For me blue based aggro is a very interesting archetype that got some tools over the past years that it might actually be really competitive in cube. I didnt want to start a SCD thread for every card, and I know there is a MCD thread about blue tempo, but I thought to make the discussion a bit more professional. While there might not be the raw power of red or white based aggressive decks, blue based aggro has so many tricks and ways to cause a headache to your opponent.
Creatures
Snapcaster Mage: It has flash, is a 2/1 and brings back a cheap counter. I think he is an obvious premium pick
Looter il-kor: I see him as a 1/1 unblockable with an upside in this context.
Man-o'-War / Aether Adept: These cards are solid key components, as they potentially time walk and bring a body to the field.
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner: For me, this is the best creature for blue based aggro. It basically makes your creatures immune to spot removal. On its own its a 2/2 flyer for three.
Vendilion Clique: Right behind comes this guy. Very aggressive pt, flying, flash and I get their Wrath of God ... wow. Easy first pick.
Venser, Shaper Savant: We all know, how flexible he is and on top of that he is a nice curve topper.
Dungeon Geists:3/3 flyer for 4 and blue based removal. Also on curve. A top pick for this kind of deck.
Geist of Saint Traft: If you are looking at white this guy is a beating. Kills them quick alone and holds a sword very good.
[CARD]
Edric, Spymaster of Trest[/CARD]: With all those flyers out, he should trigger often enough to make him worth splashing.
These are the cards I run. Now lets come to the creatures I dont run.
Pestermite: Has everything blue aggro wants. Flash, flying, can fog a creature or tap down a blocker. But he might be too expensive?
Wake Thrasher: I was never sure about this guy. He is just so bad against any red deck. Otherwise he can grow very fast. Notice, that his only use is the offense.
Supporting cards
--> Equipment of any form: Especially with all the flyers this archetype provides.
--> Standstill: I added this card a few months ago and really enjoy it. Just put out some dudes and put in a favorable board position, play this and .... wait ;-).
I am sure, that I forgot some cards. Maybe you have other experiences with some cards I run or have experience with cards I dont run or even have new cards to through in the discussion.
Nof... if you're gonna do this in nearly EVERY thread, please add some content alongside. Please. I can't be the only one who finds this tiresome and pointless. Not to mention that it's spam and we'd rather you didn't get suspended, 'cause you're generally a helpful poster.
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Here's my take on blue aggro guys - there are some great supporting blue cards for aggro that only work in that deck. In order to fit them into my cube though, I have to remove something that's probably better in a vacuum that fits into more archetypes. There are enough versatile aggro cards for blue, like many of those that the OP mentioned, that are great in any deck, and which serve to enable blue aggro.
What you're probably achieving by adding in the aggro only stuff is enabling mono-blue aggro by providing a critical mass of redundant stuff, because with the good-everywhere cards on their own, blue aggro should already be a thing. For that reason, I never felt the need to run guys like Commander and Pestermite.
Blue tempo is the bees knees but I don't think I would play Pestermite, Wake Thrasher, or Coralhelm Commander just to force the archetype. I think I push blue tempo pretty hard at 360, but there are only 2 cards in my blue sections that would specifically slot only into U/x tempo: Edric, Spymaster of Trest, and Geist of Saint Traft.
Blue tempo is the bees knees but I don't think I would play Pestermite, Wake Thrasher, or Coralhelm Commander just to force the archetype.
I was not particularly happy with Wake Trasher anyway. Coralhelm Commander on the other hand surprised me in that it is also played as a control finisher. It is easier to protect because you don't have to invest a lot of mana at a time.
Pestermite is a pet card of mine, but I think it does have solid applications and nowadays even a combo angle is possible, see the Splinter Twin Combo Thread.
Another important question is what your support color is going to be. Black is great for creature removal and 1-drops, as well as card draw strapped to creatures like Shadowmage Infiltrator and Graveborn Muse. In my opinion, blue/black tempo/aggro is the most powerful blue aggro deck.
Red turns into some sort of aggro counterburn. You play red for hasty creatures and burn, and blue for permission and card draw. Unlike blue/black, in blue/red you have red as the main color.
Green becomes heavy tempo. Mana elves are great for this deck, and you use stuff like Acidic Slime, Plow Under, and Eternal Witness/Regrowth to destroy their mana production while swinging in with cheap blue creatures. Bounce spells are key for this deck, and stuff like Remand and Memory Lapse become huge.
White/Blue just becomes beating face with small evasive creatures.
It is perfectly correct in English to refer to persons of unknown gender with the masculine pronoun. Note the difference between "known" and "knowable," some of us just don't care enough to examine the art of every card to identify its gender.
To comment on topic I see Fettergeist mentioned which I don't think of as an aggro card and would probably cut in favor of Coralhelm Commander which has performed better than expected here.
I can see where the gender issue can be annoying for a woman, and I can totally get behind Nof wanting to re-educate us. As said before: Add content so it's not spam.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
It is perfectly correct in English to refer to persons of unknown gender with the masculine pronoun. Note the difference between "known" and "knowable," some of us just don't care enough to examine the art of every card to identify its gender.
