I'm on a roll with my mono colored decks lately. After taking forever to finish the cycle and get all 5 represented, I'm closing in on having 2 articles for each color. So what color am I focusing on this week? Blue! I've touched on what the color is all about before and that hasn't changed. I've already built a Heroic style deck that looks to go wide and tall at the same time thanks to Orvar, The All-Form. So what's left? It's good at drawing cards, countering spells, and casting Instants/Sorceries. Years ago it was good at burn, so I don't feel the need to rehash that. I also don't want to lean into any control elements too heavily. I just built a Gruul deck that looked to control the board and the game (you'll see that soon). That can take a little more thinking than you would expect. So if Gruul was now a thinking man's deck I needed provide a counter balance.
But what does that look like? What is the opposite of control? Aggression. I wanted to lean into violence. And then it dawned on me “I've never seen a Blue Voltron deck.” Have you? It's so opposite to everything I've seen Blue do before I almost ruled it out. But would it be possible?
What is a Voltron deck, really? I want to power up a single creature so much, it can kill an opponent in a single hit, maybe 2. Pumping power should be easy. Every other color does it reliably. As I see it, there are 4 main ways to increase power: With equipment, with +1/+1 counters, with Auras, and through combat tricks.
People love equipment because it sticks around and you can hand it off to another creature when the first one dies. It's susceptible to a blowout when someone overloads a Vandalblast. Then you better have a way to get it back from the graveyard.
Counters and Auras are pretty similar. They sit on a creature, but once that creature gets removed all that hard work is gone with it. The game has made strides in recent years to prevent such blow outs, like the Ozoloith and the Bestow mechanic. Auras are much more of an “all your eggs in one basket” strategy than counters since many spells and abilities put counters on more than one creature at a time.
Combat tricks as a strategy are more viable in a limited environment. There are a couple of exceptions like Zada, Hedron Grinder or Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest. They are very explosive and can surprise opponents who don't respect their lethality. The key here is to draw more cards, to pump your creature, and to enable casting multiple spells in one combat like through cost reduction, which blue is good at doing to instants and sorceries.
With the basics and the philosophical side out of the way, let's talk about practicality. After doing a little digging I realized this strategy was wide open. There were even unique ways to pump power in blue. I have access to Vhal, Candlekeep Researcher with blue. Vigilance is weird in blue, but I can give her a bunch of equipment to boost her power and toughness. This lets me attack effectively and then I can tap her to pay for equip costs or play cards from exile like Plot, Foretell, and Adventure. A little untapping means I can ramp out more than once a turn. I think Sword Coast Sailor would be a good fit with her in the command zone. A little unblockability can go a long way in a combat focused deck.
Sword Coast Sailor works with another option though, Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy. His power is super low, but with the ability to recast cards from my graveyard I can get double duty out of my combat tricks. This is built in card advantage. Something like You Come to a River offers even more flexibility to remove threats or force damage through. I could even do a similar build with Lier, Disciple of the Drowned. There are plenty of spells to make a creature unblockable and give it a power bump. That would be easy, to trade away Sword Coast Sailor for making all my spells uncounterable.
Back to having 2 cards in the command zone. Esior, Warding Familiar has evasion and extends Ward to in and it's partner. Everyone was complaining about Voja and how Ward 3 is insurmountable not long ago. Why not give Ward to 2 creatures? Who should that second creature be though? Ghost or Ramirez DePietro of course. It has some evasion on its own, but I can supplement that. The second clause is less relevant without some build around. Where these two would shine though is in an equipment deck. 2 commanders means I'm twice as lethal when it comes to commander damage. The commander damage is unique to that creature, so I would just need to be mindful about which creature attacked which opponent and keep that pressure high.
How does Blue do Volton in it's own unique way? By weaponizing your cards in hand. Syr Elenora, the Discerning and Soramaro, First to Dream both have power equal to the number of cards in hand. If you didn't know, Blue is pretty OK at drawing cards. Couple that with Wizard Class or Reliquary Tower and you can get to 21 damage very quickly.
That's how wide open this strategy is. But you don't want 6 different articles all about Blue Voltron though. (Do you?) So which way did I go with the deck? Which of those heavy hitters did I go with? None of the above. I chose Thassa, God of the Sea. She was actually my first choice before I even realized how deep this strategy could be. The more digging I did into making Thassa a powerhouse I did, the more ways I realized I could make various commanders powerful attackers.
