Looking at your list again I see your focus is different from my deck. I have 30 creatures not even including Ensoul. You have only 19. I could see how you might want to cut it, but because I have more creatures in my list I don't even need to consider making that decision and Ensoul does so much work on its own, even in spite of removal, it would be crazy for me to consider taking it out. They can remove it and I still have enough board pressure with my other creatures that it's not a big deal. I imagine to you it is because you have a list with quite a smaller number of creatures.
Regardless, it's not a big deal. The power it adds to the board makes up for the removal and even being 2 for one's is worth the 4 damage they could throw to your head.
It's not a 2-1. You get one card back. It is a tempo play, and you listed the steps (yes, there are 3) but 3 steps don't count as 3 cards. It's still 1 of your cards and one of their cards go to the graveyard, in exchange for blanking a draw step. Since it means you don't get 4 burn to the dome, I will take that trade.
And it's good against more than the red decks. It's most useful when you get it going turn 3, but it's good even in the middle game. Black has nothing to stop it.
If they want to one for one me with Jeskai for a tempo play instead of dealing me 4 burn, let em. That's a win for me. And removal doesn't work on Darksteel unless it exiles, and even then it's usually still worth running the card.
I felt the same about devotion symbols, until I got to a 30 creature list. Then I realized, although important, the meta-game is slower than last standard, so the deck is still fine at the slower pace. You get devotion fast enough, just 1-2 turns slower than the old momo-blue. In the meantime you have enough creatures that you don't lose tempo.
I feel you on the bad creatures. My solution is, for one, drop Ornithopther. As far as Vaporkin, I put it back into my list because it has synergy with some of my other cards.
You only have 19 creatures in your list. None of the decks I tested with were good until I got to 30 creatures. Then I remembered the old monoblue list had 28 and it made sense to me why. It's not so much how much devotion you are getting from them, but the amount of pressure they create. Less creatures is less pressure.
Then the payoff for having so many creatures is Thassa or Master of Waves.
The singleton of Aetherspouts in the sideboard is meant to take the place of Cyclonic Rift and it is the flex spot in the sideboard. It is meant to deal with Heroic decks since their enchantments will go to the graveyard, and the card is good against token decks like Mardu. You could replace it with a bounce spell or Curse of the Swine. I could see taking out one copy of Singing Bell Strike for a singleton of Stubborn Denial. I am very hesitant to add more than 7/8 non-creature spells to the main board. I think it's a huge strength of the deck in game 1 to have 30 creatures, and that number of creatures make Thassa, Master, and Paragon better cards.
Decks I haven't had a chance to test against: G/B Enchantress, Sidisi Delve, U/B control. Any information about how these matches play out against my list would be appreciated. I would test it myself, but as I mentioned above, I am moving countries in 3 days and don't have time to do a gauntlet for these decks.
Rabble Red is tough until you get Master out or Ensoul Artifact. It's the main reason I have 4 copies of Omenspeaker in the main and the 3 Monastery Flock from the sideboard should help as well. I think it's pretty draw dependent on both sides. If they have a god hand, you can't stop them. If you draw Master or Ensoul then you have the stronger board. For this matchup I would take out Thassa because the deck is so fast, you won't be able to get her online.
I've only had one match with a Mardu deck, so you have given me valuable information. That's a removal heavy midrange deck (edit: it's listed as a control deck on MTGtop8 -- so no wonder you had such problems with it. lol), so of course you are going to be boarding into counterspells. I am moving countries in two days so I don't have the time to test like I did the past two months when I worked on this list. If you have any ideas for the Mardu matchup, feel free to post them.
I think it could be best to treat it like a burn deck. For burn decks you remove Thassa because you are never going to get devotion with all their removal, also Mardu has Crackling Doom which would make you sacrifice Thassa once you get her online anyway. So take out 3 Thassa for 3 Negates. Then board into 2 or 3 Bidents to make up for their 1 for 1 against you, replacing one each of Paragon, Hypnotic Siren, and Phyrexian Revoker (if you go for all 3) with those Bidents. This might even be a matchup where you bring in some Dissolves, since I see that from the sideboard they can bring in Anger of the Gods and End Hostilities. I'm not sure what to take out for them, though. I would need to test before deciding if this is a matchup to board out Ensoul Artifact. If it is, then you could replace those cards with Dissolve.
Sorry it went badly for you. I appreciate the feedback. I think some of your concerns can be addressed with the sideboard ideas I have above.
What decks did you test against, what was your record, and whose deck did you use?
Which combos do you mean? The Vaporkin, Master, Paragon synergy? With 4 of each in a deck, 16 cards out of 60, it seems like that would occur more often than 5 times out of 20.
With 3 Ensoul Artifacts, 4 Darksteel Citadels, and 4 Phyrexian Revokers, that too should occur more than 5 times out of 20.
Many of the people here seem to have tested Lord of Atlantis' deck rather than mine, so I am wondering whose list you were using.
