Obviously giving your opponent choices is something that you do not want to under any circumstances. All things equal, Browbeat would be bonkers card if you were able to choose the mode instead of your opponent. However, there's a subset of blue cards that puts cards into piles and has one player sort the cards into piles while the other player picks the pile you keep in your hand. These choices are often opposite on different cards and we will now have a limited format where two pile-making cards exist with reversed conditions.
With very limited information about the face down pile, it is difficult to make your decision and it can become a bit of a "wine in front of me" game. Ultimately, I don't think Fortune's Favor is a good card for that very reason.
Anyhow, let's assume that both piles are face-up for this discussion. As the caster of these kinds of spells, do you think it is better to be the one sorting the piles, or is it better to be the one that ultimately chooses which cards go in your hand? We can use these flip cases on Epiphany at the Drownyard. In which instance would Epiphany be a stronger card?
I have played so infrequently with these choosing piles cards that I can't say about overall strategy, but I would not want to include Fortune's Favor in my deck since for 4 mana I get only 2 cards (compared with Divination which would give me 2 cards for 1 mana less) and it isn't enough card choice (considering that one of the piles is face down) to make up for the extra mana cost, albeit at instant speed.
I could see including Fortune's Favor in a deck rewarding instants and sorceries and/or with plenty of other instants or flash to work with this card, leaving mana up for another instant (such as a counterspell) and casting this if the other instant turns out not to be relevant for the turn. In that type of deck this card seems somewhat good. In Eldritch Moon there seems to be plenty of support for the red-blue spells-matter decks.
I actually think Fortune's Favor is pretty clearly better than Epiphany. You may not have complete information about which cards you're choosing between, but you do know the board and your hand state, as well as the contents of your deck, which can tell you:
1. If the face-up cards are "good enough" for your current situation
2. If there are particular answers that you're digging for
If you're digging for specific cards, Favor is just better than Drownyard. I think Favor's a lot closer to Scry 1-2, draw 2 than it is to just a draw 2.
Generally it's more powerful to be making the choice.
I'm not sure whether that's entirely because of the pile versus choice dynamic in and of itself, or because of the importance of hidden information in the decisions. One reason Fact or Fiction is so good is that your opponent has to split the piles without knowing what you already have in your hand. It can lead to lopsided deals where you get exactly what you wanted, especially against opponents who are not familiar with the format/matchup/etc. Steam Augury on the other hand makes it harder to get way ahead. You end up forced to make two roughly equal piles because otherwise even a mediocre opponent can probably suss out which pile is stronger after you've made them.
People have years of experience playing with FoF and Steam Augury now, and FoF is known to be a more powerful effect.
Fortune's Favor is something like scry 1.5, draw 2, mill two -- a solid playable in UR spells or decks with graveyard synergy. Epiphany for 4 mana is worse than draw 2, and there isn't a cost where you do much better. I expect to maindeck FF much more than epiphany.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
I would much rather choose the pile then make the piles. In either scenario the one sorting is incentivized to make the piles as equal as possible because if they don't their opponent will choose the pile they don't want going to hand. Therefore, the difference only matters when you can't make them equal because one card just trumps the rest. The player choosing the pile gets to send that card where he wants it to go and all the other one can do about it is gain or deny a chaff card or two.
Favor is really interesting because of the mind game element. If there's a sick bomb that trumps everything else then you always put it face down, but what if it's just a pile of cards? Do you go with the equal piles strategy that's correct with Fact or Fiction or do you show them three spells and hide a basic Island? When is it correct to take the mystery box over two face up spells? I don't think this card is constructed playable and at 4 it may not be limited playable, which is a tragedy given how fun it would be to play with and against.
I would much rather choose the pile then make the piles. In either scenario the one sorting is incentivized to make the piles as equal as possible because if they don't their opponent will choose the pile they don't want going to hand. Therefore, the difference only matters when you can't make them equal because one card just trumps the rest. The player choosing the pile gets to send that card where he wants it to go and all the other one can do about it is gain or deny a chaff card or two.
