Pointed Discussion

Very Underrated card indeed. Can't think of a more underrated card right now. Your right its not a curiosity.. its 10 times better(Curiosity better??? why??). The best card drawing card i know of and Card drawing is one of the best ways to gain an advantage over your opponent.

I've had high expectations for this card, but after playtesting it on numerous occa.s.sions against different kinds of decks, I had a change of heart. In most cases, it performed mediocre at best.

You have to attack - it forces you to attack to get the cards you need. At times, you would be better off leaving your creatures on the defensive rather than attack (and blue usually does just that), because it might cost you the game. Then again, even if you attack, the a.s.sault itself might fizzle. Imagine someone cast Sudden Spoiling just after you attack. All the evasion in the world won't help you if that happens. Not even a counter in your hand won't stop it.

Also, blue isn't that good as red or green at spewing out ma.s.ses of creatures at your opponent. It's not an aggro color. Only merfolk decks possibly have enough speed and evasion to properly utilize this card, but even then - I'm sure there are better ways to draw.

Now, imagine you're playing against a deck with 30 kinds of Doom Blade. Every creature you play is instantly destroyed. Coastal Piracy is no good without creatures. You must draw at least three cards to make it pay out at Concentrate level and make it worth your while. If you were to draw it late game in a stalemate, it's also no good. Such situations necessitate instant card-drawing - no requirements and no questions asked.

The next downside is that it's an enchantment. Unlike sorceries or instants, it's vulnerable to removal. Naturally, this is not much of a problem with red and black, but creature removal is. Basically, each color has something to easily deal with it, directly or indirectly, and in 90 % of cases you would be better off casting something else.

While it seemingly allows you consistent card drawing, it's good only once you have already established battlefield control, and some decks might find it redundant. In that case, it could make you draw a dozen of cards before your opponent succ.u.mbs, what is bound to happen anyway. However, it does nothing by itself and is a waste of card space if you're incapable of attack. Running it in a deck is a big risk, and most players don't really like to gamble. Trust me on this one, it's not underrated.

2.5/5.

@KillerWhiskey:
Good points, to be sure. But I imagine blue's weakness in the creature department can be negated by placing this card in a blue/green mix, or some other such combination. And, as Mithandir.mvm mentioned, the creatures blue DOES have will probably be evading enough to connect somewhat consistently. And as always, "dies to removal" is not exactly an effective critique of a card. Of course it dies to removal. So do 90% of other enchantments. But lets see black or red or even blue deal with it once it's in play.

That said, this needs to go off at least three times for it to be worth the investment. Will it be? Sometimes. I agree with you, Whiskey, in the general notion that this may not be an absolute certainty- and thus it's use diminishes somewhat. You wouldn't want to top-deck it on a relatively empty board. Most blue mages would go for the solid card draw- Jace's Ingenuity comes to mind, but there are scores more.

I think it has been a little bit underrated (or little used). With all the creatures with evasion blue has, the extra drawing is worth enough. It's not a curiosity, but... very useful indeed.
EDIT: Now we'll have a new Commander UG creature, which acts as this card, but with CMC 3 (not 4); costs G too (not only U); it's a creature (easier to kill); and it's better in multiplayer.

I think the problem is that too many people only see blue as a defensive color; that to me just shows lack of imagination in deck building.

Blue can be offensive, I have a black/brue aggro creature deck with infect mixed in, made up of mostly cheap creatures that have some kind of evasion: some of them have flying, and most of them either have shadow or just pure unblockability (Inkfathom Infiltrators, Blighted Agents, etc.)

So when my deck is working out, I'm hitting my opponent nearly every turn, and usually with multiple creatures, so in that situation, Coastal Piracy would net me a lot of cards to keep my hand full of future threats.

Also as another has already pointed out, a card isn't bad just because other cards exist that can stop it; this is Magic, there are supposed to be other cards able to stop it. It's what the game is all about; you're not going to draw the cards you need all the time and you're not going to get all of your spells off counter-free all the time. Every play you make comes with that risk that your opponent may have something to stop it, that's the challenge of the game and what makes it great.

Coastal Piracy is for aggro decks with blue in it. Blue is not a control only color, it's just what most players only see it as and thus only use it for that purpose, which limits their options.

Merfolk? Did you just get a sweet draw engine? Did budget UW control get a neat use for its Serra Angel and Serra Avenger?

dang it larceny

Bah! This card is great. Anyone saying otherwise is imagining it in the completely wrong deck. This doesn't go in a control deck or a lockdown deck - it goes in an aggro deck. I have played it in a merfolk aggro deck and a menagerie aggro deck, and it pulls its weight much more often than not. Does even better when you can double up on draw with creatures like Edric, Spymaster of Trest (<straight into that EDH deck btw).

I'd love to have this card in my black/blue rogue deck! - always top-decking by turn 5 or 6!

Seems pretty green too.

This is a good card in the sense that you can build a fun deck around it. The problem with building a deck around a card, especially a card that provides card advantage, is that you reduce the average efficacy of every other card in the deck (you play cards that on their own are weaker in order to have synergy with the card that you are building the deck around).

The reason why Curiosity is such a good card is that you don't have to build a deck around it. Curiosity fits into many decks which are already good; it is a low-investment card (one card, one mana) that pays for its main cost (the card itself) quickly (one attack by any creature with effective evasion). I don't see this card fitting into decks that have top notch cards.

I'd say the best use of this card is to find diamonds in the rough. When I make decks around a certain card, I usually include cards that I would not otherwise play. Play-testing usually reveals some gems as well as some disappointments. I think the best use of this card (outside of fun, which is the main reason for playing a game) is that it can find some gems.

This card is legal in Modern format, as are all Ninjutsu cards minus the ones from Planechase.

The real strength of this card is using it in gimmick decks (such as Ninjas), and pairing it up with cards like Ninja of the Deep Hours and Okiba-Gang Shinobi to pump up your hand advantage.

For creature decks that rely on hand advantage, this is one of the best drops out there. Ninja decks in particular like this because it's in-color, fits their mechanics nicely, and puts additional fodder onto the field to give the opponent hard choices (do I Naturalize his Coastal Piracy, or do I Naturalize that Ronin Warclub that's been picking away at me, or do I Naturalize his Dire Undercurrents?).

Ninjas want to do three things: Draw cards, force opponents to discard cards, and clear the field. This easily and cheaply supports one of those.

Bident of Thassa