My U/B Conundrum

All 5 colors in Magic have a certain charming "flavor" that makes them interesting. It's wonderful the way the colors each have an objective, a way that they want to win. But unless a player is solely focused on winning, there's always a color or combination of colors that seems the most fun to them.

My favorite color combination is blue / black (U/B).

But in the Commander format, I have a conundrum. None of the U/B Commanders are interesting to me. I keep hoping for a U/B Demon Legend that doesn't require Red mana, but so far nothing doing.

My mono-black Griselbrand / Nefarox deck is fun, but it suffers from turns where I draw just one card. And that's lame. Black has good card-drawing, but I like filtering and manipulating my library, too. Blue is really good at that.

My mono-blue Arcanis / Eldrazi deck is also fun (albeit probably not for anyone I play against). But it suffers from turns where I just don't feel like the beatings are evil enough. There's something about the ambition of black, trading one resource for another, along with the dark flavor of the cards that makes playing the color more fun for me. Check out Disciple of Bolas if you are confused. If that card doesn't jump up and slap you in the face, black is not your color.

Since none of the U/B Commanders really "wow" me, I'm left with Sol'Kanar the Swamp King and Nicol Bolas as options. One is a demon and the other is an evil badass. Both of these guys require red to cast, though. And I avoid red. Don't get me wrong: Sneak Attack is a good time. But I usually end up running only a handful of red spells, most of which can be replaced with something else. Other than some artifact removal (exciting!), I run red simply to cast my commander. And that just doesn't feel right for a commander deck.


I do have a U/B Commander deck using Wrexial and demons, but I end up stripping it for parts to build something else after one game. Maybe there will be a legend in the next block that grabs me. Go Ravnica!


What color(s) are you drawn to? Did you choose your commander because of it?