What card do you think is good against blue?

[ahg113]

Salutations folks,

So whenever a deck is being conceptualized, one of the realistic answers it has to have is for blue. Whether or not that’s maindecking or sideboarding, what are some of the better/playable hate cards for the color?

This is more along the lines of SCD, but a multitude of them in one spot.

Obviously, the best card against blue is Great Sable Stag. But aside from that, what are the reasonable cards to include in SBs, or maindeck? The more applicable the card is against a wider field the better, but limiting blue’s ability to be jerks should be foremost.

Off the top of my head I come up with:

Red
REB
Pyroblast
Blood Moon
Magnetic Island
Active Volcano
Goblin Piledriver

Green
Choke
Gaea’s Herald
Spellbane Centaur
Carpet of Flowers
Gaea’s Revenge
Thrun, the Last Troll
Autumn’s Veil


White
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Grand Abolisher

Artifact
Defense Grid

Multicolor
Spiteful Visions
Vexing Shusher


What else is out there? Cards like Bloodghast or Demigod of Revenge are good too because they don’t “care” about being countered.

I’m trying to shape up a sideboard in RWB, but am also just interested in general. My meta is heavily blue influenced.

Cheers,
the more playable the suggestion, the better

[frogczar]

I like Scald in addition to everything you listed.

Personally, I would like a reverse version of Chill for red to hose blue with.

[Rizso]

Always liked the 1mana discard effects against blue. Thoughtseize, Inquisition of kozilek, duress and Cabal Therapy

[TsumiBand]

Given people's shitty fear of Blue dominance, I don't understand why REB and friends don't see as much play as StP. No one's ever been able to explain this particular intangibility of Magic to me; people will rock StP even when it sucks, thinking "oh if it's bad i'll just side it out g2-g3", but people won't do a 4x maindeck REB. What's the fundamental difference between "Creatures are good so play Swords" and "Blue is good so play Red Elemental Blast"?

[Tammit67]

Because removing a creature can visibily save your life, while countering a brainstorm does not usually promote board position

[ahg113]

Given people's shitty fear of Blue dominance, I don't understand why REB and friends don't see as much play as StP. No one's ever been able to explain this particular intangibility of Magic to me; people will rock StP even when it sucks, thinking "oh if it's bad i'll just side it out g2-g3", but people won't do a 4x maindeck REB. What's the fundamental difference between "Creatures are good so play Swords" and "Blue is good so play Red Elemental Blast"?

Glassing over the opinion of people’s ‘fear’ of Blue, there is a fundamental difference between StP and REB. It’s a matter of resources, StP excels in maximum effect for minimal effort. Because the opponent sank resources into a board presence that is now removed, the player using StP is ahead. It’s possible that the StP could be compromised (mom effect, counter, etc.), then there is just a wasted mana. When StP is bad, it will remove a man-land at least, or a token for the heck of it.

Contrary, REB is a dead card against all things not blue. While the destroy blue permanent is very relevant, you’re using your “protection spell” as removal, if it gets countered, you’re SoL. The reason you planned on using REB in the first place is to fight counterspells. If it will be used for protection, the player is set back a turn. For as long as the player has the REB, all of his spells are increased by R. And if the blue opponent has more than one counterspell available to cast, then again the player would be SoL.

But I do like the question of why REB/Pyroblast isn’t maindecked more often if the player is weak to blue.

I also like the single black discard effects. But those tend to be boss against anything not dredge/reanimator.

Cheers,
there are no natural food stuffs that are blue

[CorpT]

I think the more relevant question is: Why is Maverick decent to good against various Blue decks. And how can that be duplicated/translated to other decks. Because it doesn't play specific Anti-Blue cards. I think going down that path is a trap that is going to lead you to playing suboptimal cards, even in boards in an effort to deal with something that isn't the root cause of why you're losing.

[Nonex]

I'm currently running 4 Carpet of Flowers in all my sideboards, except in Enchantress, where 3 of them go MD. Card is busted and absurdly underplayed.

[Deviruchi]

I would add to your list Xantid Swarm, Orim's Chant, Silence.

I'm also with Rizso, discard is very good vs blue as a support + counters / removal / bombs. I can also answer this topic: play BWG Deadguy Ale :) When I played it I had very possitive results vs U.

[Finn]

Hymn to Tourach wrecks Show and Tell but only mediocre against decks that smell like aggro.

The thing that annoys me about searching for answers to blue as a color is that it is usually better at co-opting the very measures that beat it than any nonblue deck. Tarmo is a typical example. Cards that buck this trend extremely hard to find, and usually take a nuanced approach to figure out.

Thalia is stupendous in that role because she does not force her deck to be narrow and gets at the heart of what makes blue tick. Aka she won't work with search and counters.

Life from the Loam is actually an anti blue card albeit slow. Blue decks can use it just fine but the design of such a deck is tricky and relegated to slow control. Blue is usually better off with its usual stuff.

That's about all I can think of for cards not relegated to the SB.

[Koby]

Strategic ways to beat blue:

Redundancy
Consistency
Threat density

Zoo, for the most part, is very adept at dispatching Blue decks. The problem with Zoo however is the lack of disruption. Tribal also has good matchups against Blue. Maybe the broad definition of "Blue" isn't sufficient to address properly. Within "Blue" exists three branches - tempo, combo, and control. Fighting "Blue" in the broad sense is a worthless effort because you really need to be able to beat all three varieties. Some decks have a better matchup against say Tempo than against Combo.

