The 35 Best Blue Tutors in Magic Ranked

Last updated on March 27, 2024

Mystical Tutor (Secret Lair) | Illustration by Mateus Manhanini

Blue mages love to keep their options and mana open. As a blue Commander player, you’ll often find yourself waiting and reacting to what other players are doing. That means tutors are your best friends, giving you a toolbox of possible answers to your opponents’ threats. Whether that’s a counterspell, a draw spell, or a finisher of your own, tutors help you find the silver bullet you need.

While black gets unconditional tutors like Demonic Tutor, blue’s searching capability is a bit more restrictive. Blue tutors tend to search for one of three things: artifacts, instants/sorceries, or the opponent’s library, with a few exceptions.

But what are the best ones out there? Let's find out.

What Are Blue Tutors in MTG?

Whir of Invention | Illustration by Christine Choi

“Tutoring” is Magic slang for searching your library, and it’s considered one of the more powerful things you can do in Magic. Think about how powerful drawing a card is. Instead of pulling a random card from the top of your library, tutoring lets you pick up your deck and find the exact card you need.

This ranking focuses on tutors with a mono-blue color identity. I'm excluding banned EDH cards and things like Mystical Teachings, which has an off-color flashback cost. Everything else is fair game.

#35. Step Through

Step Through is an interesting one. It only tutors out a wizard if you cycle it, but that's not as big of a downside as it may seem at first. Blue has a lot of insane wizards. Just think about Archmage Emeritus, Thassa's Oracle, or even another tutor like Spellseeker.

However, if there aren't any wizards that you can put in your deck or make use of, it's not really a tutor at all!

#34. Eternal Dominion

If you plan on casting Eternal Dominion, you need to make it count. You get a free permanent from an opponent’s library once per turn, but the epic ability locks you out of casting spells for the rest of the game.

This is a risky proposition, but a fun option for blue mages looking to live dangerously.

#33. Quiet Speculation

In exchange for running flashback spells in your deck, Quiet Speculation becomes something akin to a 2-mana draw three. It’s not the most generic tutor, but it works well with commanders that want to cast spells from the graveyard like Kess, Dissident Mage and Sevinne, the Chronoclasm.

#32. Long-Term Plans

Long-Term Plans is a cheeky tutor for those who don’t mind a bit of delayed gratification. It lets you find anything you want but tucks it three draw steps away, so you want some extra draw spells to get it in your hand quicker.

#31. Intuition

Intuition is less of a generic tutor and more of a game plan in a can. It’s hard to end up with exactly what you want since an opponent chooses which of the three cards you get.

But if all three cards have similar enough effects (say, three extra turn spells), then there’s not much of a choice to be made.

#30. Noble Benefactor

You should always be careful when allowing other players to tutor their decks, especially when you’re the one spending mana on that effect.

Noble Benefactor does just that, allowing every player to search for any card when it dies. You could give this card a shot if you can prevent opponents from searching libraries, or you’re just feeling extremely benevolent.

#29. Faerie Harbinger

Tribal cards take lower spots on this list because they’re only useful in hyper-specific decks. Faerie Harbinger is an excellent card for searching up faerie creatures, but does little else for other decks.

This card gets bonus points for having flash, meaning you can delay casting it until you have a more informed decision on what you should fetch.

#28. Merrow Harbinger

Merrow Harbinger is just as useful for a merfolk deck as Faerie Harbinger is for faerie builds. The only reason it gets the nod is because merfolk is a tribe with way more support cards, so it has a wider selection of cards it can find.

#27. Seahunter

Seahunter is another merfolk support card that works wonders in its intended deck, yet falls flat anywhere else. It’s a repeatable way to fish up merfolk from your library and put them directly into play but offers no utility to other decks.

#26. Treasure Mage

Treasure Mage is the first of an ongoing cycle of blue creatures that tutor for artifacts with specific mana values. Its lucky number is six, which nets you powerful cards like The Immortal Sun, Wurmcoil Engine, and even more expensive options.

#25. Higure, the Still Wind

Being able to sneak Higure, the Still Wind in with ninjutsu means it’s more likely to get its trigger, and tutoring ninjas to your hand is arguably better than putting them on the battlefield. The activated ability helps enable further ninjutsu shenanigans.

#24. Dreamscape Artist

The effect on Dreamscape Artist is unique to blue decks. It’s not quite a staple card, but it is a great blue ramp option for a color that doesn’t often get ramp effects.

#23. Personal Tutor

Personal Tutor is a strictly worse version of another effect on this list, but it still deserves mention as a “backup” copy. It works well in decks that can draw extra cards or want to set up the top card of their library.

But the price tag is a bit hefty and there are better options.

#22. Micromancer

The newest card on the list, Micromancer should see a healthy amount of EDH play. Only finding 1-mana spells might sounds too restrictive, but it can find cantrips like Ponder and Brainstorm, interaction like Pongify and Rapid Hybridization, and even another cheap 1-mana tutor to give you more options down the line.

#21. Jace, Architect of Thought

The tutor effect on Jace, Architect of Thought is locked behind a -8 loyalty ability, so it’s not happening often. Still, its -2 acts as a tiny Fact or Fiction effect, and the +1 makes your opponents’ creatures worse in combat.

Altogether this is a fine planeswalker with a looming ultimate that threatens to take everyone’s best card from their decks.

