So, after doing some research and discussing with a friend, I have found the state of U to be quite... depressing...
Of the about 230 decks that play anything u,140 of them are CoCo decks that splash for Reflector Mage. That is sad...
It appears that U has become a rather sad junk color. What's worse, I noticed push from players who want counters to be EVEN WORSE. Apparently 3mana counters are too good...The worst part? It appears wizards is listening. SOI was... disappointing for U players, and I'm skeptical about EMN changing much.
So we have weak draw, weak counters, and dependent on bounce spells in an Era full of EtB abilities...
What do u all think of the state of blue?
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Agreed. Blue needs some better draw, better counters - IOW, reasons to play blue (beyond the obligatory splash for certain specific cards in a few decks, obviously).
"But I just want to play creatures and attack with them! Waaah!" is not a compelling argument for neutering some of the best aspects of MtG, IMO. But, as you say, "they" are listening... or it's just coincidental. : /
Unfortunately, "Design sets with draft in mind!11!" also seems to have taken over @ WotC, so...
The weak card draw/card selection seems like the biggest problem.
Keep in mind that silumgar's scorn is a great counterspell and clash of wills is fine, it is not weak.
What is the difference between Esper dragons, Jeskai/x being top of the meta and now? dig through time.
The weird thing about the current standard that's bugging me is that the normal order is upended. Right now Control > Aggro > Midrange > Control. This is because aggro is white based with very little reach,a languish or two and it is over. While against midrange reflector mage, or perhaps reckless bushwhacker for the red version are powerful forces against decks trying to set up.
For control against mid range.. there is too much recursion, efficiency and diverse threats going on.
Sylvan advocate, tireless tracker, Sorin, seasons past, Den protector, Gideon, nissa, Chandra, Goblin dark-dwellers, Avacyn even secure the wastes all have the capacity to gain enough advantage on their own to win a game. For control one stumble and midrange has overwhelming advantage, each is a game winning threat on its own, even Den protector. Then add to this the fact that blue control has the exact same card draw options as mid range does, why would you bother with control?
There is no way to get up in cards that is better than what mid range has and the best card blue card filtering is anticipate only one mana less than read the bones.
People play it in the sideboards of their mid range decks.
The original poster is discussing about why is there no blue decks.
Where the line between control and mid range is a continuum, you could call it tap out control if you would like but its basically mid range in my mind.
I couldn't disagree more. Scorn is good if you're playing 8 dragons, otherwise it's quite bad. Clash of Wills is kind of a joke card. I'd take Mana Leak over either of those, and that's a poor counterspell.
I couldn't disagree more. Scorn is good if you're playing 8 dragons, otherwise it's quite bad. Clash of Wills is kind of a joke card. I'd take Mana Leak over either of those, and that's a poor counterspell.
If you think Mana Leak is a weak counterspell, you're in for a rough ride. Manaleak is probably around the very peak of counterspell power WOTC has been willing to print for 5 years. Clash of Wills is fine and very indicative of the sort of early-game-relevant counterspells they are willing to print. Silumgars Scorn does require some set up but its not horrible. It was making regular appearances in top decks pre-rotation. The biggest issue for these blue decks today is a lack of real, viable instant-speed card draw. Something like Blue Sun's Zenith, Think Twice, Sphinx's Revelation, or Dig Through Time would do wonders and you would likely see Dragons and Scorns at the top tables again.
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EDH UBRJeleva, Nephalia's Scourge BWTeysa,Orzhov Scion GWKarametra, God of Harvests UW Dragonlord Ojutai R Daretti, Scrap Savant
"But I just want to play creatures and attack with them! Waaah!" is not a compelling argument for neutering some of the best aspects of MtG, IMO.
no one that has a serious opinion on game design actually says or believes this. sorry you apparently don't enjoy creature-heavy metagames, but there's no need to make condescending remarks about people who do. there are a lot of complexities to board development, combat math, and tempo that require very skillful navigation if you want those complexities to break in your favor, and while i can understand not enjoying all that, i think it's disappointing that you choose to shame people who do
If it's going to be centered around combat , then cut blue from standard or make a complete rehual of the color pie since blue has never had the identity to build a board state a la green or white. Its core mechanic is gone and as a color in standard is a splash color for 2 to 3 cards.
I'm playing standard and had to stop playing blue. You know that's like dating the hot girls best friend because the girl you want is simply not an option. That's terrible isn't ? I guess I have to settle for less...
