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First Pick At Oath Of The Gatewatch: Blue!

Ari Lax continues his excellent series that will have you way above your competition in the upcoming Limited format! With white down and covered, Ari shows you what you need to know about blue in Oath of the Gatewatch!

Yesterday, we hit up the white cards that will be shaping (and sitting out) the upcoming Oath of the Gatewatch Limited environment. Now, it’s time to look at blue. We’ll start with the new stuff, then we’ll talk about the fluctuating values of our Battle for Zendikar favorites as they adjust to the new Draft format.

Common Creatures By Curve:

Two Mana

Blinding Drone Umara Entangler

Three Mana

Cultivator Drone Ancient Crab

Four Mana

Gravity Negator

Five Mana

Jwar Isle Avenger

Removal:

Containment Membrane

Tricks:

Slip Through Space Sweep Away

Other:

Abstruse Interference Comparative Analysis Negate

Possible Top Tier Commons:

Jwar Isle Avenger Blinding Drone

It may seem like colorless mana is the linear payoff mechanic of the set like what we saw in Battle for Zendikar, but it’s more like drafting converge in that set if converge had real payoffs. Most blue decks in Oath of the Gatewatch Draft are going to be virtually three colors due to colorless mana.

Take a look at Blinding Drone. Blinding Mage is insane, as in a card that is too good to print in many Limited formats. Without colorless mana, it’s Lumengrid Warden, a card that is unplayable in many Limited formats. Gravity Negator is definitely more playable in the default mode, and worse in the payoff mode, but still, a 2/3 flier for four isn’t anything to write home about until it starts sending something else to the skies. The disparity between your common quality when you have colorless versus when you are just blue and whatever else is huge.

Also note that the payoffs here are repeat abilities. You aren’t just paying a one-time colorless kicker by sacrificing an Eldrazi Scion token. This is using your land every turn. That means you need to commit to the “splash” and that there are real diminishing returns as you can’t really pay for two or three of these effects a turn most of the time.

I would almost say Cultivator Drone is the real best common here, except that then basically makes your cards into Cohort cards. I already thought Spawnbinder Mage was less exciting than it looks on paper, so Cultivator Drone and Blinding Drone are even more specific to build the same thing.

Jwar Isle Avenger is probably just the best blue common, and that’s meh. How often do you have a one-drop that you really want to play for this? Or a zero-drop? I haven’t really counted that many, and the pay off on Bone Saw isn’t really there. There’s Slip through Space and Expedite, that’s about it. Most likely this is effectively a 3/3 flier for five that lets you also play a two-drop that turn, which is fine, but unexciting.

Maybe Containment Membrane is the card I’m supposed to be excited about? Paralyzing Grasp was never that good, but playing it with a three-drop on turn 4 might make it better. It’s at least something to try.

Umara Entangler is still a 3/2 ground dork that runs into a 2/4 when prowessed once. Prowessing twice is possible as evidenced from Khans of Tarkir, but I’m unsure how reliable it is. Or more accurately, if it is worth it when you don’t have a bunch of prowess creatures. I get surge is a thing too, but the style and payoffs are definitely different. Like, Comparative Analysis is a great prowess/purge thing, but I don’t have things to trigger with it and it doesn’t inherently break the game to get instant speed Divination as my payoff.

Ancient Crab costing double blue is a sad joke. You are already making me play “three colors” and want me to play a double blue spell on turn 3?

Negate is probably worse than in some past sets as the format seems less spell advantage based and quite “creaturey,” but at the same time there are multiple real removal spells to protect things from with it. With Oblivion Strike at sorcery and Isolation Zone at enchantment it is a definite upgrade from Dispel though.

Abstruse Interference is basically not a card. A 1/1 Scion is probably worse or close to a random card, and Runeboggle never won any awards besides “most embarrassing blowout that one draft that it worked.” You can’t even play this without a target!

Sweep Away is really good design. Solves all the attacking/blocking removal problems while still paying you off when they walk into it. Card isn’t insane, but it’s going to make the cut basically every time.

Uncommon Creatures By Curve:

One Mana

Prophet of Distortion

Four Mana

Thought Harvester

Cyclone Sire

Removal:

Void Shatter

Tricks:

Gift of Tusks Grip of the Roil Roiling Waters Unity of Purpose

Top Uncommons:

Cyclone Sire

Possible Top Uncomons:

Roiling Waters

I don’t think I’ve seen Dimir Guildmage take over a game in a while. Azure Mage was fine but overrated, and this format seems pretty proactive. So when your draw card is a half creature and has an “off color” activation, I’m not super excited. If you can do it, Prophet of Distortion isn’t terrible, but it’s not great.

I love all the random Processor stuff when you cut out so much of the payoff from the draft. Thought Harvest isn’t a bad card (Azure Drake is generally a fine body), but it has a really marginal ability where if Draft was still two packs of Battle for Zendikar, it might be a big deal. Same with Void Shatter, which again has the double blue curse.