#20. Reshape

The farther up the rankings you go the more artifact tutors you’ll see. They still require a specific type of deck or key cards to work, but most decks run artifacts worth finding.

Reshape isn’t the most efficient version since it requires a sacrifice as an extra cost, but it finds cheap artifacts well enough.

#19. Trophy Mage

The second artifact mage is Trophy Mage, which cares about artifacts with a mana value of three. You’ll see this one used to find combo pieces like Blasting Station or one of the powerful protection swords like Sword of Feast and Famine.

#18. Muddle the Mixture

Transmute is an ability that lets you discard your card to search for something with equal mana value. With Muddle the Mixture you can either hold it up as an inefficient Dispel, or transmute it away at sorcery speed to find your 2-mana card of choice. Might I suggest Cyclonic Rift?

#17. Fabricate

Fabricate is a simple tutor that finds any artifact and puts it into your hand. No restrictions or extra costs, just an easy clean search effect.

#16. Tezzeret, Artifice Master

Tezzeret, Artifice Master’s repeatable tutor effect is undeniably powerful, but it isn’t the real reason to play this planeswalker. Making Thopters and drawing cards are the real merits to playing Tezzeret, with the last ability being a game-ending reward if you manage to get there.

#15. Tribute Mage

Tribute Mage is all about mana value two, which includes mana rocks like Signets and Talismans, but also a few staple cards like Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots. The cheaper the artifacts these cards get, the better they are.

#14. Trinket Mage

Rounding out the bunch we have Trinket Mage, which finds artifacts with mana value zero or one. Sol Ring is the card you find most often, but there’s a bevy of powerful artifacts this can search for including Skullclamp, Sensei's Divining Top, and Mana Crypt.

#13. Tezzeret the Seeker

Tezzeret the Seeker’s tutor effect is flexible depending on what you’re looking for. As a -X ability you can adjust the mana value to search for, but you’re limited by the number of loyalty counters on Tezzeret.

If you want to search for more expensive cards you’ll need to +1 Tezzeret and keep it around for another activation.

#12. Arcum Dagsson

If turning random Servo and Construct tokens into game-winning artifacts sounds interesting to you, Arcum Dagsson is the card you’re looking for. The effect works at instant speed and can even target an opponent’s creature if you’re confident they won’t find something more powerful in their deck.

#11. Tolaria West

Tolaria West is another transmute card, this time with a mana value of zero. Transmuting it lets you find any 0-mana card in your deck, which makes it a great tool for finding specific utility lands.

#10. Merchant Scroll

Merchant Scroll is a bit too narrow to make it higher on this list. It’s a cheap tutor effect for a specific type of card, but it’s a type of card that blue decks love to cast.

#9. Solve the Equation

Solve the Equation is the spellslinger’s version of Fabricate. If you need a specific instant or sorcery right away and you have three mana to spare, this tutor finds it for you.

#8. Acquire

Casting Acquire against an unknown opponent can be a bit of a gamble. If you’re not familiar with their library then you might not find any artifacts worth stealing.

But Acquire can set you up with a powerful engine piece early on while also denying it from your opponent against an artifact-themed deck.

#7. Whir of Invention

Whir of Invention often works like an instant-speed Fabricate that puts the artifact you find onto the battlefield. It takes a bit more mana, or at least some help from your other artifacts thanks to improvise, but you should never underestimate the power of an instant-speed tutor.

#6. Thada Adel, Aquisitor

Thada Adel, Aquisitor has a vendetta against players with artifacts in their deck and Islands on the battlefield. It’s not too hard for the “stealer of Sol Rings” to hit a few players and get a big early-game advantage with their cheap mana-accelerating artifacts.

#5. Bribery

Just like Acquire, Bribery is counting on your opponent having something good in their library for you to steal. The difference is that most players have good creatures somewhere in their deck, so you’re much more likely to come out on top with Bribery.

#4. Knowledge Exploitation

Keeping in line with this idea of stealing your opponents’ cards, Knowledge Exploitation lets you cast an instant or sorcery from an opposing library. Whether that’s a sweeper, an extra-turn spell, or even just a draw spell to put you up on cards, you’re likely to find something useful even if you’re going in blind.

#3. Inevitable Betrayal

Inevitable Betrayal has the same effect as Bribery, it's just delayed by three turns. This gets the nod for a few reasons: the mana investment is cheaper, you can enact your gameplan while the card is suspended, and you get to hold up counterspells or other interaction the turn it gets cast from exile.

The looming threat of this suspended card might draw the hostility of your opponents, though.

#2. Spellseeker

Tutors tied to creatures with ETB effects are always much more powerful than they might seem. Spellseeker finds a cheap spell from your library but sticks around as a creature that can be flickered, bounced, recurred from the graveyard, copied, and so on, so you can reuse the ability multiple times.

#1. Mystical Tutor

The king of blue tutors is Mystical Tutor. It’s limited to finding instants and sorceries but does so at instant speed for just one mana, and sets your library up with exactly the card you need to draw for whatever your situation might be.

Feeling Blue?

Spellseeker (Battlebond) | Illustration by Igor Kieryluk

And with that we come to a close on the best mono-blue tutors in Magic. Whether you’re searching for tribal creatures, instants and sorceries, artifacts, or just grabbing something from an opponent’s deck, blue provides plenty of options for tutoring.

Let me know if I missed your favorite blue tutor, and tell us how you put your tutors to good use in the comments below. As always, make sure to follow Draftsim on Discord and Twitter.

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