Avacyn pre-release strategies – Play to your weaknesses – Blue

Today I thought I’d continue with my tips for the Avacyn pre-release and Launch Party next week. You might also be able to use this advice for Magic Game Day on May 26th. The color I will be covering today is Blue. There are a few more cards I would like to use from blue than from black or artifacts. Here’s the first card I would use in a deck if I were going with blue.

Fly away little birdy

Most likely you are going to be running another color with blue, and if you have this in play first turn, you probably will be able to deal a lot of easy damage early on. I think he would combo great with the big creatures of green for maximum damage.

Now you see it, now you don't.

Why is this card good at a sealed tournament? Well, for starters you can give yourself one more turn to live if they are swinging in for the kill, or you could save a creature from death after blockers are declared. The “flicker” mechanic of removing a creature from the game for a short time can be a life saver. This will also reset “enter the battlefield” abilities like Soulbound, or things that do damage or gain you life when you play the creature again.

Built in Deceiver Exarch (New Phyrexia) ability? And re-useable? Nice

This has many applications. Tapping their biggest blocker or their only blocker to let your guy get through, or forcing them to use the ability of a land or artifact before they want to, letting you react to it with a sorcery in the 2nd main phase. 4 of these in a sealed tournament would be amazing, but 2 wouldn’t be bad either.

Lets use that artifact and land again . . .

Reset the world, two pieces at a time. Want to use that special land one more time? Go ahead. Want to use that artifact or creature ability once more? No problem! It can also save your land,artifact, or creature from being destroyed. Great common to have.

It's no Intangible Virtue for Lingering Souls, but . . .

The use of this card will depend largely on what colors you are using. If you have a few Wingcrafters, or are running Blue/White Angels, this is a nice bonus for only 2 mana. If you have 2 Wingcrafters, then the 4 flying creatures you have will do 4+ damage. Not bad.

Card advantage is always good

There aren’t a lot of cards in this set that allow you to draw cards, especially 3 cards. Card advantage is always good, and even if you just have one or two of these in the deck they will greatly help you out.

Next I’ll talk about which Rares/Mythic Rares are great to have. I think these are no-brainers. If you can pull one of these from a booster pack, you’ll be in great shape for that tournament I think!

I'll take Timewalk for 2 mana Alex

An extra turn never hurts. But for 7 mana, I would mulligan any opening hand where you get this card. In a Sealed deck tournament, you probably won’t see that 7th turn too much, especially if you’re not drawing mana every turn.

The much hyped Frost Titan Princess

Now if I pulled this card, I would definitely build a deck around her. I would use White/Blue or Green/Blue. UG would be really aggressive and probably the better combination to use. UW would probably be more defensive and would lock down your opponent before flying in for the crushing blow. It all depends on the other cards you get.

Steal your Miracle and use it for myself? Don't mind if I do!

Quite possibly a sideboard card, but maybe main as well. For 4 mana you can steal a creature, a sorcery, an instant, and even a Miracle card! And the best part?? You don’t have to pay for it. I’m not sure on the ruling of this yet, but that creature would probably stay on your side until it died. Great if they are playing with one of those Angels.

Hooray for reset buttons

While the miracle cost is great, the regular cost for this card isn’t bad at all either. I’ve been wanting a card like this for my UR Titan deck (which doesn’t have a lot of creatures in it) for a while. But in a sealed tourney, this can really save your ass if your opponent has an aggressive deck. Great card to go with Tamiyo and Temporal Mastery.

Well, that’s it for blue today. Hopefully you’ve thought a little bit more about these cards and have developed some combos of your own. Please share any other combos you can think of by leaving a comment. Thanks for reading!