''.
What happened to Recoil and Undermine?
The main problem, anti-cantrol politics aside, is that both colors deal with others in indirect ways so much that they can't find a mutual way to co-work. This leaves us with few solutions. One would be the combination of effects, such as discard along with extortion or bounce along with discard. Do you see something familiar? Yes, this cards pretty much exist. This is what Recoil or Notion Thief do. They combine already existing effects.
And thus we return to the beginning, this combination needs new ideas, a change in its philosophy first and foremost, OR AT LEAST a change mechanically.
Master manipulator you say? Show it. Make an effect which changes how a particular rule works when this card is cast. For example this creature:
''If a spell or effect requires a player to make a ''may'' decision, it is you who makes it instead'' (this is what i wanted Phenax to be, excuse my wording, it is just an example)
Methodical gaining you say? Make the Dark Confidant effect UB. It is surely in flavor.
Denial of enemy resources you say? Make cards that deny him drawing a card this turn or even better give him the false hope that by paying a ''small'' cost, like paying 2-3 life, he can draw the card instead only to die a turn faster.
This my opinion. Now, about BG, just like WR, those colors were made to co-exist because each one's specialities cover the weaknesses of the other one.
The problem for Silumgar's command is that it is the most expensive.
For this mana cost you would play a Threat or a strong lock. Even with its flexibility 3UB is expensive. Cryptic command had UUU in this cost but it costs 4 manas.
Not only that but the modes are just not powerful. It costs five mana and you can't even counter any spells, just non-creature ones. You also can't just kill creatures with it, you can just give them -3/-3.
This card is totally useless when your opponent is playing Siege Rhinos, Courser of Kruphix, Polukranos, World Eaters, etc. So what you do want to do then? Bounce their creatures to their hand again with your 5 mana card? Bounce is most of the time not played even if it's cheap.
This card is far too conditional for it's mana coast and it makes it hard to get a 2-for-1 of this card like you would expect to get from such an expensive card. Cryptic Command clearly ended up more powerful than was probably intended but this card is clearly a step in the completely opposite direction.
Galerion, you're not wrong. But I don't see it changing. As someone who only plays U/B it is incredibly frustrating. And don't get me started on the Vorthos issues with the color combination.
That's the sad thing about it. I mean Im a big supporter of Wizards and their hard work and I agree with many of their decisions but their stagnation and their lack of originality when it comes to UB is just jarring.
What Vorthos issue are you talking about? Im not one so Im not aware of any issues there.
I just came back to Magic after many years, and finding that my favorite color combination is enjoying this amazing moment is disappointing at the very least.
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Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.
Not every color combination is going to be the strongest all the time. If you assume that every allied 1, 2, and 3 color combination rotates equally, then you'd expect UB to be the best every 15 seasons, and it was like 8 seasons ago where the faeries deck was the best.
I honestly don't get how people keep complaining about Blue and black getting shafted, especially after ravnica/theros standard where mono-blue and mono-black were at the top of the food chain, and where esper decks were viable.
i'd imagine its more to do with u/b as a color pair relating to multicolor cards. individually, nah each color is pretty fine. its when they pair up for a multicolor card that we run into this just slap mill onto it mentality.
Yeah, but you can play that game with a lot of cycles. It's not that hard to find the bad one with DGM charms either. Cycles are kind of a poor example in general. (Besides, white wins the Who Has The Worst Card In The Most Cycles contest by a wide margin just because lifegain. Green has the Who Is The Most Off-Theme contest with cards like Leaf Arrow in a set where everything was huge and Crash Landing in a set where everything was multicolor. You could find an argument for every color being the worst.)
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Dimir in gatecrash was so bad :(, the God disappointing and the command, well maybe it will be needed when hero's downfall rotates (not sure how to kill walkers yet).
Silumgar is pretty sweet and Ashiok amazing despite the original reception, probably because of how poorly dimir and mill was handled in gatecrash.
Ashiok is actually using Black and blue together extremely well.
If blue and black are vorthosly about manipulation then blue black should be about backing people into corner's forcing decisions they don't want to make. It really needs to be about interacting with your opponent not avoiding them and going for their library.