Not being a dick I play the hell out of standard but none of the decks give me that feeling of joy except when ramp works and I crush Gideon. I miss dtt in Esper Dragons, if wizards wants board state development and combat math then blue is screwed.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
If it's going to be centered around combat , then cut blue from standard or make a complete rehual of the color pie since blue has never had the identity to build a board state a la green or white. Its core mechanic is gone and as a color in standard is a splash color for 2 to 3 cards.
I'm playing standard and had to stop playing blue. You know that's like dating the hot girls best friend because the girl you want is simply not an option. That's terrible isn't ? I guess I have to settle for less...
Not being a dick I play the hell out of standard but none of the decks give me that feeling of joy except when ramp works and I crush Gideon. I miss dtt in Esper Dragons, if wizards wants board state development and combat math then blue is screwed.
What? No one said the game is only about board development and combat math.
What is being said is that enjoying those aspects of them isn't for simple-minded players who whine about blue, which is basically what the guy I responded to was doing with the excerpt I quoted.
Blue's honestly not even that bad in the format right now. I think its Cancel-with-upside spells are a bit short of what they need to be (Dissolve would be perfect), but the conditional ones are fine. Clash of Wills is good in Standard. Negate and Dispel are great tools. Dissolve + those would be more than good enough for a counterspell suite that would be fine for Standard. And then it needs one good card draw spell, but it already has two options: Dragonlord's Prerogative and Epiphany at the Drownyard. Both of them seem fine. They aren't Dig Through Time or Sphinx's Revelation, and it's possible they should be closer to those cards, but Dig and Revelation were both too powerful anyway. (Not by much, but they were.)
I dunno, when I look at the UR Control deck with Drowner of Hope, I start to wonder how bad blue really is. I know that deck isn't what people "want" to play when they want to play blue-based control, but the point is that it plays a pile of counterspells that people instantly wrote off as awful, and in actuality they're perfectly fine. The real problem wasn't that counterspells were weak, but that they were unexplored. What if that's true of the card draw spells too?
Blue's not even bad. Clash is pretty much counterspell turns 2-4 and still scales well into the late game considering the amount of high cost tap out cards that are played. Cancel variations aren't even that bad. Heck, a common counter set up in modern UWR is 4 leak, 4 command and command is online from turn 4. Cancel comes out a turn earlier. I am disregarding the obvious power and flexibility of command, but as a pure "counter target spell" card, cancel comes down earlier so counterspells cannot be the issue. Blues counterspells eat B/G decks alive and counters are the best way to stop G/W's walkers gaining them zero value.
The main issue I think isn't white (call me crazy.) And I don't think it is really too bad an issue. It's greens quality card adv through cards like Tracker, den protector, recruiter that take over the long games and blues somewhat lack of bulk card draw. Still, blue can splash black for Painful Truths which is insane CA, red for Fevered Visions which doubles as a walker removal/win con, or even just use plain old Opportunity is more than good enough as bulk card draw is needed to ensure a strong late game.
I'm more worried about these eldrazi decks with t4 seer t5 smasher t6 smasher gets real ugly. And uninteractive cards like ulamog and worldbreaker that kill off true draw go styles but there never will be those whispers decks of the past. The new modern type nahiri decks are what control should be these days. Draw go skill high decision making base, with the power to end games quickly via tapout powerful cards which draw go lacks. There never will be a true whispers deck again with cards that have higher inevitablility that are uninteractive for the draw go counter player.
Most control builds utilising blue are eschewing blues main strength which are arguably counterspells in favour of excessive creature removal which weakens certain matchups. It's up to the deckbuilders to realise blues potential in chosen decks. Grixis has done well, so has esper in the past. The U/R eldrazi deck just won some tourny recently. Blue is FINE.
U has not won anything in the past 2 months... the closest thing to U that I'd winning anything is CoCo.. and that only splashes blue for R.Mage.
Furthermore, if we check the meta game in the past few months, U based control Is pretty much non-existant. There are only a few Ux decks.
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
CHeck the results of Major SCG opens and GP's. The only deck that was won a GP this seasons was Esper Dragons and a lot of players even the commentators felt like it was a ton luck. I played Esper Dragons and tried to make it work but you cannot play at instant speed when all of your draw engines are sorcery. Blue isn't bad? It's like some of you haven't played and looked at the meta under a microscope, compare Blue to:
White and Green.
There is no comparing since both of those colors have much better sources of CA right now.