+1. If the gender is obvious (i.e., Oona, Queen of the Fae), it's one thing, but the only way you can tell Pestermite is female is to look for breasts. It doesn't say anything anywhere on the card to identify the gender, and I don't make a habit of checking out the breasts on cartoon characters.
You know, Coral Helm Commander is pretty cool and I do like the art... I might want to give him a shot at some point, but his Merfolk buff would be highly irrelevant in my cube as far as I know.
As far as the gender issue goes, I think a non-legendary creature can be either gender, as shown by cards such as Meddling Mage and Spellstutter Sprite which change gender based on the art... One being based on an invitational player nonetheless.
In some ways I think this is a weird discussion because there's pretty broad support for many of these cards without any explicit support of blue aggro/tempo. Most cubes play the majority of these.
Re: the gender thing...I wish we as a community were more welcoming to female players. It is a fact that the art depicts certain cards as female so I think it's understandable to ask people to use the right pronoun. It's not really that big a deal to say, "Oops, she," and it can make some people feel more included. Small price, big potential pay-off. I wish being sexist/racist wasn't so touchy because we all are at times.
If you're really going to go hard with blue aggro, does Unstable Mutation still cut it these days in 1vs1 play? I always found that pretty good back in the day (and it'd be a pretty much permanent bonus on something that gained +1/+1 counters).
In larger cubes, Unstable Mutation is probably pretty awesome if you're supporting blue aggro. Just a guess, since I haven't actually played with it, but it's six damage if it connects each time. For a single blue, that's pretty insane.
Coming from a pauper cuber Withdraw is honestly nuts in blue aggro and tempo decks. Not often are people going to have 1 mana open at all times in the early turns except in the decks that don't even have creatures to bounce in the first place. 2 mana instant bounce is really good even if it's online only by turn 3. Plus there is a neat-o trick where if you want to reuse an ETB trigger you can bounce your creature and your opponents.
I wouldn't reacommend this in a normal cube unless if you really want to push the aggro blue archetype. But if you are, Withdraw becomes actually quite good.
With the recent abundity of powerful blue 1 drops (Phantasmal bear, evolve 1 drops, the 2/1 form RtR I'm thinkin about adding blue aggro to my cube. A lot of the tools for blue aggro are already there and i feel like each color should have a Control, combo, and aggro build in the cube. What i mean by that is
Green
aggro, combo(land ramp or natural order,SotF), combo
White
aggro, Combo(Cards like balance and reveillark), Control(wraths walkers)
Red
Aggro, LD and Wildfire decks, Control in mass sweepers
Black
Aggro, Stax, Control
Blue,
Thousands of cool minicombos, CONTROL KING, 0 aggro
I feel like opening blue aggro will increase my options by a lot.
Sadly, you have to make cut in the most stacked color to allow blue aggro. I'm not sure it can really perform (delver/bear are horrible turn 1 imo) but i'd like to see your results, because I want to see Geist and Edric perform.
Multicolor blue right now seems to be getting really good aggro tools that should make it into cube and most of blues control tools seem like they would be really good in aggro, I'm 360 at the moment and don't know if i should cut cards or expand to include blue aggro. Geist is one of the strongest aggro threats any color has gotten in the last year, the new UB four drop is one of the best aggro finishers in recent years.
I will definitely try this out and get back to everyone.
I think Phantasmal Bear is pretty bad because he can't pick up any equipment. However, a lot of the staple blue cards are amazing in aggro anyway. If we get an Isamaru for blue I'll be the first to include it, but at the moment there aren't many great aggro one drops - lots of near misses though.
You're right. I've just been planning on including blue aggro for a while and never gotten around to it. Now I'm too excited to evaluate cards properly :/.
Blue aggro plays differently than other aggro combinations. Blue doesn't need Isamarus to be good in aggro. Blue is already great in aggro, with all the cards we're already playing. Add in the splashable counters, bounce and the good blue creatures alongside any other color's aggro package and you'll have yourself a beastly tempo deck with no requirement to change your blue section at all.
I play almost no blue aggro/tempo exclusive cards, and U/X tempo decks are consistent draft winners.
Blue aggro plays differently than other aggro combinations. Blue doesn't need Isamarus to be good in aggro. Blue is already great in aggro, with all the cards we're already playing. Add in the splashable counters, bounce and the good blue creatures alongside any other color's aggro package and you'll have yourself a beastly tempo deck with no requirement to change your blue section at all.
I play almost no blue aggro/tempo exclusive cards, and U/X tempo decks are consistent draft winners.
I agree wholeheartedly, though I certainly appreciate adding a few specific pieces like KGGS and/or Daze to inject some archetype support without compromising overall card quality.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
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For me blue based aggro is a very interesting archetype that got some tools over the past years that it might actually be really competitive in cube. I didnt want to start a SCD thread for every card, and I know there is a MCD thread about blue tempo, but I thought to make the discussion a bit more professional. While there might not be the raw power of red or white based aggressive decks, blue based aggro has so many tricks and ways to cause a headache to your opponent.
