An Introduction To Blue Farm

Tymna the Weaver

& Kraum, Ludevic's Opus

by Winona Nelson and Aaron Miller

"What's in a name? That which we call Blue Farm by any other name would win just as many cEDH pods." - William Shakespeare

Blue Farm. One of the most powerful and feared decks in cEDH that also happens to contain among the most meaningless and confusing names that the community who invented it still argues about the origin to this day. Regardless of origin, Blue Farm as it exists today is a deck with Tymna the Weaver

These differences usually speak to whether a) the author is looking to incorporate the card advantage from the commanders into the primary gameplan and play a more interactive game or b) they wish to use the card advantage as a secondary plan after failing to combo early. For the sake of consistency in this article and my own personal bias, we're going to use the list Brian Coval won the most recent Okotoberfest with.

What's The Big Deal Anyway?

The most powerful decks in Magic's history effectively blend potent combo with versatile, powerful cards to pivot between a resource-based gameplan and a combo kill. Typically referred to as "combo-control" decks, these decks are still dominant in other Magic formats today. The Underworld Breach

None of this would be nearly as effective without deliberate and effective use of the London mulligan rule. Mulliganing with Blue Farm is your most effective tool to start the game executing a plan with cards known to be effective in the matchup. Sometimes you need a quick kill and want to mulligan to fast mana and a tutor for Ad Nauseam

You even get a bit of insurance with the power of Tymna the Weaver

No Less Than The Best

As we dive into the core cards that make up Blue Farm, it's important to understand why specifically Tymna the Weaver

The singleton nature of cEDH leads to frequently running out of good land options for three-color decks and having to play some below-rate lands, where for four colors the desired land count lines up near seamlessly with the playable lands. Other than color spread, you get two commanders thanks to the extremely powerful Partner mechanic. Each has relevant text allowing the controller to draw cards in a meaningfully different way. Tymna

Tymna

Blue Farm Staples

While lists can vary wildly (sometimes up to 30+ cards!), there are some staples you will see in every Blue Farm list you come across.

Win Conditions

All of these cards have earned their pedigree and need no introduction. Playing all the colors but one allows you to play the top-of-the-line combo pieces to allow for blistering-fast combo kills that work both early and late and cost the least mana. Much of the theme with Blue Farm is playing the best cards available to you in cEDH right now, and the combo section is no exception.

Interaction

Counterspells are king in cEDH, and there's a significant cost to not showing up with access to the color blue. Potentially plays to your strengths if you prefer to appear less threatening because you cannot interact, but Blue Farm does not shy away from being a threat and often comes packed to the brim with the best blue interaction to stop opposing wins and protect their own.

Value Engines

One of the easiest traps to fall into when building cEDH decks that fight on a resource axis of any kind is evaluating all value engines the same. Blue Farm again plays the highest possible card quality the format supports with the iconic three best card advantage engines available. These three cards set the gold standard for all other value engines to meet, and it always proves an impossible task. Even Tymna

Broken Mana

I've seen quite a few comparisons between cEDH and Vintage, and the comparison holds up the strongest when you look at the amount of fast mana available in this format that is restricted or banned in every other format due to power level concerns. The mana is the glue that holds Blue Farm together, allowing you to either power out a fast combo win or power out the card advantage commanders and recoup the cards spent playing your commanders ahead of schedule.

Tutors

The last piece of the puzzle for Blue Farm is the suite of tutors that allows you to pivot between gameplans. Enlightened Tutor

Filling Out The Blue Farm Decklist

These 33 staples I just went over are cards you see in every single Blue Farm list unless someone is trying something wild and experimental, but this is only one third of the total decklist. This is where you see a lot of the innovation happening in Blue Farm, with some builds leaning harder into card advantage with Tymna

The deck is popular, powerful, and heralded as the best deck in cEDH by many content creators and competitors alike. However, the unintuitive naming convention does a lot to leave prospective cEDH players with even more questions when entering a complex and confusing area of Magic competition. Compound that with the variance seen in deckbuilding, and it can be really hard to identify what a "Blue Farm" deck actually is other than containing the color blue.

I hope this article does a lot to help clear the air for both what Blue Farm is for players that are new to cEDH and what it looks like. I have spent all of my written content explaining what sucks in cEDH so while this may appear to be a departure from my brand, given that Blue Farm does not suck, I assure you that the name "Blue Farm" sucks way more than any individual card ever can. Unfortunately it's as much a part of cEDH as the name Cephalid Breakfast is Legacy. Name your deck something that describes your deck, you heathens. Thanks for reading!

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