Magic: The Gathering's Blue Color
Blue is the biggest of all the Magic: The Gathering colors, accounting for around a third of the total collection. Known for its control-based strategies and access to counterspells, the blue color offers a deep range of nuanced and complex mechanics.
While powerful cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Ancestral Recall are popular choices, there are numerous other blue cards that embrace the unique narrative focus of the color. Blue is all about knowledge and how it can be used to gain mastery over the universe. Whether you're a beginner or looking for tips on playing blue decks in Magic Duels, this guide will help you understand everything about the blue color in this classic trading card game.
What Blue Does in Magic: The Gathering
The mechanics of blue largely revolve around card draw, counterspells, copy effects, bounce, mill, shrink, unblockable, 'cannot untap,' permanent theft, flash, flying, hexproof, and extra turns.
Unlike other colors, blue doesn't have a specific theme. It represents the mind and rewards thoughtfulness, intelligence, and cunning. Blue's control-based strategies, combined with its ability to stall the game, make it an excellent choice for long-term victory.
Card draw is crucial in a blue deck, but it's essential to balance the number of cards drawn with staying alive to play them. Counterspells can answer any threat, but they don't directly impact your game state or your opponent's life total, so timing is crucial. Blue excels at stalling the game, setting up a late-game victory. Tempo-based strategies, using low-cost, evasive creatures like Merfolk, coupled with counterspells, can turn the tide in your favor.
Blue Magic Cards by Type
Blue introduces several unique creature types, such as Sphinxes and Merfolk. Sphinxes are iconic flying creatures with powerful abilities, while Merfolk are tricky to block and often have island-based synergies.
Aside from these, blue offers utility creature types like Angels and Spirits. Angels have protection from a specific color, making them useful defensively or offensively. Druid creatures focus on mana growth and surveil, while Spirit cards have spectral qualities that make them difficult to interact with.
Here are the different creature types found in Magic: The Gathering's blue color:
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Blue Magic Cards by Ability
Survival is key for a successful blue deck. Playing spells that answer your opponent's threats and gain card advantage is vital. Blue spells with flash, such as Daze and Counterspell, can answer instant and sorcery spells. Additionally, instants with flashback, like Jace's Ingenuity and Think Twice, can be cast twice for significant impact.
Blue spells often have evasion mechanics in the form of flying or unblockable. These mechanics are even more prevalent in blue spells than in creatures. Indestructible and shroud are blue-specific abilities that prevent creatures from being blocked.
Casting spells with flash allows you to play them at the perfect moment, taking advantage of the flying ability and rendering them unblockable. The versatility of flash extends to instant speed, enabling you to use instants defensively in response to enemy attacks. The tap symbol ( ) allows you to activate abilities and pay costs at instant speed.
Unblockable creatures and spells provide significant card advantage by bypassing defenders. Here are two well-known examples:
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A blue deck...