Ashiok. 1. uses your opponents strength against them,the more power your opponents have the more powerful Ashiok is. *flips Kreanos, oh sweet I'll take that thanks*
2. Forces a choice between attacking Ashiok and attacking the life total. Although this is true of all walkers, it is most relevant to Ashiok. because of the decks they are played in, Thier high loyalty and the impending but not immediate threat it poses. For many walkers you know very clearly when you need to kill them for Ashiok you can't know if you have to or not and its all contextual it forces opposing players to make tough choices.
Blue black is about choices... choices for you choices for your opponents, a Blue black player wants to outsmart their opponent. A Blue white player is much less subtle they want to hold back and over power them. This new world of situational removal and counters is good for a blue black player, but they need the tools and they need them at lower mana costs.
Dimir in gatecrash was so bad :(, the God disappointing and the command, well maybe it will be needed when hero's downfall rotates (not sure how to kill walkers yet).
Silumgar is pretty sweet and Ashiok amazing despite the original reception, probably because of how poorly dimir and mill was handled in gatecrash.
Ashiok is actually using Black and blue together extremely well.
If blue and black are vorthosly about manipulation then blue black should be about backing people into corner's forcing decisions they don't want to make. It really needs to be about interacting with your opponent not avoiding them and going for their library.
Ashiok. 1. uses your opponents strength against them,the more power your opponents have the more powerful Ashiok is. *flips Kreanos, oh sweet I'll take that thanks*
2. Forces a choice between attacking Ashiok and attacking the life total. Although this is true of all walkers, it is most relevant to Ashiok. because of the decks they are played in, Thier high loyalty and the impending but not immediate threat it poses. For many walkers you know very clearly when you need to kill them for Ashiok you can't know if you have to or not and its all contextual it forces opposing players to make tough choices.
Blue black is about choices... choices for you choices for your opponents, a Blue black player wants to outsmart their opponent. A Blue white player is much less subtle they want to hold back and over power them. This new world of situational removal and counters is good for a blue black player, but they need the tools and they need them at lower mana costs.
Agreed. Silumgar, the Drifting Death, Dragonlord Silumgar and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver are recent examples of black-blue cards done right. If they keep up that direction than Im at least not unhappy. If they start making cards like Nemesis of Reason again than that sucks.
They should use designs like Wrexial, the Risen Deep or Mindleech Mass more often. That feels black-blue. The opponents stuff is stolen and used against him.
Or Recoil. A perfect mix of blue and black. Obviously they won't reprint that anymore since it can hit lands but nothing is stopping them from making a version that can only hit nonland permanents. Undermine is another card that could be reprinted. This card is not even legal in Modern and yet it fits perfectly with Wizards modern design direction. It's an 3 mana counter with upside just like Counterflux or Psychic Strike or Render Silent.
The "enemy colors are worse" thing is hard to believe because R and U have been BFF since Alpha, but this may be a special case because it's the favorite child Blue, along with the color that can make the best use of it's OP card advantage and denial.
I have a feeling that MaRo really doesn't like black, he keeps walking on circles claiming it's not evil and we shouldn't hate it, but as soon as he writes an article about another color he spares no chance to say how black is dark, creepy, bad and ****ed up. Even worse, he spares no chance to call it's native mechanics unfun, unfair and problematic.
Rakdos is always getting shat on and is now probably the absolute worst color pair in eternal. It's literally the only color pair that cannot deal with each other's weaknesses.
Orzhov manages to be playable out of the extreme potency of spells like Bob, Stoneforge, Swords, Thoughtseize, etc. Otherwise it'd be unplayable because there just isn't any synergy here.
Dimir remains viable in eternal thanks to extremely powerful cards from before NWO, but other than that? Mill, mill, mill, mill, mill. The absolute worst mechanic is all they get.
Golgari remains the only black color pair worth playing, and only because "Discard, Removal and Fatties" is a foolproof formula for success. They (and with they I mean MaRo) absolutely despise Dredge and want it to dissapear forever. They hated Jund in standard, kicked it out of Modern (it got better), Deathrite got banned, they overcosted Scavenge to death and printed the best graveyard hate ever in the same block just in case, and I eagerly wait a Blogatog post moaning about how Abrupt Decay was a mistake. So yes, while this color combo is amazing, I'm pretty sure it isn't because they want it to be, not after everything BG has been punished so hard.
