This card has basically the same rules text as Mana Drain. It's been Standard legal for almost two years now, and there hasn't been one successful deck that used it. What gives?
I know that U/G seems to be a rather poor color combination these days. There doesn't seem to be much of a reason to add green to the Sphinx's Revelation/Supreme Verdict decks and no other deck seems to want maindeck countermagic, but is that really all there is to it? Is Thoughtseize the problem? Is there a lack of game-winning cards to ramp into (because everything just dies to black removal)? Is UUGG really that prohibitive a mana cost? I used to fantasize about "Plasm Capture your four-drop, untap and play Angel of Serenity" but, apparently, Angel of Serenity has gone from game-winning power card to "just dies to Doom Blade".
I really want to play this card in SOMETHING before it rotates out of Standard. Any suggestions?
How many W sources do you actually need for the W splash (depending on how many cards you're splashing)? I'm not going down to less than 21 U sources. Are 4 Hallowed Fountain and 4 Temple of Enlightenment enough for a few Detention Sphere?
I played a test game and discovered something: I'm having mana issues supporting Geist of Saint Traft. In order to cast my gold spells, I need W and R on different lands, W and G on different lands, and W and U on different lands. So in order to have the whole Domain in three lands and be able to cast anything, I need my first three lands to be Stomping Ground, Hallowed Fountain, and either Godless Shrine or Watery Grave. The problem with that is that these three lands only include one Stomping Ground as my only source of green or red, so I can only cast one burn spell or one green creature a turn - I can't cast Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf, or Lightning Bolt and Tribal Flames, or any similar combination. I can mitigate this a bit by switching from Kird Ape to Loam Lion, but not being to go "Tribal Flames you, Bolt you, take 8" off of three lands is still a problem. There are a few things I can do:
Option 1: Do nothing other than -4 Kird Ape +4 Loam Lion
Doing nothing is always a possibility.
Option 2: Add Blood Crypt
For almost anything other than casting Geist of Saint Traft (or Snapcaster Mage on Path to Exile), I'd rather my third land be a Blood Crypt rather than a Godless Shrine or Watery Grave. I can cut another land for a Blood Crypt, letting me choose whether I want the second red mana or the second blue/white mana as my third land.
Option 3: Cut Geist (and maybe Snapcaster)
Geist is sweet, but there are other options. Knight of the Reliquary and Doran the Siege Tower are both powerful 3-drops. Doran has the quirk that it gives Kird Ape, Loam Lion, and Tarmogoyf +1/+0 while giving a bunch of popular cards in other decks (Kitchen Finks, Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique) a drop in power. Knight of the Reliquary is better with a toolbox of useful lands to fetch, but it can still be useful just as a Big Creature. Loxodon Smiter is another possibility; it's only 4/4 rather than 5/5 or bigger, but it's uncounterable and makes at Liliana of the Veil's +1 awkward.
This build is about as "small" as things get, lacking even Snapcaster Mage.
Option 3: Add more mana
If I have four mana sources instead of three, I don't have to worry as much about not having the right kinds of mana. I can jam a Knight of the Reliquary toolbox and increase my land count, cutting one-drops to do it, or I could try Noble Hierarch to cast Knight or Geist on turn 2. I could easily end up more like a Bant Midrange deck splashing red than a Zoo deck, though...
Okay. So, prior to Wild Nacatl's ban, I used to rock with Domain Zoo in Old Extended and then Modern. This is an example of the kind of thing I used to play, long ago:
Now, this list is obviously obsolete; for one, it predates Innistrad and doesn't include Snapcaster Mage or Geist of Saint Traft, or even Knight of the Reliquary.
I've also never been sure whether I want Dark Confidant or not. Another card on the "try this out" list is Bant Charm, which Brian Kibler used to great effect in the first Modern Pro Tour - it "kills" three different card types. Fleecemane Lion looks pretty sweet too, as does Ghor-Clan Rampager, and there are lots of random hate bears that can screw with various decks. Chained to the Rocks looks like it might be better than Path to Exile; is being sorcery speed and vulnerable to enchantment removal better than giving my opponent a free land? Jund was always my worst matchup, but with no Deathrite Shaman and no Bloodbraid Elf, maybe I'll have a chance again?
