I almost overlooked this completely when the bulk of the spoilers were released.
Clearly worse than fact or fiction and steam augury. Depending on the mana-investment it is better than epiphany at the drownyard early, but epiphany shouldn't be played without big-mana unless you just want a cantrip.
I foresee games where the opponents trick the caster of fortunes favor by showing a powerful card revealed and 3x lands face down.
While FoF typically feels like you can be trying to next-level the opponent if they are unaware of your decks function, this seems like the opponent is now trying to next-level you with the choices. Seems like it could be amusing.
I'm actually very surprised that it is only 4 cards and not 5. It reminds me of how bitter revelation was also a strange FoF variant but at 4 cards instead of 5. At least this one is an instant.
The choice cards are often times whimsical and dependent on the opponents skill and understanding of your deck, but I think this will actually find a home in my sedris, the traitor king deck. It just fits with this decks theme of draw spells (all the above mentioned cards + forbidden alchemy + moonlight bargain).
It lets you dig 4 deep for anything and ultimately you can decide if you really need the revealed cards or not.
It also fills your graveyard and is easy on the colored mana.
Just don't get hung up on the hidden cards and don't get greedy. Focus on whether or not you need what's revealed.
At instant speed, for 4 mana, this is a very good card.
Disagree entirely. Picking the piles yourself is better than letting your opponent choose the information you see.
Depends on the situation, I suppose. If your deck has redundancy, you can probably get what amounts to the same thing in both Augury piles. If you're trying to dig for something specific, you know exactly whether it's in the face-up pile, and you can pick the face-down pile if it's not there.
Disagree entirely. Picking the piles yourself is better than letting your opponent choose the information you see.
Depends on the situation, I suppose. If your deck has redundancy, you can probably get what amounts to the same thing in both Augury piles. If you're trying to dig for something specific, you know exactly whether it's in the face-up pile, and you can pick the face-down pile if it's not there.
If you're trying to dig for something specific, you could just play Impulse for two mana, instead of this.
FF is better then Steam Augury. You might lose a mind game sometimes with FF, but you will always get the worse pile with Augury unless you are playing unskilled opponents, in which case you should win anyway. That said, FF is not good enough for EDH and won't see significant play despite how fun it is. I'm really salty that they made this a flat out bad card.
It is absolutely good enough for EDH if its in a deck that wants cards in hand+graveyard, and likes doing that on opponents EOT.
Reanimation shenanigans decks love cards that end up being card advantage (in hand) while also dumping stuff in the graveyard, and being another instant speed variant makes this easily playable.
Competitive grave-combo or control decks? Definitely not good enough. But an average graveyard based blue deck? It's on the list of playable cards like fact or fiction/steam augury/epiphany at the drownyard, and the real question is its location / hierarchy on this list.
Disagree entirely. Picking the piles yourself is better than letting your opponent choose the information you see.
Your opponent gets to decide which cards you get with Steam Augury, which is much, much worse than getting to pick whichever pile is best for you.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Fact or Fiction is not comparable to Epiphany at the Drownyard or Steam Augury at all, despite the similar wording. The last two are basically unusable, because you will never get something like Yawgmoth’s Will off of it. You will never, ever get the card you actually need because the opponent picks which ones you get. Those two are just unplayable cards except in the most graveyard-centered decks.
Fortune’s Favor is at least somewhat playable in the typical setup. If you are ok to put into the graveyard the 1-3 cards in the face up pile, then the worst it can be when your opponent “mind games” you is a draw 1, mill 3 effect. Considering that Forbidden Alchemy is only 1 cheaper for that effect, that’s not a terrible deal, even worst case. Often, you'll get better output.
The comparison to Impulse is not very precise, either. Impulse, Brainstorm, etc, don’t put cards into your graveyard. The reason you’d run this kind of draw, in addition to Fact or Fiction which is good in any setup, would be to get more cards into your graveyard. If that’s not an objective, then you will just run cheaper draw that doesn’t fill your bin.
Disagree entirely. Picking the piles yourself is better than letting your opponent choose the information you see.
Your opponent gets to decide which cards you get with Steam Augury, which is much, much worse than getting to pick whichever pile is best for you.
Except you don't know which pile is best for you. People in this thread seem to be assuming they're so good at Magic they can see face-down cards.
