Blue - Abuse every imbalance! (Just kidding!)

[PurplePoot]

The basics

• Don't use artifacts. Blue can't really defend them against some of the other colours, and they tend to be wiped out in raids anyways. For 10000 mana, they tend to not be worth it.
• Summoned units are your friends. Blue's spells take on a much larger-scale role (such as Counterspell), so expect most of your fighting to be done by your units.
• Conserve mana. Be sure to get lots of Multicolour Mana runes, as well as not wasting it needlessly.

The tricks

• In the current build (1.45), Magus of the Unseen is, by far, your best choice of unit. Try to get the limit of these (8) before anything else - they fly, fight well, and cast some really great support spells.
  
  
• Once you've grabbed your Magi, get yourself a Mahamoti Djinn. It also flies, and is very powerful, but you won't be doing any attacking with it. (Or defending! Keep it alive)
  
  
• With your Djinn and Magi, start sending waves of 8 Djinn clones at your enemy. Use these preferrably to take out expensive units, enchantments (Crusade, Dwarven Forge, etc), or artifacts, or even potentially to attack enemy wizards. Keep in mind that you don't have infinite mana on your Magi, and the clones have a short duration.
  
  
• When you find you've got a ton of spare mana (13k+), think about Air Elementals. They say they're anti-air, but in reality they pretty much suck versus everything. Why? Because they're dirt cheap - 1000 mana each. Once you have all 13 Air Elementals, as well as a healthy amount of Spawns, cast Metamorphosis. Suddenly, your Air Elementals (now Storm Elementals) are... not so weak, to say the least. Storm Elementals are deadly if you use all 13 to raid strategic targets, especially if those targets happen to be air - Storm Elementals do 3x damage and have a bouncing attack versus air. However, they're still great for "farming" enemy spawns for mana.
  
  
• Trying to control the ground with blue is a lost cause from the start. Metamorphosis and Flood can give temporary bonuses (and Repel if you're rich on mana), but they don't last too long before the enemy can come out of hiding and crush you with vastly superior offensive/defensive forces and spells. While this may make it sound like Flood is useless, it certainly isn't! It is quite good as a quick way to wipe out low-life enemy forces, which is quite common after a giant brawl in the middle. While this will most likely not pay off, use this opening, where players tend to be completely unprepared, to raid their area. Blue's deadly air force of The Unspeakable, 8 Magi of the Unseen, 7 (or something) Mahamoti Djinns, and 13 Storm Elementals (plus 8 cloned Djinns) can easily eradicate a wizard in a very short time. Additionally, The Unspeakable can hold off enemy forces with Tidal Wave for quite a while, buying your air force more time to eliminate the target wizard. Continue to pick off enemies, starting with Black (since they are powerful and right beside you), and save White and Green for last, since Counterspell can bring them to a halt as long as you have decent mana reserves.
  
  
• The Unspeakable is low priority - it is one of the weaker legends. Its power basically lies in its Flying ability, as well as Tidal Wave.

 

[Maedh]

Good guide, and greats strategy- I didn't think of that, and I nvr used magus. Anyways,I kinda disagree with you on a couple points you made. Firstly, although blues basic units are weak, I belive that they can actualy easily dominate anyone. Just get max Metathran Soldiers and Stormscape Battlemage, then cast metamorphosis. The force you will get can easily take out anyone. I agree that the unspeakable is a weak priority, although the Tidal Wave ability can easily hold an enemy army for a while. Oh and Leviathans can EASILY DESTROY anyones army.

 

[PurplePoot]

Maxing Metathran Soldiers and Stormscape Battlemages, plus Metamorphosis, is very expensive, and, most importantly they die. The main advantage of magi is that the Djinns are not only insanely strong, they are also free. (Except a bit of mana, but you will regenerate about 80 out of the 100 mana needed between casts, and easily regenerate the cooldown)

The problem with your comments is that you seem to be assuming that they won't have super-strong units when you do, and also you're forgetting that every other race has much more effective buffs for their units than Blue does, since they play more offensively (or in a defensive way which may be used offensively, like Stream of Life). Leviathans are good, but in my experience units such as Magma Giants with Gratuitous Violence are much deadlier.

 

[Maedh]

Your right that they do die, and they are expensive but I can usaly kill 2 people with them, so it might cost more but I think it works alot better.

 

[Angelusz]

Great tactic, I'm gonna try it next game.