I feel the same way about UR recently. I mean in RTR some guilds got things like Boros Reckoner, Advent of the Wurm, Voice of Resurgence, Abrupt Decay ETC. Some even got cool reprints like Putrefy. What did the Izzet get? Goblin Test Pilot. GOBLIN ******* TEST PILOT! I literally lit the first copy I got of that card on fire. I mean would it be to much to reprint Electrolyze? Izzet Charm saw some reasonable amount of play and before the death of Jeskai control in modern Keranos was showing up but nothing really UR. Similarly it's not there haven't been strong Blue and strong Red cards.
Have you seen the non-bo that does infinite damage with goblin test pilots? The card is a brilliant piece of jank that has a lot of appeal for a certain kind of player.
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I find a lot of that has to do with the an issue in the color pie of these color combinations.
BU has been historically a very powerful color combination and the reason for that was simple. Discard, counterspells, card draw, removal, library manipulation, tutors, rituals, etc. made those two colors clearly have the most powerful slice of the color pie. Now that things have been fixed though this color combination is kinda left in the dust to the point where you rarely see any UB/x decks anymore.
Mark Rosewater wrote in an article what the problem with designing BU cards for Wizards is
Blue and black tend to be the kings of card advantage. Blue is primary in card drawing and black is secondary (tied with green). Blue has counterspells and bounce. Black has discard and creature destruction. The two colors are excellent at slowly, and sometimes not so slowly, gaining the upper hand, often subtly enough that less-experienced players aren't even aware of it.
What this means is that blue and black thematically click together well. The two colors have a clear flavor and feel that mesh well. Blue is sneaky and cunning. Black in underhanded and ruthless. Mix them together and you have a guild you might not want to trust.
What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
While philosophically the two colors mesh well, mechanically they are the two ally colors that have the least in common. Now, this is a pain for making hybrid cards, but shouldn't a clear mechanical identity make gold cards easier to design? The problem here is that while blue and black don't overlap much in actual mechanics, they have a lot of abilities that are close to the other but just a little different.
I'll walk through some of them to demonstrate:
Card Drawing: As I said above, blue is #1 and black is tied for #2. But blue always does its card drawing straight up, often these days at instant speed. Black always has to trade something for its cards—most often life. Black usually does this at sorcery speed.
Evasion: Blue and black both have flying. Blue also has unblockability and islandwalk. Black has intimidate and swampwalk. Black also has deathtouch, which doesn't technically give it evasion but heavily encourages the opponent not to block.
Library Denial: Blue "mills," meaning it makes the opponent put some number of cards from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard. Black "extorts," meaning that it goes into the library and exiles particular cards. The flavor here is that blue makes you forget in general while black lobotomizes you.
Hand Denial: Blue and black are the only two colors that can easily deal with a threat before it hits the battlefield. Blue has the ability to use counterspells while black has the ability to force the opponent to discard.
Tutoring: Blue and black are the two colors best at getting specific cards out of your library and into your hand. Blue tends to be more focused, with cards directing you what kind of card you can get, while black has the more blanket tutors, sometimes with an additional cost associated.
Stealing Creatures: Blue takes the opponent's creatures while they are alive, while black takes them after they've died.
Learning the Opponent's Hand: Blue has spells that peek. Black gets glances as part of certain discard spells where it needs to see the hand, such as Duress or Coercion, to make choices of what gets discarded.
That brings us to BG
This color combo has become without a doubt one of the most powerful ones in the game. You can look at Standard or Modern or Legacy or whatever else. You will surely find good decks in that color combo.
It started with "The Rock" and then moved over to things like the infamous Jund or Abzan and so on. The reason for that is also simple. Despite being an enemy color combination these two colors work perfectly together.
Black brings the disruption, removal and card advantage and green brings the big, efficient bodies that can dominate the board and can kill the opponent quickly and it also provides cards with some kind of card advantage.
