The Flavor of MTG: Blue- Part 2(Mechanics)

Intro and Disclaimer

Welcome to the second article that attempts to be an extensive coverage of the flavor of Blue philosophy and mechanics in Magic the Gathering. Since this is indeed part 2, you should probably read or reread the first part here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/724914309782749184/the-flavor-of-mtg-color-philosophy-blue-the) if you haven’t already to avoid confusion. If you really feel up for it you can even start with my first article that aimed to tackle the Color Pie in general here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/723411557792481280/the-flavor-of-mtgs-color-piepart). I am also going to be assuming you have read the previous part so there is a lot of stuff regarding how mechanics and flavor work in Magic the Gathering that I’m not going to re-explain here because if I re-explained them every article the articles would be twice as long for no reason, and each one would become obnoxiously repetitive for anyone attempting to read these articles in order.

So suffice to say, despite the importance, I will not go over things like what primary, secondary, and tertiary keywords/abilities are since the information exists in the previously mentioned articles.

For the sake of clarity, this article will cover all the named mechanics and keywords present in Mark Rosewater’s “MECHANICAL COLOR PIE 2021” article(https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021-10-18). Things like specific faction related keywords are planned to be covered in due time and, as mentioned in previous articles, the mechanical Color Pie actually shifts over time so if you are reading this from the far future and there are all new mechanics that haven’t been included or mechanics that a color has gained and/or lost that is why. It is inevitable that this article will eventually become out of date to one degree or another. This is also super important when looking at older Color Pie articles because you may see mechanics and keywords in different places. These usually have their own interesting, often equally valid, flavor reasons for being like that in the past but I will not touch on them here. Also, any mechanics that have similar enough flavor I am grouping together to make my explanations less repetitive. With the disclaimers out of the way, we can finally get started.

Mechanics

Friendly to artifacts, Putting artifacts from hand onto the battlefield, and “Tutor” for an artifact(Search your library for an artifact card and put that card in your hand.)– Blue is primary in just being generally friendly to artifacts, putting artifacts from a player’s hand onto the battlefield, and tutoring for artifacts. I put all these effects in the same place because they all tie into Blue’s themes of technology as well as progress because technology can be used to become our best selves or to allow us to achieve something that we could not on our own. For example, if you cannot fly then a jetpack or plane can allow you to do so. Blue thinks anything can be improved and will not hesitate to use either natural or unnatural means to do so if it deems them to be safe or beneficial. Being able to put artifacts from hand onto the battlefield ties into the previously mentioned themes but also relates to the idea of Blue approaching magic by learning all it can about it so it is more likely to be privy to ways to use other spells in a more roundabout way to get the desired affect or have ways to circumvent things like certain mana costs when casting things. In this case it could also represent the desire to fully understand and utilize all it can about technology, meaning that Blue’s philosophy means it is more likely to be privy to how to make things or simply how they work.

Animating enchantments(Target/all non-aura enchantment(s) you control becomes an enchantment creature), Animating artifacts(Target/all non-creature artifact(s) you control becomes an artifact creature), Changing lands(Target land becomes the basic land type of your choice), Color changing(Target/this creature becomes the color(s) of your choice until end of turn), Switching power/toughness, “Transformation(Target creature becomes a color/card type with N power and N toughness),” Word changing(Change a word in rules text into another word from the same subset), and Animating lands(Target land becomes an N/N creature until end of turn)– Blue is secondary in animating enchantments, primary in animating artifacts, changing lands, color changing, switching power/toughness, “transformation” effects, word changing, and tertiary in animating lands. This seems like a pretty random group of mechanics to group together but I decided to tackle them like this because all of these relate to Blue’s focus on change. Blue is a philosophy that believes 1. People are blank slates and 2. Anything is theoretically possible with the right amount of knowledge, time and technology. What this means is that Blue believes people can change themselves or others to be just about anything and this often also applies to the world and magic around them. Blue believes that if it understands something enough then it can change or improve upon it. So if you understand something like magic well enough then you can turn your enchantments into tangible physical forces, your lands into elementals or a different kind of land, build your artifacts into robots, or maybe even rewrite/circumvent societal or natural laws. This can also let you change the properties of someone/something in order to do stuff like switch power/toughness, change someone’s beliefs, mimic another color’s way of thinking, or change one or more words that appear in rules text all together. Animating artifacts also ties into Blue’s themes of artifice and artificial means of getting what it wants.