CreaturesSupporting cards I am sure, that I forgot some cards. Maybe you have other experiences with some cards I run or have experience with cards I dont run or even have new cards to through in the discussion.
My Peasant Cube: @ mtgsalvation---- @ cubecobra
Nof... if you're gonna do this in nearly EVERY thread, please add some content alongside. Please. I can't be the only one who finds this tiresome and pointless. Not to mention that it's spam and we'd rather you didn't get suspended, 'cause you're generally a helpful poster.
---
Here's my take on blue aggro guys - there are some great supporting blue cards for aggro that only work in that deck. In order to fit them into my cube though, I have to remove something that's probably better in a vacuum that fits into more archetypes. There are enough versatile aggro cards for blue, like many of those that the OP mentioned, that are great in any deck, and which serve to enable blue aggro.
What you're probably achieving by adding in the aggro only stuff is enabling mono-blue aggro by providing a critical mass of redundant stuff, because with the good-everywhere cards on their own, blue aggro should already be a thing. For that reason, I never felt the need to run guys like Commander and Pestermite.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Blue tempo is the bees knees but I don't think I would play Pestermite, Wake Thrasher, or Coralhelm Commander just to force the archetype. I think I push blue tempo pretty hard at 360, but there are only 2 cards in my blue sections that would specifically slot only into U/x tempo: Edric, Spymaster of Trest, and Geist of Saint Traft.
My Cube on Cube Tutor
Pestermite is a pet card of mine, but I think it does have solid applications and nowadays even a combo angle is possible, see the Splinter Twin Combo Thread.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Vexing Sphinx - Filtering is great in aggro/tempo. So is a 4/4 flier for 3.
Riftwing Cloudskate - Answers the question of "what do I do on turn 2?"
Sower of Temptation - Yeah it's good in everything, but it's still great in aggro/tempo.
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage - Great curve-topper.
Another important question is what your support color is going to be. Black is great for creature removal and 1-drops, as well as card draw strapped to creatures like Shadowmage Infiltrator and Graveborn Muse. In my opinion, blue/black tempo/aggro is the most powerful blue aggro deck.
Red turns into some sort of aggro counterburn. You play red for hasty creatures and burn, and blue for permission and card draw. Unlike blue/black, in blue/red you have red as the main color.
Green becomes heavy tempo. Mana elves are great for this deck, and you use stuff like Acidic Slime, Plow Under, and Eternal Witness/Regrowth to destroy their mana production while swinging in with cheap blue creatures. Bounce spells are key for this deck, and stuff like Remand and Memory Lapse become huge.
White/Blue just becomes beating face with small evasive creatures.
To comment on topic I see Fettergeist mentioned which I don't think of as an aggro card and would probably cut in favor of Coralhelm Commander which has performed better than expected here.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
+1. If the gender is obvious (i.e., Oona, Queen of the Fae), it's one thing, but the only way you can tell Pestermite is female is to look for breasts. It doesn't say anything anywhere on the card to identify the gender, and I don't make a habit of checking out the breasts on cartoon characters.
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
As far as the gender issue goes, I think a non-legendary creature can be either gender, as shown by cards such as Meddling Mage and Spellstutter Sprite which change gender based on the art... One being based on an invitational player nonetheless.
Re: the gender thing...I wish we as a community were more welcoming to female players. It is a fact that the art depicts certain cards as female so I think it's understandable to ask people to use the right pronoun. It's not really that big a deal to say, "Oops, she," and it can make some people feel more included. Small price, big potential pay-off. I wish being sexist/racist wasn't so touchy because we all are at times.
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
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The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
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Blimpy's Aggro-Focused Cube (powered 360)
I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve my cube. Take a look and ask a question, or give a constructive critique whenever you can.
It's an awesome bounce spell that is very mana intensive.
Blimpy's Aggro-Focused Cube (powered 360)
I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve my cube. Take a look and ask a question, or give a constructive critique whenever you can.
I wouldn't reacommend this in a normal cube unless if you really want to push the aggro blue archetype. But if you are, Withdraw becomes actually quite good.
Green
aggro, combo(land ramp or natural order,SotF), combo
White
aggro, Combo(Cards like balance and reveillark), Control(wraths walkers)
Red
Aggro, LD and Wildfire decks, Control in mass sweepers
Black
Aggro, Stax, Control
Blue,
Thousands of cool minicombos, CONTROL KING, 0 aggro
I feel like opening blue aggro will increase my options by a lot.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
I will definitely try this out and get back to everyone.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
I play almost no blue aggro/tempo exclusive cards, and U/X tempo decks are consistent draft winners.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I agree wholeheartedly, though I certainly appreciate adding a few specific pieces like KGGS and/or Daze to inject some archetype support without compromising overall card quality.
Current EDH Decks:
G Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
B Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
GU Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979