I'm thinking of starting with this and seeing where it goes from here:
I've always liked being able to bring in countermagic from the sideboard; I don't need to buy many turns against most combo decks, and one counterspell can slow them down enough to finish them off. The other slots are for dealing with things that counterspells don't work well against: Shatterstorm for Etched Champion, and the other cards let me go bigger against midrange decks. It's been a long time since I got to play a Zoo deck that didn't suck, though, so I could definitely use some advice on what approach to go with. Otherwise I just have to use trial and error, and mostly error at that...
ITs 3cmc instead of 1cmc 0 - 1
Its sorcery speed instead of instant. 0 - 1
Its 2 devotion instead of 0. 1 - 0
Permanently deals with problem creatures: No. 0 - 1
This deck is about tempo, and something that is slow and only has one mode doesnt seem like a good idea.
With that said, im sure if you know people arent playing answers to enchantments, then claustrophobia might be a good card.
Personally, I can't remember the last time someone killed Claustrophobia without also killing the creature it was put on; the only enchantment removal anyone plays maindeck these days is Abrupt Decay, and B/G isn't played that often. (Cyclonic Rift can't bounce its owner's permanents.) In general, it's been permanent enough for me.
What I would love to take its place, is a way to deal with creatures, gods and planeswalkers. It doesnt seem like there is a card in our colors that does that.
Unfortunately, I think the best you can do for that kind of versatility in mono-blue in Standard are bounce spells and counterspells.
(In theory, Conjured Currency can steal any non-land permanent, but six mana and waiting until your next upkeep makes it a very slow way to do so.)
You just explained why Judges familiar is good.
Instead of turn 1 island do nothing. Do; T1: Island judges familiar, turn T2 Frostburn weird now with counter backup.
Sometimes you don't draw your 1-drop even if you're running them.
Anyway, my opponent had the extra R to pay for the Familiar, but in the scenario where I had both Familiar and Weird I would have double blocked, hoping to trade the Familiar for the Cackler. If he doesn't have a burn spell, I trade the Familiar for his Cackler. If he does, he can burn the Familiar to save his Cackler (fine with me), burn the Weird and 2-for-1 himself (fine with me), or, worst case, trade the Cackler with the Familiar and then kill the Weird with Lightning Strike (disappointing, but not too horrible).
Claustrophobia might be a suitable replacement for Rapid Hybridization. It does cost three mana, but it gives you two points of devotion and doesn't give your opponent a 3/3. (On the other hand, you can't use it to give yourself a 3/3, either.)
On a side note, against that new 17 Land Red build making the rounds that's full of one toughness creatures, I'd definitely want to be running Judge's Familiar, because it can actually trade with something.
I have a question about a specific scenario that's come up for me several times during games.
This has happened to me a lot of times against mono-red:
T1:
Me: Island, go
Opponent: Mountain, Rakdos Cackler, go
T2:
Me: Island, Frostburn Weird, go
Opponent: Mountain, attack with Rakdos Cackler
Me: Block with Frostburn Weird
Opponent: Shock Frostburn Weird, killing it after combat
Is blocking with the Weird and exposing it to a burn spell the wrong play here? I'm obviously going to have to block something with it eventually, though. Should I wait until I have U open so I can 2-for-1 my opponent by taking out the attacker, or is it more important not to get bluffed into taking needless damage? Does it depend on whether or not I have a three-drop in my hand?
I mean, why you are siding out Cyclonic Rift is beyond me.
Yeah, siding out Cyclonic Rift being a mistake is something I can I definitely understand and get behind. What with the Ratchet Bomb being distinctly underwhelming in practice so far, I think I'll either leave it in the sideboard for those pesky pro-blue guys or just cut it completely.
You are not looking at the big picture at all...
If you are in a game that late, and you have a Thassa out and 4 devotion, your top deck of Judge's Familiar might as well be an unblockable bomb with haste.
Yeah, I can agree with this. I'd expect that being exactly 1 devotion short would be a bit of an unusual situation - it requires either a Nightveil Specter or another one-drop - but every point does count. Vaporkin seems like it should work just as well in that scenario, but Vaporkin does indeed have its own issues dragging it down, too, what with being bad at blocking and costing two mana instead of one. Basically, the question comes down to whether that second point of power is worth not being able to block most creatures and the higher mana cost. I think I'm getting closer to being able to see things from your perspective.
