Fair Ancestral Recall

[magus888]

I know that this has been attempted before in this forum and has been shot down, but I think this is completely fair.

Ancestral Consultation U
Instant
Target player draws the top three cards of his/her library and reveals them to all players. Any other player may pay 1. If they do, the owner of the cards drawn removes those cards from the game. He/She repeats this process until no other player chooses to pay 1.

[xthexpunisherx]

I know that this has been attempted before in this forum and has been shot down, but I think this is completely fair.

Ancestral Consultation U
Instant
Target player draws the top three cards of his/her library and reveals them to all players. Any other player may pay 1. If they do, the owner of the cards drawn removes those cards from the game. He/She repeats this process until no other player chooses to pay 1.

No.  Drawing 3 for 1 mana with a draw back that only works once in a while isn't good.  Its hard to make ancestral fair because you could make this "pay 1 life" for the same effect but then you could have them destroy their whole library.  3 cards for 1 mana is a no go.

[Nazdakka]

No. No way. No chance at all. This is 3 for 1 card advantage for 1 MANA with only a minimal drawback, which is blantantly unfair. To make this in line with modern costs it'd have to cost around 3U and be a Sorcery, in which case you'd be very close to a strictly worse Concentrate.

I would suggest a fixed version, but I can't really come up with one... good instant speed draw is something R&D are avoiding at the mo. I'll start a new thread with an idea you've given me though...

[Dnine]

this card might as well read, "I forfit"

you draw three
I pay one life, you draw 3 more
repeat
you deck yourself, I'm at 3 life

Or I make you draw three and repeat until you deck yourself.  A turn one, one mana kill.  Ya, let's print this

[Ephraim]

The way it is printed now, Dnine, the opponent doesn't pay one life to make you re-draw. The opponent pays [mana] to make you redraw. If this comes down first turn, it's just as good as Ancestral Recall. Plus, it's an instant, so you can wait until your opponent taps down, so you can get your three cards unhindered.

[magus888]

What about this? This is how I origonally intended to word it.

Ancestral Consultation U
Instant
Reveal the top three cards of your library to all players. Any opponent may pay 1 life. If they don't, put those cards in your hand. If they do, remove those cards from the game and continue revealing the top three cards of your library and removing them from the game until no opponent pays 1 life.

This way you may only target yourself, and your opponent can leave you with bad cards in hand. If you try to go off first turn you'll deck out.

[Nazdakka]

[Delete this post]

[magus888]

I made an error in my typing. If you look at the post again, I think you'll get the picture.

[Jacob Orlove]

Now the card is completely unplayable. There is no fair way to make a "fixed" ancestral without increasing the mana cost.

[Matt]

Now the card is completely unplayable. There is no fair way to make a "fixed" ancestral without increasing the mana cost.

I suppose you could consider Brainstorm the fixed Ancestral.

[Puschkin]

Now the card is completely unplayable. There is no fair way to make a "fixed" ancestral without increasing the mana cost.

Sure? What about making it symmetrical?

[Jacob Orlove]

But then it would be terrible. The problem is that there's almost no way to get a drawback that makes the card exactly fair--almost anything will make it either too good or too weak.

Brainstorm isn't really a fixed ancestral, because the two cards fill different roles, outside of T1 combo.

[Puschkin]

Would it really be that bad? It still is 3 cards for one mana, I guess I dont have to point out how good that is. Yes, it's card disadvantage if it is symmetrical, then again Prosperity had seen play and Prosperity is worse in most cases. Sure, you can't play a symmetrical Ancestral like you played the old one, I mean, it would not take the same role. But it could still feed combo decks or fuel decks like Miracle Grow that put everything they have into tempo advantage. Much like you don't care about being at one life after playing a 19-point Channel when your opponent is dead afterwards.

Well, not that I want to see a symmetrical Ancestral in our Masterlist since I don't like combodecks at all, but I just had to respond to that "there is no way to fix it". If anything I think a symmetrical Ancestral would STILL be a card with wayy too much potential and end up being restricted in Type I rather than a card that "would be terrible".

[Ephraim]

Consider Words of Wisdom:

Words of Wisdom

Instant

You draw two cards, then each other player draws a card.

It offers zero net card advantage, instead of one net disadvantage. It also draws one less card. Nonetheless, it still costs two mana. Having either player be able to draw three cards absolutely requires that this cost more. I could see this being fair:

<cardname>

Instant

Each player draws three cards.

That takes a card like Prosperity, which would cost to let each player draw three, and then gives a little discount for fixing the quantity.

[jcb193]

This wording is janky (but you get the drift), but what about this:

Ancestral Consultation U
Instant
Target player draws the top three cards of his/her library and reveals them to target opponent.  Opponent chooses one card which is removed from game, the other two cards are put into target player's hand.  


Net one card, with the chance of removing a bomb from game.  Plus, doesnt fill graveyard.  Not to mention how fun it would be in multiplayer.

[Ephraim]

jcb, considering that I had to fight to get this card into the master list:

Biased Opinion

Instant
Draw three cards, then reveal your hand to an opponent. That player chooses a card from your hand. Discard that card.

I'm pretty sure that your suggestion, which is strictly better than this, wouldn't fly.

[KDenz81]

I really like your idea there Ephraim.  I'd tweak the card just a little bit though.

Biased Opinion 1{U}
 
Instant

Reveal the top three cards of your library to an opponent.  That player chooses one of those cards and you are forced to discard it.  That opponent may pay 1 life and remove the chosen card from the game.


I'm not sure it will end up being exactly worded like that in the end, but that's the best suggestion I could come up with for a "fair" ancestral recall.
Denz

[Ephraim]

KDenz81, I'm not exactly sure what your suggestion means. It looks like it draws the weakest two of your top three cards (still better than Biased Opinion, which exposes your entire hand) and gives your opponent the option of paying a life to remove the card from the game instead of sending it to your graveyard. That's definitely an interesting take on the idea, since it weakens the power of the card in Madness or Reanimator. It is not, however, a change that I am going to apply -- as I stated previouly, Biased Opinion has already been accepted into the TMD Master List.