T4 Gideon Wins the Game if unanswered (and you know what? He's -bleeping- hard to answer), Tirelss Tracker + clue generates pure card advantage with lands; He eventually grows into a huge game ending threat is he sticks. ( Jace is great, but he doesn't flip easily anymore).
You're telling me blue is okay but blue does not have value creatures like this nor draw spells that compare to the high quality CA these cards provide.
On the UR Eldrazi Control deck. YOU flood hard with 28 lands. I've played it and sometimes you draw insanely well but it's not consistent, and no where near as consistent as what Tokens , Mono White and Bant CoCo.decs are able to do. I picked up G/W Tokens in 1 week, took it to PPTQ went 3-3, winning all G1's and losing because I didn't have time to learn my SB correctly and punted a few games, fast forward a week and I kow the SB and it's stream lined ability to do what it does is appealing for higher level play outside of FNM. I see why this deck puts up good results and I see why U/R Eldrazi isn't quite there.
So stop, telling us Blue is okay!!! Oh yeah! It's okay! No it's not. Compared to White and Green, it's no where near okay.
Red? Sure red You can find Bushwhaker in mono white aggro.
On Eldrazi decks, W/B Eldrazi isn't a thing right now (it should be, it can be quite good) and G/R Ramp while good against blue based control struggles against many standard's top decks. You can create a ramp deck that is geared to beating these but your still lacking the T2 ramp source. It's still not the most consistent deck, but you can meta game and see what version will help you spike a tournament. That said the nut draws for the top tier decks are rough to handle and the ramp deck needs T3 K'S Return into World Breaker or Chandra to have a chance. Avacyn tends to undo a lot of that work and it's why I picked up G/W even though I dislike the color combination. Esper Dragons had Dig through time and Crux of Fate to lean on. We never played Dragonlord's Prerogative except in the SB because you never wanted to see that in your opening hand. We played 1 Painful Truths and relied on DTT to find SO many answers. Drawing 3 cards is not always what a dragon control deck needs. It needs card selection and the draw 3 to able to turn on:
Silumgar's Scorn
Dragon Pay off cards
Board Wipes
Cards that will stabilize you in polarizing match ups
Answers to Walkers
In short Esper Dragons was a DTT deck that used OJ as another source of CA and it's finisher. Without the ability dig, your CA package comes on like late. OJ does not rule the skies therefore he's not the finisher of choice anymore. I should know as I top'd numerous PPTQ's and IQ's with it last season. I love Esper decks, they're not tier 1 right now. As for tribal? I'm a ZOmbie fan, (Dawn of the Dead is my fav movie of all time) and zombies will hopefully be playable this standard. Right now it's humans, and humans. In a nutshell, this is why Esper Dragons has struggles and seen very little play.
epiphany at the drownyard is a massive turd of a draw spell. Come on, I've never been seen anything good come of this spell, I've had it cast on me, I just made sure to give my opponent exactly what he didn't need, or just made sure I could deal with the nonsense he thought he needed.
i don't know, i have been playing blue red this whole time and feeling pretty good about it. there is a lot of salt here. blue isn't the strongest color right now but i do think that viable blue decks definitely exist, they just aren't the draw-go variety some people here are pining over.
If blue doesn't have Draw, Counter spells or quality bounce spells it's not blue, it's a color of the pie that may need to go . Blue is a shell of what it used to be, it's sad really. Wizards is neutering draw and go control, they could at least boost the power level of the creatures in blue to compete with the other colors. I think blue needs some tribal love, stuff like merfolk, were ever merfolk adds some ability to other merfolk, Kind of like slivers.
It is especially sad that wizards is simultaneously increasing the power and value of creatures and nerfing bounce, counter, and draw. This double move is just sealing U.
I mean, what else is left of U? Blue used to the evasive color with massive numbers of fliers vs the other colors but that is Barely the case anymore. U was also the color of artifice but that is only useful on Mirrodin and possibly Kaladesh. Maybe....
The worst part is that it not like.. just a set thing now. Wizards is actively playing down U because casual timmys don't like being told no, and casuals are now the focus.
If wizards wants to stick with this creature primary thing, they need to make U more tempo.. make better bounce... MUCH better. With everything having EtB abilities, you need to have some strong bounce to make up for the massive card disadvantage. Make more elusive creatures. And make more combat Tricks. Like Ovinize or Snakeform.
It's pretty obvious that no one mourning blue's demise in here, despite the premise in the OP, is actually interested in a conversation where people can disagree with them, so I'm out. This is thoroughly unreasonable.
