Quote Originally Posted by JosefK View Post
There are no purple players, only one player. The reason for that seem to mostly be because of either budget reasons or an in my mind irrational dislike of blue. It's a bit unfortunate in my opinion as i (obv) think UR is better and that blue offers more possibility for varying play styles in different matchups. I'm currently ~62% wins this year (almost 150 matches). I'm certain that it can be increased somewhat just by settling which strategies to use in which matchup.
2 examples of where that has happened
  • I had an revelation a while ago about why the grixis control matchup was so good. Before that revelation i had 24-14, after that revelation i am 13-2, this is without any major changes in the deck.
  • The other example being sneak and show, i realized a while ago that i am _not_ the beatdown in the postboard games. Before that i was 3-6, after that i am 5-0, very small sample size and it's obviously not a 100% matchup but i feel a lot more confident in that matchup now.

Both those changes are directly related to the cantrips, what to keep, what to shuffle away etc.
It would be awesome with more people playing UR and be able to discuss playstyles instead of just decklists. If only i weren't so lazy i would create my own thread and be more active in promoting the deck :)
there's valid points here. the reason why i don't play blue is to try and optimize the red list. it has some advantages and i think that while the blue deck has some advantages for consistency, it's likely just a few cards off from being ANT/TES.

there's a few advantages to staying in red (and optionally splashing for intuition)

1) the exile cards are quite strong with LED. many times you can just go for it and there's a good chance you'll get there.
2) you can run more maindeck empty the warrens, it's not as elegant, but the stupid guys win games.
3) you're less weak to chalice on 1, a lot less.