Historically, Azorius has been one of the strongest colour pairs in Magic in both Constructed and Limited. But in recent years, with game balance being more considered (and more successful), it has become another color pair that sometimes gets to be great but is just as often "good." Still, Azorius does get to be the best deck in a format from time-to-time and in the 17lands era, this has been the case a few times.

March of the Machine

Most recently (even if it has been a couple of years), Azorius was the top deck in March of The Machine. It's no surprise when you think about some of the best rares in that set - the likes of Sunfall, Boon-Bringer Valkyrie and the incredible Chrome Host Seedshark.

At the same time, it also had one of the best game plans at lower rarities, with Knight typal being a surprisingly coherent strategy. You might not associate Azorius with aggressive tribal decks, but this was not long after Blue-White soldiers had been a standard staple and a good Limited deck during Brothers' War. It was the second best colour-pair in that format, by the way.

Fittingly, Marshal of Zhalfir was the highest win-rate uncommon in MOM and Preening Champion was the best common. The Bird Knight had a win-rate comparable to some of the best rares, in fact, at 61.2%. They were supported by a great bounce spell in Ephara's Dispersal and made great use of the versatile pump spell, Aerial Boost. All-in-all, Azorius fans had a good time during MOM limited. It might not have been a typical Blue-White archetype, but Knights were an excellent place to be if they were open.

Streets of New Capenna

This set isn't remembered particularly fondly by limited players and a large part of that is because the bant colours (or should I say Brokers?) were stiflingly good. It didn't help that, in a supposedly three-colour set, almost every three-colour archetype had a sub-50% win-rate. Blue-White was comfortably ahead of the other colour pairs because, well, look, let's just get to the point, shall we? Inspiring Overseer had no business being a common and it's no big surprise to see that it almost cracks the top ten cards in the set for win-rate. There was another common - Celestial Regulator - that also narrowly missed out, and, yep, it was also White. Blue-White, in this case, meaning that Azorius had two commons that were better than most rares - one of which could only be played by Azorius players. While Overseer is the better card in a vacuum, Regulator got a boost from being limited to people playing the best colours in the format.

Just like in MOM, SNC's best colour pair also benefited from having several of the best rares in the set. Sanctuary Warden is excellent, All-Seeing Arbiter is excellent and Elspeth Resplendent, you guessed it, is excellent.

In a set where many of the clan mechanics fell flat, I think it's also fair to point out that Azorius benefited from having a tried and tested game plan as old as Magic itself. It was basically a Blue-White fliers deck, which doesn't require much finesse to make work. Oh, you want to sacrifice creatures and grind out value, Maestros? Cute, take six in the air. Nice tokens, Cabaretti, shame none of them have reach. SNC wasn't a great limited format, but this was Azorius at its old school best.

Theros Beyond Death

We have to go back surprisingly far to the next spot where Azorius was the best color pair. How times have changed. I'm going to start with the rares again here, because... wow. Four of the best five rares in the set are Blue and/or White. Two of them are among the best limited rares of all time. Kiora Bests the Sea God was nigh unbeatable. Dream Trawler was so good that Thoralf Severin tanked a draft at Worlds (https://Magic.gg/news/Magic-world-championship-xxvi-draft-a-highlights) to cut it from Autumn Burchett. In case you wondered, by the way, fist-pick hate-drafting is not a good idea. Burchett still made it out of the pod on 2-1, while Severin did not.

But good rares don't necessarily equate to being the best colour pair. Luckily, Azorius also had great cards at lower rarity. Staggering Insight would be a good card in most sets, but in a slow format that rewarded you for playing enchantments it was incredible. Heliod's Pilgrim was superb as a tutor for your best aura, which also provided a body to put it on or a blocker if needed. I also want to shout out Memory Drain as one of the last times that a four-mana non-rare counterspell was actually playable. Not just playable, in fact, but with an almost 60% win-rate.

THB was a set which almost seemed custom-made for Azorius to thrive in. It was a slow format where card advantage mattered a lot. It was also an enchantment-matters set, which is something Azorius has always been good at. It also had rares that are up there with the Umezawa's Jittes and Pack Rats of the world.