It's pretty obvious that no one mourning blue's demise in here, despite the premise in the OP, is actually interested in a conversation where people can disagree with them, so I'm out. This is thoroughly unreasonable.
I think it's hilarious that people are screaming in uproar about how "Blue is neutered" when we just finally escaped a Standard with two broken cards (for Modern) in Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise, along with one of the most expensive walkers we've ever seen in Standard with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy.
Blue players are spoiled and always have been. It's just that WotC finally caught on that a color excelling in net gain card draw and counterspells is not balanced. We've just been conditioned to think it is balanced because Blue has always been friggin' amazing since Alpha.
Wizards just needs to reevaluate the color and figure it out, exactly as the situation is with Red.
DTT was fine for standard and so was Cruise. In modern? SURE yeah, busted. Standard where answers are way worse it was a necessary component in Esper control decks.
You seem to have not played U based control decks, it's not easy knowing what to counter, and what to let through. Having played UB Control during Khans/Theros, and Esper Dragons this past season I can tell you blue's influence in standard is minimal. It's identity is being screwed with, I don't know what a blue finisher looks like, except that Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Drowner of Hope have a home in the U/R Eldrazi control deck. That deck isn't tier 1, it's close but it has it's issues drawing cards as well.
1 card that would see play: Jace's Ingenuity. Yes 5 to draw 3 at instant speed would actually see play and would go a long way to shore up blue's CA issue.
If you don't play the color or arch types associated with said color how could you even have an opinion? It's like someone telling me to play guitar "like this" when they can barely fret a note correctly. I have played Bant Coco, Bant Humans, G/W Tokens. I can safely tell you, those decks are solid decks, they do what they're supposed to do because the cards in those decks are good at what they are supposed to do.
Blue Control? Red Aggro?
Not this standard season sadly. I'll just play Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and try to go over the top of these decks. Sometimes a sledge hammer gets the job done.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
During Theros-Tarkir I played Sultai and Temur. Temur was very tempo heavy, with a play set of Stubborn Denial being integral to my strategy. Mono-U it was not, but I couldn't just spam my spells.
A trend I notice among a lot of Blue control lovers (and I'm not accusing you of this) is they get off on "being smarter" than the other player because of the nature of draw-go. But the tools always associated with "outsmarting" the opponent were always thanks to disproportionately powerful tempo cards.
I agree with you that Blue is having creative challenges. But I think the answer is figuring out how to weave creatures into Blue's core being, not returning to historic draw-go control.
I'm tired of defending my position of blue in standard and the current meta game. We are at the point where the format will change (I doubt it), but if they print better cards in Green and White it will not change. I predict brewing will happen, we'll all try some new stuff. In the end, nothing is changing, the core of these decks will be viable until Sept.
G/W Tokens has taken down numerous GP's and the finals are usually Bant CoCo/ Humans. That's the way it's been since the PT, and prior to the PT Bant CoCo was dominating on the SCG circuit. DTT was powerful sure, but it was no where near as dominating in standard as Collected Company has been. The Imbalance is real.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
The problem is that Us very core identity is tied into card draw, counter, and bounce. The only other domain for U is artifice... and that is more on planes like Mirrodin.
The problem is, if you remove and greatly limit these abilities, what is the purpose for U?
And as for the comment about R.mage, he is 1 creature. CoCo is not even a U deck. It only runs R mage... oh and he is not even pure U.
And why are people bringing up the effect of the cards in MODERN? This is the standard forum. We are looking at U. In standard, not modern.
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
I am perfectly happy with situational counterspells, such as clash of wills, it is more enjoyable when there isn't an answer to everything and I have to meta game and think about the cards that go into my deck and what I will be facing. Situational removal is a bit more annoying (So frustrating to have the wrong removal for a threat), but the removal options as still okay atm you just have to pay more mana/life for them.
I also really enjoy synergy such as silumgar's scorn that gives my decks a character and restrictions (I can't sideboard out my dragon's even when they are bad because I need them so my deck works). Anticipate is a perfectly fine as a way to find me dragons when I need them. It is that I don't win the late game anymore when my opponents can draw/recure more threats and I have no way to refuel(if Ojutai dies). Sometimes I get lucky and can win a mid game with Ojutai tempo plays. For now I just go x-x at FNM.
I straight up Hate playing GW, it is my least favourite colour combination.
I also dislike mid range as a game plan its a game plan of playing good cards, and winning because your cards are better than the other persons/you drew better. That sucks and it can be extremely expensive at times. Playing good cards isn't why I play magic, I like making cards good. I want there to be options other than GWx.