Sure, you can say "the effect I want isn't in the face-up, pile, so I'll choose the face-down one" but the chance of getting what you want out of the face-down cards is still no better than just drawing from your library.
At least with Steam Augury you can choose the piles such that you get something out of each one.
The comparison to Impulse is not very precise, either. Impulse, Brainstorm, etc, don’t put cards into your graveyard. The reason you’d run this kind of draw, in addition to Fact or Fiction which is good in any setup, would be to get more cards into your graveyard. If that’s not an objective, then you will just run cheaper draw that doesn’t fill your bin.
I wasn't comparing the card to Impulse directly. I was responding to a specific situation where you are looking for a specific card/effect, where looking at all four cards and choosing one is clearly better than only seeing half-or-so of the cards.
This card is functionally little better than draw two, mill two at instant for four mana. I don't think that's good enough, and I think people underestimate how significant not having information is. "Oh, there's a good face-up card, so there must be a better card face down!" "Wait, he knows I'd think that! The face-up pile is clearly the best one!" "But then again..." When you don't have all the information your opponent has, your chances of making the correct choice are just that... chance.
Disagree entirely. Picking the piles yourself is better than letting your opponent choose the information you see.
Your opponent gets to decide which cards you get with Steam Augury, which is much, much worse than getting to pick whichever pile is best for you.
Except you don't know which pile is best for you. People in this thread seem to be assuming they're so good at Magic they can see face-down cards.
Sure, you can say "the effect I want isn't in the face-up, pile, so I'll choose the face-down one" but the chance of getting what you want out of the face-down cards is still no better than just drawing from your library.
At least with Steam Augury you can choose the piles such that you get something out of each one.
This card is more akin to Covenant of Minds. You are faced with the decision of take the face up pile vs. draw an unknown card/cards. You don't need to see the facedown cards. Steam Augury always gives you the worst option. Fortune's Favor lets you decide if the known quantity is worth more or less than some amount of unknown cards from your own deck.
Except you don't know which pile is best for you. People in this thread seem to be assuming they're so good at Magic they can see face-down cards.
Sure, you can say "the effect I want isn't in the face-up, pile, so I'll choose the face-down one" but the chance of getting what you want out of the face-down cards is still no better than just drawing from your library.
At least with Steam Augury you can choose the piles such that you get something out of each one.
Yeah come to think of it, face down cards are pretty much identical to random cards off the top of your deck. That is, if your opponent is not making the choice in an exploitable way.
That said, even draw 2 mill 2 isn't unplayable. It just limits the situations where you'd run it to those decks that want to fill the graveyard. Basically, you see 1-3 face up cards and decide whether it's desirable to have those in your graveyard. If so, take the face down pile. If not, take the face up one. If every card in your deck fills some use when its in the graveyard, it's no worse than drawing 2 random cards.
So point of comparison being Epiphany for 3, Steam Augury or something like that, it's a lot better. Epiphany is just that bad. It gives you the worse 2 or so cards out of 4. You may not be able to make much out of the choice between face up cards and random cards, but that choice is strictly better than the worse of the 4 cards, if again, we are to presume that opponents are not playing in exploitable ways.
The face down pile is the cards your opponent chose not to show you. Generally that's where the good cards will be because if they were face up you would happily snap them up. I think face down is generally correct, but this extra variable makes FF more context dependent and hard to evaluate. You are not guaranteed the better of the two piles like FoF. However, I would play it over Augury because you have the possibility of getting the good pile.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned in either of the FF threads I'm following is that the caster has the additional advantage of knowing his own hand. For example, face down bomb against triple face up chaff loses to Eternal Witness and the opponent would have been better off 2/2 splitting, even though in general that makes it more likely you take the face down bomb. If your hand is expensive spells and no land you'll gleefully scoop up triple face up Island. Both your hand and the board state provide you with clues about which pile to take, but your opponent doesn't know what's in your hand can't always know with certainty what you want to dig up.