The end result? Attrition-based decks that grind the opponent out and then end the game with efficient, big threats(Deranged Hermit, Spiritmonger, Tarmogoyf, Siege Rhino, etc.)
Now don't get me wrong I love this color combination and the decks it enables but Im just so annoyed by the fact that an enemy color combo works so much better together than an allied one. I don't think that is how the color pie is supposed to be but here we are now.
Somebody else who is annoyed how BU gets shafted all time because of this and who wishes that Wizards would finally find a good solution to this?
I honestly don't get how people keep complaining about Blue and black getting shafted, especially after ravnica/theros standard where mono-blue and mono-black were at the top of the food chain, and where esper decks were viable.
i'd imagine its more to do with u/b as a color pair relating to multicolor cards. individually, nah each color is pretty fine. its when they pair up for a multicolor card that we run into this just slap mill onto it mentality.
Indeed.
The gold cards are one of the problems. Let's take a look at the latest example.
Dromoka's Command
Atarka's Command
Kolaghan's Command
Ojutai's Command
Silumgar's Command
Find the really bad one. It isn't that hard. This is a consistent trend when it comes to BU cards. People in spoiler season already do call all BU cards bad or having something to do with mill(and therefore being bad) before they are being spoiled and often they are even right...
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
For that matter some of the enemy pairings seem just as logical and natural as any allied color pair, such as WR and BG.
Last Standard season was chock full of Esper decks, which were only really playing white for Ojutai. Straight Dimir control wasn't out of the mix, nor is it now. And in Modern Grixis decks are all the rage: you can pick Delver, Twin, or control and go from there. Sure, they have red, but you get to play with all the powerful Dimir cards as well! And it's not like anyone is just playing BG either, those decks are almost always splashing as well.
I don't agree that enemy color pairs should be worse than allied color pairs though. I think all 10 pairs should be balanced equally. If 5 of the pairs are supposed to be worse by design, then they will be tier 2 or tier 3, and then at that point it's better not to print cards for the pairing at all.
I don't actually expect UB to be good any time soon. So instead of colors that I like to play, I have learned to stick with archetypes that I like to play. The days of UB Faeries and UB Grave Titan Control are long over.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Transmute which we will never see agan.
Fateseal which we will never see again.
U/B is now about evasive creatures (not flying though because that is U/W) and mill. Sadly mill can't be terribly viable as it seems impossible for r&d to tune for both 40 card and 60 card (which to be fair is acceptable).
U/B is the color combination of the mind and the library, of discard and countermagic which are two incredibly hated mechanics by newer/poor players. That leaves us with mill.
It's not that U/B decks can't be viable competitively, it's just that many U/B cards simply feel bad when compared to the others in cycles. We see amazingly flavorful cards like Reap Intellect and Psychic Intrusion yet they are unplayable because they are potentially "unfun".
And that is the crux of the issue, U/B does things that are seen as "unfun" to players. Which is a damn shame.
So why is it like this? MaRo stated in several podcasts that UB is the hardest color combination to design for and is very limiting in what it can do without drastically breaking the color pie. The problem with UB's central mechanic (mill) is that it aims for a different win condition than every other color combination. This isolates UB mechanically and limits overlap to other colors.
My guess is that it would take a completely new mechanic to get UB out of its current isolation. Something that either interacts with the opponents library and their hand or some more intricate graveyard interactions that would encourage selfmill or at least takes advantage of the abundance of mill themed cards.
Once again I want to stress that I do not think U or B are weak colors, they are very strong combined in one deck and in other combinations. It is multicolor UB that is lacking, and it has been for some time.
UR Mizzix of the Izmagnus ~~~ Build your own win-condition: Finite Spellslinging
UR Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer ~~~ We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic ~~~ A Guide to dying slowly
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose ~~~ Marchesa's undying Marionettes
RGW Mayael the Anima ~~~ All Hail the Big Chungus
GWU Chulane, Teller of Tales ~~~ Permanents Only ETB Shenanigans
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant ~~~ Sidisi's Restless Servants
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon ~~~ Dragons eat your face
Eh... consider how strong that card is against a UB control deck, though. This cycle of gold cards... they are very strong against the archetypes of their own colors. The reason UB's card is "weak" is only that UB isn't played at this very moment. Wait and see what happens in a few months. It might wind up being the strongest.