Put in other words, both players try to make the piles equal, but there will usually be one pile that is slightly better. FoF you are getting the better pile, Steam Augury you are getting the worse pile.
I like Fortune's Favor, though I don't think it's much better than Inspiration unless you can successfully get into your opponent's head and pick the better pile. The biggest benefit is they don't know what's in your hand.
Alice gives Bob and Charlie a cookie to share. Bob will divide the cookie into two parts however he chooses. Charlie picks which part to eat. If Charlie is rational, Charlie always takes the largest piece, so he can do no worse than 50%. If Bob predicts Charlie's rational behavior and Bob is himself, rational, Bob will divide the cookie into two halves so that he will receive the maximum sized piece, which is 50%. Technically Charlie's position is purely better than Bob's, but in the end it doesn't make any difference.
However, in magic, if you reveal a few cards off the top of the deck, unless there are pairs of duplicates, there will usually be no way to divide their quality in exactly half. It's as though Bob can only cut along dotted lines that mark sevenths, and is forced to approximate 50% and only get 3/7ths of a cookie. Charlie's advantage becomes meaningful.
Even though you are not getting anything yourself, Magic is a zero sum game, and benefit for your opponent is the same as detriment for you. The thought exercise rather easily shows the Charlie position of choosing piles is inherently better. Inequal information can come up, but I don't see any clear way that inequal information can aid the value of creating piles without giving a very similar aid to the value of choosing from piles (there might be a way though. An unexpected need for even more land drops because you drafted an expensive bomb that's in your hand right now would seem to be the most common information imbalance).
Fortune's Favor is a pretty fascinating card with something a little different to it in that one of the piles goes facedown. Since in the average case, the cards are coming from a deck you constructed, and you can determine whether the face up pile is below average or above average quality coming out of your deck as a whole, you still like being the chooser in the average case. You are harmed, but not enough that you'd prefer a different role.
But, aside from all the fanciness, the card has been costed based on Standard constructed where the instant speed and self-mill are both easier to build around which puts it in a tough spot for limited where you're not getting those benefits as easily.
People have years of experience playing with FoF and Steam Augury now, and FoF is known to be a more powerful effect.
Fortune's Favor is something like scry 1.5, draw 2, mill two -- a solid playable in UR spells or decks with graveyard synergy. Epiphany for 4 mana is worse than draw 2, and there isn't a cost where you do much better. I expect to maindeck FF much more than epiphany.
Steam Augury is a weaker card because it's typically a 2-for-1 and not a 3-for-1 (and also multicolor). If they printed a version of FoF that only revealed 4 cards, it isn't obvious to me that it would be good enough for constructed, either.
I understood you to be implying that FoF was known to be a more powerful effect because choosing the pile is stronger than dividing the piles. Which isn't necessarily true, because FoF is a stronger card because it's more card advantage. If they printed a card that was a 2-for-1 version of FoF with everything else intact, it isn't obvious that it would be known to be a more powerful effect than Steam Augury.
I was disagreeing with your implication that we know choosing is stronger than dividing, at least on the basis of that comparison. (Not that I don't believe it is stronger. I do. But we don't have a good set of two very similar cards that actually exemplify the difference.)
Your poll question isn't really worded correctly for your card comparison. It reads like comparing Epiphany to Fact or Fiction. Just sayin'
Anyway, there's no question that Epiphany is better than Fortune. The hidden information aspect makes the whole thing far more random-feeling and not particularly skill-based. Sure, theoretically Fortune's a big Poker-style mindgame, but in practice a lot of people will just make trolly/yolo piles that lead to yolo picks. The card is ultimately cute and deserves to exist, but feels pretty weak (still say it should have been 5 cards).
Epiphany isn't an especially strong card either, but it's very skill-intensive. The x-cost, pile-building and full information all create very important decision points. And the better players can usually leverage some or all of them into a strong play (stronger than just shuffling around some cards or picking a pile partially in the blind).