Why Thsasa, God of the Sea? She's cheap for starters. 3 mana is easy to come by in the early game. It also means having to recast her more than once is very doable in a game. She's also Indestructible. This is a powerful way to deal with most removal. I'm still susceptible to bounce, sacrifice, and negative counters, but most board wipes and targeted removal just says destroy. Needing 5 Devotion is a little bit of a hoop to jump through, but there are plenty of permanents that have blue pips to keep Thassa online. Scry is great card selection. If something isn't useful, just put it on the bottom of the library. And finally, paying 2 to make something unblockable is exactly what I want in a combat focused strategy. It doesn't have to be Thassa or just her in any given combat. Heck, I don't even have to activate it on my turn.
I use a little of each of the strategies to pump up the Sea God, but the most versatile one is +1/+1 counters. If she isn't a creature at that moment the counters stay put for later. The same isn't true for equipment that needs to be reequipped or aura's that fall off and go to the graveyard. Blue doesn't have a lot of ways to put counters on creatures but it has some powerful ones. Ordeal of Thassa can come down early and put a counter on my commander each time it attacks. I just have to sacrifice it once 3 of those counters are on there and I get to draw a couple of cards for my troubles. Just make sure you have 5 other pips. Otherwise, Thassa quits being a creature on the attack. I certainly haven't made that mistake before. Proft's Eidetic Memory is a newer addition to the deck and has been a welcome one. It's a repeatable way to add counters and it adds to my devotion. Teferi's Time Twist is a good way to avoid the limited removal that could upend Thassa. She also happens to enter the battlefield as a creature, so I've already started to rebuild in that case.
Sword of Truth and Justice insulates Thassa from 2 of the colors most likely to be able to remove her. It also happens to drop a counter on a creature and proliferate if I connect. That could mean 2 counters on Thassa for next turn. Thassa isn't my only creature, so I can spread those counters around for greater effect from the proliferate. Fireshrieker and Brass Knuckles both offer doublestrike, which effectively doubles her power. Since Thassa often attacks on her own more than once in a game I also included Cathedral of War for the exalted trigger. If nothing else, it makes mana immediately. Trophy Mage works great here to tutor up a couple of great equipment options in the deck.
I am a threat at the table, but attacking can leave me open to retribution. It's not great to get slammed for a turn cycle because I want to try and knock 1 opponent out. I can insulate myself with a card like Propaganda, and I do, but I do more than that. Goad is a powerful effect that serves to keep opponents from attacking me. They soften each other's life totals and remove troublesome creatures. Maeve, Insidious Singer can goad that problem blocker for later. When that target does attack I get rewarded by drawing a card. Mocking Doppelganger is even more insulting. I have it enter as a copy of the biggest threat or problem on the table. Now that creature is forced to attack while I reap its benefit. This works great in 2 ways. I name a token creature and all of a sudden a dozen goblins or thopters, or spirits, or whatever else go flying around the table. The other way to use her is to target an opponent's commander. This means I can keep the effect if that card gets removed and recast later on. Very sneaky, just like Sly Instigator. He not only goads, but makes that target unblockable. I can “encourage” another commander to become a commander damage kill to an opponent by just selecting it over and over every turn.
I further protect my investments to the board. Teferi's Veil phases out my attackers after combat. This might seem like a liability since I'm left without a powerful blocker, but in reality, a lot of powerful removal is sorcery speed, so this helps me dodge those boardwipes. Venser, Shaper Savant can bounce back a fragile creature, or soft counter a spell on the stack. Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea extends ward to multiple of my permanents. Thanks to that star in her stat line she can become a powerful threat on her own. I also have a couple of counterspells here for emergencies. Jwari Disruption is a funny one. A force Spike effect seems low power, but people tap out in the late game making this viable early and late in the game. The ability to play it as a land means I have greater flexibility early and in the mid game.