What people usually refer to "Blue" in the classical sense is control with heavy counters and some cantrips. We haven't seen this style in Legacy very often in the last 2 years outside of Stoneblade and Landstill-esque variants.

[lavafrogg]

Seedtime screws most counters and brainstorms, you just have to be a boss to play it.

[CorpT]

Strategic ways to beat blue:

Redundancy
Consistency
Threat density

Zoo, for the most part, is very adept at dispatching Blue decks. The problem with Zoo however is the lack of disruption. Tribal also has good matchups against Blue. Maybe the broad definition of "Blue" isn't sufficient to address properly. Within "Blue" exists three branches - tempo, combo, and control. Fighting "Blue" in the broad sense is a worthless effort because you really need to be able to beat all three varieties. Some decks have a better matchup against say Tempo than against Combo.

What people usually refer to "Blue" in the classical sense is control with heavy counters and some cantrips. We haven't seen this style in Legacy very often in the last 2 years outside of Stoneblade and Landstill-esque variants.

This is the better version of what I was thinking. Much better.

[ddt15]

I'm surprised noone has said Aether Vial.

[nedleeds]

If blue were only control ... or only aggro ... or only combo ... it might be easy to answer. But blue is the best aggro color with the best creature, it's the best control color and pairs easily with the best removal color, it also enables all of the (non-belcher) combo decks by salvaging bad hands, protecting with brainstorm and occasionally (as with SnS) protecting the combo on the stack.

The best cards against blue are other blue cards since blue is so absurdly versatile.

[DrJones]

Cavern of Souls. Elvish Spirit Guide is useful on its own and also pretty good against decks playing Daze.

[Rizso]

What makes blue so great isnt whats in their own color but rather what they can splash in with duals and fetchlands. There isnt really much successful monoblue decks but rather blue-fetch/dualland decks. What makes Thrun so good against blue isnt just that it cant be countered its also good against both lightning bolt and stp's.

An other card I like against blue decks are wastelands.

[Vacrix]

Gitaxian Probe. Don't see Force? Drop Emrakul, go.

Oh and Extirpate or Surgical Extraction can be pretty brutal. Hit Jace early with a discard spell, follow up and remove the rest of them.

[Awaclus]

I think the more relevant question is: Why is Maverick decent to good against various Blue decks. And how can that be duplicated/translated to other decks. Because it doesn't play specific Anti-Blue cards. I think going down that path is a trap that is going to lead you to playing suboptimal cards, even in boards in an effort to deal with something that isn't the root cause of why you're losing.
Because it's an aggro deck, and blue has problems with those.

[Piceli89]

Because it's an aggro deck, and blue has problems with those.

Uncorrect answers. Because it's an aggro deck where most of the creatures represent a threat providing advantages that has to be removed as soon as possible. Mother of Runes will blank removals, Knight will begin fetching Wastelands, Ooze will take away Snapcaster and Goyf fodder; above all, Thalia will provide asymmetrical slow-down. In this scenario, you can't realistically fight each of them going 1x1 through Counterspells. You need parallel form of heavy mass removal (Terminus) or continuous one (Grim Lavamancer), or eventually you'll just lose to their redundancy.

Zoo is an aggro deck, but a modern blue deck wouldn't have problem crushing it, because all its beaters are vanilla dorks. In fact, it's dead.

[kiblast]

Uncorrect answers. Because it's an aggro deck where most of the creatures represent a threat providing advantages that has to be removed as soon as possible. Mother of Runes will blank removals, Knight will begin fetching Wastelands, Ooze will take away Snapcaster and Goyf fodder; above all, Thalia will provide asymmetrical slow-down. In this scenario, you can't realistically fight each of them going 1x1 through Counterspells. You need parallel form of heavy mass removal (Terminus) or continuous one (Grim Lavamancer), or eventually you'll just lose to their redundancy.

Zoo is an aggro deck, but a modern blue deck wouldn't have problem crushing it, because all its beaters are vanilla dorks. In fact, it's dead.

Exactly. The problem (for blue-decks) with Maverick is its redundancy and consistency not only in providing decent clock (any good aggro deck can do that, from Zoo to Merfolk) but also in providing UW-disruption tools such as the ones highlighted by Piceli89. For example, Merfolk does the same, but in a more traditional way (Wasteland, Daze, Vial, with the addition of Cursecatcher). Maverick just accomplishes this by playing smart creatures, and not Goyfs.

Moreover, in ref. to the OP: Great Sable Stag is not the best card against blue, and at least half of the cards in that list are unplayable/sub par. In my opinion the best ''catch all'' cards, the one you don't need a specific deck to be played, are Choke, REB, asymmetric taxing effects such as Thalia and Thorn of Amethyst, and Carpet of Flowers.

[xfxf]

I agree with CopT and Koby on all accounts. Fighting blue on a card by card basis doesn't make much sense and you need to define what you mean by blue if you want to fight it on a macro level.

To me blue is RUG currently, followed by Esper blade and maybe Miracle Control, BUG Control. Card filter + cheap counterspell powered by the best any other one/two colors can offer. The important thing here is that blue is reliant on other colors. Blue is good because it allows you to play the best of multiple colors in conjunction reliably. Which brings me to the glaring weakness of manabases...