Fortune's Favor is terrible. I don't know why people value getting to pick your own pile so highly when you don't get to see what one of the piles. You will never know what those cards are against a good opponent. The logic that "the good cards will be in the facedown pile" is incredibly flawed because your opponent could just as easily throw some lands facedown to trick you into taking them. All the "mind games" of the card work against the caster since your opponent gets the information not you. Yeah you get to know your hand but any smart player can read the flow of a game and should be able to predict what the opponent needs. In a format like edh, its generally even more obvious.
People are also severely underestimating Steam Augury. Yeah you will always get the worse pile but you get all the information so you can attempt to mislead them with your piles. There are also situations where steam augury is actually better than Fact or Fiction. If you need a wrath and a land or a bomb and a counter you can make sure those cards stay together when making your piles. With Fact or Fiction you occasionally end up with situations where you need two specific cards together and your opponent splits them up. Now granted this only occurs in highly synergistic decks with tons of redundancy but it is still worth mentioning.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
"Worse than FoF" isn't the same thing as "bad". I'd put this in at "maybe, if I'm looking for a second or third FoF".
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Vault756, the fun of the card is a mindgame with friends. Its power is based on how well you know your friends, and how well they know you. It is definitely not FoF, but, there will never be a FoF in modern Magic.
It's just fun like a blackjack game versus friends rather than the House.
@Vault756
The reason choosing the pile is so much better than making them has already been explained in this thread and another FF thread on the limited forum. You always get the bad Steam Augury pile unless your opponent is bad, and in that case you will also 1) get a favorable FoF split and 2) win the game regardless. In response to your example I tried to concoct a scenario where I would actually give an opponent a counter + wrath pile and I could only think of two: the other pile had Kiki + Exarch and both piles had counter + wrath. Those two scenarios are about as likely as a total eclipse of a blue moon while Hale's Comet is visible on the night Vernal Solstice.
If you want to run Steam Augury, run Steam Augury, but understand that it's closer in power level to Inspiration than Fact or Fiction, and is arguably the weakest of the three.
FF is much better when you're digging for answers or that one card you need. With effects that let your opponent choose last, you're never getting that answer. For FF, if the card you want is not in the face-up pile, just choose the face-down pile. Even if you got mindgamed and the face-down pile ended up being a bunch of lands, the face up pile wasn't going to help anyways.
@Vault756
The reason choosing the pile is so much better than making them has already been explained in this thread and another FF thread on the limited forum. You always get the bad Steam Augury pile unless your opponent is bad, and in that case you will also 1) get a favorable FoF split and 2) win the game regardless. In response to your example I tried to concoct a scenario where I would actually give an opponent a counter + wrath pile and I could only think of two: the other pile had Kiki + Exarch and both piles had counter + wrath. Those two scenarios are about as likely as a total eclipse of a blue moon while Hale's Comet is visible on the night Vernal Solstice.
If you want to run Steam Augury, run Steam Augury, but understand that it's closer in power level to Inspiration than Fact or Fiction, and is arguably the weakest of the three.
Let's say you need a white source and a wrath in order to stabilize. If you flip 5 cards and see 3 plains and 2 wraths you absolutely would rather be casting steam augury over fact or fiction. With FoF or Fortune's Favor your opponent can just split the piles as lands or wraths and your screwed. With Steam Augury you can split it land/land/wrath + land/wrath. Yes you will get the worse pile guaranteed but Augury saves you here, Fact or Fiction wont. A rare corner case sure but I've seen it happen. I'd also consider Augury much better than Inspiration as Augury fills your gy and can occasionally get you 3 or even 4 cards. Unlike Fortune's Favor, Augury gives you all the knowledge. Your opponent wont always know which is the clearly better pile if you arranged them well. They also have to consider giving you arguably better piles some times in order to keep things out of your graveyard. It's the end of your turn 4, I cast Steam Augury going into my turn 5, nothing relevant in my graveyard but I have a level 2 Enclave Cryptologist. Which pile do you give me? Is one clearly better than the other? Nicol Bolas/Anger/Shred Memory vs. Reanimate/Negate
FF is much better when you're digging for answers or that one card you need. With effects that let your opponent choose last, you're never getting that answer. For FF, if the card you want is not in the face-up pile, just choose the face-down pile. Even if you got mindgamed and the face-down pile ended up being a bunch of lands, the face up pile wasn't going to help anyways.