But if we were simply comparing the idea of building piles versus making piles (which isn't really the true point of contention between Fortune and Epiphany), with all other things being equal and no hidden information picking the pile would always be better. You get the final say, guarantee that you get at least one of the best cards revealed and benefit from the occasional poor card/threat/situation evaluation of your opponent (who presumably made the piles).
I understood you to be implying that FoF was known to be a more powerful effect because choosing the pile is stronger than dividing the piles. Which isn't necessarily true, because FoF is a stronger card because it's more card advantage. If they printed a card that was a 2-for-1 version of FoF with everything else intact, it isn't obvious that it would be known to be a more powerful effect than Steam Augury.
I was disagreeing with your implication that we know choosing is stronger than dividing, at least on the basis of that comparison. (Not that I don't believe it is stronger. I do. But we don't have a good set of two very similar cards that actually exemplify the difference.)
You can't divorce choosing piles vs dividing piles and being a 3-for-1 vs being a 2-for-1. The very reason that FOF is approximately a 3-for-1 and Augury is approximately a 2-for-1 is choosing vs dividing. A 4 card version of FoF isn't necessarily better than Augury, but I'm confident that it's better than a 4 card version of augury (not counting multicolor against augury). More generally, having resolved many of both card and having many resolved against me, I would rather have the FoF effect than the Augury one for any fixed number of cards to reveal.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
I understood you to be implying that FoF was known to be a more powerful effect because choosing the pile is stronger than dividing the piles. Which isn't necessarily true, because FoF is a stronger card because it's more card advantage. If they printed a card that was a 2-for-1 version of FoF with everything else intact, it isn't obvious that it would be known to be a more powerful effect than Steam Augury.
I was disagreeing with your implication that we know choosing is stronger than dividing, at least on the basis of that comparison. (Not that I don't believe it is stronger. I do. But we don't have a good set of two very similar cards that actually exemplify the difference.)
If you're saying that FoF on average will lead to gaining 3 cards and Steam August will on average lead to gaining 2 cards, that's probably true, but it's because of who has the prerogative to choose the pile, not separate from it.
Even if you did make versions of FoF and Augury that used two piles of two the FoF version would be inherently better. Barring play errors the worst FoF pile you will ever get is equal to the pile you bin and the best pile you will ever get with Augury is also equal to the other pile. In the FoF scenario you will always take the better pile unless they're exactly equal and in the Augury scenario your opponent will always give you the worse pile unless they're exactly equal.
The only scenario in which Augury is better is when both you and your opponent are more likely to screw up then choose correctly. If only your opponent screws up you want FoF to snap up the strong pile and if only you screw up FoF will be better because you're choosing the worse of two near equal piles instead of letting your opponent bin a fantastic one and hand you chaff. FoF is better and it's not close.
scour the laboratory makes fortune's favor look even worse lol. There are literally 0 times where, if you have delirium, you'd rather have favor. Pretty good for an uncommon vs a rare.
scour the laboratory makes fortune's favor look even worse lol. There are literally 0 times where, if you have delirium, you'd rather have favor. Pretty good for an uncommon vs a rare.
They are both uncommon, and FF is (probably) better if your deck is land, land, land, nonland.
Scour isn't relevant for the discussion. That said, Delirium is hard enough to achieve that the cost-down isn't particularly important to evaluating the card.
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scour the laboratory makes fortune's favor look even worse lol. There are literally 0 times where, if you have delirium, you'd rather have favor. Pretty good for an uncommon vs a rare.
They are both uncommon, and FF is (probably) better if your deck is land, land, land, nonland.
Lol, why did I think that favor was a rare? Either way, both of these cards are very, very meh.
On average Scour is Jace's Ingenuity. Sometimes it costs one more, sometimes less. I'm happy to run one Ingenuity, nervous about running two and preemptively that's where I am on Scour. I think the second Scour comes in before the first Favor, which again makes me sad. Favor is still going into that cube that I'm totally building some day.