Last night I proxy tested an Imperial Painter list for the first time against RUG and Esper and got shocked at the effectiveness of Moon effects coupled with a fast combo. I was annoying the people in the White Stax threads in the past few weeks with questions because I believed the mana denial strategy of those decks was a sure way to lock up the top blue decks. I'm now sure that mana denial backed up with an efficient way to kill is one of the strongest strategies to hose blue decks.

Btw, that Imperial Painter deck is something. I don't know if its miserable burn/ur delver matchup makes it a meh deck like bug control or if the deck is actually great but not all over the place because of the price of recruiters, yet it still feels brutal.

[Alexeezay]

gotta love Tsunami /Boiling Seas in Nic Fit or decks with Burning Wish

[ahg113]

Moreover, in ref. to the OP: Great Sable Stag is not the best card against blue, and at least half of the cards in that list are unplayable/sub par.

Granted, the list is full of sub-par cards. It was a beginning point, not the end. Had I included a smiley face next to Great Sable Stag, would you have better understood that it was a joke?

With that out of the way...
I agree that attacking the different aspects blue is good at, or are in particular troublesome, is a much better resolution process than just asking what is good against blue. I often have the most trouble with the control aspects, and with that the card drawing aspects. Either the ability to effectively draw cards from another color, or limit blue's effect of control (counter/bounce) was the genesis of this post.

I've enjoyed the discussion, and it's a creative exercise to utilize in deck building.

@Lavafrogg - that's awesome. Seedtime should totally be reprinted, if nothing but for the lulz. I want to snap buy a playset, then make a deck where I put it on Isochron Scepter- just because I hate blue that much.

Cheers,
to the helpful folks- thank you

[HokusSchmokus]

Play Maverick/Dredge and most blue decks will be quite easy.

[Anusien]

Fighting a color instead of a strategy is pretty hilariously wrong.

[socialite]

Fighting a color instead of a strategy is pretty hilariously wrong.

+1

Also another pro tip, play Blue.

[DrJones]

Fighting a color instead of a strategy is pretty hilariously wrong.I demand proof for your dumb statement.

[Koby]

I demand proof for your dumb statement.

Point proven. DrJones vs Blue. Hilarity ensues.

[menace13]

Better blue players.

[DrJones]

Point proven. DrJones vs Blue. Hilarity ensues.
Irrefutable proof that playing hate against a color is sometimes better than playing hate against one strategy.

suppose a meta has: burn (burn), dragonstorm (combo), red deck wins (fast aggro), goblins (tempo tribal), and Land Destruction decks (control).

All of them different decks and different strategies.

Would you choose to attack every strategy with different hate cards, or would you rather play Chill and Blue elemental Blast that are generic awesome answers against every single one of these decks, because it attacks the one point they all have in common? :rolleyes:

[Nihil Credo]

Let's try this again. Without, if possible, making this button look tempting (http://i.imgur.com/KnjXK.jpg).

[dontbiteitholmes]

Let's try this again. Without, if possible, making this button look tempting (http://i.imgur.com/KnjXK.jpg).


Seriously? So we aren't allowed to respond to an obviously idiotic response that is calling someone else's response stupid, by pointing out DrJones doesn't know what he's talking about?

Okay, just I'll just leave it at this.


I demand proof for your dumb statement.

Top 8's...

[xfxf]

Hey, is there no humor left in this forum? I already have a serious reply in this thread but dropped the seriousness when the thread took a turn for the stupid very fast. I call the admins to have more sympathy and less power tripping.

[LOurs]

Fighting a color instead of a strategy is pretty hilariously wrong.

+1. Obv

Starting to build a deck or to fight a deck on a color basis is a casual view. In a competitive view, a deck is built or hated on a strategical basis. This is non sense to run REB because there are lots of blue decks if your strategy implies to run 4 chalices to play them at 1 in example, although REB is one of the best anti-blue card. Same goes with carpet of flowers if you dont need that much manas, and thalia/3sphere could be an excellent answer to some blue based strategies although not affecting specificaly blue. Examples could be numerous.

[HokusSchmokus]

I find it funny that every 1-2 months some people get sand in their pussies and be all like "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah blue is op waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah". I don't get it. There are tier 1 decks that beat on most blue strategies. What's the problem?

Oh.Oh I get it. I think it's because some people can't accept that there is a best color. Or maybe because they are too bad of a player to win against turn 1 Delver, turn 2 flip.
Seriously, standard players cry a lot less than some guys on this forum.

[xfxf]

I really want to play against a player who sides in Choke against my Spiral Tide deck to hate on blue because he thinks hosing colors is more critical than hosing strategies. I want to see what kind of a new level his hatred can reach after that game.

[trivial_matters]

I really want to play against a player who sides in Choke against my Spiral Tide deck to hate on blue because he thinks hosing colors is more critical than hosing strategies. I want to see what kind of a new level his hatred can reach after that game.

God forbid he's playing REB or Pyroblast in his sideboard instead of Choke. That's even worse.

[TsumiBand]

I'm not saying REB all the Blue things, that's just about as bad as the Blue player mindlessly Counterspelling every spell ever, or just StPing everything in sight and then wondering why he's topdecking. REB is a card, though, that very directly acts as a counter AND removal. Why is it implicit that REB is suboptimal to other tools that can be used as well to fight a strategy? Can't it be played with surgical precision? I'm not advocating some kind of fucked up 8-Blast deck that just sits back and waits to Pyroblast a bunch of Merfolk here.