When you can't see all the cards in front of you, you aren't really digging for an answer. The thing is, if your opponent is good, your answer could be right in front of you and you might not even know it. Fortune's Favor is basically just Inspiration. It gives you 2 cards on average and since you only get to see ~half of them you're doing little more than drawing 2 cards and milling yourself for 2. Admittedly this is still better than just drawing 2 but not by much.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
Well. I'm sorry for saying this, but in my opinion Fortune's Favor is a really really bad card, it has a fun and nice flavor, where you can use it for doing something different, but that is all.
I mean, you can get the 3 worst cards at instant which when he piles 3 face-up cards it usually means they are not relevant, or get the one face-down and have even a chance to be tricked by your own card. Or get 2 at instant speed, but again, 2 kind of relevant cards, or risk to be tricked again by the face-down pile.
Its almost as the coin flipping red cards, I just feel the card selection is way too bad, FoF is uncomparable, its a machine, but I'd probably rather run any big draw like Mystic Confluence or any instant cantrip, then this. It needed to be 5 cards, it would still be worse then FoF, but then I would maybe consider using somewhere. (And thats because I use a Sidisi BUG deck)
@Vault756
I'm not getting into a never ending duel of corner cases, especially when you're leaving out so much relevant information (other players' commander, hand, relevant cards in deck, etc). The white source/wrath player is 90% to lose regardless; he's so far enough behind enough that he's digging in order to not die and he doesn't even have his mana base in order yet. The second example assumes you're playing against a table of goldfish; I would have killed the Cryptologist with Marath almost 100% of the time because I know better than to let a grixis player loot. If some dumb blue player countered him on turn 2 or 3 then I probably don't have an out, but I would bin the counterspell in hopes that someone else will deal with loot into Animate Dead on Bolas. That level of disruption is with a deck that's not even built for control.
I want to make two points here: 1) you can't win every game and only thinking about a card's best case scenario will lower your win % in the long run, even if it does win you some individual games 2) you can't ignore the fact that other players can and will interfere with you and disrupt your lines; It's rarely correct drop a Voltron on turn 4 and pass, even if it you can potentially kill someone on turn 5 because someone will have a counter, or an edict, or a wrath, or something.
I'm not out to prove that you should never run Steam Augury, though some people do think that, my point is that it is much worse than FoF and most U/R decks don't want it. I'm not sure even grixis reanimator wants with all the quality loot and wheel effects it has access to, but that's not germane to evaluating FF.
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I almost overlooked this completely when the bulk of the spoilers were released.
Clearly worse than fact or fiction and steam augury. Depending on the mana-investment it is better than epiphany at the drownyard early, but epiphany shouldn't be played without big-mana unless you just want a cantrip.
I foresee games where the opponents trick the caster of fortunes favor by showing a powerful card revealed and 3x lands face down.
While FoF typically feels like you can be trying to next-level the opponent if they are unaware of your decks function, this seems like the opponent is now trying to next-level you with the choices. Seems like it could be amusing.
I'm actually very surprised that it is only 4 cards and not 5. It reminds me of how bitter revelation was also a strange FoF variant but at 4 cards instead of 5. At least this one is an instant.
The choice cards are often times whimsical and dependent on the opponents skill and understanding of your deck, but I think this will actually find a home in my sedris, the traitor king deck. It just fits with this decks theme of draw spells (all the above mentioned cards + forbidden alchemy + moonlight bargain).
Is anyone else going to give this some play?
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
^what matters.
No. No I am not.
Draft my Peasant Cube.
Maybe a deck like Zedruu that already wants to mess with people will want this? Or other decks with similar agendas?
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls - Knowledge is Power U [Primer]
R Heartless Hidetsugu - The Art of Ending Games R
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - The Cluster HungersBG
It lets you dig 4 deep for anything and ultimately you can decide if you really need the revealed cards or not.
It also fills your graveyard and is easy on the colored mana.
Just don't get hung up on the hidden cards and don't get greedy. Focus on whether or not you need what's revealed.
At instant speed, for 4 mana, this is a very good card.
Mono Red's Strengths and Mono White's Strengths
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Disagree entirely. Picking the piles yourself is better than letting your opponent choose the information you see.
Draft my Peasant Cube.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
If you're trying to dig for something specific, you could just play Impulse for two mana, instead of this.