For what it's worth, I can 100% get behind moving Dissolve to the board, getting rid of Ratchet Bomb completely, and adding 4 Cloudfin Raptor to the main deck.
You answered this yourself. Please read the bold in the following quote.
What I meant was: You claim that Judge's Familiar helps in the mono-red matchup because it 1) blunts attacks and 2) provides devotion. However Sensory Deprivation seems to do a better job at 1 and is equally good at 2. (I just don't maindeck it because it sucks against, say, Esper Control.) Honestly, the best argument for Judge's Familiar I can think of is Bident of Thassa... and that's also at its best in the control matchups. (Adding an extra 1 to the mana cost of Doom Blade and Hero's Downfall seems like a halfway decent use for a card, though.)
Cloudfin Raptor is a fine card, though. I should probably at least try it out.
Let me ask a different question. What is the ideal configuration of a Mono-Blue Devotion against Mono-Red, after sideboarding? If I understand that, I'll probably have a better idea where I'm being too stubborn for my own good. I mean, I've got eleven relevant sideboard cards, but I still get creamed after boarding into this:
I'm starting to think that Ratchet Bomb is part of the problem and not the solution, though. They're slow and blow up my own stuff too.
----
Because double posts are discouraged:
I think my problem is kind of like this:
I've just been presented with an experimental result that I can't reconcile with my theory of Magic deckbuilding. Everything I've learned in my nineteen (yes, nineteen) years of playing Magic screams at me "Don't Play Judge's Familiar," but, apparently, playing it is the right decision. To me, this feels like I just picked up a brick off the ground, let go of it, and saw it fly up to the ceiling and stay there. It seems like something impossible as happened, like a magic levitating brick, and I'm trying to figure out how it could make sense. Either I'm the lone child who's right when he says that the emperor has no clothes, which I find hard to believe, or there is a real reason to play Judge's Familiar and I need to revise my theory of Magic to take it into account, which I also find hard to believe. I apologize for acting like an argumentative, stubborn jerk. That being said...
Judge's Familiar is worth less than a real card, so if it's good, then it must be played in decks that don't care about minimizing the number of dead draws in their deck. They must be either constrained far more by their mana than by their cards and never care about ending up in topdeck mode, or be like a combo deck in which, if you're in topdeck mode, any card that isn't a bomb might as well be a blank anyway. Mono-U Devotion does have aspects that are like that; your endgame either involves Thassa turning into a creature and kicking ass, or Master of Waves making a ridiculous number of tokens and kicking ass. Without those two cards, there's no reason for the deck to exist. I can sort of see Judge's Familiar in mono-U Devotion being like Ornithopter in the Affinity deck; the card sucks in a vacuum, but the rest of the deck makes it good?
Actually, I can think of one other hypothesis: Judge's Familiar does indeed suck, but the card pool available to the deck is so poor in general that it's simply the least bad among awful choices. (After all, just look at that list of cards that give more than one devotion and cost less than four mana!) If Ironclaw Orcs is the best red two-drop available, you suck it up and run it anyway even if it's a "bad" card, because Lightning Bolt and Incinerate make up for it.
You should care less about Fanatic of Mogis actually resolving, and more about the state of the board when it does resolve. Your best tools here are things like Disperse and Cyclonic Rift, because you get to offset their temp and control how much damage Fanatic actually deals you, because once it lands, you can just block it almost endlessly in most cases.
Funny. I'd always thought it would be better to stick a Claustrophobia on a Boros Reckoner and hold it off forever than bounce it and hold it off for only one turn.
You are really undervaluing the ability to chump block in conjunction with magnetizing removal.
When it comes to a tempo oriented approach, 1 life is a big deal. Chump blocking magnifies that. So you lost a creature... you will live. The object is to manage the board until you can suppress everything on the back of a single creature, which in this case is Master of Waves. Everything else you do should pretty much be keeping you alive, not necessarily advancing any other plan. You get Master out and then you start riding the wave (I could not resist!).
