Ben Stark was on Limited Resources with a very interesting thesis: there is a solid blue control deck lurking somewhere in All will be One. Blue is widely derided as the worst color and it is performing very poorly in the 17Lands stats. Yet it’s commons look like everything a control player could dream of. What’s going on here?

Ben’s thesis is pretty straightforward. ONE is defined as an extremely fast format, lots of 1-2 drops where you can’t afford to take a turn off. Yet blue has an absolute murder’s row of commons that can handle that threat.

Let go of the format briefly and just look at those cards in a vacuum. They’re beautiful! The raptor blanks almost every attacker while being able to hit for 4 in the air. The Seer is a lovely little wall that provides a repeatable source of value. Finally the Synthesizer does what you need early (e.g., block all those pesky 2/2s & 2/1s) while being a perfectly respectable late-game clock. So what’s the problem here?

One is the flip side isn’t necessarily true. Look at the following:

In a sane world, these would be great in control decks. Two reasonable finishers at common: solid flying threat with extra value and/or a great “reload your hand”. A Divination that could cost one? But in this format, a five-drop can’t just “turn the corner”. It also has to solidify your defense and none of these cards manage that. Here are some alternatives:

Meldweb Strider is a particularly great example of heuristics leading us astray. I took one look at the Crew 3 and tossed it in the draft chaff. But if you re-word it, “Crew it once for free.” suddenly it looks much better. Nothing is getting past a 5/5 in this format; it’s a huge stop sign. And if you have some mild proliferate value (extra scry, unblockable 3/3s, etc.) it gets a lot better.

The Ben Stark hypothesis is that “people are building blue decks wrong”. And while I think that’s a trifle overwrought, I think it is fundamentally true. ONE is too fast of a format for traditional control deck signposts like Divination, 5-mana fliers, etc. to be good. But if everyone is playing these hyper low-to-the-ground decks, you only have to be a little more controlling. 0/3s that scry and 1/3s that turn into a late-game win condition are perfectly suited to feast on the Crawling Choruses of the format.