I saw either of these three combinations as base color combinations at the Prerelease for three color decks, and wondered if anyone used a different style for the Sealed.
Well, I wasnt at the prerelease (im going to a belated semi-official one this saturday), but invasion focuses on allied colours, making it more difficult to go with other combinations that have been popular in the past (B/G and my favourite W/R). The three you mentioned have always been pretty good strategies (with B/R now and then being pretty risky), and more importantly, W/G has tended towards the bottom of the limited food chain due to a lack of removal. I imagine B/U will probably be pretty popular too, it's just that in new sets, and with the more casual prerelease players, blue is often a little underplayed. Once I see some Invasion sealed card distributions, I'll be able to comment more. It's hard to tell just by scrolling through a spoiler how deep individual colours are.
Just out of interest though, what do people think the deepest sealed/draft colour is in invasion?
One of my draft decks, i used B/U as the base, however i had a bunch of red cards in there to so it doesn't really count...
NeoSquid
I think deepest can get screwy because of all the gold cards and cross-color cards!
B/R isn't as risky as you think, I think, because I haven't seen a lot of "must remove or you lose" enchantments.
I drafted B/R twice. It has amazing removal and some really good Limited cards - Plague Spores being one I almost always got. It also has enough beef to make it viable.
I noticed a few U/W/G decks doing quite well on the back of Apprentices also. Green can really mess things up with the ability to produce multi-color mana.
Do you think B/U is playable by itself? You really have to splash red.
There are very few two color decks you can play in Invasion when drafting because everyone is splashing colors and looking for the best card in any color!
Possibly. Flyers, removal, cantrips and Impulse variants and good utility? Plus a reasonable ground and flying selection.
B/U is VERY playable by itself - here is a decklist of a Invasion draft I had earlier w/ B/U.
Counters
3 Prohibit
1 Exclude
1 Undermine
Search & Discard
3 Opt
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Probe
Discard & Bounce
3 Recoil
Kill (lotsa spite, I know)
1 Spite/Malice
1 Reckless Spite
Critters
1 Faerie Squadron
2 Urborg Drake
2 Vodalian Zombies
1 Rainbow Crow
1 Shoreline Raider
1 Tower Drake
1 Dromar's Attendant
Land
1 Salt marsh
8 Islands
8 Swamps
Note - its not broken - buts its VERY solid. It almost plays like a constructed deck. Its also very versitile, being able to handle any non-land permanent with elements of bounce, discard, and counter.
BTW - I REALLY like Spite/Malice, its two choices are very complemtary - between them you can take care or any non-land, non-black creature your opponent throws at you.
-Anxiety
Having played in the sneak preview weekend, I can say that B/R is definitely viable depending on the card quality. THe only B/R decks I saw compete had about 8 strong removal spells, and it is important that B/R have at least 2-3 of each colour (not both colours), because the protection creatures are a beating. I beat a B/R player's head in with a G/W/U deck thanks to protection creatures and armadillo cloak. Anyway, Rakso, IMHO it's not really the lack of enchantment destruction that has made B/R problematic in the past, but the lack of solutions that both colours had for white, which was popular and had several hosers for both colours. But I have noticed that in invasion, the hosers are much more balanced, so B/R becomes stronger. What's truly amazing is having W/G be playable without a near constructed card pool.
Anyway, this is becoming a bit of a speech, but to sum up, I like both red and black, and they both have excellent options in invasion, but I would still rather use only one of them (or to have the other as my # 3 colour).
I played against B/R and saw others in action.
They were able to use red to off pro-black and vice-versa if they had the 8-10 removal box, no problems.