[ahg113]

So it was never my intention to give U players a forum to orgasm at how great blue was, but alas, such is life.

I thought of another jank card that is great at hosing blue, no matter the strategy they are going for, but it is a blue card. I took the recommendation of others to look at blue in order to defeat blue.

So, here it is... Sapphire Leech.

Cheers,
group think has it's ups and downs, original intent be damned

[Ignithas_]

I find it funny that every 1-2 months some people get sand in their pussies and be all like "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah blue is op waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah". I don't get it. There are tier 1 decks that beat on most blue strategies. What's the problem?

Oh.Oh I get it. I think it's because some people can't accept that there is a best color. Or maybe because they are too bad of a player to win against turn 1 Delver, turn 2 flip.
Seriously, standard players cry a lot less than some guys on this forum.
[snip ~NC] There is not a problem when one color is superior to the other, when there are signs that the people that develop this game want to balance the other colors to that level. And the only sign I saw was the unbanning of Land Tax, what absolutely done nothing. With the printing of Delver and Snapcaster Mage and the introducing of extremly strong fatties U is getting stronger and stronger. Don't understand me wrong, I don't want something banned, but it would be nice to see cards on the same powerlevel than BS, so color restricted like FoW and so off the color wheel like Delver on other colors.

[FieryBalrog]

I find it funny that every 1-2 months some people get sand in their pussies and be all like "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah blue is op waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah". I don't get it. There are tier 1 decks that beat on most blue strategies. What's the problem?

There is what, one tier1 deck that does decently against blue? "What's the problem"? :laugh:


Oh.Oh I get it. I think it's because some people can't accept that there is a best color.
And some people who know nothing about game design swallow the status quo.


Or maybe because they are too bad of a player to win against turn 1 Delver, turn 2 flip.
Seriously, standard players cry a lot less than some guys on this forum.

Whining about how other players are "bad" doesn't make you look good.

[xeraseth]

So it was never my intention to give U players a forum to orgasm at how great blue was, but alas, such is life.

I thought of another jank card that is great at hosing blue, no matter the strategy they are going for, but it is a blue card. I took the recommendation of others to look at blue in order to defeat blue.

So, here it is... Sapphire Leech.

Cheers,
group think has it's ups and downs, original intent be damned
You might want to reread that card... The only blue player it will hose is yourself.

[DrJones]

I think he already knew that when he posted that suggestion.

[Finn]

There are plenty of powerful non blue cards. And they fit nicely within the same deck as Force of Will and Brainstorm. This has been the defining archetype of the format since early 2004, and it has gone by many names. The trick (and what the OP requested) is to find cards that shut that deck down while not sucking against everything else.

[HokusSchmokus]

FieryBalrog, the bad thing about legacy is that most really good spells are years old. It is really really unlikely that they will ever print something that is as good of a spell as Brainstorm is. And because of BS,most blue decks would play that spell,too. To think wizards will do something about that is not realistic. Also a conpetitive card game needs filtering and draw spells and it was clear sincce alpha that blue is the color that does this. I really think players should say goodbyeto the idea that that is a bad thing. It is what defines the game imo. Cope with it already because this is the way the game was supposed to be from the very start.

[Hardcore]

that is not quite correct. except for ancestral there was not much good card draw around for blue back in the days. the classic white-blue deck,"The Deck" (or "the blue whore", as it was called here in Sweden), played Jaemdae tome because it gave you a nice card advantage!:eek:
The real problem with blue is the accumulated effect of all of wizards small mistakes.
Even if they never printed another blue instant cantrip, and restricted the others, there would still be enough of them to make blueish decks. Indeed all new cantrips are really only upgrades of older ones;
anyone remember impulse?

[betterthenandrew]

Asking what cards are good against blue shows a fundamental lack of understanding how competitive magic works. Reanimator, Merfolk, Rug, Landstill and High Tide are all blue based decks, but they play very differently and are therefor affected by different hate cards. Instead of trying to fight a color, you should be fighting strategies (which may involve color hate cards, but doesn't have to).

Also there is no inherent problem with one color being better than others- That's a defining part of the game. Players that are able to properly evaluate which cards (and as extension which colors) are best are going to have an advantage. That's intentional.

[dragonwisdom]

Blue has the best tech 2 drop snapcaster
Best Lord - Master of the Pearl Trident (can you believe wizards also gave them the best tribal lord)
Best 1 drop - Delver (can't believe this one either)
Best Legacy card - Brainstorm
Best PlanesWalker - Jace the Mind Sculptor
One of best creatures of all time - Vclique
strongest card supporting or fighting combo - Force of will

There is only 1 type of card that can battle all these cards. Players will even splash this color just to put in the side board. This card has already been mentioned in this thread. My friends the best way to battle blue is REB and pyroblast.

1) REB/pyroblast
honorable mentions - thrun the last troll and choke

That's it, that's the list. The other cards mentioned are just players getting cute. No offense guys.

[Vacrix]

I agree with that list only there's also..