OK that sounds like you have tested it. I agree Paragon is a target for cheap removal, but so is/was Master. Before rotation he was more vulnerable but no one removed him because he was so valuable to the deck. He is better now because of his pro-red, but Paragon still can push across damage via Triton Shorestalker and it keeps the elemental tokens when Master is removed. Even if it dies to cheap removal, the upside is still worth keeping him in the deck.
I tried so many other fliers than Vaporkin, trying to find something that could come out early and still be a threat. I tested with Chorus of the Tides, Cloaked Siren, War Wing Siren, Riptide Chimera, and Quickling. I tried non-fliers in that same spot: Flitterstep Eidolon, and Frost Lynx. All of them had negatives that didn't make up for the positives: too expensive, loss of tempo, lack of evasion. I even tried other creatures in the two spot that didn't have evasion: Mindreaver, Battlefield Thaumaturge, Chief Architect.
Vaporkin worked the best because it is cheap, has evasion, and can be boosted from two different creatures.
I tried Mindreaver. The two blue pips are nice, but it does nothing beyond that and you can't even get aggro with it for fear of losing devotion to Thassa.
Phyexian Revoker is a target for Ensoul Artifact and it is a tempo play against so many cards. Planeswalkers are hit and even things like Frenzied Goblin are hit by it. Not to mention once you have Singing Bell Strike on a creature, you can just name that creature with Phyrexian Revoker and now they are on lockdown and can't be untapped.
A vanilla Vaporkin sits idle against fliers with a higher mana cost, but that's to be expected. Small creatures get outclassed by bigger, more mana expensive ones. However, Vaporkin gets pumped by both Master of Waves and Paragon of Gathering Mists. Having a 4/3 flier is pretty easy to do when you play both Master and Paragon, and when you are using both of them Vaporkin no longer feels slow.
Ornithopther has a high ceiling and a very low floor. I'd rather take a card that has a consistent purpose in the deck, such as Phyrexian Revoker, over a card that usually does nothing and only occasionally does something good.
And it's good against more than the red decks. It's most useful when you get it going turn 3, but it's good even in the middle game. Black has nothing to stop it.
I feel you on the bad creatures. My solution is, for one, drop Ornithopther. As far as Vaporkin, I put it back into my list because it has synergy with some of my other cards.
Then the payoff for having so many creatures is Thassa or Master of Waves.
I've only had one match with a Mardu deck, so you have given me valuable information. That's a removal heavy midrange deck (edit: it's listed as a control deck on MTGtop8 -- so no wonder you had such problems with it. lol), so of course you are going to be boarding into counterspells. I am moving countries in two days so I don't have the time to test like I did the past two months when I worked on this list. If you have any ideas for the Mardu matchup, feel free to post them.
I think it could be best to treat it like a burn deck. For burn decks you remove Thassa because you are never going to get devotion with all their removal, also Mardu has Crackling Doom which would make you sacrifice Thassa once you get her online anyway. So take out 3 Thassa for 3 Negates. Then board into 2 or 3 Bidents to make up for their 1 for 1 against you, replacing one each of Paragon, Hypnotic Siren, and Phyrexian Revoker (if you go for all 3) with those Bidents. This might even be a matchup where you bring in some Dissolves, since I see that from the sideboard they can bring in Anger of the Gods and End Hostilities. I'm not sure what to take out for them, though. I would need to test before deciding if this is a matchup to board out Ensoul Artifact. If it is, then you could replace those cards with Dissolve.
Sorry it went badly for you. I appreciate the feedback. I think some of your concerns can be addressed with the sideboard ideas I have above.
Which combos do you mean? The Vaporkin, Master, Paragon synergy? With 4 of each in a deck, 16 cards out of 60, it seems like that would occur more often than 5 times out of 20.
With 3 Ensoul Artifacts, 4 Darksteel Citadels, and 4 Phyrexian Revokers, that too should occur more than 5 times out of 20.
Many of the people here seem to have tested Lord of Atlantis' deck rather than mine, so I am wondering whose list you were using.
I tried so many other fliers than Vaporkin, trying to find something that could come out early and still be a threat. I tested with Chorus of the Tides, Cloaked Siren, War Wing Siren, Riptide Chimera, and Quickling. I tried non-fliers in that same spot: Flitterstep Eidolon, and Frost Lynx. All of them had negatives that didn't make up for the positives: too expensive, loss of tempo, lack of evasion. I even tried other creatures in the two spot that didn't have evasion: Mindreaver, Battlefield Thaumaturge, Chief Architect.
Vaporkin worked the best because it is cheap, has evasion, and can be boosted from two different creatures.
Phyexian Revoker is a target for Ensoul Artifact and it is a tempo play against so many cards. Planeswalkers are hit and even things like Frenzied Goblin are hit by it. Not to mention once you have Singing Bell Strike on a creature, you can just name that creature with Phyrexian Revoker and now they are on lockdown and can't be untapped.
A vanilla Vaporkin sits idle against fliers with a higher mana cost, but that's to be expected. Small creatures get outclassed by bigger, more mana expensive ones. However, Vaporkin gets pumped by both Master of Waves and Paragon of Gathering Mists. Having a 4/3 flier is pretty easy to do when you play both Master and Paragon, and when you are using both of them Vaporkin no longer feels slow.