Cyclone Sire is probably a more insane rate than the white wall equivalent (Wall of Resurgence). Four toughness rules the skies, and you get a bonus 3/3. How lucky.

Unity of Purpose is another trick you should just know and not walk into. That makes it and Make a Stand the things to look out for so far. If they attack with creatures that leave them oddly vulnerable and pass with mana up and cards in hand, this is a likely culprit.

Gift of Tusks does some cool things with +1/+1 counters, but I feel that similar to Rapid Hybridization in Gatecrash, the format is too full of 3/Xs and X/4s that you aren’t getting anywhere super relevant with this trick.

Roiling Waters seems unreal if you live to cast it. Unfortunately, without common Scion makers in the color I’m unsure how often that happens.

Rares:

Great:

Crush of Tentacles

Good:

Deepfathom Skulker Dimensional Infiltrator

Okay:

Sphinx of the Final Word Oath of Jace Overwhelming Denial

No Thanks:

Hedron Alignment

Do not shove all in on Crush of Tentacles if you open it. It just means you want a couple cantrips and an extra two-drop so you can cast your game-ending monster.

Deepfathom Skulker may be better than I’m giving it credit for as 4/4 is a solid size for the format, but six is a lot of mana for a card that has a partially win-more trigger.

Dimensional Infiltrator is just a good cheap flier that turns into an expensive virtual Drudge Skeletons eventually.

Sphinx of the Final Word is just an expensive big flier. Seven is way more than six, and while hexproof isn’t bad, the rest of the text isn’t anything real.

Overwhelming Denial and Oath of Jace are on the low end of decent. Four-mana counterspell is not exciting, and the pay-off of playing a cantrip first is you build a Cancel. Oath of Jace is three-mana card filtering, which is generally marginal.

Fun fact: I’m fairly sure the odds of winning the lottery are comparable to the odds of winning games in two independent drafts with Hedron Alignment.

Second Pick at Battle For Zendikar

Common Creatures By Curve:

One Mana

Salvage Drone

Two Mana

Coralhelm Guide Mist Intruder

Three Mana

Benthic Infiltrator Eldrazi Skyspawner

Four Mana

Cloud Manta Incubator Drone Murk Strider

Five Mana

Clutch of Currents Rush of Ice Oracle of Dust

Six Mana

Wave-wing Elemental

Removal:

Spell Shrivel Tightening Coils

Tricks:

Roilmage's Trick

Other:

Anticipate Brilliant Spectrum Dispel

Winners:

Cloud Manta. Was a solid normal Limited card in a linear format; now it’s just a solid card.

Wave-wing Elemental. Big flier is real big and there are less high-drops fighting it for space.

Oracle of Dust. 3/5 is a much better size in this format.

Tightening Coils. Less utility creatures that it doesn’t kill, now just two-mana removal.

Roilmage’s Trick. -2/-0 matters more in a normal creature combat format.

Rush of Ice. With less Clutch of Currents and awaken spells in general to compete with, the Nth best card that does this is still good.

Losers:

The entire Ingest/Processor complex. It wasn’t great to begin with, but with less of it you can’t even get linear with it. Benthic Infiltrator at 1/4 is still a fine size, but that’s about it.

Anticipate. There are now board-relevant two-drops you want to play, and you no longer want the curve filler to assemble your gameplan. Yes this enables the surge mechanic, but there isn’t a lot of surge I’m that pumped to use.

Uncommon Creatures By Curve:

Two Mana

Tide Drifter

Three Mana

Halimar Tidecaller Ruination Guide

Four Mana

Cryptic Cruiser

Five Mana

Ulamog's Reclaimer Windrider Patrol

Six Mana

Coastal Discovery

Removal:

Horribly Awry

Tricks:

Adverse Conditions

Other:

Dampening Pulse Retreat to Coralhelm

Winners:

Dampening Pulse. In a normal format, downsizing creatures matters a lot more than when you turn a 7/8 into a 6/8. Yes, I am using Ruin Processor as my default size for everything because it’s just so indicative of a lot of random cutoffs that existed in Battle for Zendikar.

Adverse Conditions. Was already underrated, now we are moving to a format where Frost Breath breaks open more boards.

Windrider Patrol. Flier with the magical fourth power.

Losers:

Halimar Tidecaller. So much less awaken in this format with only one pack of Battle for Zendikar. Previously the best blue uncommon, now probably cuttable a lot of the time.

Rares:

Great:

Drowner of Hope Guardian of Tazeem Ugin's Insight

Good:

Part the Waterveil

Okay:

Scatter to the Winds Exert Influence

No Thanks:

Prism Array

Winners:

None. The blue rares are still great, for the most part.

Losers:

None. The blue rares are still great, for the most part.

Takeaways From Blue:

Blue seems really awkward to draft. This has been said before about a lot of different colors, but this is really a Mirrodin or Scars of Mirrodin style thing like Affinity or Metalcraft. The colorless lands that fix you for your actual colors are going to be almost as important as any payoff card.

Expect more Eldrazi Skyspawners to get passed pack three. I mean a lot more.