Since I've started playing the game, the colors I enjoyed to play have shifted numerously and drastically.
Urza's Saga was just commencing when I first discovered the game, and I was at first enraptured by white's imperviousness and staunchness until I came across Worship and I just thought that was cheap.
Then I switched to and fro until I finally landed in red/blue as my favorite combination.
While I don't like playing combo so I didn't relinquish on the DStorm/Swath era, I do like how they pair up - the destructive potential of red with the quick sleight of hand of blue.
However, every time a set has presented blue/red it has been quick to disappoint. While Apocalypse had many playables, Ravnica showed little of use - Cerebral Vortex was heaven-sent to my Owling Mine deck, and Stich in Time has the most thrilling art in a Magic card so far, but overall janky - and general disconnect as opposed to the more cohesive guilds such as Selesnya, the Simic, or Rakdos; then came the UR hybrids in Eventide of which not a single one showed promise and almost seemed deliberately bad; and Alara, while having a fair share of U/R cards, has not produced anything of playable calibre other than Double Negative and the desirably good yet actually meh Spellbound Dragon.
It's got me thinking, really. Could it be that WOTC just doesn't want to promote a Counterfire build? Considering its based on the three very unpopular aspects - land destruction, counters, and killing through burn - it's possible it was either concientiously stifled or just a product of all those playstyles not being encouraged.
With the current trend in T2, aggro seems to currently be gettin the extra push. In my opinion, blue/red seems like a combination with much more affinity towards control than aggro. In terms of decent blue/red decks, back during Kami/Rav T2, there was blue/red tron which was decent in some respects. I'm not sure though if that's the type of answer you're looking for.
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EDH: It's like a pillow fight, except occasionally someone pulls out a chainsaw.
If you suggest a card to add to a deck, suggest one to take out as well.
The big issue with U/R is that red decks win through tempo, and red cards emphasize tempo and low CMC is a must, whereas blue decks win through card advantage, and can permit slightly higher average CMC cards.
The problem is an aggro deck can't afford to play cards with higher CMC that wreck its curve, or go too low on threat density. Control can't afford to run threats it can't protect or it loses CA. The fundamental styles of the two colors clash way too much for them to have good synergy. Izzet had a lot of par for the course U/R stuff: it was telling that it was just less synergistic than the Orzhov, Selesnya, and Gruul stuff. The way that the two colors win games is just too different for them to play nice.
I woudla thought a burn/draw woulda worked well because red doesn't have THAT maby burn cards. If ya got a couple islands and a LOT of mountain, you may be able to go:
Draw X, play this, this, this, this, game.
Know what I mean? (Like above said)
Right now I got a red/blue beatdown (argh lol) deck. It works around clout of the dominius, shorecrasher mimic and Shard Volley, Noggle-Hedge Mage, that stuff.
In Standard, I haven't attempted making a competitive U/R deck.
I messed around with one in casual though. Lots of burn, stuff like Lightning Bolt, Fireball, Blaze, with quick counters to keep you alive (Negates, Counterspells). I also added x4 Reminisce for a quick reload when I knew I was running low on burn.
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GENERATION 16 - (The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.)
I seem to remember that as late as Rav-TS standard, there were Izzetron decks, and decks like Dragonstorm, that were all UR. Once you got to Shadowmoor, though, there were few effects that red and blue share, that could be put on hybrid cards. This led to cards that switched power and toughness, redirected targets, and such, instead of more powerful cards like Electrolyze, or powerful effects that could get printed in the other pairs, like Quillspike. I'm not sure what's happened since then, though. Izzet cards are kinda hard to come up with unique designs for... you could see they were really reaching with cards like Noggle Bandit in Shadowmoor.
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This space dedicated to Duane Allman. Wail on Skydog!
Quillspike is fine for a card that could fit into either black or green. Red and blue share practically nothing, and every time R/U cards get touted, people mention Electrolyze or Fire (Fire/Ice).
