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| kermit |
![]() Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 9:45 am |
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Joined: 02 Feb 2006
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Location: South Africa
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--- description ---
Multiplayer has never been associated with control decks. Why not? Make it work, I say! A deeper look into the stigma surrounding Magic: The Gathering’s most controversial colour, BLUE
--- end description ---
Quote: Stigma:
(From Greek - tattoo mark of slavers), a mark or token of infamy or disgrace.
Quote: "And the Lord set a mark upon Cain" -- Genesis
The mark has indeed been set. Blue has been regarded as one of the most powerful, or most annoying colours in the colour-pie to play against. Which one of the two is merely a matter of opinion.
In a One-on-One match, a blue control deck can wreak havoc. A permission deck, comprised mostly of Counter-spells, can easily diminish a strong opponent to nothing more than an irritated and beat-down has-been.
What promises lie in store for the player who chooses blue in Multiplayer?
What strength lies hidden in blue, when the numbers are up, the stakes are higher, and your enemies are multiplying?
The answer: Not much at all. Blue has never been a strong multiplayer deck, due to the problem of running out your own Library before the other 3 opponents are even halfway through theirs...
The answer lies with diversity at the cost of a little speed.
The common Permission-deck will focus all its strength on Instants or Sorceries that counter spells, abilities or possibly both. Countering spells are rarely ever an attack, but more of a trade. Your card in the graveyard, my card in the graveyard.
In multiplayer, instead of countering 40 spells from your opponent once each, you will have to counter each player’s spells to succeed. That makes a total number of 120 counters to perform! A deck THAT large would never perform well.
The trick is, you don’t NEED that size deck to succeed.
In order to survive in Multiplayer with a pure-blue deck, cards like Reminisce (Sorcery, Blue) are worth their cost in gold. It allows you to shuffle your graveyard right back into your library, giving you a renewed and refreshed deck to continue countering with.
Another added bonus is that the card was reprinted for 9th Edition, so it’s completely legal in Standard tournaments.
Stream of Consciousness (Instant-Arcane, Blue) from Betrayers of Kamigawa is equally useful, however it only puts four cards back into your library, allowing fine-tuned control of your graveyard contents.
Make sure you have at least 4 of one of these cards in your deck for multiplayer use, if not both!
As far as creatures go, the range of Soratami creatures are the most valued aspect of a multiplayer controller’s deck. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant (Creature, Blue) allows each first spell of each player per turn to be countered automatically, and Soratami Savant allows you, for a cost of 3 colourless per threat, to counter the rest of the spells, without losing your counter-spells in hand.
Best thing about these creatures, is that they counter spells using abilities, and abilities are not easily countered. Besides, you can always counter the spell that counters your abilities…
In the Extended format, Crucible of worlds (Artifact) is an almost priceless card for Blue-control. It allows you to play your lands from the graveyard. Whenever you are required to discard a card, simply discard your lands!
If Vintage is more your thing, take a look at Ancestral Tribute (Sorcery, White), which will gain you 2 life for each card in your graveyard. Right before you recall your library with Reminisce, why not pump your life up a bit?
Honor the Fallen (Instant, White) will remove ALL creatures from their graveyards, gaining you 1 life for each. Punish your opponent for the creature spells you have already countered away from them…
Never be afraid to play with the colours in your blue deck, even if just a little. Colour adds diversity to a deck, something which blue has very little of.
Stock em up. Rack em in. Counter them senseless.
CONTROL YOUR GAME! |
| Last edited by kermit on Mon Feb 06, 2006 2:04 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:43 pm |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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What you have is good, but seems almost incomplete -- I'm hoping to see more in-depth, practical examples of your suggestions. An actual decklist and multiplayer game report would make this really top-notch. (At least from an information/entertainment perspective... I typically rate on style and let the more experienced players be the strategy critics.  )
Please remove the images, by the way. |
| http://cobracards.com -- Web's best deals on Trading Card Games. |
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| Osion |
![]() Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:05 pm |
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Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Posts: 62
Location: MD
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Um sorry to say but this really provides no new information, just a recap of some of the powerful cards you can use with blue.
I don’t think its even possible to play a deck with 40 counters, unless you count the multi-color counters like Absorb and the conditional counters like Hisoka’s Defiance.
But then you’d have no threat density and the deck wouldn’t be mono blue.
Blue decks are quite powerful now, with Meloku the Clouded Mirror. They really have no chance of decking, so Stream of Conciousness and subsquent refil cards are really just wasted slots.
Ancestral Tribute is way too slow in Vintage, where anything above 3 mana that can’t be cheated into play (Via Tinker or Goblin Welder) is unplayable.
Sorry about the criticism, but your deck really gives no new information and isn’t really a strategy article. |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 7:13 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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At least include real-game situations, or a decklist or something! It seems like a review that is accurate, but I’d like to see some uses.
P.S. Opening with a quote is cool. |
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