Blue is infamous amongst all of the colors of Magic for having a very complex history in terms of balance. The color was initially very overtuned, to the point that the earliest years of the game were almost entirely dominated by Blue cards and decks. While this has since been corrected, in eternal formats, Blue still has access to some of the strongest cards the game has ever seen. Today, we’re going to go over not only some of Blue’s best cards, but some of the most broken pieces of cardboard Wizards has ever released.
Script by Pumkinswift
Editing by SL
├ The List
Intro: (0:00)
10: Timetwister: (0:27)
9: Force of Will: (2:00)
8: Daze: (4:00)
7: Mystical Tutor: (5:45)
6: Mental Misstep: (7:20)
5: Brainstorm: (9:12)
4: Gush: (10:28)
3: Tinker: (11:58)
2: Time Walk: (13:33)
1: Ancestral Recall: (15:15)
#mtg #tcg #magicthegathering
(Just a note, we have people who actually know the game very well making the scripts for this channel. As the owner of the channel (Theduellogs/hirumaredx) is a total newbie to the game.)
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ah new ManaLogs video, wonder which card will be intentionally mispronounced this time.
I always forget how many absurdly busted cards there are in Magic.
Honorable mentions to:
– Ponder
– Gitaxian Probe
– Intuition
– Thassa's Oracle
– Hullbreacher
and probably more I'm forgetting
But what does Ancestral Recall do?
Here's something scary: Blue is not seen as the strongest color of Commander. People will dismiss this, but Green has overtaken its place, as it got so much going for it besides Ramp. Stax? Collector Ouphe. Draw? Regal Force. Artifact Destruction? Naturalize.
Treasure? Bootleggers' Stash
Name a deck strategy, and there's likely a card in Green. Blue really hasn't gotten much new support that doesn't rely on another color. Practically bread crumbs compared to the other colors. Red and White got support to cover their weaknesses in Impulse Draw and cards like Esper Sentinel and Smothering Tithe. Is there ramp available that's for Mono Blue that isn't an artifact that's generic or relies on Artifacts?
Edit: forgot to add, besides counterspells, is there ANY gimmick in Blue that isn't covered in a different color? I know White has a few counters, but it's few in comparison to Blue
Ancestral Recall has even more upsides that no one ever mentions. Sure, u say it take 5 mana for the same effect or 4 at sorcery speed but Jace’s Ingenuity n Concentrate lack something Ancestral Recall has that can be an upside or even a downside; it is “target player” so in a multiplayer format u can u it for an ally or another player that u need to help u beat the main threat. Or u can use it to finish off someone with mill if they get too low on cards like some anti Doomsday tech or something. But u also can’t use Ancestral Recall if u have an effect that is giving u shroud… but I can only think of 1 creature off the top of my head that does that n I can think of a few things that give hexproof so just use those n boom, no downsides
Yeah Ancestral Recall's pretty good but it's no pay 1 white for 3 whole life
Gush is a fascinating card in that someone wrote a 350-page book about strategies and ideas around it.
Imagine having that level of dedication for anything.
This channel will never recover from that time Yugioh twitter discovered the Gush book some guy wrote back in 2010 for a format that basically doesn't exist anymore. Gush is a strong card. It should not be unbanned in Legacy, and unrestricting in Vintage is also somewhat questionable. But there are a lot of restricted blue cards in Vintage, plus plenty of unrestricted blue cards that see way more play than Gush (Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm, and most recently Lorien Revealed, are all top 20 Vintage spells that get zero mention here, while Gush doesn't break the top 50).
It's hard to argue that Gush is one of the strongest draw spells in the game when basically every Vintage deck will choose to run Ancestral/Dig Through Time/Treasure Cruise/Narset/various tutors and cantrips instead, leaving Gush as just a glorified 2nd copy of Gitaxian Probe/5th copy of Street Wraith in Doomsday alone (except those other cards can actually win the game for Doomsday on turn 1).
every blue card is the most broken blue card.
Pauper Ban list explained 👌
It's still kind of crazy the the most powerfull card in the game comes from the first set.
(11:11) Umm… Wasteland can't destroy Islands. It can only hit nonbasic lands. Did you mean something like Strip Mine there?
Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are notably absent from the list.
Misstep should not be banned, how they ban misstep but thoughtsiese and Ragavon are around
When tinker was first printed, I used it to get colossus of sardia. I used voltaic key to untap it. Lol
TBH, I'd argue Counterspell (yes, the UU one) should've gotten a mention here, even as a simple honorable mention. If you consider it as removal, look at what it's up against from other colors: Black can kill a creature for the same price, but those cards usually have a downside (for instance, Doom Blade (1B) only hits non-black creatures), or for less with a significant drawback (You Are Already Dead (B) requires the creature to already be damaged). White can exile a creature for less, but its controller gains something in return (Path to Exile, it's literally free ramp. I've won because opponents have path'd me before). Green can remove specifically an artifact or enchantment at that price (Naturalize, (1G)). For that same price, Blue can remove… *Literally any card type with no downside to speak of*. That's insane. Before anyone says "but muh timing restrictions", you want to interact at instant speed anyway, never at sorcery speed if you can avoid it, so Counterspell is literally just removal that also reads "this card's ETB effects are cancelled. because FUCK YOU.".
Agree with the cards in this list but not the order.
I noticed a lot of these cards are banned or not legal in certain formats. I'd love to see versions of this video like: "top ten blue cards LEGAL in legacy/modern etc." which take into account bans and legality. It seems like it would be a completely different list at this point!
Ancestral Recall? But what does it even do??
This is a great list. My only quibble is a card like Mystical Tutor prob shouldn't make the list, even for nostalgia reasons. This could make room for a card like Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time, that was broken in all formats (well it was just okay in Standard but absurd in Modern and still broken on the B&R List, or something like Counterbalance that was broken in Modern/Legacy