Copying permanents permanently, Copying permanents temporarily, Spell copying (Copy target instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.), Spell redirection (Change the target of target spell and/or ability with a single target.), and Increasing counters and/or tokens– Blue is primary in copying permanents permanently, spell copying, spell redirection, increasing counters and/tokens, and secondary in copying permanents temporarily. Blue is the king of copying things and can copy just about any type of card. This copying theme ties into Blue’s focus on understanding and knowledge, as Blue believes that almost anything can be understood and mastered with the right knowledge, time, and technology. What this means is that Blue is the color that is most likely to see a certain card, creature, or spell and wonder how it works and behaves. Once it understands how it works it can usually mimic it or its properties. This also ties into the idea that anything is possible since to Blue this would mean that it is also possible to mimic various magic spells, creatures, phenomenon, etc. For the sake of clarity “increasing counters and/or tokens” refers to causing something to make more counters or tokens as they’re being made or making more after they’ve already been made as opposed to an ability that generates tokens on its own. Increasing counters and/or tokens just ties into Blue’s ability to copy or duplicate effects, spells, and creatures. You could also make the argument that Blue is all about trying to perfect things so doing something like increasing the number of counters put on something or the number of tokens being made acts as a way of improving upon or enhancing that ability to make it more efficient.

Token generation– Blue is secondary in making creature tokens but there’s basically nothing to say here because literally every color can make tokens and 3 out of 5 of the colors are secondary in token making while the other 2 are primary in it. So the existence of making tokens for a color like Blue is usually more of a mechanical/gameplay thing as opposed to a strong flavor reason outside of case by case occurrences(such as creating copies of a permanent). Blue’s tokens tend to be small I guess. The heavy reliance on tokens that tend to have a low power and toughness, such as 1/1s, tend to reflect Blue’s general theme of small creatures and focus on using its head and strategy over just running in and trying to brute force things.

+1/+1 counter (creation and caring), and +N/+N to your team, ongoing– Blue is tertiary in +1/+1 counters and giving your team an ongoing +N/+N buff. The reason for this mechanic is a lot more gameplay-wise as opposed to flavor-wise. Every color can create +1/+1 counters to some degree because it’s a pretty good way of showing your creatures becoming more powerful. However, generally, White and Green are the best at +1/+1 counters which means that they have the most ways to put them on to their creatures and they mechanically reward you for having +1/+1 counters the most. In regards to Blue you could argue that putting +1/+1 counters on stuff ties into its focus on progress and upgrading things(since putting +1/+1 counters on a creature is usually a tangible way to make them better or stronger). When it comes to +N/+N effects all colors have access to them to at least some degree since at the very least each color can have “lords” that care about a creature type that appears in that color to a certain degree. For example, Blue can have a merfolk card that gives all merfolk you control +1/+1. In addition each color may also give a wide +N/+N buff to cards that have certain traits (for example a Blue or White card may give creatures with flying +1/+1 and a Black card may give other Black creatures you control +1/+1). You could also argue that Blue’s ability to create wide buffs like this ties into how it focuses on the bigger picture and themes of wanting to improve upon things such as the world or society as a whole. The fact that Blue is tertiary in both +1/+1 counters and ongoing +N/+N for your team probably has to do with Blue gameplay trying to encourage you to use your mind and subtlety over brute force when possible.