Standard has been having a "Mid range creep" with the improvement of the power/value of creatures despite that I feel like the balance of standard since the last time we were in Innstrad (delver domination and even that wasn't that bad) has mostly been quite good, historically speaking. Thoughtsieze + pack rat aside (was miserable but there was still a wide variety of other decks). Once mana leak and ponder rotated out and blue actually had to work for answers and pay for filtering but they retained their late game power draw in Sphinx's Rev, Rev was basically replaced with Dig through time that was amazing filtering but still required additional card advantage such as Ojutai and Jace to win a game. (with thoughtseize around)
If blue is to be played there needs to be one of two things, the late game instant speed power draw/super filtering or the early game filtering/draw and I mean 1 mana not 2. The former allows for control to drown an opponent in card advantage and the latter allows a tempo deck to find its threats quickly. (a thing in the ice deck could be fun)
I will note the lack of low cost to the face red burn to give us red aggro also sucks and is contributing to this feeling of there being only one way to play, 100% rare mid range decks. (no turn one and no great turn 2 ramp options either also sucks for strategic diversity).
I am looking for powerful blue draw cards from the eldritch moon spoilers that start tonight.
It Doesn't help that wizards has been shrinking the card pool and speeding up rotation either. I don't play standard any more, since it's not worth my money or my time. Standard used to be my favorite format though but wizards seems to hate all the things I love as a player, Counterspells, Draw , Bounce, Burn and Removal. Another problem with standard is they design with limited in mind first since that is a huge cash cow for them. I have no problem with them making money, Not my cup of tea though don't care much for drafting. Red and Blue both have lost their Identify just because they are different than the other colors and don't want to play the same way as the other colors.
Well with the spoils today, it appears Wizards is intent on GW to be a thing.. Thalia is brutal, Gisela is a very solid card on her own, Brian is ok but make the wicked Brusela, and Thalia's Lancers help tutor out what ever half you don't have...
Also Gnarlwood Dryad is a very solid 1/1 death touch for 1 who can potentially be a 3/3 for 1... wtf...
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Well with the spoils today, it appears Wizards is intent on GW to be a thing.. Thalia is brutal, Gisela is a very solid card on her own, Brian is ok but make the wicked Brusela, and Thalia's Lancers help tutor out what ever half you don't have...
Also Gnarlwood Dryad is a very solid 1/1 death touch for 1 who can potentially be a 3/3 for 1... wtf...
Well, you see, Jace was so strong that they needed to nerf every other blue card to make up for it.
White wasn't strong enough with Avacyn, Gideon, all the humans, Declaration in Stone, Secure the Wastes, etc. So it obviously needs a new Baneslayer Angel, the new Thalia, etc. You know, to make up for White's lack of efficient above-the-curve creatures.
Green also needs help as well, as we can see from Gnarlwood Dryad. I mean, all it has is Duskwatch Recruiter, Sylvan Advocate, Lambolt Pacifist, Collected Company, Den Protector, Tireless Tracker, etc. What green really needs more of is more extremely efficient early game creatures with incredibly efficient costs that have relevance in the late game. They obviously don't have enough of those these days.
But at least blue gets a sweet new Clone effect that will totally come to dominate standard.
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Of the about 230 decks that play anything u,140 of them are CoCo decks that splash for Reflector Mage. That is sad...
It appears that U has become a rather sad junk color. What's worse, I noticed push from players who want counters to be EVEN WORSE. Apparently 3mana counters are too good...The worst part? It appears wizards is listening. SOI was... disappointing for U players, and I'm skeptical about EMN changing much.
So we have weak draw, weak counters, and dependent on bounce spells in an Era full of EtB abilities...
What do u all think of the state of blue?
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
"But I just want to play creatures and attack with them! Waaah!" is not a compelling argument for neutering some of the best aspects of MtG, IMO. But, as you say, "they" are listening... or it's just coincidental. : /
Unfortunately, "Design sets with draft in mind!11!" also seems to have taken over @ WotC, so...
Keep in mind that silumgar's scorn is a great counterspell and clash of wills is fine, it is not weak.
What is the difference between Esper dragons, Jeskai/x being top of the meta and now? dig through time.
The weird thing about the current standard that's bugging me is that the normal order is upended. Right now Control > Aggro > Midrange > Control. This is because aggro is white based with very little reach,a languish or two and it is over. While against midrange reflector mage, or perhaps reckless bushwhacker for the red version are powerful forces against decks trying to set up.