Best card for cheating overcosted things into play - Show and Tell
Best lock piece ever printed - Counterbalance
Next to AdN, the best storm engine in Legacy - Time Spiral

Not to mention the only cards (unless I missed something) that were put on the banned list in the past few years were blue cards; Flash, Mental Misstep, and Mystical Tutor. Extremely overpowered and format warping cards.

[Barook]

Best Lord - Master of the Pearl Trident (can you believe wizards also gave them the best tribal lord)
That's interesting, though.

Why can't other "weaker" tribes get cheap 2cc lords? E.g. Zombies sure would love a :b::b: lord with swampwalk.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wizened Cenn didn't exactly rip Standard apart.

[Vacrix]

For Kithkin to even see play they'd need that lord to cost a single W. And even then, they probably wouldn't get played in Legacy.

I'd really like to see mono-black get better in Legacy. Its been too long. There isn't even really a viable mono-black deck right now outside of Pox, and its not even that good. Mono-black can straight up destroy blue decks with its disruption. It just needs a couple things to be good, it already has a great disruption package. It needs some creatures to compete with stuff like KoTR, Goyf, Delver, Scavenging Ooze..

[Nihil Credo]

Not to mention the only cards (unless I missed something) that were put on the banned list in the past few years were blue cardsYou missed Survival.

[Vacrix]

Indeed I did. Not that there weren't blue variants. :P

[Amon Amarth]

That's interesting, though.

Why can't other "weaker" tribes get cheap 2cc lords? E.g. Zombies sure would love a :b::b: lord with swampwalk.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wizened Cenn didn't exactly rip Standard apart.

This was weird. I was half expecting some other 2CC lord to be printed but it never surfaced. Anyways, I think it's really only a matter of time before we see some great Black creatures printed. It's not like they haven't been pushing Black pretty hard. Phyrexian Obliterator was a step in the right direction, same with Phyrexian Crusader. Black has a ton of kickass disruption, tutors, card draw, hosers and it just needs some really good creatures to stand alone. That or maybe in a few years there will be enough good Zombies to make a Tribal deck. The best we can do atm is Sam Black's Zombardment deck which isn't mono-Black but the Black cards do all the heavy lifting in the deck it just splashes for bombs and SB hate (and it's freaking awesome too).

[DrJones]

Asking what cards are good against blue shows a fundamental lack of understanding how competitive magic works. Reanimator, Merfolk, Rug, Landstill and High Tide are all blue based decks, but they play very differently and are therefor affected by different hate cards. Instead of trying to fight a color, you should be fighting strategies (which may involve color hate cards, but doesn't have to).

Also there is no inherent problem with one color being better than others- That's a defining part of the game. Players that are able to properly evaluate which cards (and as extension which colors) are best are going to have an advantage. That's intentional.Yeah, when Saito splashed black on his merfolk deck just to play Perish and Nature's Ruin he was showing a fundamental lack of understanding of competitive magic.

Or perhaps he was right in thinking that an anti-blue strategy (merfolk) with green hate was the best choice for that meta, given that he won the event.

In a meta infested with blue, tournament-caliber players would be sideboarding hate cards against blue if WotC actually printed good hate cards against it instead of Great Sable Stags. Players attack strategies or the nonblue cards in the decks in the DTB section because these are good cards instead of the jokes WotC has been giving us all these years. The purpose of this thread is to find if there's any card that can be used against the "shared blue part" of the decks that are winning tournaments, or at least acknowledge that there aren't any good ones.

[rxavage]

I don't think it is Saito that lacks understanding...

[Hardcore]

I disagree; black sucks. The disruption is only temporary; the opponent need only topdeck brainstorm, ponder or perhaps intuition?
The creatures mentioned are too slow or simply does nothing. As I to said to a friend; the flaw in my pox deck is that it does not run white for mystical stoneforge.
To continue give black tutors is just mean; what are black supposed to tutor for? (also they tend to be sorceries, unlike merchant scroll, intuition etc.)
All this was true when I quit a decade ago, and still is.
the only reason I started playing again was because
I suddenly realised that the best disruption black has is pox effects, I have been working on a making a viable pox deck this year.

[preddi]

Thinks like a cantrip hatebear(other thread) sounds like the worst idea i heard for quiet a while.

All this non interactive shit like hexproof, thalia and cavern of souls really makes magic less fun for everybody. Look at standard they just slam creatures on the table and the guy with the bigger ones or more vapor snags wins the game.

In addition non blue players tend to forget that they need a strong blue meta (at least in legacy) to keep degenerate decks in check. A deck like maverick is already bashing blue players (with the exception of heavy control decks). So why do you want to weaken the decks you already winning against and indirectly buffing the decks you loose to? In addition you destroy a whole archetype by doing so. Control relies on finding the right answers in a game. Without it people cannot play control anymore (look at standard again, you can just play tons of removal and try to feast on creature heavy decks).
And yes by hating cantrips you get better against blue based combo but there are plenty of other combo decks to ruin the world for you.

[DrJones]

I don't think it is Saito that lacks understanding...I'm trying to expand the horizons of people that seem to think that just because it usually is better to hate strategies than colors, that becomes a hard truth. If you are trying to imply I'm the one mentally impaired in this discussion, that's so sad for me, but I can live with it. End of discussion.

