Ixalan is upon us, in all its colorful, dino-riding, neck-biting, treasure-hunting glory. It's a bright colorful set dominated by four distinctive tribes all chasing after an elusive lost city of gold. And given their toned-down presence it's possible that maybe, just maybe this world will be left in one piece when we move on in the spring since the greatest villains in the multiverse, the Gatewatch, won't be stomping around the plane like children on a model train set.

I'm here to talk about the color blue, as in Blue Monday, Blue Velvet, and no, I think you won't cast that, because no! In Ixalan blue is heavier on pirates and merfolk than denial but as always there's a little of that, too. Let's get to it!

Tribe Tweaker, Card Keeper , Gear Seeker

[card]Arcane Adaption[/card]: Sure, we already had [card]Conspiracy[/card], [card]Unnatural Selection[/card] and [card]Xenograft[/card], but for decks that want that kind of effect redundancy is nice, and the fact that it works for creature spells and creature cards that aren't on the battlefield is a useful bonus. I expect to see this show up in a lot of [card]Reaper King[/card], [card]General Tazri[/card] and [card]Silumgar, the Drifting Death[/card] builds in the near future.

[card]Chart a Course[/card]: This is a sneakily useful little card. Draw two for two with an option to not discard is [card]Night's Whisper[/card] territory, a card that already finds a home in 5,000+ decks. The competition here in blue is [card]Lat-Nam's Legacy[/card], [card]Perilous Research[/card], [card]See Beyond[/card], [card]Vision Skeins[/card] and [card]Words of Wisdom[/card], but only [card]Vision Skeins[/card] is in 1,000+ decks. It's not splashy, but it fills a hole in a lot of curves, and I expect to see it in quite a few decks in the coming years.

[card]Deadeye Quartermaster[/card]: The Quartermaster competes with [card]Trinket Mage[/card]/[card]Treasure Mage[/card]/[card]Trophy Mage[/card] as a tutor but there are builds that want all the tutors, and this will find that [card]Sword of the Meek[/card] as well as anything. It's also blinkable with [card]Roon of the Hidden Realm[/card] or [card]Brago, King Eternal[/card] if that's your jam. And it's a pirate to boot!

Token Maker, Creature Taker, Graveyard Shaker

[card]Deeproot Waters[/card]: A 3 mana enchantment that makes a 1/1 merfolk token with hexproof whenever you cast a merfolk is pretty great in merfolk decks. I'm not sure it has a home outside that other than maybe some odd [card]Mistform Ultimus[/card] build, but it's going to find a place in almost every merfolk tribal list I would imagine.

[card]Entrancing Melody[/card]: This card is going to be fairly expensive to cast to steal anything worthwhile, and that's not so great in a color that already has access to [card]Control Magic[/card], [card]Gilded Drake[/card], [card]Mind Control[/card], and [card]Treachery[/card]. Still, [card]Dominate[/card] sees play in just under a thousand decks and since this is strictly better I can assume it will find a home as well.

[card]Fleet Swallower[/card]: [card]Traumatize[/card] on attack seems useful, though the inability to target yourself for a big [card]Living Death[/card] play hurts. I would guess [card]Phenax, God of Deception[/card] pilots might want this in their arsenal as would any commander built around milling.

Evasion Maker, Sartorial Risktaker, Merfolker Caretaker

[card]Herald of Secret Streams[/card]: This card is a cheaper alternative to [card]Sapphire Drake[/card] to those looking to grant evasion in a +1/+1 counters deck, and the evasion it grants is better than flying. I'm sure some [card]Marchesa, the Black Rose[/card] builds will be interested as well.

[card]Jace, Cunning Castaway[/card]: It takes a special kind of man to pull off a bustier on a pirate ship, and Jace Beleren seems to think he is that man. Rocking a saucy little over the shoulder number can't be harder that wrecking multiple planes, right? I can't tell if that is magic coming off his hands or if he's twirling a blue feathered boa as he dances to earn his dinner. Pirates don't let nobody ride for free.

The rule of thumb going in is that a three-mana planeswalker is always worth consideration. So let's consider: Three starting loyalty isn't ideal, and neither is a single loot conditional on combat damage. He can protect himself with his -2 however, and his ult is powerful and unique. He also can auto-ult with a [card]Doubling Season[/card] in play which is relevant to a lot of superfriends decks, and in this case the tokens he makes can then also auto-ult, cascading into an infinite amount of badly dressed Jaces. There's probably someone out there with a deck built around [card]Lord of the Unreal[/card] who is super hype for more illusions, too. All in all I'm predicting he won't be that great, but planewalkers can be hard to evaluate. Regardless, he needs to get ahold of Tibalt's tailor, STAT.

[card]Kopala, Warden of Waves[/card]: There aren't really any other mono-blue merfolk that care about other merfolk enough to justify leading a tribal deck, so if you want to run mono-blue fishpeople then Kopala is your sturgeon. At the very least the card has a home in most other merfolk decks he isn't leading. This feels like a merfolk staple from there on out.

