Bang for your Buck: Investing in Cards for Dragon’s Maze – Blue

Disclaimer: I can not be held responsible for any poor decisions I make in regards to any cards you might buy in response to my article. I’m going to post my thoughts and plead my case for each card I recommend, and if you agree then by all means head out to your local gaming store or buy cards online and try to snap up some good deals. I’m basing my information off of months of standard gaming experience as well as prices in my area and how they’ve reacted to the ever changing metagame. I can only hope that the decisions I make are good ones and that my gamble pays off after buying the featured cards.

We’re about a week into the new Dragon’s Maze metagame, but things still seem to be up in the air. Big events such as the Star City Games Open and TCG Player’s 5K tournament have only just got underway, but already people are saying that Reanimator, Jund (GBR) midrange, and Bant Hexproof are the go to decks for the first few weeks (I’d beg to differ because I’ve beaten all of these decks with my RWB vampires deck). So where does that leave the blue cards, and more importantly control for the near future? Well, that’s what I’d like to talk about today in my Bang for your Buck article about the blue cards.

Previous Blue card suggestions

• Jace, Memory Adept – Before he was about $18, Now he’s about $15. Not a huge change, but since more mill based control decks didn’t take off neither did his price. He’s still a staple of blue control decks though.
• Temporal Mastery – Before it was $9, now it’s about $6. Big card in planewalker control and miracle control, but that deck type never took off again after AVR.
• Tamiyo – Then it was about $14, now it’s $14. My thoughts that she would hold her value held true.
• Snapcaster Mage – said it would hold it’s value between $21-$25, and it’s at $24 now.
• Undead Alchemist – fun to play with casually, never took off in standard.
• Jace, Architect of Thought – Said he was going to go up from $15 before, he’s gone down to $10.50 now.

While Esper and Bant control really took off in the last 3 months, their attack didn’t really focus on blue cards. Aside from Snapcaster Mage, their strategy was based around using multicolor cards like Sphinx’s Revelation and Supreme Verdict, and white cards such as Restoration Angel. This kept the value of many control based cards low.  So where does that leave control for the next 3 months? Will we see Dimir control, Grixis (BRU) control, UWR tempo and UWR control make a comeback? I’d like to think so, so I’m going to focus on which cards I think would fit in those decks well.

M13 Blue Cards

Clone

Clone ($0.50) seems to be a greatly underutilized card in Magic. However, I think there are quite a few decks that could benefit from having a playset of it in there. One such deck is Bant Midrange, which is stacked with powerful cards like Angel of Serenity, Thragtusk, Restoration Angel, and sometimes even Armada Wurm. Voice of Resurgence is a card that is sure to find it’s way into that deck, and the more you can have the better. Progenitor Mimic should also add a little more fun to the Clone Wars. Standard now has 3 powerful clone cards: Clone, Cackling Counterpart, and Progenitor Mimic. It’s only a matter of time before somebody finds a deck to exploit their power. I could see Clone going up a dollar or two before DGM standard is finished. I said this last time as well (and the price didn’t change), but I think there is a better chance now of him seeing play after a few weeks.

Omniscience ($7.50) is another card to look out for. Brewers are currently wracking their brains to make a control deck using this and Obzedat’s Aid from Dragon’s Maze. The card currently sees some fringe play in standard, as well as in some older formats, but if somebody figures out how to cheat it into play around turn 5, it could see a slight increase in value.

Innistrad, Avacyn Restored, and Dark Ascension Blue cards

Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

Tamiyo, the Moon Sage is currently selling for about $13.50, which is close to what she was 3 months ago. Being May, she has about 4 months of playability left until she rotates out, but I don’t think the old girl has shown us all of her tricks yet. As I stated in my lands article, I think UWR control will become popular again thanks to cards like Turn//Burn and Ral Zarek from DGM. Planeswalker control was a really strong deck back during AVR. With enough Supreme Verdicts and Terminus, you can totally shut down your opponent and then proceed to lock them down with all sorts of planeswalkers: Jace, Architect of Thought, Ral Zarek, Tamiyo, heck, even Chandra, the Firebrand and Gideon might work well in this deck. It’s expensive to do, but I think those players that have all these expensive cards laying around will want to use them before they rotate. Look for Tamiyo to see some more play this summer and to get one last bump in value.

I don’t think any of the ‘money’ blue cards in DKA or Innistrad will see any play other than Snapcaster Mage, but I do want to talk a little about Delver of Secrets ($.70). I’ve been playing a new build of the deck using Nivix Cyclops and Guttersnipe, and it has been doing really well against a variety of decks. It’s difficult for those uninitiated to playing Delver decks, but I could see it gaining more followers in the weeks to come. Delver of Secrets and other blue cards that allow it to work such as Thought Scour ($.40) and Turn//Burn should see a brisk increase in sales, though I don’t think you’ll be able to sell yours for any profit.

Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash Blue cards

Jace, Architect of Thought

I got burned by Jace, Architect of Thought ($10.50) last time. I thought he’d go up in value, but people just stopped using him altogether thanks to the popularity of super fast aggro decks. I’m a little more skeptic to recommend him again this time, but I really do think that Dragon’s Maze added more cards to Grixis, UWR, and Esper control decks. We’ll see a swing back to control in a few weeks and people will be looking for cheap planeswalkers. I don’t see him getting any cheaper than he is now, so pick Jace, Architect of Thought up before he starts seeing play again (especially when quite a few sets get closer to rotating). 

There aren’t any blue cards in Gatecrash that really jump out at me, so I’m going to refrain from making an picks from that set to see play. Better luck next set I guess. 

Next time on Bang for your Buck

I feel that Artifacts, lands, and Blue were some of the least versatile cards in these past sets. Lots of players have said that blue was gutted after the previous block due to powerful cards like Mana Leak, Ponder, and Gitaxian Probe running the game for months and not giving other decks a chance to bloom. While I somewhat agree with them, it’s kind of sad to see blue in the state it’s in now. It’s going to lose a lot of power in the fall, so hopefully we’ll see some more powerful cards in Theros to even the playing field. 

Things are finally going to get more interesting in the next article when we get into white. Angels, humans, all the fun stuff. I’m going to try and get it out in the next few days, but please accept my apologies now if I run out of time to do so. If you have any comments or suggestions for this list, please leave it below and I’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading.