Torment Limited Review: Blue Gary Wise Tuesday, February 26, 2002 This is the second installment in my series analysing the cards of Torment for the purposes of Limited play. You can find the first installment here. Blue The strongest color in the game's history, it is understood that with Torment being the black set, blue can't be number one right now. One of the top two colors in Odyssey, blue also comes second in Torment almost by default, with white and green diminished and red low on quality cards. Blue's consistent strength comes from deck control, evasion, card advantage and creature control in the form of bounce, and while Torment is somewhat lacking in the later of the four, it doesn't disappoint elsewhere, additionally providing the best cards with which to abuse madness and get threshold. With one of the best commons in the set, Skywing Aven in tow, blue is black's most popular partner, while also part of successful combinations with white and green. If you can manage to be one of three blue drafters in any given draft, your chances for victory will be as good as anyone's on the table. The Cards Alter Reality If you play black in half your drafts, you'll eventually start finding protection from black to be a nuisance. If your opponent has multiple protection creatures (keep in mind this won't help against Shelter or Floating Shield) and you think they'll be your only obstacle, this may be your sideboard card of choice. Don't pick it too high, but it's an interesting card to have in your sideboard. A 9th - 11th pick. Ambassador Laquatus This is a card you can build your blue-white deck around. Gum up the table, cast Laquatus, activate him three times a turn for three turns. In addition to that, he gives you a three-toughness blue creature on turn three, potentially contributing to your defensive efforts. In a less defensive deck, if nothing else he can help you get threshold very quickly, perhaps even giving you card advantage with flashback. That's a lot for plus side. 2nd - 4th pick. Aquamoeba Aquamoeba cures almost all of the problems blue-black had in straight Odyssey draft: a good two-casting cost creature that can stay active later in the game that gives you an outlet to gain threshold. With the previous best two-drops being Crypt Creeper and Phantom Whelp, the 'Moeba represents the elimination of a huge problem of the old blue-black. A 4th - 6th pick. Balshan Collaborator As good as Faceless Butcher, Crippling Fatigue and Skywing Aven are, I think this goes ahead of any of the commons in the set when you're drafting blue-black. The Collaborator puts your opponent on a very definite clock, and while there are a number of spells in the format that can get rid of it, if you know how to play around them, they usually won't be applicable. In non-black blue decks, this is a really boring card, but if you draft it, the upside is that there probably aren't any good blue-black decks at the table, as you shouldn't be getting it otherwise. A 1st - 3rd pick. Breakthrough A powerful card, Breakthrough isn't always going to be the most practical card in your deck. In Limited play, most of your non-land cards will be of enough value that you won't want to discard them, nullifying the card's effectiveness early, but at the same time it provides an outlet for madness, gets you to threshold in one motion and can break the game wide open in the later stages. A 3rd - 5th pick. Cephalid Aristocrat Possessed of a pretty limp ability that can get you decked pretty quickly, the Aristocrat's value will be dependant on blue's partner color in your deck. Blue-black should go deep enough that you won't have any need for this card, but when drafting blue-green or blue-white, desperate times could call for desperate measures. Keep a close count on the number of cards in your deck: if you're short, take this over potential sideboard cards. If not, leave it 'til way late. A 9th - 11th pick. Cephalid Illusionist While the Illusionist can provide you a quick path to threshold heaven, the drawbacks appear to be far too great to warrant main deck play. At 1/1 for two mana, the Illusionist is exceedingly fragile, while its milling aspect can get you decked very quickly by cards like Hypochondria or Narcissism. The Illusionist's special ability is interesting, but it requires a lot of mana and will very seldom find itself effective enough to make or break a game. A 10th - 12th pick. Cephalid Sage Let's face it, while the Sage's ability is useful, when blue has threshold early enough to matter, it's usually because you've been enhancing your card quality to the point where you won't want to be