That may be but then Wizards is having a huge double standard.
I can currently loop Thoughtseize with Den Protector and nobody is really bothered by that interaction besides some control players.
Last Standard season was dominated by a Mono-Black deck which discarded and killed everything you had and then beat you down it just played a Turn 2 Pack Rat against you which was potentially game over already.
In Innistrad-RTR Standard Im sure the most "unfun" card was Bonfire of the Damned. "I navigated the entire game carefully and eventually came out ahead and was about to win but then my opponent topdecked Bonfire of the Damned..." is a common story from that time.
You mention a card like Reap Intellect and yet UW got Sphinx's Revelation and BR got Rakdos's Return. When these spells resolved in big numbers you were guaranteed to not have any fun anymore.
Even leaving this topic alone there are also other things that just bother me.
What's for example up with Duskmantle Seer? Why is this card bad? Yeah we get it that Dark Confidant is far too powerful but having that text on a 4 mana mythic rare gold card is even too much to ask? Yeah but let's give Orzhov or Selesnya ridiculously good and pushed cards like Obzedat, Ghost Council, Blood Baron of Vizkopa or Voice of Resurgence.
What's up with Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker? Doesn't the title "Mind Drinker" imply that you gain something? Nope, just another card with some useless mill slapped on. At least he is a 5 mana 2/4 flyer. Still better than a rare sorcery that just mills like Mind Grind.
Dimir was terrible as a whole in the entire RTR block. I have trouble remembering even a single Dimir card that saw serious play. Cipher was completely unplayable.
I even played a pre-release event choosing Dimir and of course I got steamrolled because Dimir was full of bad cards while the people choosing Boros had an easy way to victory because their cards where so good they just crushed everyone.
Bah, it's just so annoying.
First, for the record i love what the combination represents (manipulation, denial, methodical gaining, etc). Also, yes, if i was asked to create the most evil-cruel-inhuman character for MTG, he would be UB, and this is also the battle plan for UB decks. This is why it so hated by the majority of players. My boros can win you 2-0 in eight minutes and they still don't complain as much as when losing to UB control....
Now, returning on topic, the main problem are the gold/hybrid cards. Ok, in recent years there have been praiseworthy cards like Agony Warp, Shadow of Doubt (which is about 10 years old right now!), Notion Thief and Countersquall, but this where it ends pretty much. Funky or cute cards can also be found but they end up being just ''funky'' or ''cute''.
What happened to Recoil and Undermine?
The main problem, anti-cantrol politics aside, is that both colors deal with others in indirect ways so much that they can't find a mutual way to co-work. This leaves us with few solutions. One would be the combination of effects, such as discard along with extortion or bounce along with discard. Do you see something familiar? Yes, this cards pretty much exist. This is what Recoil or Notion Thief do. They combine already existing effects.
And thus we return to the beginning, this combination needs new ideas, a change in its philosophy first and foremost, OR AT LEAST a change mechanically.
Master manipulator you say? Show it. Make an effect which changes how a particular rule works when this card is cast. For example this creature:
''If a spell or effect requires a player to make a ''may'' decision, it is you who makes it instead'' (this is what i wanted Phenax to be, excuse my wording, it is just an example)
Methodical gaining you say? Make the Dark Confidant effect UB. It is surely in flavor.
Denial of enemy resources you say? Make cards that deny him drawing a card this turn or even better give him the false hope that by paying a ''small'' cost, like paying 2-3 life, he can draw the card instead only to die a turn faster.
This my opinion. Now, about BG, just like WR, those colors were made to co-exist because each one's specialities cover the weaknesses of the other one.
Not only that but the modes are just not powerful. It costs five mana and you can't even counter any spells, just non-creature ones. You also can't just kill creatures with it, you can just give them -3/-3.
This card is totally useless when your opponent is playing Siege Rhinos, Courser of Kruphix, Polukranos, World Eaters, etc. So what you do want to do then? Bounce their creatures to their hand again with your 5 mana card? Bounce is most of the time not played even if it's cheap.