In this match, Cloudfin Raptor is another chump blocker. Chumping is just what you have to do in this match, and it is a big deal. Cloudfin Raptor + Judge's Familiar creates density which means you are more likely to survive an onslaught of aggro creatures long enough to land a Master of Waves where you can start trading with everything that attacks you and start moving to an offensive.
Isn't Sensory Deprivation much better at doing this?
It is also not a dead top deck. 1 Devotion is 1 less Devotion you need to turn Thassa on, at that point, you really should not give a **** if it is a 0/1 or not. Thassa is where you want to be at that point anyways. I have seen many games won off sandbagging Raptors and Familiars to get get in with Thassa out of nowhere.
If turning on Thassa is the goal, I'd rather play something that gives more than one point of devotion. That may not actually be possible, though. Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mage are the only two-drops in Standard that give you two points of devotion to blue. And the list of three-drops with at least two blue in their costs isn't much bigger:
I don't particularly want to be playing Phantom Warrior in Constructed. (I could probably say the same about Ornithopter, but Affinity decks have made good use of it.) So maybe one drops are the least bad option.
You have to let go of how you feel about certain cards, or this situation will continue to plague you regardless of what deck you want to play. If you cannot distinguish optimal lists from your own list, because you cannot get behind proven cards for the archetype, it does not matter what deck you play. That is just my two cents though.
I am, unfortunately, really bad at playing decks I didn't build myself. I have to go through the deckbuilding process, even if I end up with exactly the same list as the stock list, or else I won't know what cards to play when or how to sideboard. A really detailed article on the deck that walks me through the deck designer's thought process is usually close enough (I probably could pick up a Patrick Chapin or Gerry Thompson deck and play it), but if I don't understand why a card is in the deck, how can I be expected to play that card effectively?
I agree that Vaporkin and Dissolve aren't particularly good in the matchup... but I still have trouble after boarding them out, too. (Although Dissolve is pretty much the only thing that can save me from Fanatic of Mogis.) I built this list before the Pro Tour and haven't changed the creature base afterward; I was thinking of it as a Fish deck and not Planeshifted Stompy, though, and Fish has always sucked against real aggro decks that put it on the defensive.
And how is Judge's Familiar good, exactly? IT DOES NOTHING. The only things it trades with are Firedrinker Satyr and Firefist Striker. It can chump block and make my opponent use his burn spell a turn later, but, honestly, it just doesn't seem to be worth a card; it's marginal on turn 1 and mostly useless on every turn other than turn 1. Honestly, I'd play off-color scry lands before playing Judge's Familiar. How is playing cards that do nothing "good for your development"? Sam Black tried to explain it to me and failed, so maybe I'm just stupid that way. My brain keeps insisting on asking "Which would I rather draw from the top of my deck on turn 3: Vaporkin or Judge's Familiar?" and answering "Vaporkin, duh." Honestly, I think the only thing that'll change my mind is if I play against Judge's Familiar and learn its effectiveness the hard way.
Cloudfin Raptor, though, I can understand, although it still gives me a bad feeling. I really, really hate playing cards that are bad topdecks, especially after you eat a Supreme Verdict, but maybe that's just unavoidable? You can be good against control or good against aggro, but not both? (Incidentally, my plan against Esper Control decks is to grind them out by playing one creature at a time and countering their big spells. It actually works pretty well.)
Maybe I should just suck it up and buy the MTGO cards to play a different deck, since I can't seem to get my head around the right way to build this one.
Why do people say that mono-U Devotion beats mono-red? I lose that matchup all the time. Yes, Master of Waves is a beating, but I always end up taking damage early on because their one and two drops are better and then die to Fanatic of Mogis after stabilizing. Maybe my list sucks?
Assuming you have plenty of Mountains to enchant, is it usually better to run Chained to the Rocks or Path to Exile? Chained to the Rocks doesn't give your opponent a free land, but Path to Exile works at instant speed (which matters a lot against Splinter Twin), can be flashed back by Snapcaster Mage, and can't be killed by Abrupt Decay (or Tectonic Edge on a shockland).
Is there any consensus on the relative value of these two cards? Do you ever want to just jam 4 of each?
On an amusing note, it probably won't come up much, but Emrakul the Aeons Torn is a legal target for Chained to the Rocks's ability; if you have at least 18 life, you can take the 15 damage hit, untap, play an untapped Sacred Foundry on your empty board, and then watch your opponent's face as his Flying Spaghetti Monster suffers the fate of Prometheus.