For control against mid range.. there is too much recursion, efficiency and diverse threats going on.
Sylvan advocate, tireless tracker, Sorin, seasons past, Den protector, Gideon, nissa, Chandra, Goblin dark-dwellers, Avacyn even secure the wastes all have the capacity to gain enough advantage on their own to win a game. For control one stumble and midrange has overwhelming advantage, each is a game winning threat on its own, even Den protector. Then add to this the fact that blue control has the exact same card draw options as mid range does, why would you bother with control?
There is no way to get up in cards that is better than what mid range has and the best card blue card filtering is anticipate only one mana less than read the bones.
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
The original poster is discussing about why is there no blue decks.
Where the line between control and mid range is a continuum, you could call it tap out control if you would like but its basically mid range in my mind.
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
If you think Mana Leak is a weak counterspell, you're in for a rough ride. Manaleak is probably around the very peak of counterspell power WOTC has been willing to print for 5 years. Clash of Wills is fine and very indicative of the sort of early-game-relevant counterspells they are willing to print. Silumgars Scorn does require some set up but its not horrible. It was making regular appearances in top decks pre-rotation. The biggest issue for these blue decks today is a lack of real, viable instant-speed card draw. Something like Blue Sun's Zenith, Think Twice, Sphinx's Revelation, or Dig Through Time would do wonders and you would likely see Dragons and Scorns at the top tables again.
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
BWTeysa,Orzhov Scion
GWKarametra, God of Harvests
UW Dragonlord Ojutai
R Daretti, Scrap Savant
Modern
GB Tron
UW UW Control
no one that has a serious opinion on game design actually says or believes this. sorry you apparently don't enjoy creature-heavy metagames, but there's no need to make condescending remarks about people who do. there are a lot of complexities to board development, combat math, and tempo that require very skillful navigation if you want those complexities to break in your favor, and while i can understand not enjoying all that, i think it's disappointing that you choose to shame people who do
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
I'm playing standard and had to stop playing blue. You know that's like dating the hot girls best friend because the girl you want is simply not an option. That's terrible isn't ? I guess I have to settle for less...
Not being a dick I play the hell out of standard but none of the decks give me that feeling of joy except when ramp works and I crush Gideon. I miss dtt in Esper Dragons, if wizards wants board state development and combat math then blue is screwed.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
What? No one said the game is only about board development and combat math.
What is being said is that enjoying those aspects of them isn't for simple-minded players who whine about blue, which is basically what the guy I responded to was doing with the excerpt I quoted.
Blue's honestly not even that bad in the format right now. I think its Cancel-with-upside spells are a bit short of what they need to be (Dissolve would be perfect), but the conditional ones are fine. Clash of Wills is good in Standard. Negate and Dispel are great tools. Dissolve + those would be more than good enough for a counterspell suite that would be fine for Standard. And then it needs one good card draw spell, but it already has two options: Dragonlord's Prerogative and Epiphany at the Drownyard. Both of them seem fine. They aren't Dig Through Time or Sphinx's Revelation, and it's possible they should be closer to those cards, but Dig and Revelation were both too powerful anyway. (Not by much, but they were.)
I dunno, when I look at the UR Control deck with Drowner of Hope, I start to wonder how bad blue really is. I know that deck isn't what people "want" to play when they want to play blue-based control, but the point is that it plays a pile of counterspells that people instantly wrote off as awful, and in actuality they're perfectly fine. The real problem wasn't that counterspells were weak, but that they were unexplored. What if that's true of the card draw spells too?
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
U has not won anything in the past 2 months... the closest thing to U that I'd winning anything is CoCo.. and that only splashes blue for R.Mage.
Furthermore, if we check the meta game in the past few months, U based control Is pretty much non-existant. There are only a few Ux decks.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
White and Green.
There is no comparing since both of those colors have much better sources of CA right now.
T4 Gideon Wins the Game if unanswered (and you know what? He's -bleeping- hard to answer), Tirelss Tracker + clue generates pure card advantage with lands; He eventually grows into a huge game ending threat is he sticks. ( Jace is great, but he doesn't flip easily anymore).
You're telling me blue is okay but blue does not have value creatures like this nor draw spells that compare to the high quality CA these cards provide.