On my first build, I didn't take advantage of all of Thassa's abilities. I was letting her Scry ability act very passively. I wanted more out of it. There is an ability that cares about the first card I draw in a turn, Miracle. All of a sudden that scry is looking a little better. Her Scry trigger happens on upkeep, so I can do it before my first draw. If that card happens to have Miracle I can cast it for cheap. There aren't a lot of Miracle cards out there, but they are certainly impactful. Vanishment is just a bounce spell. I would not pay 5 mana for this, but 1 is more manageable. Meanwhile, 2 mana for an extra turn is way better. I'm talking about Temporal Mastery. The spell exiles, so I can't abuse it. Even for 7 mana I would play this spell and not feel too bad about it. The last one is Devastation Tide. A 2 mana board wipe is a great place to be for me. I can rebuild relatively quickly since I'll have so much mana left open after the miracle cost. People would pay 5 for the same effect and not feel bad about it in a blue deck. I get a little more mileage out of the ability thanks to effects that let me scry deeper than one or let me put a card from hand on top of my library. Preordain, Ponder, and Brainstorm are all classics for this. So they fit in well here, very naturally.
In looking at how other colors make voltron so successful I noticed my blue strategy was lacking. White is great at voltron because it can create such a critical mass of power on a creature and do it quickly and reliably. Red gets extra combats to extend the reach of my souped-up threat. I didn't feel as explosive as a white or red deck in the first draft of this deck, so I found some more ways to push the power onto Thassa. Blue doesn't get extra combats, so I was left to one attack per turn, which was slow to knock out 3 opponents. But why? I can get an extra combat rather easily. It just happens to come with another upkeep and a couple of main phases too. I'm talking about extra turn spells. This is what spurred on the miracle talk in all honesty. Most colors get an option for extra turn spells in some form or fashion. Green has Seedtime, Red has effects like Glorious End, which are very high risk, and black has Temporal Extortion. I'm not overloading my deck with extra turn spells, but having about 1 per player in the deck has been a good guiding principle. Karn's Temporal Sundering opens up a line of attack for 2 turns. Walk the Aeons offers buyback. The cost is high at 3 lands, but with Thassa's inherent ability to stick around the table means I'm less affected by paying the lands. Temporal Mastery was what set this whole thing in motion, for extra turns and miracle. Once I committed, I never looked back.
I spent a lot of time talking about the potential in the strategy and skipped over some staples. I have stuff like Caged Sun to pump my Blue creatures and more importantly, double my blue mana. Midnight Clock works to ramp early on and refills my hand later on. Pongify and Reality Shift are staples of blue removal, but I also added Invasion of Ravnica. It removes permanents blue struggles with once they're on the field. The flip side is just a creature. I've never gotten any benefit from it besides being a 5/5. I don't even attack the Siege most games.
So how does the deck look now? Like this.
Thassa, God of the Sea
Sea Hag Devastation Tide Karn's Temporal Sundering
Taigam's Strike Vanishment Walk the Aeons
Stealth Mission Temporal Mastery Alrund's Epiphany
Open into Wonder Armory Automaton Venser, Shaper Savant
Minds Aglow Brass Squire Gadwick, the Wizened
Blue Sun's Zenith Teferi's Time Twist Calaphe, Beloved of the Sea
Trophy Mage Slip out the Back Pull from Tomorrow
Teferi's Veil Proft's Eidetic Memory Dragon Blood
Propaganda Ordeal of Thasa Tarrian's Soulcleaver
Brainstorm Expanded Anatomy Blade of the Bloodchief
Ponder Essence Capture Ring of Evos Isle
Preordain Ecologist's Terrarium Fireshrieker
Reality Shift Mitotic Manipulation Brass Knuckles
Pongify Iceberg Gavel of the Righteous
Curse of Swine Caged Sun Candlestick
Scour from Existence Sky Diamond Mask of the Schemer
Sly Instigator Liquimetal Torque Sword of Truth and Justice
Ransom Note Maeve, Insidious Singer Blackblade Reforged
Arcane Denial Mocking Doppelganger Invasion of Ravnica
Dissolve Polymorfist's Jest Rabid Hybridization
Counterspell Tezzeret's Gambit Jwari Disruption/Ruins
Silver Myr Midnight Clock
Cathedral of War Captivating Cave Hall of Oracles
Cave of Temptation Opal Palace Castle Vantress
Mystic Sanctuary Saprazzan Cove Lonely Sandbar
Remote Isle Blighted Cataract Desert of the Mindful
Island x22
What do you think? Did I choose the correct commander and strategy for a Blue Voltron deck? Should I have gone with a partner option or more of an equipment based game plan?
Be sure to use my TCGplayer link if you plan to build your own version or if you're looking to pick up other cards along the way.
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