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This card has basically the same rules text as Mana Drain. It's been Standard legal for almost two years now, and there hasn't been one successful deck that used it. What gives?
I know that U/G seems to be a rather poor color combination these days. There doesn't seem to be much of a reason to add green to the Sphinx's Revelation/Supreme Verdict decks and no other deck seems to want maindeck countermagic, but is that really all there is to it? Is Thoughtseize the problem? Is there a lack of game-winning cards to ramp into (because everything just dies to black removal)? Is UUGG really that prohibitive a mana cost? I used to fantasize about "Plasm Capture your four-drop, untap and play Angel of Serenity" but, apparently, Angel of Serenity has gone from game-winning power card to "just dies to Doom Blade".
I really want to play this card in SOMETHING before it rotates out of Standard. Any suggestions?
Option 1: Do nothing other than -4 Kird Ape +4 Loam Lion
Doing nothing is always a possibility.
Option 2: Add Blood Crypt
For almost anything other than casting Geist of Saint Traft (or Snapcaster Mage on Path to Exile), I'd rather my third land be a Blood Crypt rather than a Godless Shrine or Watery Grave. I can cut another land for a Blood Crypt, letting me choose whether I want the second red mana or the second blue/white mana as my third land.
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Stomping Ground
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Plains
Creatures:
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Loam Lion
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Countersquall
3 Unified Will
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Shatterstorm
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Option 3: Cut Geist (and maybe Snapcaster)
Geist is sweet, but there are other options. Knight of the Reliquary and Doran the Siege Tower are both powerful 3-drops. Doran has the quirk that it gives Kird Ape, Loam Lion, and Tarmogoyf +1/+0 while giving a bunch of popular cards in other decks (Kitchen Finks, Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique) a drop in power. Knight of the Reliquary is better with a toolbox of useful lands to fetch, but it can still be useful just as a Big Creature. Loxodon Smiter is another possibility; it's only 4/4 rather than 5/5 or bigger, but it's uncounterable and makes at Liliana of the Veil's +1 awkward.
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Stomping Ground
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Plains
Creatures:
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Loam Lion
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Countersquall
3 Unified Will
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Shatterstorm
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
This build is about as "small" as things get, lacking even Snapcaster Mage.
Option 3: Add more mana
If I have four mana sources instead of three, I don't have to worry as much about not having the right kinds of mana. I can jam a Knight of the Reliquary toolbox and increase my land count, cutting one-drops to do it, or I could try Noble Hierarch to cast Knight or Geist on turn 2. I could easily end up more like a Bant Midrange deck splashing red than a Zoo deck, though...
4 Arid Mesa
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Stomping Ground
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Forest
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
4 Tribal Flames
I sort of don't know what to do any more...
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Stomping Ground
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Blood Crypt
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Loam Lion
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
Now, this list is obviously obsolete; for one, it predates Innistrad and doesn't include Snapcaster Mage or Geist of Saint Traft, or even Knight of the Reliquary.
I've also never been sure whether I want Dark Confidant or not. Another card on the "try this out" list is Bant Charm, which Brian Kibler used to great effect in the first Modern Pro Tour - it "kills" three different card types. Fleecemane Lion looks pretty sweet too, as does Ghor-Clan Rampager, and there are lots of random hate bears that can screw with various decks. Chained to the Rocks looks like it might be better than Path to Exile; is being sorcery speed and vulnerable to enchantment removal better than giving my opponent a free land? Jund was always my worst matchup, but with no Deathrite Shaman and no Bloodbraid Elf, maybe I'll have a chance again?
I'm thinking of starting with this and seeing where it goes from here:
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Stomping Ground
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Geist of Saint Traft
Spells:
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Negate
3 Unified Will
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Shatterstorm
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
I've always liked being able to bring in countermagic from the sideboard; I don't need to buy many turns against most combo decks, and one counterspell can slow them down enough to finish them off. The other slots are for dealing with things that counterspells don't work well against: Shatterstorm for Etched Champion, and the other cards let me go bigger against midrange decks. It's been a long time since I got to play a Zoo deck that didn't suck, though, so I could definitely use some advice on what approach to go with. Otherwise I just have to use trial and error, and mostly error at that...
