Blue, the Power to Control the Game in the Palm of Your Hand

Blue, the color of control, and widely agreed upon to be the most powerful color in the Magic The Gathering world. To effectively wield this color, you need to have a level head, see two moves ahead of the game, and never relinquish control of the field. If you control the field, you control the game, and there’s no better way to do that than by using the bevy of powerful instant and sorceries a blue deck will put at your fingertips. Almost any blue card can be a devastating tool in the right hands, but here I’ve assembled a list of the top cards that anyone could use to ruin your opponent’s day.

20. Opt

What’s great about this card?

• Low Cost
• Deck Control

Seeing such a low-impact, low-cost card on this list might come as a surprise, but Opt has huge potential. Never underestimate the power of knowing what’s coming next. Those who can see the future, can shape it to their design.For the incredibly low cost of only one mana, you can not only see the next card in your library, but you can also choose not to take it. Maybe you need more mana, or you’re lacking in the creature department, whatever your need is, Opt has the potential to help you get it.

19. Spark Double

What is great about this card?

• Copy
• Damage Boost

If you have a favorite creature, it can be a bit of a bummer that there is a limit on the number you can take with you into a match, fortunately, there are more than a few loopholes to that rule, and this card is one of them. Not only does this card become a copy of whatever creature you’d like that’s in your control, it comes in improved with a slight bump to its power and toughness! If that wasn’t enough to convince you to include this card in your blue deck arsenal, it also applies to planeswalkers and brings in a copy with an additional loyalty point!

18. Aether Gust

What’s great about this card?

• Color Targeting
• Variant Board Control

This card helps take the sting out of the heavy hitters that come with a Red or Green wielding opponent. Granted, for this card to work you need to have some indication of the colors of the deck you’ll be going up against, but if you have that knowledge, this card can be your best friend. Red and Green decks are feared for their damage-dealing prowess, which does tend to be a weak spot in blue decks, however, this card can take one of those big bad powerful spells and return it to sender. Being able to put the targeted spell back in your opponent's library is beneficial not just because it gets it off the battlefield, but also because it can waste their draw power on having to pull the same card twice. This can keep them from acquiring more mana or a potentially more harmful spell for their next turn.

17. Unsummon

What’s great about this card?

• Low Mana Cost
• Board control

Everyone has experienced that moment of terror when their opponent plays a monster creature card that you know will have you cornered, and it is awful. Fortunately, if there’s one thing a blue deck provides, it’s options to delay and change your fate. Being able to simply undo your opponent’s last move can buy you the time you need to gain the upper hand in battle, and you can do just that with this card. Advantages aside, this card quote is fantastic and can give you a good laugh while you antagonize your opponents.

16. Negate

What’s great about this card?

• Low Cost
• Board Control

This card may seem similar to the last one in its basic principle but actually, it is very different. Not only does this card apply non-creature spells, but it also gives you the freedom to stop a wider variety of moves. It also acts as a full counter. Other cards like this simply return the target spell to its owner’s hand, allowing it to be played again at the next opportunity. Negate however acts as a full counter, sending the target spell to the graveyard to prevent its return.

15. Counterspell

What’s great about this card?

• Low Mana Cost
• Variable Board Control

The best of both worlds! This card combines the abilities of both Negate and Unsummon, letting you pick whatever card type you like, and simply say “nope” removing it from play. Not only do you get to choose any card to counter, you get to do it from the same incredibly low mana cost as the others. Being able to completely counter a spell for only two mana is a huge advantage! You can play this spell early to establish quick control over the board or keep it in your back pocket for the end game to send an opponent's trump card straight to the grave.

14. Selective Snare

What’s great about this card?

• Flexible Mana Cost
• Board Control

Facing down an army of powerful, annoying creatures and not sure which one to remove from play? Well with this card, you don’t have to choose! Technically at the very least this card costs only two mana to play, but if you want to wield it most effectively you’re going to need some mana to burn. Every extra mana you spend to pay for this card is one more creature of the chosen type you can pull off the board and stick back in their owner’s hand. This can almost act as a more controlled board wipe, especially if your opponent has specialized their deck type. You can pull your opponent's defense, and offense, right out of the way and leave them wide open for a full swing, or buy yourself a little more time to build up your army. This card is as versatile as it is lethal.