+N/-N (on creatures), -N/+N (on creatures), -N/-0 (on creatures), -N/-0 (on spells), -N/-0 (on Auras), -N/-0 to their team(one-shot), Changing creatures and weakening them, +N/+N (on Auras), +0/+N (on Auras), +N/+0 (on Auras), -N/-N (on spells)– Blue is primary in +N/-N (on creatures), -N/+N (on creatures), -N/-0 (on creatures), -N/-0 (on spells), -N/-0 (on Auras) -N/-0 to their team(one-shot), changing creatures and weakening them, secondary in +N/+N (on Auras) and +0/+N (on Auras), and tertiary in +N/+0 (on Auras) and -N/-N (on spells). These abilities all tie into Blue’s theme of change as it believes that anything can be changed so it can do things like weaken or buff its own creatures for periods of time or basically permanently. Its focus on change also means it can do things like -N/+N effects which is basically changing a creature by trading off power for more toughness. Abilities like +N/+N can also just be seen as general buffs that basically every color has access to as a way of strengthening their creature and effects that lower power can be seen as a representation of the more tricky side of Blue’s philosophy. Since suddenly lowering a creature’s power is a pretty good way to throw the opponent off or create miscalculations for your opponent by making the information they previously had irrelevant. Lowering power or buffing toughness also ties into Blue’s more defensive side as it allows it to stall for time, and thus have more time to gather knowledge and look for more answers by either lowering the power of the opponent’s attacking creatures or buffing the toughness of its own defending creatures. -N/-N effects on spells are something every color can do to one degree or another, at least in the context of sets or factions with a -1/-1 counter theme(such as New Phyrexia). In such cases these effects are usually in the place of where damage would normally be dealt.

“Polymorph” (Exile target creature. Its controller reveals cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals a creature card. That player puts that card onto the battlefield.)– Blue is secondary in polymorph and the idea here is that polymorph effects usually represent a creature or permanent being turned into something else. This relates to Blue’s themes of change as Blue believes that if you understand something then with the right amount of time, knowledge, and technology you can turn yourself or the world around you into just about anything. This also leans into Blue’s blank slate ideology with the idea that someone or something can potentially be turned into almost anything else. The fact that Blue is only secondary in this ability rather than primary is because Blue tends to lean away from a lot of effects that lean into randomness. Polymorph effects essentially permanently replace a creature with whatever is on top of your library. Typically, when Blue is transforming something it usually wants to know and fully understand what it is transforming them into… usually.

“Flicker” (Exile target creature/permanent, then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control—occasionally the creature/permanent returns at the end of the turn), Return to hand (Return target creature/permanent to its owner’s hand), and Return to library (Put a creature/permanent on top of its owner’s library or some number of cards down)– Blue is primary in flicker effects as well as affects that return creatures or permanents to their owner’s hand or put said target(s) somewhere in their owner’s library. As mentioned in my previous article, if there’s one thing Blue loves to do mechanically its fuck with an opponent’s information and I would argue affects like flickering and bouncing stuff around can do that. So these effects really tie into the trickier side of Blue philosophy. For example, an opponent might swing expecting you to have to sacrifice your creature with an unfavorable block only for you to block and then flicker or return it to your hand so you can keep your creature alive. There’s also a lot of mind games and trickery that comes with this since you can use these kinds of abilities as a way to activate effects that care about one or more creatures entering / leaving the battlefield. It should also be noted that flickering has a lot of the same flavor as Blue’s ability to untap permanents since when you flicker something it will reenter the battlefield untapped(which can allow for surprise blocks to throw your opponent off guard). Flickering and returning stuff to your opponent’s hand / library also represents how Blue wants to rely more on its brain and not just destroy anything it comes across to deal with its problem as it becomes a lot harder to study and understand things if they are gone forever. Instead of destroying something you can return it to the opponent’s hand or library, which also has the added bonus of the psychological effect that the opponent may feel like they have to spend mana casting it again. These return effects also do a good job buying Blue time to search for knowledge since the opponent now has to cast the spell again. Flicker can be used to suddenly remove creatures from combat in order to stop attacks and stall for time, and the same applies to bounce effects and the like. These effects can also be used on your own permanents to protect them from your opponents’ spells and abilities by removing them from the battlefield when someone targets them with something or attempts a board wipe.

