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March of the Machine Constructed Set Review and Decklists: Blue

With the full spoiler of March of the Machine released, DoggertQBones is reviewing the best cards from each color as well as providing sample decklists! Today, he's examining the Blue cards!

Hello everyone! With the full spoiler for March of the Machine live, we can finally get into breaking down the cards with constructed applications!

Since I did individual card reviews already, rather than repeat myself, I’ll link the article, but still give the verdict and decklist if that’s what you’re more interested in. For this, I’m going to cover every Mythic, every Rare, and then choice uncommons and commons that have potential. Let’s get into it!

As always, here’s the scale I’ll be using to label the new cards that potentially have constructed applications.

  • 0/5 – Unplayable in every sense.
  • 1/5 – Extremely niche play or very unlikely to see play.
  • 2/5 – Niche to no play, maybe playable in certain conditions.
  • 3/5 – Reasonable playable. Not format breaking, but has the power level to see play in some strategy (or strategies).
  • 4/5 – Very strong card, but not the best the format has to offer. Has the power level to see a lot of play.
  • 5/5 – The very top of the format. This card will create a huge impact going forward on the format.


Jin-Gitaxias

Well isn’t this just nifty. A five mana 5/5 with Ward 2 is an alright stat line and drawing cards when you cast a big non-creature is definitely decent as well. This alone isn’t too exciting, but the flip side is pretty nuts. So you can only flip Jin if you have seven or more cards in hand, but when you do, you draw that many cards and have no maximum hand size! Then you get an Evacuation to help stall for the third chapter which should just win the game 99% of the time. So why is this just a 2.5 out of 5? The flip clause. While Jin-Gitaxias is strong, getting it to flip is going to be insanely difficult for most decks to achieve first off. The second issue is that if you can flip it, that means you have seven cards in hand on turn 6 at the earliest making the flip side kind of negligible. If it’s turn six and you still have a full grip, are you really going to have an issue winning? The ceiling is definitely super high here, but the floor is lower than my liking.

Rating: 2.5/5


Rona, Herald of Invasion

Rona itself is not super exciting. A Merfolk Looter that flips into a solid creature isn’t bad, but is not great if that’s what it was being used for. Of course, that’s not how Rona should realistically be used. Since it untaps with each Legendary spell, this obviously slots extremely well into Kethis, Hidden Hand (which Omri will have to enlighten us to at some point) and even in Underworld Breach decks in conjunction with Mox Amber to mill really deep into your deck. For Standard, this could go into Esper Legends as well since it filters your draws pretty efficiently which is definitely nice in a deck that could use it.

So to summarize, this is pretty weak for normal applications, but it gets an asterisk as this is definitely solid in combo decks, I just don’t know how good it’s going to be.

Esper Legends
by DoggertQBones
Buy on TCGplayer $571.65
Standard
Aggro
best of 1
10 mythic
48 rare
2 uncommon
0 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+

Rating: 3.5/5


Zephyr Singer

A Convoke mini-Serra Angel that can grant a big portion of your board flying? Sounds great in theory, but works poorly in practice. You would be looking to play this in a deck with cheap Blue creatures, but all the good cheap Blue creatures have evasion anyway so this just ends up being a small Serra Angel.

This design is so sad as this is going to be really strong in Limited and very bad in Constructed. Oh well.

Rating: 1/5


See Double

You can only imagine what happened with this card in development for it to have gotten to this point as it clearly comboed with something like Dualcaster Mage. None the less, this card is not great. A Reverberate and/or a instant speed Clone is not exciting, and since it can’t even have combo applications, this seems pretty bad. Maybe an instant speed Clone is better than I’m giving it credit for, but I’m not holding my breath.

Rating: 1.5/5


Invasion of Segovia

What deck is this card for? Where is this good? Who wants Dragon Fodder for three mana in Blue?

Rating: 1/5


Invasion of Arcavios

So you have a slightly better Burning Wish that costs three more mana? You have to play this in a deck that cares about spells, but can also deal 7 damage to a battle? What?

Rating: 1/5


Chrome Host Seedshark

Based on the art, this is an obvious reference to Shark Typhoon, but just a version that’s much less busted! A three mana 2/4 Flier isn’t too bad, and getting an Incubate based on the spell you cast is definitely clunky, but not terrible. This is probably too clunky to really see play, but I don’t hate what I’m looking at.

Rating: 2/5


Transcendent Message

I feel like Blue is getting really shafted this set as a color that’s based on non-creatures needed designs where creatures really mattered. If this were like 3UX this could at least be splashed in something else, but no mostly Blue deck is going to want this.

Rating: 1/5


Faerie Mastermind

Just on rate alone, this card is decent. A two mana 2/1 Flash Flier is a fine stat line and being able to draw additional cards when the opponent is looking to is definitely strong. To sweeten the deal a little bit, you get a symmetrical card draw that you can use on an opponent’s turn so you get to draw two cards on their turn as well! I think this is going to be better in older formats, hence the asterisk, but this is decent in Standard as well.

Azorius Flash
by DoggertQBones
Buy on TCGplayer $351.54
Standard
Tempo
best of 1
6 mythic
30 rare
4 uncommon
20 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Planeswalkers (4)
Creatures (16)
4
Cathar Commando
$3.96
Instants (12)
4
Fading Hope
$5.96
4
Consider
$2.76
2
Negate
$0.70
Enchantments (4)
Lands (24)
4
Island
$1.40
4
Plains
$1.40
4
Adarkar Wastes
$35.96
4
Deserted Beach
$23.96
4
Seachrome Coast
$15.96
60 Cards
$461.72

Rating: 2.5*/5


Complete the Circuit

Once again, we find ourselves with a card that demands you care about instants and sorceries, but also play a lot of creatures. While I absolutely love this card for Commander, I can’t imagine a Constructed deck that can make any use out of this.

Rating: 1/5


Change the Equation

This is an interesting hate card as it’s soft permission normally, but against Red or Green, will pretty much be better counterspell. While this doesn’t seem great in Standard considering Red and Green are currently the two weakest colors, I am interested to see if this replaces Aether Gust in older formats. My gut is that this probably doesn’t, but it’s close enough to warrant inspection.

Rating: 3/5


Omen Hawker

This card is dope, but I have no clue if it’s at all playable. Maybe someone smarter than me can figure that out, but my gut feeling is that this would need to do something really degenerate in order to see play.

Rating: 0*/5


Moment of Truth

Anticipate isn’t a good rate anymore considering Impulse doesn’t even see that much play, but one that functions more as an instant speed Strategic Planning is definitely worth considering.

Rating: 2/5


Assimilate Essence

This is just a Scatter Ray variant that a small amount of the time will be a four mana 2/2 that forces an opponent to pay 4 mana. Not exciting, but playable!

Rating: 2.5/5


Conclusion

Unfortunately, Blue got the shortest end of the shortest stick in this set. With Battles and Convoke, creatures matter now more than ever, so its no surprise that the color with the worst creatures is going to struggle. To make matters worse though, a lot of those designs wouldn’t have been that good even if creatures were better in Blue, so it seemed to be the worst of both worlds. Sorry Blue, better luck next set.

Thank you for reading!

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DoggertQBones
DoggertQBones

Robert "DoggertQBones" Lee is the content manager of MTGAZone and a high ranked Arena player. He has one GP Top 8 and pioneered popular archetypes like UB 8 Shark, UB Yorion, and GW Company in Historic. Beyond Magic, his passions are writing and coaching! Join our community on
Twitch and Discord.

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