13. Contentious Plan

What is great about this card?

• Counter Boost
• Increase Hand

Never underestimate the value of an extra draw in a game based so heavily on chance. Having that extra card can mean the difference between victory and defeat because it can be the piece of the puzzle that you have been missing. Aside from that valuable extra draw, this card also provides you with the ability to increase the counters on your cards. The amount of cards and type of counters this applies to are limitless, meaning you can turn an army of middle damage into an army of awesome power provided you’ve done the work of laying down some counters already.

12. Mystical Dispute

What is great about this card?

• Variant Board Control
• Potential Mana Drain

The only thing a blue deck wielder hates is another blue wielder, so having this spell along is a nice piece of insurance against that. This can counter any spell your opponent casts, and its cost is reduced if it’s against another blue spell. Bringing the cost down of any card can only be a good thing, and this cost can potentially be reduced to only one blue mana! This spell also comes with a caveat, your opponent can still play the spell if they want, but they have to pay three of their mana to do it, and that takes a big chunk out of their mana pool.

11. Cavalier of Gales

What’s great about this card?

• Deck Control
• Recast Potential

Having five power, five toughness, and flying, is enough for anyone to want to bring this card to battle, but it doesn’t just stop there. When this powerhouse hits the battlefield, you get to draw three additional cards! A draw that big is incredibly valuable, and this card doesn’t demand a discard to pay for the boost like others of its kind tend to do. Instead of having to sacrifice a card you’ve drawn, all this asks for is that you take any two cards in your hand, and put them on top of your library.  Knowing what’s coming next is always a good thing in Magic the Gathering, and this lets you do just that. If all that wasn’t enough, the Cavalier of Gales can’t be killed, returning to your library instead of heading to the graveyard, and letting you scry two additional cards on top of everything else. 

10. Agent of Treachery

What’s great about this card?

• Control Opponent Permanents
• Draw Boost 

There is hardly a greater feeling than being able to take control of one of your opponent's cards and turn it against them. The sweet irony of destroying your enemy with their army is too delicious to pass up. Playing the Agent of treachery is a little like playing a two-for-one. You get the benefits of putting a creature on the board, and at the same time get to take one of your opponents' permanents to add to your team. If that didn’t sweeten the deal enough for you, the Agent of Treachery comes with an added static conditional. If you’ve been able to keep control of three or more of your opponent’s permanents, you get to draw an additional three cards at no added cost.

9. Spectral Sailor

What’s great about this card?

• Low Cost
• Draw Boost

One mana for a one-power, one-toughness creature doesn’t sound like it should be a contender for this list, but this card is more than meets the eye. First off, any card that comes with Flying is almost twice as valuable as normal cards regardless of their power because they are so much harder to block. Couple that with Flash and you’ve already more than doubled the value of this card, but even that isn’t what has landed the Spectral Sailor in the top 10. Its repeatable ability gives you an extra draw! It costs four mana and doesn’t tap this card so it can still be used to chip away at your opponent’s hit points. An extra card for that cost is more than worth it, and it can be done again and again, so if you’ve got mana to spare, you can fill your hand and be ready for whatever comes next.

8. Slip Out The Back

What is great about this card?

• Damage Boost
• Temporary Invincibility

An instant card that offers a temporary damage boost is hardly anything to write home about, but the special thing about this card comes from more than just an extra point of damage. The ability to phase out a key card on your playing field is extremely versatile! You can use this card in a couple of ways, helping yourself, or hindering your opponent. You can use it on your cards as a means of protecting them from incoming damage, and guarantee their survival until the next turn. The other option is to play this spell on an opponent’s creature, and while this may seem counterproductive in that you give them a small boost, it also means that the creature “doesn’t exist” for a turn, meaning it can’t properly be used against you until the effect is up.

7. Brineborn Cutthroat

What’s great about this card?