[Vacrix]

I disagree; black sucks. The disruption is only temporary; the opponent need only topdeck brainstorm, ponder or perhaps intuition?
The creatures mentioned are too slow or simply does nothing. As I to said to a friend; the flaw in my pox deck is that it does not run white for mystical stoneforge.
To continue give black tutors is just mean; what are black supposed to tutor for? (also they tend to be sorceries, unlike merchant scroll, intuition etc.)
All this was true when I quit a decade ago, and still is.
the only reason I started playing again was because
I suddenly realised that the best disruption black has is pox effects, I have been working on a making a viable pox deck this year.
Pox can still be pretty beast. Dark Ritual is a monster since it allows you to cast 3cc stuff with one land after you've been Poxing, Small Poxing, Wastelands, etc.

Thats probably the first deck I'd expect to see come back since it already has most of what it needs. It would probably benefit nicely from a creature it can bring play from the graveyard thats stronger than a mere Nether Spirit. That, or perhaps a nice 3cc creature to go with Dark Ritual.



Also, that Merfolk example is completely wrong... look at Death Mark to compare. Is it used to hate a strategy? Or a color?
Folk used Perish because it sucked dick at removing creatures not primarily because green was a problem; was that an elf heavy metagame? I think not. Hell, take a look at COP Red and its applications. Is it useful against any deck that plays red? Not really. Against UR Delver or RUG it doesn't shut down the deck and you can always run into Tempo countermagic that gives you a choice between keeping your spell or giving the opponent the freedom to play all the bolts in his hand.. or they just counter it before it comes down. Against Burn, its the shit because of the strategy, not the color. Take a look at Choke against Faerie Stompy. Chrome Mox and Ancient Tomb play Sea Drake, bounce two Islands.

Hating colors is usually a byproduct of hating strategies. A narrow card that only hates one color is probably shutting down something fundamental to the deck, or it doesn't come in post-board. I can't tell you how many times I wished post-board Dread of Night was good against Maverick; I don't even board it in anymore when I play BUG control.

[DrJones]

If my deck is bad at destroying creatures I'm surely going to splash black to get from among all removal available to that color the one that only destroys green ones, yeah, suuuuuuure.

[trivial_matters]

When Saito won GP Columbus, Zoo and Bant variants were the DTB. I don't think he opted for Perish by chance.

People don't play the likes of Perish or Choke because they have a raging hatred for certain colours but because some decks packing these colours are widely played and probably a bad matchup and hence such seemingly narrow cards can even or tilt these matchups in their favour. The downside is obviously that there's a higher chance that those sideboard slots are wasted in other matchups. Sometimes the trade-off is worth it.

[DrJones]

I made a gatherer search for cards that might be useful against the blue decks in the deck to beat section, excluding cards that have been already mentioned on this thread.

White

Ethersworn Canonist

Black

Oppression
Liliana of the Veil
Raven's Crime
Chains of Mephistopheles

Red

Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
Sirocco
Ricochet Trap

Green

Hidden Gibbons
Nature's Wrath
Guttural Response

Artifact/Others

Thorn of Amethyst
Chalice of the Void

[joemauer]

Nature's Wrath



You know this one costs six mana.
How do plan on getting it into play?
Show and Tell?

[Hardcore]

raven's crime is nice, but not amazing. It is no threat after all.
Liliana of the veil is OK, in control decks only.
Oppression and chains of mephistofeles
are cute, but wrong answer.
Speaking about raven's crime; syphon life is threat that get around blue's counters.
Against blue control, of course.

[DrJones]

You know this one costs six mana.
How do plan on getting it into play?
Show and Tell?The usual way is generating six mana. Easiest method is Gaea's Cradle, but Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Priest of Titania, Orcish Lumberjack or Lotus Cobra would also work.

[joemauer]

The usual way is generating six mana. Easiest method is Gaea's Cradle, but Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Priest of Titania, Orcish Lumberjack or Lotus Cobra would also work.

Show and Tell is consistently faster and not reliant on a fragile creature. I would stick with that.

[DrJones]

Wouldn't backfire playing Nature's Wrath in a blue deck? At least Eureka is on color and conveniently activates for each permanent the opponent puts into play.

In any case, I think there are better uses for Show and Tell and Eureka.

[LOurs]

Blue has the best tech 2 drop snapcaster
Best Lord - Master of the Pearl Trident (can you believe wizards also gave them the best tribal lord)
Best 1 drop - Delver (can't believe this one either)
Best Legacy card - Brainstorm
Best PlanesWalker - Jace the Mind Sculptor
One of best creatures of all time - Vclique
strongest card supporting or fighting combo - Force of will




Best card for cheating overcosted things into play - Show and Tell
Best lock piece ever printed - Counterbalance
Next to AdN, the best storm engine in Legacy - Time Spiral


Please ...

Best Lord : oh yea, everybody knows how "the best lord award" is a sign of unfairness in legacy.
Best 1-drop : noble hierarch, grim lavamancer, mother of rune or even putrid imp could all be "the best 1-drop creature" in the right deck
Best planeswalker : at the moment planewalker are mostly used as control tool, nothing unlogical to see the blue one being the best one. Elspeth, tezz and liliana 2 have also some interesting plays
One of the best creature of all time : let say clique at random. ok, let's play : stoneforge mystic, drak confidant, tarmogoyf, knhight of reliquary, ichorid ... is there enough examples to definitly neuter this (non) argument ?
Strongest card supporting of fighting : not sure of what you're speaking about ... is it enablers such as dark rituals/IGG/past in flame/duress ... or hate such as thalia, spheres, canonist etc ?

best card for cheating overcosted things in play : oh well. Natural Order is totaly useless although being played a ton of time during last year. And as there is an engine providing a full deck ans because this engine is blue, this is scandalous. As this is scandalous that aluren is the best one to freedrop lil'creatures. Something has to be done here, for sure ...
Best lock ever printed : you already experimented 3spheres in stax i guess ...
the best storm engine beside Ad Nauseam : maybe you should give to Past in Flame a run...