On the UR Eldrazi Control deck. YOU flood hard with 28 lands. I've played it and sometimes you draw insanely well but it's not consistent, and no where near as consistent as what Tokens , Mono White and Bant CoCo.decs are able to do. I picked up G/W Tokens in 1 week, took it to PPTQ went 3-3, winning all G1's and losing because I didn't have time to learn my SB correctly and punted a few games, fast forward a week and I kow the SB and it's stream lined ability to do what it does is appealing for higher level play outside of FNM. I see why this deck puts up good results and I see why U/R Eldrazi isn't quite there.
So stop, telling us Blue is okay!!! Oh yeah! It's okay! No it's not. Compared to White and Green, it's no where near okay.
Red? Sure red You can find Bushwhaker in mono white aggro.
On Eldrazi decks, W/B Eldrazi isn't a thing right now (it should be, it can be quite good) and G/R Ramp while good against blue based control struggles against many standard's top decks. You can create a ramp deck that is geared to beating these but your still lacking the T2 ramp source. It's still not the most consistent deck, but you can meta game and see what version will help you spike a tournament. That said the nut draws for the top tier decks are rough to handle and the ramp deck needs T3 K'S Return into World Breaker or Chandra to have a chance. Avacyn tends to undo a lot of that work and it's why I picked up G/W even though I dislike the color combination. Esper Dragons had Dig through time and Crux of Fate to lean on. We never played Dragonlord's Prerogative except in the SB because you never wanted to see that in your opening hand. We played 1 Painful Truths and relied on DTT to find SO many answers. Drawing 3 cards is not always what a dragon control deck needs. It needs card selection and the draw 3 to able to turn on:
Silumgar's Scorn
Dragon Pay off cards
Board Wipes
Cards that will stabilize you in polarizing match ups
Answers to Walkers
In short Esper Dragons was a DTT deck that used OJ as another source of CA and it's finisher. Without the ability dig, your CA package comes on like late. OJ does not rule the skies therefore he's not the finisher of choice anymore. I should know as I top'd numerous PPTQ's and IQ's with it last season. I love Esper decks, they're not tier 1 right now. As for tribal? I'm a ZOmbie fan, (Dawn of the Dead is my fav movie of all time) and zombies will hopefully be playable this standard. Right now it's humans, and humans. In a nutshell, this is why Esper Dragons has struggles and seen very little play.
epiphany at the drownyard is a massive turd of a draw spell. Come on, I've never been seen anything good come of this spell, I've had it cast on me, I just made sure to give my opponent exactly what he didn't need, or just made sure I could deal with the nonsense he thought he needed.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
I mean, what else is left of U? Blue used to the evasive color with massive numbers of fliers vs the other colors but that is Barely the case anymore. U was also the color of artifice but that is only useful on Mirrodin and possibly Kaladesh. Maybe....
The worst part is that it not like.. just a set thing now. Wizards is actively playing down U because casual timmys don't like being told no, and casuals are now the focus.
If wizards wants to stick with this creature primary thing, they need to make U more tempo.. make better bounce... MUCH better. With everything having EtB abilities, you need to have some strong bounce to make up for the massive card disadvantage. Make more elusive creatures. And make more combat Tricks. Like Ovinize or Snakeform.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
It's pretty obvious that no one mourning blue's demise in here, despite the premise in the OP, is actually interested in a conversation where people can disagree with them, so I'm out. This is thoroughly unreasonable.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
I think it's hilarious that people are screaming in uproar about how "Blue is neutered" when we just finally escaped a Standard with two broken cards (for Modern) in Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise, along with one of the most expensive walkers we've ever seen in Standard with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy.
Blue players are spoiled and always have been. It's just that WotC finally caught on that a color excelling in net gain card draw and counterspells is not balanced. We've just been conditioned to think it is balanced because Blue has always been friggin' amazing since Alpha.
Wizards just needs to reevaluate the color and figure it out, exactly as the situation is with Red.
You seem to have not played U based control decks, it's not easy knowing what to counter, and what to let through. Having played UB Control during Khans/Theros, and Esper Dragons this past season I can tell you blue's influence in standard is minimal. It's identity is being screwed with, I don't know what a blue finisher looks like, except that Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Drowner of Hope have a home in the U/R Eldrazi control deck. That deck isn't tier 1, it's close but it has it's issues drawing cards as well.
1 card that would see play:
Jace's Ingenuity. Yes 5 to draw 3 at instant speed would actually see play and would go a long way to shore up blue's CA issue.
If you don't play the color or arch types associated with said color how could you even have an opinion? It's like someone telling me to play guitar "like this" when they can barely fret a note correctly. I have played Bant Coco, Bant Humans, G/W Tokens. I can safely tell you, those decks are solid decks, they do what they're supposed to do because the cards in those decks are good at what they are supposed to do.