discarding much except for two of the three cards the Sage draws you, but that doesn't mean it isn't a useful card. If nothing else, a 2/3 body for four mana isn't all bad for the blue mage, and the hope of using the threshold makes the Sage quite playable with red, black or white (With green possessed of so many good four casting cost creatures, its seldom the Sage will suit your deck). A 6th - 8th pick. Cephalid Snitch A possible sideboard card that you'll seldom be desperate enough to use. A 12th - 14th pick. Cephalid Vandal Another fast threshold fix, the big problem with the Vandal is that once it gets started, you can't control it. Can be a lot of fun with Gurzigost or Anurid Scavenger. A 13th - 15th pick. Churning Eddy The most comparable card here is obviously Dematerialize, and while the Odyssey card's flashback aspect is nice, I think the Eddy wins out as the more playable of the two. For the same price, the Eddy returns two permanents, and early on that can be a big tempo swing. I'd be just as happy with Dematerialize as a sideboard card, but as far as main deck goes, the ability to slow down your opponent as much as Churning Eddy does while protecting against creature enchantments and enchant lands simultaneously makes this the better card. A 7th - 9th pick. Circular Logic Three mana counters are pretty valuable, but only because of their use in the early game. Here we have a three-mana counter that will almost never be useful on turn three, devaluing it a lot. In the mid to late game, Circular Logic will be able to counter opposing bombs, potentially gaining you a card in the transaction, and there's merit to that point, but Limited is mostly about the early game, so I wouldn't be picking the Logic with too much emphasis. A 4th - 6th pick. Compulsion There are three major abilities that have been introduced in Odyssey block thus far: threshold, flashback and madness, and Compulsion lets you abuse all three. Solving mana problems, dumping cards you don't have the mana for and getting you to your bombs, Compulsion does it all. Once you get it, start drafting those Obsessive Searches and other madness cards a little higher: there's no better receptacle for them. A 2nd -4th pick. Coral Net A good sideboard card against the least plentiful colors in Torment, you may want to be careful with putting this out when there's a threshold card of importance anywhere to be seen: it allows your opponent the opportunity to get threshold easily. That said, one mana spells that take out opposing creatures are a good deal, so you should sideboard this in against the appropriate colors most of the time. An 8th - 10th pick. Deep Analysis Card advantage is good. Deep Analysis gives you card advantage at an affordable price, with the potential to give you more card advantage at an affordable price. By this logic, we know Deep Analysis is pretty good too. I prefer cards that interact with the field of play, and this card-drawer's sorcery status is painful, but there should always be room in your deck for one of these. A 4th - 6th pick. False Memories Capable of serving as a Giant Growth for your threshold creatures or netting you some card advantage through milling flashback cards, False Memories, while an interesting trick, won't usually do enough in the course of a game to warrant main deck use. A 12th - 14th pick. Ghostly Wings I'm not a big fan of this card, but it can find its way into some decks. Especially good on a large green creature, the returning ability isn't great as it requires two cards, but that added utility is enough to make this enchantment playable. Don't forget: you can play this on that crucial opposing blocker in order to remove it from play for the turn: That may seem insignificant, but it could end up winning you a game. A 7th - 9th pick. Hydromorph Guardian 2/2s for three are never spectacular, but this one can be a real annoyance for your opponents when they have a creature they need to kill. The Guardian fills the vacuous blue three-slot, providing a warm body while protecting your guys from everything short of non-targeted mass kill spells. As good a way as any to thwart Shower of Coals and/or Violent Eruption, if you have the good fortune to possess a deck that has left his guy in the sideboard, don't be afraid to board it in against those red power cards that will otherwise end you. A 6th - 8th pick. Hydromorph Gull While the sacrifice ability is just as good, the Gull is far less likely to use it than the Guardian is, by virtue of how much it offers once it gets into play. Granted, this is the same environment that offers 4/4 flyers for four mana and 7/7 ground