Thursday, June 19, 2008

"Kill the guy with Islands"

I have to say that I agree with coyote about blue not being over powered (pause for shock & awe). It is definitely all about how we build our decks. Since our group started playing EDH earlier this year, I've been playing the same general the entire time (Dromar, the Banisher). My choice to play blue was not about abusing blue, but being able to play with Invasion dragons again (for those that don't know, I started playing around the time that Invasion came out and the set holds a special place in my heart).

As my deck has progressed, I have been the target of more hate for blue because I am playing islands. From the very beginning, I have been a target because I played with mostly basic lands, due to a lack of non-basics that make blue, black, or white in my collection (most notably I remember in four of the first five games that I played I lost no fewer than 6 or 7 lands to Sundering Titan). None the lest I pressed on.

Not long after that land destruction fell out of popularity, send in the take a million turns decks. Then it was, hey he's playing blue so he must be able to take a million turns and kill us all at his leggier. Get him (thanks Fugie). Again I persevere.

Send in the combo decks. Here comes Fugie's illustrious Red-white-green Sneak Attack, Sylvan Library, Abundance generate ridiculous card advantage I'm not the threat, go after the guy playing islands. Again I continue to take a beatings with my non-combo, can't take a million turns, can't generate huge card advantage deck, that is playing blue because my general happens to be white, blue, & black. I continue to persevere.

Now the most recent iteration is back to blue decks with combos that can kill everyone on the same turn. Now I continue to get beat on for playing blue. There seems to be no reason to continue to play a generalist deck that happens to include blue. It seems that I am left with with two choices.

1. Continue to play blue and be perceived as the threat. I am not really thrilled to continue to get my head kicked in with my current build. So, I would need to make some rather significant changes to make my deck into the threat that everyone seems to think it is or at least more resilient to unmitigated onslaught I will continue to see.

2. Abandon blue entirely. In order to due this I would likely end up building a deck that is unfun for everyone to play with. More than likely something that punishes everyone for sitting down at the table an makes me the target. Not for being the threat (i.e. the one who will likely win), but for being the obstacle to anyone winning. Not a very attractive option either.

I honestly don't know which road I will go down.

1 comment:

Defender in Exile said...

Taking an additional turn, if it means a swing with a general or just one lone land drop, is powerful.

Plus blue's card selection is unmatched.

Plus, Sneak Attack wasn't Broken, Sneak + Survival + Squee = Broken

There's the issue, blue can come out of nowhere to do broken things unlike what any other color can do.

So my original statement of kill the guy with islands stands.