Friendly to instants and sorceries, Instant and/or sorcery triggers (Whenever you cast an instant and/or sorcery . . . ), Return target instant from graveyard to hand, Return target sorcery from graveyard to hand, “Tutor” for an instant or sorcery (Search your library for an instant or sorcery card and put that card in your hand), and Prowess– Blue is primary in being friendly to instants and sorceries, having instant and/or sorcery triggers, returning instants and/or sorceries from the graveyard to hand, and tutoring for instants and/or sorceries. I already touched on why Blue tends to care about having a lot of instants and sorceries in my previous article so I will be repeating a lot of what I said there. The idea is usually that Blue magic users tend to seek to understand all they can about magic so they tend to have a better understanding of it and how its spells work. Its emphasis on spells over creatures also further highlights its emphasis on the mind and knowledge. You aren’t relying on the magic and raw strength of other creatures as much as you’re relying on your own knowledge, cunning, and memory in regards to the magical spells that you have learned and/or accrued. Instant and sorceries also play up the idea of the non-physical a lot more than something like creatures since while some cards can create tokens and the like instants and sorceries themselves never actually hit the battlefield and can’t really be physically interacted with in the same way that you might interact with say an artifact or creature. What I’m trying to get across here is that things like instants, sorceries, and even enchantments(it’s just that enchantments are more permanent) tend to have a more metaphysical or less physical property than many other card types and that idea is something Blue often leans into due to its themes regarding stuff like the laws, mind, and spirit over blindly following bodily desires and emotions.

“Illusion ability” (Sacrifice this creature if it is the target of a spell or ability)– Blue is primary in “Illusion abilities.” Blue’s “illusion ability” mostly ties into its… illusions(in respects to both the creature type and magic spells) and just general themes of trickery and subterfuge. I already went over why Blue is associated with illusions in the previous article so I’m just going to repeat what I said there. “We already mentioned why Blue tends to be associated with illusions but there are some extra reasons why illusion magic specifically is associated with Blue. As a reminder, Blue’s illusion theming/matters comes from the fact that Blue has this emphasis on what could be and all the ways things can be improved or changed as opposed to getting stuck only on what is right now because to Blue people are mostly blank slates. Blue isn’t just going to roll over and throw up its hands at the world because it believes the world can be changed. In combat illusion magic also thrives off the ignorance of others. Blue is all about knowledge and it knows how powerful knowledge can be. So when it fights it may often try to target its opponent’s knowledge to prevent them from finding an answer. Illusions do this by making it so the opponent either doesn’t know what is real or fake, or because it tricked them(causing them to receive incorrect knowledge, believe that they are being hurt, or are in an unwinnable position). Ironically, illusion magic itself often has a weakness to knowledge, since if you know that they aren’t real they cannot usually directly hurt you due to being fake. This is also why many illusions tend to have a gimmick where if they are targeted or interacted with they are sacrificed or returned to your hand(it’s because they aren’t really there).”

Looking at opponent’s hand– Blue is primary in this effect and can do it without any sort of prerequisite or in tandem with another ability, for example Black can usually only look at an opponent’s hand as a way to choose what card(s) get discarded.

Blue gets the ability to see its opponent’s hand for the same reason that it gets card draw, scry, surveil, fateseal, etc.. Blue believes that knowledge is the most important thing when it comes to bettering yourself and overcoming problems so being able to see what your opponent has in their hand or the spells they are thinking about acts as a way of gathering information and is a great way to reward yourself for trying to think ahead. Since seeing what your opponent can play allows you to do so more easily.