Oh, and eventualy you forgot the most scandalous category and probably the reason people are whinning on blue for centuries :
Best counterspell ever print ? Definitly scandalous, it should be blue.

At a point, the power level of an eternal format is beginning so uncontrolable, unfair and unfun that players needs to run some control to avoid a simple flip a coin game which is interesting for nobody. Blue was, is and will be the color of spell control. Thank this color to give us the format instead of arguing that it should be hated more by WotC. I'm not the kind of player that would like to see mirrors of mono green rampdrazi consistently in the final tier of an eternal format... (no offense to rampdrazi pilot though).

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Some comments towards the last two pages:

I agree that Delver should not have been printed, at least not in blue. Blue is not supposed to be the color of the best aggressive one-drops. It also would probably have been better for the game if Snapcaster had been red instead of blue. Having CC2 Lords in other colors than blue would also be a nice development to see.

The Perish thing: The reason Saito ran Perish was that the creatures he was actually going to have trouble with just happened to all be green (Knight of the Relinquary, Tarmogoyf and Wild Nacatl), not because the color green itself was a problem.

MonoBlack: There are viable or even top tier mono color decks in green (Elves, effectively though often splashing white), black (Pox), red (burn, Goblins) and white (Death and Taxes) as well as in blue (Merfolk). The fact that this is even the case is astonishing enough given dual-fetch manabases. Complaining that most mono-colored decks aren't on the same level as multi-splash good stuff decks and strategically focused multi-color decks is a sign you should reevaluate your understanding of the format.

The best Storm engine in Legacy is Past in Flames, not close. With GP Ghent in the books I think people will finally start to realize this. Honestly, it was only a matter of time until people realized reprinting Yawgmoth Will meant you should try to play that in your Dark Ritual deck.

I agree with LOurs on the necessity of a strong blue countermagic presence in Legacy - otherwise the format would rapidly need bannings that would turn it into Modern with dual lands.

As for blue dominance, looking for cards that are good against "blue" and looking at decks through the lens of "blue decks" and "non-blue decks" is a faulty approach to tournament level Magic. There isn't one "blue deck", there is a multitude of decks that use blue either as a main color (hard control and tempo, S&T) or as a support color (combo) and all of those need to be addressed by hate/gameplans aimed at what their trying to do, not what colors they run. Looking for a card that "beats blue" is like looking for a card that "beats green" and boarding it against Lands as well as Elves and Maverick. That's just not how things work. Perish is a good sideboard card because the decks you're trying to hit actually are focused on abusing green creatures, not because they're green (see Lands).
Beating blue decks: You don't need particular cards or color hosers to beat flexible decks, you need to figure out what it is they're trying to do and attack that. The answer to what this threat is really asking (or should be) can be found here:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23278_Hating_NonLinear_Strategies.html

This was written shortly after the Misstep era but the fundamental point is still as true as it was back then.

The reason blue is so powerful in Legacy is that you can easily splash blue even if you don't plan on being base blue, the fact that combo is a factor (making countermagic a good thing to have) and the fact that what blue does better than everybody else by design (library manipulation) is something most strategies will want to have access to. Printing something like Green Sun's Zenith was a great step in the right direction by WotC, now we only need consistency-enabling cards in other colors that are on a similar level to that. Give them some time and they'll hopefully come up with something.

Looking at the results of the latest GPs and SCG tournaments, the format is definitely healthy, varied and far less blue dominated than it has been for a while. Honestly speaking even the perceived dominance of RUG is much more of a scg echo chamber effect on the American metagame than anything else. If you plan on performing well in a tournament, just looking at results you can reasonably choose among a ton of different strategies, to wit:
MonoG Aggro-Combo (Elves)
RedsplashX AggroBoardcontrol (Goblins)
UB or UR two card combo: Reanimator/Show and Tell
UBr or 4c storm combo: PiFAnt/TES
5 color graveyard combo: Dredge
RUG aggrocontrol/tempo: Canadian Thresh
UR Aggro: UR Delver
U tribal tempo: Merfolk
UW(b) aggro-control: the different Blade decks
UW(x) hard control: MiracleCounterTop
RG combo: Belcher
GW Midrange/Prison: Maverick
GWB Midrange: Junk

not to mention a ton of decks that perform once in a while and may or may not be good enough to be considered top tier but that simply aren't played by enough players to actually tell how good they are such as Sam Black's Zombies, Lands, Pox, Death and Taxes, MUD, Deadguy Ale, Bant and a host of others I'm forgetting.

In short, yes, chances are your pet deck isn't beating all the decks with some blue cards in them. The same is true for all the decks with some white, green, black or red cards in them. That shouldn't come as much of a surprise given the strategic diversity among all those archetypes and the fact that most Legacy decks run somewhere between two and three colors. Pet decks need a lot of tuning, exceptional playskill and the discovery of some synergy that is strong enough to crack Legacy's power level threshold but that nobody else has found yet. Obviously that doesn't happen all that often.

