Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Journey into Nyx EDH Set Review, Part 2: Blue

We're back for part two of the EDH set review for Journey into Nyx. As usual, we're looking at Blue for the second installment. Here we go!

Blue

I don't like Strive much. It's basically Multikicker and rather expensive to boot. This is one of the few that might see some play. Could be fun.
 I like this guy. He's a Starfish. That taps to Scry 1. Janky but cool. I want to play him somewhere.
Nifty. Should see play. Definitely going in my Melek deck.
I really like this card, or I would if it cost 5 at any rate. It's not terrible, but for six mana, Blue Mages can do better.
Turrible.
Neat, but hard to use effectively. Find a way to jump through the requisite hoops easily and reliably and you've got yourself a fine little card. 
Nope.
Heh heh heh. Nads.
I so totally didn't understand this card at first. Oh! It's a 1/1 Flyer (not bad) or a bad Control Magic (bad). Meh.
Probably a combo piece somewhere, but terrible beyond that.
Funny, but probably not playable. 
Definitely very playable, but I'm not sure it's good outside of mono-Blue. Maybe?
"Here, you can have mine, I ain't usin' it"
--Me
Turdsville.
Worst Phyrexian Arena ever? Eh, it's a fine card. I like how Flash breaks the symmetry slightly, giving you the opportunity to get the first draw off it, unlike Howling Mine. Still, not great in most decks.
Ugh. Crap Mythic is crap.
Meh. I mean, I like it... but it doesn't actually DO anything.
Jank.






















So, it turns out Blue is pretty terrible this set as well. There are definitely cards that will work really well in one very specific deck type, but overall, there is not a lot to love here. Oh well.

4 comments:

  1. Battlefield Thaumaturge: With this, Curse of the Swine reads "UU:Turn your opponent's entire board into piggies". Might be some other spells it works well with, too, but that's the one that jumps out to me.

    Sage of Hours: Junk for most decks, but could have a place in Experiment Kraj decks like mine. Lots of ways to get +1/+1 counters on him, plus Kraj can be a second copy of the Sage for even more extra turn shenanigans.

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    1. RE: BF Thaumaturge - Yes, I had considered that. It also interacts similarly well with Comet Storm and Strength of the Tajuru and possibly some other stuff. Those are awesome interactions, but I still think it's junk because those interactions will be hard to set up, and after you pull 'em off once everyone will then see it coming a mile away and you likely won't get to repeat the trick too often.

      So, while I certainly appreaciate what the Thaumaturge CAN do, and I recognize it's potential for cool shit, I just don't have any confidence it will reliably be able to live up to that potential. But I'm jaded, sadly. EDH should be about trying to make janky things like that work.

      RE: Sage of Honors - Agreed. It's just that you have to jump through hoops to get good use out of it, but even if you have a deck that makes those hoops incredibly easy to jump through, it's a friggin' extra turns card, which I hate. So this has two modes: 1. Do Nothing; 2. Erase joy.
      In my opnion, of course...

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  2. I can see using Interpret the Signs as a second Rush of Knowledge in my Blue Braids: Giant Stupid Sea Monsters deck - drawing 6 or 7 cards and stacking my deck for Braids triggers seems pretty good. The Starfish is on theme too, so I'm happy to get two utility hits from a set, instead of just the usual fun leviathans and octopuses.

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    1. The more I think about it, the more I love the starfish. I'll probably jam it into everything just for kicks.

      Interpret the Signs can definitely do some work. I just think 99% of decks that could use it probably have at least 4 or 5 options that are simply more efficient/reliable.

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