Familiar's Ruse : Why Isn't it Played?
Modern forum
Posted on Nov. 17, 2017, 2:22 p.m. by K_Train
I'm curious as to why I never see blue control decks in modern running Familiar's Ruse. It seems to generate some ridiculous value when used in combination with Snapcaster Mage. You can play the snapcaster to flash back some spell, and then bounce him back to your hand while countering a spell with Familiar's Ruse. Then, you can re-cast your snapcaster, flashing back your familiar's ruse, and re-cast your snapcaster for a third time afterwards.
This seems like a no-brainer to me, and that even a deck with only snapcaster mages for creatures would benefit from running 2 copies.
This Reddit thread has a lot of good answers. Mainly, it's the fact that you can't expect to always be able to cast it. If it was something along the lines of Silumgar's Scorn (i.e. Force Spike if you don't bounce a creature, Counterspell if you do), I would like it a lot more.
November 17, 2017 4:32 p.m.
The problem is casting ruse the first time (when there's no snapcaster in play). For that to be any good, you need to find a 1 cmc creature with a decent ETB-ability. If you have to bounce an otherwise perfectly good creature, you lose a card on the table, as well your opponent did. And there aren't that many 1 cmc creatures with good enough abilities (if there are any).
But maybe less than the full 4 ruse could be okay... you could bounce Ninja of the Deep Hours, and get to replay it, or something else like that. Faerie Miscreant as 1-drop, then bounce that for ninja, then bounce ninja for ruse, and countinue into snapcaster country. Just an idea.
November 17, 2017 4:44 p.m.
Suns_Champion says... #6
I did a similar thing in EDH with Archaeomancer and Disappearing Act. Makes me want to try this version!
November 17, 2017 6:36 p.m.
A nice deck for Familiar's Ruse is Faeries, because it has a lot of cheap creatures with EtB effects like Spellstutter Sprite.
November 18, 2017 8:38 a.m.
Ive found it to be good in my Faerie/Ninja deck: Blue Ninja
In this deck I tend to use Familiar's Ruse as a hard counter a little later in the game, allowing me to re-use a Spellstutter Sprite,Faerie Miscreant, or either of my ninjas.
But Im wondering if there could be a deck utilizing a one-drop like Sage of Epityr, as well as Snapcaster Mage to generate value. Archaeomancer seems a little slow though
Lame_Duck says... #3
It's a card that's a lot more awkward in practice than it initially seems and the deck-building requirements to run it mean that it's hard to find a home for it; you need a deck with a critical mass of cheap creatures in to reliably be able to cast the card but one that also doesn't suffer from the tempo loss of returning a creature to hand or from holding up mana for a counterspell. Plus, introducing a potentially dead card into your deck to help improve an already fantastic card like Snapcaster Mage is generally just a very bad idea.
I remember there was a fringe deck built around Ruse, Cryptic Command and Eternal Witness a while back but I'm not sure it ever really achieved any success and I'd imagine the format has become even more hostile to such a strategy since.
November 17, 2017 3:16 p.m. Edited.