Blue Control? Red Aggro?
Not this standard season sadly. I'll just play Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and try to go over the top of these decks. Sometimes a sledge hammer gets the job done.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
A trend I notice among a lot of Blue control lovers (and I'm not accusing you of this) is they get off on "being smarter" than the other player because of the nature of draw-go. But the tools always associated with "outsmarting" the opponent were always thanks to disproportionately powerful tempo cards.
I agree with you that Blue is having creative challenges. But I think the answer is figuring out how to weave creatures into Blue's core being, not returning to historic draw-go control.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4px6nl/gp_taipei_2016_top_8/
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4pyc79/grand_prix_pittsburgh_top_100_metagame_breakdown/
I'm tired of defending my position of blue in standard and the current meta game. We are at the point where the format will change (I doubt it), but if they print better cards in Green and White it will not change. I predict brewing will happen, we'll all try some new stuff. In the end, nothing is changing, the core of these decks will be viable until Sept.
G/W Tokens has taken down numerous GP's and the finals are usually Bant CoCo/ Humans. That's the way it's been since the PT, and prior to the PT Bant CoCo was dominating on the SCG circuit. DTT was powerful sure, but it was no where near as dominating in standard as Collected Company has been. The Imbalance is real.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
The problem is, if you remove and greatly limit these abilities, what is the purpose for U?
And as for the comment about R.mage, he is 1 creature. CoCo is not even a U deck. It only runs R mage... oh and he is not even pure U.
And why are people bringing up the effect of the cards in MODERN? This is the standard forum. We are looking at U. In standard, not modern.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
I also really enjoy synergy such as silumgar's scorn that gives my decks a character and restrictions (I can't sideboard out my dragon's even when they are bad because I need them so my deck works). Anticipate is a perfectly fine as a way to find me dragons when I need them. It is that I don't win the late game anymore when my opponents can draw/recure more threats and I have no way to refuel(if Ojutai dies). Sometimes I get lucky and can win a mid game with Ojutai tempo plays. For now I just go x-x at FNM.
I straight up Hate playing GW, it is my least favourite colour combination.
I also dislike mid range as a game plan its a game plan of playing good cards, and winning because your cards are better than the other persons/you drew better. That sucks and it can be extremely expensive at times. Playing good cards isn't why I play magic, I like making cards good. I want there to be options other than GWx.
Standard has been having a "Mid range creep" with the improvement of the power/value of creatures despite that I feel like the balance of standard since the last time we were in Innstrad (delver domination and even that wasn't that bad) has mostly been quite good, historically speaking. Thoughtsieze + pack rat aside (was miserable but there was still a wide variety of other decks). Once mana leak and ponder rotated out and blue actually had to work for answers and pay for filtering but they retained their late game power draw in Sphinx's Rev, Rev was basically replaced with Dig through time that was amazing filtering but still required additional card advantage such as Ojutai and Jace to win a game. (with thoughtseize around)
If blue is to be played there needs to be one of two things, the late game instant speed power draw/super filtering or the early game filtering/draw and I mean 1 mana not 2. The former allows for control to drown an opponent in card advantage and the latter allows a tempo deck to find its threats quickly. (a thing in the ice deck could be fun)
I will note the lack of low cost to the face red burn to give us red aggro also sucks and is contributing to this feeling of there being only one way to play, 100% rare mid range decks. (no turn one and no great turn 2 ramp options either also sucks for strategic diversity).
I am looking for powerful blue draw cards from the eldritch moon spoilers that start tonight.
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
Also Gnarlwood Dryad is a very solid 1/1 death touch for 1 who can potentially be a 3/3 for 1... wtf...
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Well, you see, Jace was so strong that they needed to nerf every other blue card to make up for it.
White wasn't strong enough with Avacyn, Gideon, all the humans, Declaration in Stone, Secure the Wastes, etc. So it obviously needs a new Baneslayer Angel, the new Thalia, etc. You know, to make up for White's lack of efficient above-the-curve creatures.
Green also needs help as well, as we can see from Gnarlwood Dryad. I mean, all it has is Duskwatch Recruiter, Sylvan Advocate, Lambolt Pacifist, Collected Company, Den Protector, Tireless Tracker, etc. What green really needs more of is more extremely efficient early game creatures with incredibly efficient costs that have relevance in the late game. They obviously don't have enough of those these days.
But at least blue gets a sweet new Clone effect that will totally come to dominate standard.