• Damage Boost Builder
• Low Mana Cost

At first glance, this creature is quite weak, but the secret of this creature is in its growth potential. For the low cost of only two mana, you can put a creature on the battlefield that can rapidly grow in power with technically no limit. This card produces bonus power and toughness as a static ability, triggering whenever you play a spell, any spell, on your opponent’s turn. This means any instant card, or a card that uses flash, will increase this creature’s power and toughness permanently. In an instant, this card can go from no threat to a complete powerhouse.

6. Drawn From Dreams

What’s great about this card?

• Deck Control
• Extra Draw

We’ve covered the power of the extra draw before, but that power can only be made better by the amount you can draw. This spell lets you peek into your library at the top seven cards, a full starting hand’s worth of cards, and select the best two to keep. The leftover cards get shuffled back into the bottom of your library, which doesn’t necessarily sound like a good thing, but it does mean that you know approximately where they are. In this game knowledge is key. You get two cards of your choice to enrich your hand, and get to know what is, or rather, what isn’t coming up next.

5. Mana Drain

What’s great about this card?

• Spell Counter
• Mana Boost

To counter an opponent's spell is already an amazing ability, couple that with a valuable mana boost and you have an ace in the hole. You could use this spell at any point in the game, but to get the most juice out of it, you want to wait to counter a high-cost spell, like a powerful creature or sorcery. Not only do you get to counter this spell and take it away from your opponent, but during your next main phase, you get a mana windfall. The cost of the card you countered is added to your mana pool, and that much of a boost means the amount and quality of cards you can play skyrocket.

4. Lier, Disciple Of The Drowned

What’s great about this card?

• Protects Spells From Countering
• Gives All Spells Flashback

This card provides three advantages, number one, it’s a creature card with decent power and toughness, which is always good to have along in any deck. Secondly, it gives Flashback to instants and sorceries. In a deck that is for the most part predicated on instants and sorceries, having a card that lets you cast them from the graveyard, at no increased cost, immediately doubles the value of your deck. Most Flashback costs are increased by one or two mana, but this one keeps the mana cost the same so there is no extra strain on your mana pool. Finally, having this card on the battlefield stops your opponent from being able to counter any of your spells, giving you a special advantage over anyone else playing a blue counter deck.

3. Brazen Borrower

What’s great about this card?

• Multiple Effects
• Repeated Board Control

Creatures with Flash and Flying are always solid options to have in your arsenal, but the beauty of the brazen borrower lies in its Petty theft ability. You are able to trigger this ability in an instant and force one of your opponent's cards off the field and back into their hand. If you can keep this card alive, and the necessary mana in your pool, then you can maintain control of the board, and make sure your opponent can’t get their footing as you return their cards to their hand again and again and again. That forces them to spend their valuable mana on the same cards if they ever want to get them down.

2. God-Eternal Kefnet

What’s great about this card?

• Copy Spells For Lower Cost
• Can’t Be Killed or Exiled

A legendary creature is always great to have a long, but some unique aspects to the God-Eternal Kefnet earn it a top three spot. Flying with decent power and toughness scores is reason enough to bump this up the list, but that is hardly the best thing about this card. When you have this card on the battlefield you can reveal the first card you draw each turn, and if that card is an instant or sorcery, you get to copy and cast that card. Not only does this get you a copy, but the copy has a reduced mana cost of two, which will drop the cost of most instants and sorceries to practically nothing. The Icing on the cake? This card is virtually unstoppable. It can’t be exiled, and when it dies, it’s put into your library in the 3rd spot from the top! This card can ruin your opponent's day again and again and is never far away from making its grand entrance to the battlefield.

1. Mass Manipulation

What’s great about this card?

• Large-scale Board Control
• Potential Planeswalker Control

Taking control of an opponent's cards is always the sweetest kind of revenge and often delivers insult to injury when you turn those cards against their owner. Usually, you can do that to one or two cards temporarily, but this sorcery changes all of that. As long as you have the mana to spend, there is no limit to the cards you can take control of, and you don’t return them at the end of your turn. This means that theoretically you can take possession of your opponent's entire board, and own the playing field completely. Even planeswalkers aren’t spared from this spell, and you can pull them to your side along with all the rest.

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