This guy is WAY better than Rootwater Thief.  If he connects just twice, the fish player gets infinite turns.  That's 400 times more powerful than extracting twice.

I think you play this card even in Tezzeret.  At least in sideboard.  Against a deck running time vault, it's just too good, and even against Stax, it's not horrible - worst case you get a moxen or something to up your permanent count.

The English meaning of the sentence is pretty clear.  "That card" could only possibly reference the "enchanted land", since the card does not refer to itself.

Wind Zendikon U
(Uncommon)
Enchantment - Aura   
Enchant land
Enchanted land is a 2/2 blue Elemental creature with flying. It’s still a land.
When enchanted land is put into a graveyard, return that card to its owner’s hand.


Does this guy have a shot in blue fish variants?  First of all, he's pretty efficient - a 2/2 flyer for 1.  There is also good synergy with Waste/Strip.  You enchant it with this,  use the waste on a land, the waste returns to your hand, and you can use it again.

It's strange to me that people are only evaluating what Jace does the first turn he's out.  What does Dark Confidant do the first turn he's out?  Nothing.  At least New Jace better-than-cantrips.

It's clear that there are some matchups where he will be good and some where he won't.  This guy is a total bomb in the control mirror.  What control decks can easily answer a planeswalker?  Drawing one a turn is really nothing to sneeze at, either - the effect is WAY stronger than Dark Confidant, though of course JtMS costs twice as much.  He is probably also fine in the Stax matchup (though casting 2UU can be difficult, especially against Null Rod stax), though not nearly as good as against control .  On the other hand, he will probably not be good in many other matchups.  He is too slow against Storm and Dredge and Fish can probably kill him too easily.

I don't know if he's playable.  He might be comparable to Glen Elendra Archmage, a situationally really powerful 4 CMC card that just never finds a home anywhere.

Do you really want to oath into Painter's Servant?  You already pretty much win the turn you Oath anyway.

Mystical->Ancestral may not be good (in fact, I don't think anyone has been talking about that at all), but when Mystical has been cast, that really has no impact on what you want to do to their Ancestral.  Mystical -> Ancestral is a +1 CA play, much like Night's Whisper.  However, the difference is that Mystical->Ancestral's net card advantage is a composite of -1 (When you resolve Mystical Tutor) and +2 (When you resolve Ancestral Recall).  Night's Whisper is just straight up +1.  If someone does the MT->Recall play, I can counter their recall and put them at -2.  If I counter their Night's Whisper, they are just at -1.

To quote myself:


The cost is never DIRECTLY relevant unless you're playing a spell like Nix.  It's never relevant that his board/hand/graveyard/library is in such and such position BECAUSE he had to put it that way to cast his spell.
Consider the following two cases: 
1) Player A has 4 Islands and Recall in hand.  His opponent, Player B, has Tanglewire with three counters on it.  Player A taps three of his islands and then in his main phase casts Recall.
2) Player B has 4 Island and Concentrate in hand.  His opponent has no relevant permanents.  Player A casts Concentrate.

In both cases, the marginal position is exactly the same: Player A has 4 tapped Islands and has a spell on that stack which will allow him to draw three cards if it resolves.  It is completely irrelevant that in case 2 that the islands are tapped as part of the cost and that in case 1 they are tapped because of some extrinsic effect.

  Perhaps the distinction is too subtle to be worth dwelling on, but my point is that there's a fundamental fallacy in saying that a less efficient spell is less worth countering.  Even granting that cost can indirectly influence one's decision to counter a spell, there's no reason to think that because a spell is more costly it is less worth countering - in many cases, including the one that initiated this discussion, the opposite is true.  Mystical Tutor is card disadvantage which means, all things being equal, you will have fewer cards in your hand after casting MTutor for Recall and then casting Recall than just casting a naturally drawn Recall.  In almost every situation, drawing cards is more valuable if you have fewer in your hand.  Therefore, if someone used Mystical Tutor to get Recall, it is more likely that the play is to counter Recall, and not less likely.