Personally, I can't remember the last time someone killed Claustrophobia without also killing the creature it was put on; the only enchantment removal anyone plays maindeck these days is Abrupt Decay, and B/G isn't played that often. (Cyclonic Rift can't bounce its owner's permanents.) In general, it's been permanent enough for me.
Unfortunately, I think the best you can do for that kind of versatility in mono-blue in Standard are bounce spells and counterspells.
(In theory, Conjured Currency can steal any non-land permanent, but six mana and waiting until your next upkeep makes it a very slow way to do so.)
Sometimes you don't draw your 1-drop even if you're running them.
Anyway, my opponent had the extra R to pay for the Familiar, but in the scenario where I had both Familiar and Weird I would have double blocked, hoping to trade the Familiar for the Cackler. If he doesn't have a burn spell, I trade the Familiar for his Cackler. If he does, he can burn the Familiar to save his Cackler (fine with me), burn the Weird and 2-for-1 himself (fine with me), or, worst case, trade the Cackler with the Familiar and then kill the Weird with Lightning Strike (disappointing, but not too horrible).
Claustrophobia might be a suitable replacement for Rapid Hybridization. It does cost three mana, but it gives you two points of devotion and doesn't give your opponent a 3/3. (On the other hand, you can't use it to give yourself a 3/3, either.)
On a side note, against that new 17 Land Red build making the rounds that's full of one toughness creatures, I'd definitely want to be running Judge's Familiar, because it can actually trade with something.
This has happened to me a lot of times against mono-red:
T1:
Me: Island, go
Opponent: Mountain, Rakdos Cackler, go
T2:
Me: Island, Frostburn Weird, go
Opponent: Mountain, attack with Rakdos Cackler
Me: Block with Frostburn Weird
Opponent: Shock Frostburn Weird, killing it after combat
Is blocking with the Weird and exposing it to a burn spell the wrong play here? I'm obviously going to have to block something with it eventually, though. Should I wait until I have U open so I can 2-for-1 my opponent by taking out the attacker, or is it more important not to get bluffed into taking needless damage? Does it depend on whether or not I have a three-drop in my hand?
Yeah, siding out Cyclonic Rift being a mistake is something I can I definitely understand and get behind. What with the Ratchet Bomb being distinctly underwhelming in practice so far, I think I'll either leave it in the sideboard for those pesky pro-blue guys or just cut it completely.
Yeah, I can agree with this. I'd expect that being exactly 1 devotion short would be a bit of an unusual situation - it requires either a Nightveil Specter or another one-drop - but every point does count. Vaporkin seems like it should work just as well in that scenario, but Vaporkin does indeed have its own issues dragging it down, too, what with being bad at blocking and costing two mana instead of one. Basically, the question comes down to whether that second point of power is worth not being able to block most creatures and the higher mana cost. I think I'm getting closer to being able to see things from your perspective.
For what it's worth, I can 100% get behind moving Dissolve to the board, getting rid of Ratchet Bomb completely, and adding 4 Cloudfin Raptor to the main deck.
And thank you for all your responses so far!
Cloudfin Raptor is a fine card, though. I should probably at least try it out.
Let me ask a different question. What is the ideal configuration of a Mono-Blue Devotion against Mono-Red, after sideboarding? If I understand that, I'll probably have a better idea where I'm being too stubborn for my own good. I mean, I've got eleven relevant sideboard cards, but I still get creamed after boarding into this:
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Master of Waves
4 Claustrophobia
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Mutavault
----
Because double posts are discouraged:
I think my problem is kind of like this:
I've just been presented with an experimental result that I can't reconcile with my theory of Magic deckbuilding. Everything I've learned in my nineteen (yes, nineteen) years of playing Magic screams at me "Don't Play Judge's Familiar," but, apparently, playing it is the right decision. To me, this feels like I just picked up a brick off the ground, let go of it, and saw it fly up to the ceiling and stay there. It seems like something impossible as happened, like a magic levitating brick, and I'm trying to figure out how it could make sense. Either I'm the lone child who's right when he says that the emperor has no clothes, which I find hard to believe, or there is a real reason to play Judge's Familiar and I need to revise my theory of Magic to take it into account, which I also find hard to believe. I apologize for acting like an argumentative, stubborn jerk. That being said...
