Monday, March 21, 2011

Blue Aggro

An article posted today in Mana Nation caught my interest. Basically, it talks about blue aggro in cubes, why enable it, and how to do so.

Enabling Blue-Based Tempo, Or "Blueggro", In Your Cube

I would like some feedback on if you guys like the strategy, if you've ever played it and how well you think it's supported in my cube. It's been one of the main balancing issues to me, since blue pulls so heavily towards control, when one puts together a power cube.

3 comments:

  1. Well, I like this strategy very much. I love the crazy stuff and creatures with smart effects. But I think he's overestimating himself and the idea a little. He's just pushing for very strong 187 creatures in the place of strong counterspells and card drawing (Remand, Miscalculation and Memory Lapse are jokes).

    Opposition and Equilibrium are obvious bombs, and Man-o'-War-like creatures are amazing (he talks about cutting redundancies, but have three of those).

    Also, he seems to ignore the role the other(s) color(s) have in a deck, as drafting a monocolor deck is rare. Usually you have the secondary color filling the role that he advocates for blue, while blue counters and draw cards like hell.

    Now, about your cube: it has a almost 50/50 blue (42/58, actually), so it doesn't push much towards a five-finisher control deck. But the tempo aspect is not nearly as strong as his, so it plays more like a blue weenie, with worse creatures and better card advantage. And your cube, due to some very understandable cost restrictions, is kind of unorthodox anyway. Adding some of his cards would immediately break it.

    Also, where's Teferi in his list? Rishadan Cutpurse (and his friends) is a card that also fits that strategy, but is probably way too weak to fit in there.

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  2. Yeah, analysing the card list he presents, it seems he supports blue aggro by using a lot of ETB creatures, especially with tap and bounce effects. I suppose he meant to cut the control effects' redundancy and add tempo redundancy. The article applies for most cubes though, as pretty much all lists I see simply take blue's classic control vocation to the skies, totally ignoring beatdown strategies.

    I think cheap counters are essential for these strategies though, and while Counterspell and Mana Leak are definitely in a higher tier than Remand, Miscalculation and Lapse, these are necessary to enable blue aggro-control. Aggro strategies, after all, depend on redundancy to be effective, as you will - ideally see only a small subset of your cards.

    I didn't know Rishadan Cutpurse. He's interesting but as you said, probably wouldn't make the cut. A third turn conditional and untargeted Stone Rain does not feel too good by today's power standards. Do you think Equilibrium and Opposition would be good additions? I could get those for my cube.

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  3. Well, Equilibrium and Opposition are very strong cards. If they would be good additions to the cube, I don't know, they are annoying as hell to play against. They're on that very long list of cards that traumatized me in the past.

    That aside, yes, they would be great. Two power cards that push towards a creature-heavy deck in blue. But you'll need something in the other colors to balance it. Bonus points if you get the Exodus and Urza versions of them, they're way cooler.

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