This card is far too conditional for it's mana coast and it makes it hard to get a 2-for-1 of this card like you would expect to get from such an expensive card. Cryptic Command clearly ended up more powerful than was probably intended but this card is clearly a step in the completely opposite direction.
That's the sad thing about it. I mean Im a big supporter of Wizards and their hard work and I agree with many of their decisions but their stagnation and their lack of originality when it comes to UB is just jarring.
What Vorthos issue are you talking about? Im not one so Im not aware of any issues there.
Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.
Yeah, but you can play that game with a lot of cycles. It's not that hard to find the bad one with DGM charms either. Cycles are kind of a poor example in general. (Besides, white wins the Who Has The Worst Card In The Most Cycles contest by a wide margin just because lifegain. Green has the Who Is The Most Off-Theme contest with cards like Leaf Arrow in a set where everything was huge and Crash Landing in a set where everything was multicolor. You could find an argument for every color being the worst.)
On phasing:
Silumgar is pretty sweet and Ashiok amazing despite the original reception, probably because of how poorly dimir and mill was handled in gatecrash.
Ashiok is actually using Black and blue together extremely well.
If blue and black are vorthosly about manipulation then blue black should be about backing people into corner's forcing decisions they don't want to make. It really needs to be about interacting with your opponent not avoiding them and going for their library.
Ashiok. 1. uses your opponents strength against them,the more power your opponents have the more powerful Ashiok is. *flips Kreanos, oh sweet I'll take that thanks*
2. Forces a choice between attacking Ashiok and attacking the life total. Although this is true of all walkers, it is most relevant to Ashiok. because of the decks they are played in, Thier high loyalty and the impending but not immediate threat it poses. For many walkers you know very clearly when you need to kill them for Ashiok you can't know if you have to or not and its all contextual it forces opposing players to make tough choices.
Blue black is about choices... choices for you choices for your opponents, a Blue black player wants to outsmart their opponent. A Blue white player is much less subtle they want to hold back and over power them. This new world of situational removal and counters is good for a blue black player, but they need the tools and they need them at lower mana costs.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Agreed.
Silumgar, the Drifting Death, Dragonlord Silumgar and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver are recent examples of black-blue cards done right. If they keep up that direction than Im at least not unhappy. If they start making cards like Nemesis of Reason again than that sucks.
They should use designs like Wrexial, the Risen Deep or Mindleech Mass more often. That feels black-blue. The opponents stuff is stolen and used against him.
Or Recoil. A perfect mix of blue and black. Obviously they won't reprint that anymore since it can hit lands but nothing is stopping them from making a version that can only hit nonland permanents.
Undermine is another card that could be reprinted. This card is not even legal in Modern and yet it fits perfectly with Wizards modern design direction. It's an 3 mana counter with upside just like Counterflux or Psychic Strike or Render Silent.
I have a feeling that MaRo really doesn't like black, he keeps walking on circles claiming it's not evil and we shouldn't hate it, but as soon as he writes an article about another color he spares no chance to say how black is dark, creepy, bad and ****ed up. Even worse, he spares no chance to call it's native mechanics unfun, unfair and problematic.
Rakdos is always getting shat on and is now probably the absolute worst color pair in eternal. It's literally the only color pair that cannot deal with each other's weaknesses.
Orzhov manages to be playable out of the extreme potency of spells like Bob, Stoneforge, Swords, Thoughtseize, etc. Otherwise it'd be unplayable because there just isn't any synergy here.
Dimir remains viable in eternal thanks to extremely powerful cards from before NWO, but other than that? Mill, mill, mill, mill, mill. The absolute worst mechanic is all they get.
Golgari remains the only black color pair worth playing, and only because "Discard, Removal and Fatties" is a foolproof formula for success. They (and with they I mean MaRo) absolutely despise Dredge and want it to dissapear forever. They hated Jund in standard, kicked it out of Modern (it got better), Deathrite got banned, they overcosted Scavenge to death and printed the best graveyard hate ever in the same block just in case, and I eagerly wait a Blogatog post moaning about how Abrupt Decay was a mistake. So yes, while this color combo is amazing, I'm pretty sure it isn't because they want it to be, not after everything BG has been punished so hard.