Library Miller, Hand Filler, Battlefield Tiller

[card]Navigator's Ruin[/card]: It's no [card]Sphinx's Tutelage[/card], but mill people might want this. Or not. Who knows? Those dudes are weird.

[card]Overflowing Insight[/card]: [card]Blue Sun's Zenith[/card] would cost you 10 to draw seven, same for [card]Stroke of Genius[/card]. Those are both instants though, and in a color that wants to hold mana up to see if anything worth countering gets played that is huge. [card]Opportunity[/card] costs one less and only draws four. [card]Recurring Insight[/card] is probably the best comparison; it will usually draw you more cards just spread out over two turns. It lets you get to that [card]Approach of the Second Sun[/card] buried seven deep though, so that's something.

[card]Perilous Voyage[/card]: Well [card]Into the Roil[/card] is in 3,203 decks on EDHREC and this is a not-quite-as-good version of that, so maybe some [card]Talrand, Sky Summoner[/card] players want an almost copy.

River Dipper, Archenemy Ripper, Filtering Flipper

[card]River Sneak[/card]: There's probably some merfolk decks that want an unblockable body, and less-tuned [card]Edric, Spymaster of Trest[/card] lists would maybe run this, along with any other commander interested in sideways guys swinging in untouched. Too bad it's not a rogue to trigger prowl on things like [card]Notorious Throng[/card].

[card]River's Rebuke[/card]: There are 1,078 decks running [card]Inundate[/card] so there there is a precedent for sorcery speed mass bounce in Commander. It's always nice to it the archenemy right in the breadbasket.

[card]Search for Azcanta[/card]: For two mana this legendary enchantment lets you dig for things you need early, then it flips into [card]Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin[/card] to ramp you and/or provide a mana sink that gives card advantage. It's not amazing, but it's quite useful at that cost. If this doesn't have a home in 1,000+ decks at this time next year I'll eat my shoe. Or a cake shaped like a shoe. With maybe delicious licorice laces and those hard candy bb deals for eyelets. Mmmmmm, cake.

Slug Blocker, Spell Stopper, Treasure Dropper

[card]Shore Keeper[/card]: The first trilobite in Magic! That's all I've got. I'm sure it'll be useful as a chump blocker and hand-refiller in limited but I doubt this sees much EDH play outside people getting prepared for their eventual trilobite tribal build.

[card]Siren Stormtamer[/card]: An upgrade on [card]Cloud Pirates[/card] and [card]Flying Men[/card] for [card]Edric, Spymaster of Trest[/card] decks, and [card]Marchesa, the Black Rose[/card] builds might want a Dollar Store version of [card]Glen Elendra Archmage[/card] to run alongside the original for recursion abuse. It's also an activated ability for [card]Mairsil, the Pretender[/card] to cage, and a wizard for [card]Azami, Lady of Scrolls[/card] decks to tap for a draw. And it's a playable pirate, too.

[card]Spell Swindle[/card]: The ability to make a handful of artifact tokens while depriving someone of a spell might be of interest to decks like [card]Breya, Etherium Shaper[/card] or less tuned [card]Arcum Dagsson[/card] lists.

. . . And really bad eggs

Prior to Ixalan there were only 20 pirates in Magic. Of those, four are vanilla (or the equivalent thereof) and six are french vanilla, so assembling a pirate-themed deck has been a ugly proposition, power-wise. Because of this the otherwise unremarkable collection of creatures below are worth briefly mentioning because somebody has to crew those [card]Admiral Beckett Brass[/card] and [card]Ramirez DePietro[/card] decks.

• [card]Daring Saboteur[/card]: One of the better pirates of this lot, [card]Daring Saboteur[/card] is a 2/1 pirate for 1U that will find a home in pirate decks even if it's just as a curve filler, and the option to make it unblockable and loot on combat damage is useful, too.
• [card]Dreamcaller Siren[/card]: A Pirate with flash and flying. If you're running pirates it is playable.
• [card]Prosperous Pirates[/card]: They make two treasure upon entering the battlefield which is better than nothing.
• [card]Sailor of Means[/card]: Half of [card]Prosperous Pirates[/card].
• [card]Shipwreck Looter[/card]: If you meet the raid trigger the turn they enter the battlefield you may loot. It's not nothing.
• [card]Siren Lookout[/card]: Flying siren pirate with an enters the battlefield explore trigger.
• [card]Storm Fleet Aerialist[/card]: A flier that enters stronger if you attacked this turn.
• [card]Storm Fleet Spy[/card]: Raid trigger that draws you a card. It's better than [card]Steam Frigate[/card].

She Wore Blue Velvet...

And that's it for the blue Ixalan drops. I personally am looking for find a home for [card]Chart a Course[/card] in Talrand where I'll also probably look up upgrade [card]Favorable Winds[/card] to the excellent new art in foil, [card]Siren Stormtamer[/card] in Edric, and possibly [card]Search for Azcanta[/card] in both Talrand and Isperia sphinx tribal.

How about you? Any blue stuff making the cut in your decks? Let me know in the comments below!