Draft my Peasant Cube.
MuzzioU XenagosGR NahiriW GitrogGB MarathGRW MarchesaUBR JenaraGUW KarlovBW TazriWUBRG
Retired: RakdosBR
Reanimation shenanigans decks love cards that end up being card advantage (in hand) while also dumping stuff in the graveyard, and being another instant speed variant makes this easily playable.
Competitive grave-combo or control decks? Definitely not good enough. But an average graveyard based blue deck? It's on the list of playable cards like fact or fiction/steam augury/epiphany at the drownyard, and the real question is its location / hierarchy on this list.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
Your opponent gets to decide which cards you get with Steam Augury, which is much, much worse than getting to pick whichever pile is best for you.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Fortune’s Favor is at least somewhat playable in the typical setup. If you are ok to put into the graveyard the 1-3 cards in the face up pile, then the worst it can be when your opponent “mind games” you is a draw 1, mill 3 effect. Considering that Forbidden Alchemy is only 1 cheaper for that effect, that’s not a terrible deal, even worst case. Often, you'll get better output.
The comparison to Impulse is not very precise, either. Impulse, Brainstorm, etc, don’t put cards into your graveyard. The reason you’d run this kind of draw, in addition to Fact or Fiction which is good in any setup, would be to get more cards into your graveyard. If that’s not an objective, then you will just run cheaper draw that doesn’t fill your bin.
Except you don't know which pile is best for you. People in this thread seem to be assuming they're so good at Magic they can see face-down cards.
Sure, you can say "the effect I want isn't in the face-up, pile, so I'll choose the face-down one" but the chance of getting what you want out of the face-down cards is still no better than just drawing from your library.
At least with Steam Augury you can choose the piles such that you get something out of each one.
I wasn't comparing the card to Impulse directly. I was responding to a specific situation where you are looking for a specific card/effect, where looking at all four cards and choosing one is clearly better than only seeing half-or-so of the cards.
This card is functionally little better than draw two, mill two at instant for four mana. I don't think that's good enough, and I think people underestimate how significant not having information is. "Oh, there's a good face-up card, so there must be a better card face down!" "Wait, he knows I'd think that! The face-up pile is clearly the best one!" "But then again..." When you don't have all the information your opponent has, your chances of making the correct choice are just that... chance.
Draft my Peasant Cube.
This card is more akin to Covenant of Minds. You are faced with the decision of take the face up pile vs. draw an unknown card/cards. You don't need to see the facedown cards. Steam Augury always gives you the worst option. Fortune's Favor lets you decide if the known quantity is worth more or less than some amount of unknown cards from your own deck.
Yeah come to think of it, face down cards are pretty much identical to random cards off the top of your deck. That is, if your opponent is not making the choice in an exploitable way.
That said, even draw 2 mill 2 isn't unplayable. It just limits the situations where you'd run it to those decks that want to fill the graveyard. Basically, you see 1-3 face up cards and decide whether it's desirable to have those in your graveyard. If so, take the face down pile. If not, take the face up one. If every card in your deck fills some use when its in the graveyard, it's no worse than drawing 2 random cards.
So point of comparison being Epiphany for 3, Steam Augury or something like that, it's a lot better. Epiphany is just that bad. It gives you the worse 2 or so cards out of 4. You may not be able to make much out of the choice between face up cards and random cards, but that choice is strictly better than the worse of the 4 cards, if again, we are to presume that opponents are not playing in exploitable ways.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned in either of the FF threads I'm following is that the caster has the additional advantage of knowing his own hand. For example, face down bomb against triple face up chaff loses to Eternal Witness and the opponent would have been better off 2/2 splitting, even though in general that makes it more likely you take the face down bomb. If your hand is expensive spells and no land you'll gleefully scoop up triple face up Island. Both your hand and the board state provide you with clues about which pile to take, but your opponent doesn't know what's in your hand can't always know with certainty what you want to dig up.
People are also severely underestimating Steam Augury. Yeah you will always get the worse pile but you get all the information so you can attempt to mislead them with your piles. There are also situations where steam augury is actually better than Fact or Fiction. If you need a wrath and a land or a bomb and a counter you can make sure those cards stay together when making your piles. With Fact or Fiction you occasionally end up with situations where you need two specific cards together and your opponent splits them up. Now granted this only occurs in highly synergistic decks with tons of redundancy but it is still worth mentioning.