I played against Fortune's Favor last night and I don't think I ever gave my opponent the best deal, but I easily could have. Based on the fact he always chose the face down pile, I think he was using it as a dig spell to get to one of the bombs in his deck so there was really no way he could miss completely. (I gave him 2 lands face down twice vs 2 "c" level creatures face up.
I think using it as a dig spell is fine because if he sees his bomb he picks it and if not he takes the face down cards.
I think viewing it as "scry 2 then draw 2" is perfectly acceptable. (Technically it's look at the top 2 cards. you may put them into your GY, then Draw 2 cards).
So my thoughts are the more "equal" the cards in your deck are the worse this card is, but when there are very unequal options where throwing away 2 decent cards on top is the obvious choice its very solid.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
You always want to choose the pile to take not make the piles. Because your opponent doesn't always know what you need if he hasn't seen your hand. With Jace, Architect of thought my opponents would split Supreme Verdict by itself when I already had two in my hand.
Also you'd be surprised how often people make bad piles.
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Epiphany at the Drownyard vs. Fortune's Favor
With very limited information about the face down pile, it is difficult to make your decision and it can become a bit of a "wine in front of me" game. Ultimately, I don't think Fortune's Favor is a good card for that very reason.
Anyhow, let's assume that both piles are face-up for this discussion. As the caster of these kinds of spells, do you think it is better to be the one sorting the piles, or is it better to be the one that ultimately chooses which cards go in your hand? We can use these flip cases on Epiphany at the Drownyard. In which instance would Epiphany be a stronger card?
I could see including Fortune's Favor in a deck rewarding instants and sorceries and/or with plenty of other instants or flash to work with this card, leaving mana up for another instant (such as a counterspell) and casting this if the other instant turns out not to be relevant for the turn. In that type of deck this card seems somewhat good. In Eldritch Moon there seems to be plenty of support for the red-blue spells-matter decks.
1. If the face-up cards are "good enough" for your current situation
2. If there are particular answers that you're digging for
If you're digging for specific cards, Favor is just better than Drownyard. I think Favor's a lot closer to Scry 1-2, draw 2 than it is to just a draw 2.
I'm not sure whether that's entirely because of the pile versus choice dynamic in and of itself, or because of the importance of hidden information in the decisions. One reason Fact or Fiction is so good is that your opponent has to split the piles without knowing what you already have in your hand. It can lead to lopsided deals where you get exactly what you wanted, especially against opponents who are not familiar with the format/matchup/etc. Steam Augury on the other hand makes it harder to get way ahead. You end up forced to make two roughly equal piles because otherwise even a mediocre opponent can probably suss out which pile is stronger after you've made them.
Fortune's Favor is something like scry 1.5, draw 2, mill two -- a solid playable in UR spells or decks with graveyard synergy. Epiphany for 4 mana is worse than draw 2, and there isn't a cost where you do much better. I expect to maindeck FF much more than epiphany.
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Favor is really interesting because of the mind game element. If there's a sick bomb that trumps everything else then you always put it face down, but what if it's just a pile of cards? Do you go with the equal piles strategy that's correct with Fact or Fiction or do you show them three spells and hide a basic Island? When is it correct to take the mystery box over two face up spells? I don't think this card is constructed playable and at 4 it may not be limited playable, which is a tragedy given how fun it would be to play with and against.
Put in other words, both players try to make the piles equal, but there will usually be one pile that is slightly better. FoF you are getting the better pile, Steam Augury you are getting the worse pile.
I like Fortune's Favor, though I don't think it's much better than Inspiration unless you can successfully get into your opponent's head and pick the better pile. The biggest benefit is they don't know what's in your hand.
However, in magic, if you reveal a few cards off the top of the deck, unless there are pairs of duplicates, there will usually be no way to divide their quality in exactly half. It's as though Bob can only cut along dotted lines that mark sevenths, and is forced to approximate 50% and only get 3/7ths of a cookie. Charlie's advantage becomes meaningful.