“Maro” ability (This creature’s power and toughness are equal to the number of cards in our hand)– Blue is primary in “Maro” abilities and the reason for this is pretty straightforward. Blue believes knowledge is power and the right knowledge allows you to overcome any problem and “Maro” abilities make this literal because your hand represents your mind and the spells you actively know / remember. So “Maro” abilities reward you for knowing as much as possible by quite literally making your creatures more powerful the more cards you have in your hand.

“Manipulate time” (End the turn) and “Time Walk” (Take an extra turn after this one)– Blue is primary in both manipulate time and time walk effects. I already touched on Blue’s ability to mess with time in the previous article so I’m going to be a bit lazy and just copy and paste what I said there “MaRo states that the reason Blue messes with time is because “Blue’s studies have helped it uncover secrets that none of the other colors are privy to, how to use time as both a resource and a weapon” but I would like to think that this is only part of it. You see Blue is a color that believes anything can be achieved with the right amount of time, information and/or technology. Blue also has a massive emphasis on forethought and taking as much time as you can to make the right decision. So by mastering time you give yourself the means to look for knowledge and find more possible answers in how to achieve your goals. Also, if someone lacks as much time as you they have less time to gather knowledge or find an answer to whatever you are doing. Denying someone time could be seen in a similar vein to how Blue may deny information to gain an upper hand.” In addition ending turns and/or adding extra turns could lean into Blue trying to use what time it has as efficiently as possible or trying to be more efficient in how it uses time than its opponent.

Moving enchantments/counters– Blue is primary in this ability and in Mark’s “Mechanical Color Pie 2021” article he states “Blue is the color of moving attached things. It hasn’t moved Equipment yet, but perhaps one day.” His note on moving equipment is an interesting one and I’m sure gets some of my fellow custom card creator’s heads buzzing with some fun potential mechanics but I need to stay on track here. Blue’s ability to move things in general ties into its themes of change. Blue believes that everyone is a blank slate and this mechanic allows Blue to move some of the traits, enhancements, enchantments, counters, buffs, and equipment from one thing to another in order to allow you to freely alter and change them. This flavor is especially apparent with keywords such as the Simic Combine’s Graft mechanic(which reads “This creature enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters on it. Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may move a +1/+1 counter from this creature onto it.” N just represents a static number by the way, like Graft 2 for example).

Friendly to lands, and Basic land counting (Doing an effect equal to the number of basic lands of a certain type you control)– Blue is secondary in abilities that are friendly to lands and tertiary in basic land counting. Honestly, for most of the colors there isn’t really a deep flavor reason for why they care about lands. At the end of the day each color is going to care about at least 1/5th of the basic land types since they are going to at least care about the land that produces their respective mana color(such as Islands for Blue), not to mention that we have seen cards that care about lands connected to the ally colors of a specific color(the best example I can think of is Kird Ape, which is a Red card that gets +1/+2 as long as you control a Forest and Forests are the basic land tied to one of Red’s allied colors, Green).

There are also certain sets and planes with land matters themes and mechanics, such as Zendikar and the Landfall mechanic.

“Gaseous Form” (This creature neither deals nor receives damage)– Blue is secondary in gaseous form abilities. I would argue that this mechanic has much of the same flavor as most of Blue’s other evasive abilities, such as Flying and the like. In the case of Blue I think gaseous form abilities usually represent something that’s hard to hit or damage but by extension also has trouble hitting you. Think of a cloud that you cannot hit but at the same time it cannot hurt you either since it’s a cloud and lacks a solid form. Likewise, this ability can also be used to represent Blue’s trickery. Since a creature with this ability could do something like continuously block creatures over and over without hurting itself. One could argue that when a Blue creature does something like this it is confusing another creature or stalling for time instead of trying to attack or block directly.