On phasing:
It's just fun like a blackjack game versus friends rather than the House.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
The reason choosing the pile is so much better than making them has already been explained in this thread and another FF thread on the limited forum. You always get the bad Steam Augury pile unless your opponent is bad, and in that case you will also 1) get a favorable FoF split and 2) win the game regardless. In response to your example I tried to concoct a scenario where I would actually give an opponent a counter + wrath pile and I could only think of two: the other pile had Kiki + Exarch and both piles had counter + wrath. Those two scenarios are about as likely as a total eclipse of a blue moon while Hale's Comet is visible on the night Vernal Solstice.
If you want to run Steam Augury, run Steam Augury, but understand that it's closer in power level to Inspiration than Fact or Fiction, and is arguably the weakest of the three.
Let's say you need a white source and a wrath in order to stabilize. If you flip 5 cards and see 3 plains and 2 wraths you absolutely would rather be casting steam augury over fact or fiction. With FoF or Fortune's Favor your opponent can just split the piles as lands or wraths and your screwed. With Steam Augury you can split it land/land/wrath + land/wrath. Yes you will get the worse pile guaranteed but Augury saves you here, Fact or Fiction wont. A rare corner case sure but I've seen it happen. I'd also consider Augury much better than Inspiration as Augury fills your gy and can occasionally get you 3 or even 4 cards. Unlike Fortune's Favor, Augury gives you all the knowledge. Your opponent wont always know which is the clearly better pile if you arranged them well. They also have to consider giving you arguably better piles some times in order to keep things out of your graveyard. It's the end of your turn 4, I cast Steam Augury going into my turn 5, nothing relevant in my graveyard but I have a level 2 Enclave Cryptologist. Which pile do you give me? Is one clearly better than the other? Nicol Bolas/Anger/Shred Memory vs. Reanimate/Negate
When you can't see all the cards in front of you, you aren't really digging for an answer. The thing is, if your opponent is good, your answer could be right in front of you and you might not even know it. Fortune's Favor is basically just Inspiration. It gives you 2 cards on average and since you only get to see ~half of them you're doing little more than drawing 2 cards and milling yourself for 2. Admittedly this is still better than just drawing 2 but not by much.
I mean, you can get the 3 worst cards at instant which when he piles 3 face-up cards it usually means they are not relevant, or get the one face-down and have even a chance to be tricked by your own card. Or get 2 at instant speed, but again, 2 kind of relevant cards, or risk to be tricked again by the face-down pile.
Its almost as the coin flipping red cards, I just feel the card selection is way too bad, FoF is uncomparable, its a machine, but I'd probably rather run any big draw like Mystic Confluence or any instant cantrip, then this. It needed to be 5 cards, it would still be worse then FoF, but then I would maybe consider using somewhere. (And thats because I use a Sidisi BUG deck)
I'm not getting into a never ending duel of corner cases, especially when you're leaving out so much relevant information (other players' commander, hand, relevant cards in deck, etc). The white source/wrath player is 90% to lose regardless; he's so far enough behind enough that he's digging in order to not die and he doesn't even have his mana base in order yet. The second example assumes you're playing against a table of goldfish; I would have killed the Cryptologist with Marath almost 100% of the time because I know better than to let a grixis player loot. If some dumb blue player countered him on turn 2 or 3 then I probably don't have an out, but I would bin the counterspell in hopes that someone else will deal with loot into Animate Dead on Bolas. That level of disruption is with a deck that's not even built for control.
I want to make two points here: 1) you can't win every game and only thinking about a card's best case scenario will lower your win % in the long run, even if it does win you some individual games 2) you can't ignore the fact that other players can and will interfere with you and disrupt your lines; It's rarely correct drop a Voltron on turn 4 and pass, even if it you can potentially kill someone on turn 5 because someone will have a counter, or an edict, or a wrath, or something.
I'm not out to prove that you should never run Steam Augury, though some people do think that, my point is that it is much worse than FoF and most U/R decks don't want it. I'm not sure even grixis reanimator wants with all the quality loot and wheel effects it has access to, but that's not germane to evaluating FF.