Even though you are not getting anything yourself, Magic is a zero sum game, and benefit for your opponent is the same as detriment for you. The thought exercise rather easily shows the Charlie position of choosing piles is inherently better. Inequal information can come up, but I don't see any clear way that inequal information can aid the value of creating piles without giving a very similar aid to the value of choosing from piles (there might be a way though. An unexpected need for even more land drops because you drafted an expensive bomb that's in your hand right now would seem to be the most common information imbalance).
Fortune's Favor is a pretty fascinating card with something a little different to it in that one of the piles goes facedown. Since in the average case, the cards are coming from a deck you constructed, and you can determine whether the face up pile is below average or above average quality coming out of your deck as a whole, you still like being the chooser in the average case. You are harmed, but not enough that you'd prefer a different role.
But, aside from all the fanciness, the card has been costed based on Standard constructed where the instant speed and self-mill are both easier to build around which puts it in a tough spot for limited where you're not getting those benefits as easily.
Steam Augury is a weaker card because it's typically a 2-for-1 and not a 3-for-1 (and also multicolor). If they printed a version of FoF that only revealed 4 cards, it isn't obvious to me that it would be good enough for constructed, either.
yes? I agree with both of those statements, and I'm not quite sure why you quoted me.
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I was disagreeing with your implication that we know choosing is stronger than dividing, at least on the basis of that comparison. (Not that I don't believe it is stronger. I do. But we don't have a good set of two very similar cards that actually exemplify the difference.)
Anyway, there's no question that Epiphany is better than Fortune. The hidden information aspect makes the whole thing far more random-feeling and not particularly skill-based. Sure, theoretically Fortune's a big Poker-style mindgame, but in practice a lot of people will just make trolly/yolo piles that lead to yolo picks. The card is ultimately cute and deserves to exist, but feels pretty weak (still say it should have been 5 cards).
Epiphany isn't an especially strong card either, but it's very skill-intensive. The x-cost, pile-building and full information all create very important decision points. And the better players can usually leverage some or all of them into a strong play (stronger than just shuffling around some cards or picking a pile partially in the blind).
But if we were simply comparing the idea of building piles versus making piles (which isn't really the true point of contention between Fortune and Epiphany), with all other things being equal and no hidden information picking the pile would always be better. You get the final say, guarantee that you get at least one of the best cards revealed and benefit from the occasional poor card/threat/situation evaluation of your opponent (who presumably made the piles).
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
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You can't divorce choosing piles vs dividing piles and being a 3-for-1 vs being a 2-for-1. The very reason that FOF is approximately a 3-for-1 and Augury is approximately a 2-for-1 is choosing vs dividing. A 4 card version of FoF isn't necessarily better than Augury, but I'm confident that it's better than a 4 card version of augury (not counting multicolor against augury). More generally, having resolved many of both card and having many resolved against me, I would rather have the FoF effect than the Augury one for any fixed number of cards to reveal.
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I'm trying to follow what you're saying.
As far as I can tell, Fact or Fiction and Steam Augury involve the same amount of cards.
If you're saying that FoF on average will lead to gaining 3 cards and Steam August will on average lead to gaining 2 cards, that's probably true, but it's because of who has the prerogative to choose the pile, not separate from it.
The only scenario in which Augury is better is when both you and your opponent are more likely to screw up then choose correctly. If only your opponent screws up you want FoF to snap up the strong pile and if only you screw up FoF will be better because you're choosing the worse of two near equal piles instead of letting your opponent bin a fantastic one and hand you chaff. FoF is better and it's not close.
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They are both uncommon, and FF is (probably) better if your deck is land, land, land, nonland.
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I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
Lol, why did I think that favor was a rare? Either way, both of these cards are very, very meh.
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I think using it as a dig spell is fine because if he sees his bomb he picks it and if not he takes the face down cards.
I think viewing it as "scry 2 then draw 2" is perfectly acceptable. (Technically it's look at the top 2 cards. you may put them into your GY, then Draw 2 cards).
So my thoughts are the more "equal" the cards in your deck are the worse this card is, but when there are very unequal options where throwing away 2 decent cards on top is the obvious choice its very solid.
Also you'd be surprised how often people make bad piles.