Judge's Familiar is worth less than a real card, so if it's good, then it must be played in decks that don't care about minimizing the number of dead draws in their deck. They must be either constrained far more by their mana than by their cards and never care about ending up in topdeck mode, or be like a combo deck in which, if you're in topdeck mode, any card that isn't a bomb might as well be a blank anyway. Mono-U Devotion does have aspects that are like that; your endgame either involves Thassa turning into a creature and kicking ass, or Master of Waves making a ridiculous number of tokens and kicking ass. Without those two cards, there's no reason for the deck to exist. I can sort of see Judge's Familiar in mono-U Devotion being like Ornithopter in the Affinity deck; the card sucks in a vacuum, but the rest of the deck makes it good?
Actually, I can think of one other hypothesis: Judge's Familiar does indeed suck, but the card pool available to the deck is so poor in general that it's simply the least bad among awful choices. (After all, just look at that list of cards that give more than one devotion and cost less than four mana!) If Ironclaw Orcs is the best red two-drop available, you suck it up and run it anyway even if it's a "bad" card, because Lightning Bolt and Incinerate make up for it.
Funny. I'd always thought it would be better to stick a Claustrophobia on a Boros Reckoner and hold it off forever than bounce it and hold it off for only one turn.
Isn't Sensory Deprivation much better at doing this?
If turning on Thassa is the goal, I'd rather play something that gives more than one point of devotion. That may not actually be possible, though. Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mage are the only two-drops in Standard that give you two points of devotion to blue. And the list of three-drops with at least two blue in their costs isn't much bigger:
Nightveil Specter
Claustrophobia
Vassal Soul
Deathcult Rogue
Phantom Warrior
Simic Manipulator
Wall of Frost
I don't particularly want to be playing Phantom Warrior in Constructed.
I am, unfortunately, really bad at playing decks I didn't build myself. I have to go through the deckbuilding process, even if I end up with exactly the same list as the stock list, or else I won't know what cards to play when or how to sideboard. A really detailed article on the deck that walks me through the deck designer's thought process is usually close enough (I probably could pick up a Patrick Chapin or Gerry Thompson deck and play it), but if I don't understand why a card is in the deck, how can I be expected to play that card effectively?
And I'm not completely horrible at deckbuilding, anyway.
And how is Judge's Familiar good, exactly? IT DOES NOTHING. The only things it trades with are Firedrinker Satyr and Firefist Striker. It can chump block and make my opponent use his burn spell a turn later, but, honestly, it just doesn't seem to be worth a card; it's marginal on turn 1 and mostly useless on every turn other than turn 1. Honestly, I'd play off-color scry lands before playing Judge's Familiar. How is playing cards that do nothing "good for your development"? Sam Black tried to explain it to me and failed, so maybe I'm just stupid that way. My brain keeps insisting on asking "Which would I rather draw from the top of my deck on turn 3: Vaporkin or Judge's Familiar?" and answering "Vaporkin, duh." Honestly, I think the only thing that'll change my mind is if I play against Judge's Familiar and learn its effectiveness the hard way.
Cloudfin Raptor, though, I can understand, although it still gives me a bad feeling. I really, really hate playing cards that are bad topdecks, especially after you eat a Supreme Verdict, but maybe that's just unavoidable? You can be good against control or good against aggro, but not both? (Incidentally, my plan against Esper Control decks is to grind them out by playing one creature at a time and countering their big spells. It actually works pretty well.)
Maybe I should just suck it up and buy the MTGO cards to play a different deck, since I can't seem to get my head around the right way to build this one.
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Master of Waves
4 Claustrophobia
3 Cyclonic Rift
21 Island
4 Mutavault
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Negate
4 Sensory Deprivation
4 Ratchet Bomb
Is there any consensus on the relative value of these two cards? Do you ever want to just jam 4 of each?
On an amusing note, it probably won't come up much, but Emrakul the Aeons Torn is a legal target for Chained to the Rocks's ability; if you have at least 18 life, you can take the 15 damage hit, untap, play an untapped Sacred Foundry on your empty board, and then watch your opponent's face as his Flying Spaghetti Monster suffers the fate of Prometheus.