I suppose this post could also be about Blue vs any upgrade.
I was playing a game with a friend where I was playing Green and he was playing Blue. You’re probably not shocked to find out that I went Growth and eventually played Might of Leaf and Claw. My friend felt that Blue had no way to survive this match.
This was only his second game, whereas I’ve probably played ten games. I don’t know everything in the game that well, and I didn’t have any good answer/advice for him. He didn’t know of the card’s existence, so I did warn him a couple turns ahead of time, “I have an upgrade that can significantly buff all of my units.” My warning didn’t really help him though.
So as a Blue player, what could he have done differently to deal with Might of Leaf and Claw? What about other upgrades? Should he have just tried to win before I brought it out? Did he have a way of stopping me from doing five attacks? Did he have a way of removing the runes from the card? Is there some way Blue has of mitigating opponent upgrades that we straight up missed?
Spells and buildings such as Arrest, Injunction, Jail, and Censorship Council deter their ability to mount up units and attack with them.
Injunction also delays MoLC being played by a turn.
Judgment Day destroys their board presence.
But generally yes, the Blue player should establish enough of a board presence/control before MoLC is played, to either prevent it from being played or impede green units surviving a turn to attack. Onimaru is a great candidate for early board presence. Cadets on resource slots + levelled Onimaru + Tower protecting a Newsman on 3 in the back is probably enough for your purposes in the first few turns, and you can develop presence from there. As to other upgrades, I don’t think there is one that is as immediately threatening, and Blue can usually leverage the advantage in other ways.
Against strong and/or “timed” lines such as MoLC or Metamorphosis the Blue player needs to play very carefully and precisely in order to hedge out a win, making efficient trades, pre-countering with correct cards, and inhibiting the opponent in the most impactful areas. Defeating a MoLC rush as Blue might not be for a player who is only on his second game of Codex.
“If an effect changes the “printed” values of a card, the new values will be used. This includes Chaos Mirror and transformation effects such as Polymorph: Squirrel. — Sirlin”
Tell him that Quince mirrors are good cheap ways to deter you from getting it as well.
While not getting benefit of MoLC, Community Service is (IMO) quite good against Mono-Green because card depletion : )
I tried with Tech II Law but that wasn’t fantastic, maybe Flagstone Spy + Air Hammers might be slightly better… IDK
Against a multicolor MoLC strategy without Midori/Zane/Vir, Cadets + Garrisons are actually very good. If MoLC is out, just tech Jurisdiction or directly Dreamscape ! MoLC without Zane and Midori is very rare thought.
Against Mono-Green, I was thinking about Spectral Flagbearer + Macciatus. Did someone actually tried it ?
Macciatus seems quite difficult to spot as Green and grabbing buffs looks nice with SF ! But yeah Moss Ancient can keep runes on it and just attack with them
You’d have to be sure Arg won’t be on field (midband) before teching Tech 1 illusions… And Spore Shambler anyway… Very risky, but might worth the try !
I remember seeing a particularly heated game in the old forums between Garrison/Sergents and MoLC, and they were fighting pretty evenly on epic scales. However I think the garri-gent player was only able to keep up because they had upgrade removal, destroying MoLC several times over the course of the game only to have his opponent drop the other MoLC and keep going. In the long run, Green can play fewer units each turn (and not including the summoned wisps/frogs/etc) but they each generate the equivalent of 5 +1/+1 runes compared to garrigent’s 2, not to mention that MoLC is far easier to set up than a full double garrison, double sergeant engine. I’m not sure if a garrigent strategy alone for mono-Blue is enough to face MoLC, both speed and strength wise.
Not sure how Jurisdiction would help, but Dreamscape sounds like a good idea. It still at least leaves you supersized heroes to deal with, though, and Hallucination can only eliminate so many units at a time. Ultimately the name of the game for Blue is still more to prevent than to remedy.
Copying from a post on old forum about Black vs MoLC:
“If you can’t think of a direct counter to something, imo the next question to ask is could they have pulled it off if you put more effort into contesting the board early. Going Might implies having spent 7 gold on things with no direct impact on the board and several cards teched for this plan. If you do that while facing a second cycle Soul Stone Jandra and/or maxed Garth bringing out a Twilight Baron, good luck getting those growth runes.”
While Blue doesn’t have quite as obvious plans for early game pressure as I use as example there, the point still stands that Might requires a good bit of work before it does anything, and if the green player can get away with it without getting smashed he kind of deserves to win. Just like against tech 3s, the best “answer” is being more proactive and less reactive.
I think for a player only having 2 games under his belt, mono blue is a tough choice. Blue is mainly a control color and require knowledge of what your opponent can do and good management of your own stuff.
I made the mistake of letting a new player use Blue because he liked control styles in MtG. I crushed him with FDS one game and Earthquake another, and he felt very cheated.
I definitely think red vs green is the right introductory matchup in this game
Or just give the new player one of White/Green/Red/Black, and then play the archetype they’re the most interested in. So for someone who’s really into control decks, play Blue against them while they play a more “standard” mono-colour. That way they have something relatively simple to play, but also get the flavor and potential of the thing they’re likely to want to try when they git gud.
