So...Blue/Black = format?

[xTrainx]

Recently, while playing against my brother, he challenged me to build a deck without blue.
I pointed him to my (unfinished) Tendrils deck that still beats him pretty much every game, and he quickly changed it to "a real deck". Now, although I'm not sure what that really means, I suppose it means combo. After I told him I would just build a quick (shitty version) of Sui Black, he decided to throw black into the mix.

The question is: Is it possible to make a good deck without using blue or black?
(Not counting Zoo - I know that's counter-intuitive to the question, but I really hate that deck.)

[Forbiddian]

There are many competitive decks without blue. Just in the decks to beat forum, 3 of the 11 decks don't have any blue spells (and of the decks with blue spells, two are 5-color and barely run any blue).

Try the search function.


Blue is definitely the strongest color in Legacy, with a few of the best spells: Brainstorm, Force of Will, Counterbalance, Ponder, Standstill, Mystical Tutor, Careful Study, Daze, Spell Pierce....

No other color has such a high concentration of playables, but there are plenty of decks that don't use blue.

There are also tons of decks that don't run black or even the union of those two (Zoo is the big one that you mentioned -- it's one of the best decks out there, but Goblins is still a deck to beat, Dragon Stompy is always a spoiler, and Lands.dec is an extremely unpopular deck (due to cost), but has performed very well, in both the sans-blue and blue splash versions.

[Julian23]

You might wanna look into Enchantress. It's a blast to play, available at a decent price and doesn't have any really bad matchups besides combo.

[xTrainx]

Alright, thanks guys.

[Jak]

One of the main reasons, in my opinion, that blue is so rampant is because people are afraid to lose to combo. Non-blue decks could crush the entire format, but without blue, you really don't have a reliable shot at beating combo. Blue is just good all around against anything and with such a diverse metagame in Legacy, this is something that causes it to be popular.

Now, can you build a good, non-blue deck? Very easily, yes. Will it beat combo? No, most likely not unless you pack your sideboard full of it and even then you probably won't reliabley beat it.

That also applies to black to a lesser extent.

[conboy31]

Check out the GW survival thread. The decks decent and has like 4ish meta card slots.

[sauce]

check out Aggro Loam, Goblins, SuiBlack, The Rock.

[Pastorofmuppets]

anything Stompy-ish does well because it's heavily disruptive. Trinisphere and Chalice are amazing in this format, but they definitely come at a price.

[dahcmai]

The Rock
Aggro Loam
43 Lands
Dragon Stompy
White Stax
Eva Green
Imperial Painter
Pikula.dec or whatever you call that one
Death and Taxes (little outdated)
Enchantress
Belcher (a combo deck without blue, make your friend angry lol)
Goblins
GW Survival - Just won today's tournament with it no less.

[Philipp2293]

Check out the GW survival thread. The decks decent and has like 4ish meta card slots.

Second'd. It has some flexible slots, has a decent MU against almost everything except combo, is lots of fun to play.

[majikal]

Monowhite or GW Stax.

[Digital Devil]

I think most Legacy players who were previously Vintage-addicted are stuck on blue/black, simply because of the large amount of "services" both colors tend to offer. Maybe it's an ancestral mechanism of association, with Ancestral Recall and Yawgmoth's Bargain both associated Brainstorm and Ad Nauseam. (disclaimer: I'm not comparing the two pairs). In a pure Legacy player's mind, I also think the reason blue is more prevalent than black is that blue does what black does, except does it better. I mean, both colors help drawing cards: black makes you lose life, blue makes you lose nothing; both colors have all-purpose cards able to deal with anything except for Chuck Norris, but I think countermagic is better than discard because it can also influence future draws. So, seeking for card advantage and/or quality, the other three colors like to splash for blue/black/both in order to not compromise their outcomes. Otherwise, // colored decks must search for alternative ways to keep their gas constant (an example may be Goblin Ringleader/Goblin Matron in a Goblin deck, or Cycl-oam in a Loam shell), or simply rely on raw power to end the game before card advantage can even be an issue (Zoo). There are a plenty of non-blue/black decks, and lots of them were listed in the previous posts. Just look at the DTB forum: there are decks like Zoo and Goblins which tend to consider black as the color of their opponent's ashes, and blue as the color used to paint the background of KOtR/Goblin Ringleader.

[MattH]

FWIW, Lands! with blue just won SCG:Indy.

Blue is good because blue puts your cards where you want them to be. That's powerful. Black does a little of that too.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Rock
Aggro Loam
Goyf Sligh
Goblins

Not sure where you were going with this. However, Belcher would be amazing, since its combo-ish without Mysticals and Brainstorms!

[Sevryn]

Blue's presence in the format prevents combo from having too large of a presence. However, this does not mean that every deck must have blue in them. Some decks lose to combo but are still tier 1, because there will always be some amount of blue decks in the room.