creatures for five, but the 3/3 flyer is still a valuable commodity. I may actually prefer the Aven Windreader's ability by virtue of its usefulness on a 3/3 flying body, but frankly, I'm going to take all the 3/3 flyers I can get. A 2nd - 4th pick. Liquify Another limited-use three mana counter, the problem with Liquify is how poor it is in the early going if you end up drawing first. Your opponent casts their three-casting cost spell when you have two mana, then when you leave your lands untapped turn three, they cast a four-casting cost creature and suddenly you're too far behind to come back. If your deck is capable of quelling early opposing aggression, then Liquify will serve you well in the mid game, stopping important flashback cards like Firebolt, just don't count on it as a solution to anything early. A 6th - 8th pick. Llawan, Cephalid Empress Now this is a squid worth playing. With blue showing its strength throughout all three packs in this format, it's definitely one of the more popular colors to draft right now, and the more the merrier where Llawan is involved. Single-handedly shutting down half of your opponent's deck, if the Empress isn't dealt with in a permanent way by opposing blue mages, you're going to win. Against non-blue players, Llawan is a little limp for 3 ManaBlue Mana, but generic 2/3s aren't the end of the world, and blue can often cycle its less optimal cards with Cephalid Looter, Compulsion and the like. One of the best cards your deck will have. A 1st - 3rd pick. Obsessive Search I like this card a lot. It fills your graveyard, stabilizes your mana a bit, gets you to your bombs fast and offers the possibility of card advantage if discarded in an appropriate way. Its power is obviously subdued, meaning that you shouldn't take it too highly, but its as good as filler gets. A 5th - 7th pick. Plagiarize I like this card for the concept behind it. If nothing else, Plagiarize offers you card advantage equivalent to Deep Analysis before the flashback, but the potential for so much more is what makes it so appealing. Plagiarize is especially vicious against mass card drawing like Concentrate or Standstill, and particularly mean against opposing effects that include draw and discard like Compulsion, Cephalid Coliseum and Cephalid Sage. You don't need to have any combos in your deck to make this playable, but they definitely won't hurt. A 5th - 7th pick. Possessed Aven When I first saw this card on the spoilers, I assumed it was a typo. I mean, like a 3/3 flyer for four isn't enough (I can't remember this being done without drawbacks since Phantom Monster), once you gain threshold, this card is just ludicrous. It doesn't matter if you're playing black with it or not: the Aven is an automatic pick for your blue deck. A 1st pick. Retraced Image Resolving spells in the face of countermagic is seldom important enough to warrant card disadvantage in Limited play: It's seldom that the occasion that does warrant such allocation of resources will happen to have the card in question seeing itself already in play. A 15th pick. Skywing Aven The best blue common in the set, I'm still unsure as to where the Aven ranks against the set's other top commons. For the time being, I'll just say that this madness capable, hard to kill, mana efficient evasion creature is in the same group with Fiery Temper, Faceless Butcher and Crippling Fatigue without putting it above or below any of the others, and that I don't think it's the worst of the four. That's pretty good. A 1st - 3rd pick. Stupefying Touch I don't know if this card is better for the suppression of an important creature ability or the fact it's a cantrip, but the combination of the two effects makes it quite playable. I don't think I'd want more than one in any given deck as you'll often want to find spells that do a little more than the Touch does, but in an otherwise solid deck, one Touch can definitely solve some problems. Best in blue-white, where it will do well in nullifying Chainflinger, Painbringer and Cabal Torturer, the depth of your card pool will usually decide whether this card is good enough for your deck. A 7th - 9th pick. Turbulent Dreams It's amazing what two mana can buy you in this day in age. Yes, needing the cards for discarding is annoying, but the time this card buys you is more than worth it. More often than not, Turbulent Dreams will be the last card you'll cast as it will come prior to your lethal onslaught, but even in those situations where this isn't the case, the successful casting of Turbulent Dreams for three will usually mean the end of the game is soon to come. A 1st - 3rd pick.