I acknowledged that already.  The choice to counter a spell is always context dependent and I pointed out myself that the cost of a spell can change the context in relevant ways.  However, this is only related to the cost of the spell indirectly.  If they were tapped out for other reasons (say, a Tangle Wire) then the choice is exactly the same.  Whether or not the proposed extreme cards would always change the circumstances such that they would rarely be worth countering (I doubt it--I can imagine frequently wanting to counter Opportunity, if for some reason my opponent was playing it and survived long enough to cast it) is not really all that relevant; the point is the theory behind it.  At the end of the day, two things influence your decision to counter a spell: 1) the effect of the spell and 2) the game situation.  Cost is relevant only inasmuch as it effects 2.  If we return to the original situation that started this discussion - whether to counter an Ancestral Recall retrieved with Mystical Tutor - what are we looking at?  Assuming they Mystical Tutored on end step, they have one fewer card in their hand.  I assume it's generally the case that draw spells are more useful when you have fewer cards (marginal utility of cards decreases with hand size) and so, if anything, the cases where you would want to counter a MTutored Recall will be more frequent than the ones where you would counter one naturally drawn.

To take a less silly example: Cruel Ultimatum.  A UUBBBRR sorcery is obviously unplayable in Vintage (maybe marginally in some Dream Halls abomination) because it is way below the curve.  A 5 mana sorcery (Tezzeret) basically needs to win the game, and even then there's debate.  A seven mana sorcery might be unplayable with any text box; Cruel's definitely does not come close.  So, does that mean that if you're playing against some scrub who threw some moxen into his Lorwyn/Shards 5 color control deck and he, somehow, manages to cast Cruel Ultimatum, that you let it resolve?  Of course not.

Opportunity is unplayable because it costs infinite mana.  If someone cast Opportunity, though, you would obviously counter it if you would counter recall (and in many situations where you would not counter recall, because Opportunity has a more powerful effect).  The benefits / disadvantages of efficiency / inefficiency are over once the spell is on the stack and being responded to.

Keep in mind, my hypothetical terrible Recall has all of those things as costs.  So, when you cast the spell, you pay a million mana and discard three cards.  When it resolves, you do exactly what you do with recall - draw three cards.  As an opponent holding a counter, you are faced with the exact same decision as when Recall is on the stack: "Do I want to use my card (or cards) to prevent my opponent from drawing three cards?"  The costs that were paid to get the spell on the stack irrelevant, except indirectly (and if they discarded their hand to get their shitty recall on the stack, they probably need the three cards a lot more than the average person casting Recall).

And, sure, nothing is an absolute "must-counter" - that is shorthand for "almost always counter".  There are definitely times when Recall should be allowed to resolve, just as there are times when Yawg Will should be allowed to Resolve, but I think it's definitely wrong to say that it's only in the early game.  In general, I would think drawing cards is more valuable when you have fewer cards in hand, and frequently in late game your hand is quite small.

No.  The effect is exactly the same: "Target player draws three cards."

The card that it cost to get there is irrelevant because it is a sunk cost.

If there was a card that cost 4UUU and made you discard three cards as an additional cost and it drew three cards, it would be as must-counter as Ancestral Recall.  Sunk costs are only relevant in indirect ways - for example, in this or that game situation, I might be less afraid of Ancestral Recall because he tapped his only blue source to cast it and, therefore, cannot use that blue source to do stuff I am afraid of.

Ancestral Recall is not a must-counter because of its efficiency - who cares what they paid for the spell?  those costs have been paid already and are now irrelevant - but because of its effect.

This deck is as dependent upon the activated abilities of artifacts as any other deck.  They don't run null rod for the same reason Drain decks don't run Null Rod.  You need 4 mana to combo out.  If you have Null Rod out, that means you have to have four lands.

In other words - yes, it would be a really bad idea.