I definitely undervalued some cards in my early estimation, and none more so than Riptide Turtle. It’s an effect I find I can’t get enough of, whereas Thirst for Meaning is expensive enough that it constricts my mana, even when I’ve got Naiad of Hidden Coves in play. The reason that a deck whose only true win condition is Dream Trawler can work is that Omen of the Sea digs up to five cards deep. Like all the Omens, it interacts with almost every theme in the set but it is the best Omen for finding the cards you need, be they the A to your B, your mega-bomb, or just making sure you draw the right balance of lands and spells. It slots in early on the curve when blue has almost nothing to do with its mana. Omen of the Sea is the perfect card for every blue deck. Thirst is a great card, don’t get me wrong-but given how weak blue’s commons are, it can be dangerous to pitch any action at all, making Thirst oftentimes a filtering spell rather than a card advantage spell. Yes, you’ll happily play it, but three is a very crowded slot in blue decks, which is also a knock against Thirst for Meaning. The thing is, Ichthyomorphosis is fairly replaceable when every other color has better removal (and it can be a liability when your opponent has enchantment removal). You might think I’m crazy to not select Ichthyomorphosis or the superior draw spell, Thirst for Meaning. Once again, a 1U instant is the best blue common in Theros. That brings us to today’s surprise: blue’s best common. All of these factors benefit disproportionately from one thing: card smoothing. And its synergies aren’t strong but even accessing them requires being able to combine cards with different properties. Board stalls can happen without too much difficulty. To recap: the format has a chunky power level, with many rares leagues above most cards and a bunch of replacement-level commons. You’re at the mercy of the top of your deck to find the two pieces you need and the right answers to your opponent’s threats. The format’s low power level at common is exacerbated by the set’s weak archetypes-all the A+B mechanics like Constellation, Devotion, Heroic, Flash-matters, and Ferocious require you to find two different kinds of pieces to enable a payoff, and those payoffs are fairly mediocre. There’s a ton of power locked up in the format’s rares, making it so games are often decided by who lands an unanswered rare haymaker (or resolves a nearly-unstoppable mega-bomb like Dream Trawler or Phoenix of Ash). ![]() This leads to board stalls, usually where one side is racing to bring back their Escape creature for the third time or someone is getting pecked to death by Sunmane Pegasus. However, it’s this preponderance of top tier common removal (especially in black) that makes answering relevant threats easy. Sure, each color has powerful commons, especially their removal spells. ![]() Blue seemed like a support color you’d happily dip into for card draw or a mega-bomb like Dream Trawler or Nadir Kraken, but not something you’d be excited to have as a primary color.Īs I drafted on Magic Online and in paper and played at MagicFest New Jersey, I found that it’s not blue that’s anemic at common in Theros Beyond Death, it’s every color (though red really feels a step below the rest). ![]() It has the most rewards in Constellation and even then, you need uncommons or a second color to get any more than a cheaper Brine Giant or a single turn of flying for a Triton Waverider. It has almost no rewards for Devotion and there are practically no powerful payoffs for Flash-matters in the set. It has no Escape creatures, denying it the set’s most powerful and easiest-to-use mechanic. Vexing Gull seems just as bad as I pegged it-too small to be a relevant threat, easy to answer when it was good, and not a great consolation prize for holding up and not using Deny the Divine.īlue’s mechanical themes are especially weak, as discussed last week. Sure, Witness of Tomorrows can close out games, but enchantment creatures that cost 4+ mana are more liabilities than boons, as they die to removal spells that every color has ample access to. Its normally anemic creatures lack oomph. So, how strong is blue in Theros Beyond Death?Īt first blush, blue seemed quite bad. It’s only when we get our hands dirty playing a format that we learn just how strong blue can be. This dominance tends to be hidden when evaluating sets as a whole. Cards like Callous Dismissal, Divination, and Voyage’s End are outstanding cards whose unique effects overperformed in their environments. Yet somehow blue has consistently performed well in Limited for several years. Its creatures tend to be below rate- it pays full retail for flying while other colors get above-rate creatures with Menace or Trample. Blue is usually the hardest color to evaluate, since its power is subtle.
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