Mana production (permanent), and Treasure creation (artifact tokens with “T, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.”)– Blue is secondary in permanent mana production and tertiary in treasure creation. In the case of Blue the mana it generates is often colorless or restricted in some way to help it cast noncreature spells, such as artifacts. In the case of artifacts it ties into Blue’s focus on artifice and in the case of instants, sorceries, and enchantments, it ties into Blue trying to understand all it can about magic and having ways to make using raw magic easier. Blue’s mana production tends to be more long term and permanent to show its emphasis on taking things slow and forethought in contrast to other colors like Red who will just create temporary sources of mana or generate mana in short bursts. I’m pretty sure Blue’s ability to create treasures just mostly has to do with its emphasis on artifacts. Also, mana generation also helps with Blue’s typically slow and long term focused gameplay by allowing it to cast bigger spells down the line. I suppose I should also mention that every color has at least some cards in relatively recent history that can add mana of their respective color. However, typically outside of colors like Green the mana is usually that of their own color and some colors are heavily restricted in what spells the mana can be used for.

Rules setting– Blue is secondary in rules setting. Something that a lot of players may find surprising is that despite the fact that White is primary in rules setting Blue is actually secondary in rules setting along with every other color. I suppose that is because it often depends on what rules are being set. For example, Black’s rule setting can often come with drawbacks like leaving you unable to win the game and your opponent unable to lose.

In regards to Blue one could argue that its rule setting is mostly for gameplay / mechanical reasons but I would argue it often fits into Blue’s themes of control. Blue is a color that believes almost everything is possible and that means by extension you can control both yourself and the world around you under the right conditions. This means that you can create or bend laws, be they societal or natural, to your advantage. I would say this is part of the reason Blue seems to have such a big emphasis on laws along with White and why a White-Blue faction such as the Azorius Senate can be so law obsessed.

Discard as a cost, and Life loss as a cost– Blue is tertiary in both discarding and life loss as a cost or additional cost. In a majority of cases I would argue that in the case of Blue these mechanics exist primarily for mechanical / gameplay reasons or as a way to help balance out cards by providing an additional cost or drawback. Within Mark Rosewater’s “Mechanical Color Pie 2021” article in regards to discard as a cost he states “while all colors have access to discarding cards as a cost, black does it most and red does it second most” and in regards to life loss as a cost he says “All colors have access to it on rare occasions where the world calls for it (like New Phyrexia).” Phyrexian mana is a pretty good example of being able to pay life as a cost. One thing to be noted is that Blue uses discard as a cost a lot less than colors like Black and Red and in addition it uses life loss as a cost a lot less than Black. The fact that Blue doesn’t rely on cards with these abilities very often shows the philosophy’s emphasis on caution and usually trying to go with whatever option is the least risky or chaotic. Also, in terms of flavor it is important to remember that Blue would argue for making sacrifices or giving something up if it leads to a greater net positive or improvement for the world, society, etc..

“Lhurgoyf” (This creature’s power and toughness are equal to the number of cards in your/all graveyards.)– Blue is tertiary in “Lhurgoyf.” This one is interesting in the fact that all colors have Lhurgoyf style abilities to one degree or another. One could argue that this is mostly mechanical but I would say that in the case of Blue there is some potential connection to Blue and the flavor of milling and graveyards that I covered in the last article. As mentioned there “If the library represents your mind then putting cards from your graveyard back into your library basically acts as a way to “remember” your cards or recover lost knowledge to accrue even more information and possible answers. This flavor applies to casting spells from graveyards and in addition you could argue that it represents learning or using knowledge from the past(“Hey that spell you cast was pretty cool actually. If I do enough research then I should also be able to replicate it”).” Lhurgoyf abilities could also pair well with Blue’s milling abilities and could sometimes represent Blue gathering information from the past or spells that were cast before by looking at graveyards and learning from the past. Which is a metaphor made literal by having the creature literally grow bigger the more cards are in graveyards.

Douglysium

The Flavor of MTG: Blue- Part 2(Mechanics)

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