The issue is, how red wins a game is via tempo and how blue wins is via card advantage. While it's quite arguable that one is an aspect of the other, at the end of the day red is really only good for burn and quick aggro 99% of the time, while blue draws cards and counters spells. The amount of deck space that each one of these requires to win is too large for the other to be really effective - the only R/U deck that isn't really combo or some garbled five color mess is Tempo Thresh, which runs Fire & Ice and bolts, and used to run Fledgling Dragon.
Drawing cards slows your clock, while playing burn accelerates it. The tension between the two strategies overwhelms the decks that try to run them.
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Urza's Saga was just commencing when I first discovered the game, and I was at first enraptured by white's imperviousness and staunchness until I came across Worship and I just thought that was cheap.
Then I switched to and fro until I finally landed in red/blue as my favorite combination.
While I don't like playing combo so I didn't relinquish on the DStorm/Swath era, I do like how they pair up - the destructive potential of red with the quick sleight of hand of blue.
However, every time a set has presented blue/red it has been quick to disappoint. While Apocalypse had many playables, Ravnica showed little of use - Cerebral Vortex was heaven-sent to my Owling Mine deck, and Stich in Time has the most thrilling art in a Magic card so far, but overall janky - and general disconnect as opposed to the more cohesive guilds such as Selesnya, the Simic, or Rakdos; then came the UR hybrids in Eventide of which not a single one showed promise and almost seemed deliberately bad; and Alara, while having a fair share of U/R cards, has not produced anything of playable calibre other than Double Negative and the desirably good yet actually meh Spellbound Dragon.
It's got me thinking, really. Could it be that WOTC just doesn't want to promote a Counterfire build? Considering its based on the three very unpopular aspects - land destruction, counters, and killing through burn - it's possible it was either concientiously stifled or just a product of all those playstyles not being encouraged.
I don't know. What up.
If you suggest a card to add to a deck, suggest one to take out as well.
And yes, I loved playing Eminent Domain with Wildfire too.
The problem is an aggro deck can't afford to play cards with higher CMC that wreck its curve, or go too low on threat density. Control can't afford to run threats it can't protect or it loses CA. The fundamental styles of the two colors clash way too much for them to have good synergy. Izzet had a lot of par for the course U/R stuff: it was telling that it was just less synergistic than the Orzhov, Selesnya, and Gruul stuff. The way that the two colors win games is just too different for them to play nice.
His deck consisted of the following cards when I played him:
Mulldrifter
Call to Heel (evoked the mulldrifter then call to heeled it)
Jace Beleren
Lightning Bolt
Flame Javelin
Hell's Thunder
Hellspark Elemental
Lava Axe
Filter Lands
It didn't do bad and was very interesting.
Draw X, play this, this, this, this, game.
Know what I mean? (Like above said)
Right now I got a red/blue beatdown (argh lol) deck. It works around clout of the dominius, shorecrasher mimic and Shard Volley, Noggle-Hedge Mage, that stuff.
Deck Types In Progress: R, WB, GU
Trade list
Help me fix my decks please!
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I messed around with one in casual though. Lots of burn, stuff like Lightning Bolt, Fireball, Blaze, with quick counters to keep you alive (Negates, Counterspells). I also added x4 Reminisce for a quick reload when I knew I was running low on burn.
The issue is, how red wins a game is via tempo and how blue wins is via card advantage. While it's quite arguable that one is an aspect of the other, at the end of the day red is really only good for burn and quick aggro 99% of the time, while blue draws cards and counters spells. The amount of deck space that each one of these requires to win is too large for the other to be really effective - the only R/U deck that isn't really combo or some garbled five color mess is Tempo Thresh, which runs Fire & Ice and bolts, and used to run Fledgling Dragon.
Drawing cards slows your clock, while playing burn accelerates it. The tension between the two strategies overwhelms the decks that try to run them.