[xfxf]

Carsten, I agree with you 100% but some of us said the exact same things on page 1-2 and got blown off by ignorant stff headedness and claims of blue player masturbations. I even gave the example of trying to hate out Spiral Tide by boarding in Chokes and even if such simple, glaring, real life examples don't make some people think "yeah, that's kind of dumb..." I don't think it's worth your time to try to explain the fundemental flaws in that perception.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Carsten, I agree with you 100% but some of us said the exact same things on page 1-2 and got blown off by ignorant stff headedness and claims of blue player masturbations. I even gave the example of trying to hate out Spiral Tide by boarding in Chokes and even if such simple, glaring, real life examples don't make some people think "yeah, that's kind of dumb..." I don't think it's worth your time to try to explain the fundemental flaws in that perception.

Well, if at least one player listens and learns, my words have done some good. No need to succumb to and accept ignorance just because it is persistent. Gotta keep fighting the good fight :p
As for hating Spiral Tide with Choke, believe it or not that can work extremely well. Sure, if you board Choke in any random deck with Forests and think that fixes your High Tide matchup, you're probably dead. Out of Maverick with its Thalias and Thorn of Amethysts, Choke is the perfect nail in the coffin because it complements the prison approach Maverick has in that matchup. I should know, I nearly despaired testing a modified High Tide build against that set up postboard ;)

[xfxf]

First they need to catch me tapped out on my own turn :smile:

[Ignithas_]

Thinks like a cantrip hatebear(other thread) sounds like the worst idea i heard for quiet a while.
...
In addition non blue players tend to forget that they need a strong blue meta (at least in legacy) to keep degenerate decks in check.
And I think this is the problem. To need a heavy influence on one color (actually one card: FoW) so the format doesn't colapse feels just wrong. MM proved that WotC knew this, but they made a mistake with the execution. W has counters, so why don't they print MD counters for white, that can be played on T0? And why shouldn't B have a way to fight cantrips outside of simply bad cards, when every strategy has anti cards?

[FieryBalrog]

The reason blue is so powerful in Legacy is that you can easily splash blue
Running FoW automatically means you aren't "splashing" blue, it's generally your main color. Even if you aren't, running a set of 8 blue cantrips + 8-10 other blue spells isn't a "splash". When you look at these decks on SCGs helpful pie chart, the majority of the chart tends to be blue in the decks that run blue, barring a few corner cases like Dredge. Blue plays well with blue. You generally want the full package, not a "splash".

The main color in RUG isn't R or G. Those are both support colors. Remove them, and you can transplant the shell into another deck. Remove blue, and you have the skeleton of a shitty Sligh deck.

The reason blue is so strong is simple. The package of 8 cantrips, including the best cantrip ever, + 4 FOW + cheap counters is an amazing, consistent thing to build around. You then add assorted other great blue spells to fuel FoW and forward your strategy (Jace, Clique, S&T, whatever). And end up with by far the strongest, best performing core in Legacy.

Pretending that the dominance of such a package is the result of "echo chamber" or "people don't get it" is just so much handwaving. This isn't just SCG either. Every single Legacy Grand Prix in the past 4 years has been won by a deck packing a blue core with 4x Brainstorm, bar one. The one deck that didn't was... Merfolk.

[LOurs]

Pretending that the dominance of such a package is the result of "echo chamber" or "people don't get it" is just so much handwaving. This isn't just SCG either. Every single Legacy Grand Prix in the past 4 years has been won by a deck packing a blue core with 4x Brainstorm, bar one. The one deck that didn't was... Merfolk.

could please explain what do you consider as a blue core in a deck ?
because if we only take as example the most recent GP, your argument is not correct : the winner storm deck is clearly a black core (+45% of the non lands cards) splashing blue, far from a "blue core" definition to me. Exagerating and amalgamating are the basis of incorrect analysis.
Blue brings to the format a technical & skilly way of play. Counters are blue because it always has been so since the beginning, a bit like discard is black, huge trample beast are green, best removal ever are white or burn are red. We could also provide to any effect to any colors and totaly twist what mtg is. But at this point, I'm really not sure that's what competitive players wants. And if not, what about to let the meta to belcher kind of deck, and let's see how is it fun (no offense to belcher pilot though, it is a deck that deserve respect but a moderated quantity is better imo)

[Mr. Safety]

I think the more relevant question is: Why is Maverick decent to good against various Blue decks. And how can that be duplicated/translated to other decks. Because it doesn't play specific Anti-Blue cards. I think going down that path is a trap that is going to lead you to playing suboptimal cards, even in boards in an effort to deal with something that isn't the root cause of why you're losing.

This is a fantastic argument, I agree with it 100%. I was thinking that, in general, decks that use Life from the Loam are great against blue decks. It isn't strictly anti-blue, it just has a way of making blue spells less relevant.

Maverick plays such a consistent game plan that disrupting one part of it doesn't hose the deck. 'Good stuff', in general, is a good plan against blue. When all of the parts are good by themselves but get incrementally better together it becomes a difficult situation for traditional blue decks to handle. Force of Will is after all card disadvantage, strictly speaking. I would say that one of the best blue strategies right now is the use of Jace. He creates so much advantage that using Force is offset.