[1E] Single-Card Discussion - Ancestral Recall??

[Nefarias]

I don't get why you people keep talking about his card.  Clearly, if you've taken the time to read any of my articles, I've already explained through much painstaking detail that this card is poor in all matchups.  However, I do have an article coming out next week that may reveal a sleeper deck that could effectively abuse it.

Here's a hint: It runs Uncle Istivan.

I'm not Premium. Mind posting a decklist, sideboard strategy, and matchup analysis?


On topic, this is good because it draws more Goblins. On the other hand, it is not a Goblin so it doesn't go into your hand with Goblin Recruiter. Maybe if it were a Tribal Instant - Goblin, then it would be goblin good. I think more people should play this card so that Goblins becomes more viable. This goblin is goblin goblin and therefore goblin can goblin the goblin.

[SiegeX]

Guys, I think there might be something to this card and I may have jumped the gun in my last post requesting this thread be moved.  I put this card into my banding deck and goldfished until I was able to play this card 100 times.  I compiled some statistics and threw them together into Excel.  Here is a pie chart of what I found, I think the graph is pretty telling.

[Bill Copes]

Guys, I think there might be something to this card and I may have jumped the gun in my last post requesting this thread be moved.  I put this card into my banding deck and goldfished until I was able to play this card 100 times.  I compiled some statistics and threw them together into Excel.  Here is a pie chart of what I found, I think the graph is pretty telling.

But what about game states where your opponent draws 3 cards?  Or yawgmoth's will / regrowth implications?  Also, Ancestral Recal does read, "Target Player," so how do you reconfigure your data to show players you target in another room?  Of if you target a football player?

[TopSecret]

Guys, I think there might be something to this card and I may have jumped the gun in my last post requesting this thread be moved.  I put this card into my banding deck and goldfished until I was able to play this card 100 times.  I compiled some statistics and threw them together into Excel.  Here is a pie chart of what I found, I think the graph is pretty telling.

The problem with goldfishing a card like this is that it doesn't give you a grasp of how it plays against a real opponent in a real game. This is Vintage. In a tournament match, I don't think you'll have the extra time to waste mana without having a direct impact on the game. Every turn you want to maximize your resources, and that means using all your mana as efficiently as possible to gain a relevant advantage over the opponent. Maybe this card will be good in Standard, where the games take really long and a control deck can try to draw out the game to take advantage of the extra cards. But this is Vintage. Games are short. If this is your turn one play, then you're leaving yourself wide open to getting Vault/Key'd. Those extra cards won't help you when the opponent has infinite turns.

[SiegeX]

Hmm, you're right; I didn't look at it from that perspective.  Now that you remind me, it is an aweful turn one play because It forced me to discard a Helm of Chatzuk that would have really come in handy later in the game. In fact I think I lost that game because of it.

[The Atog Lord]

I once tried casting this card, and was triumphantly about to pick up three from my deck. Then my opponent pointed out that he had Donated an Ivory Mask to me. He drew three cards and won. I don't recommend playing this situational card. Concentrate would have been better.

[Killane]

If your deck even needs a draw effect, I'd recommend Concentrate instead- you get an extra card, it dodges Chalice, and it does 6 damage with Riddle of Lightning, so you can kill you opponents Titans.

Ancestral Recall.... dumb name too. What does it even mean???? It's almost as bad as that Stupid artifact that does nothign but give you 3 mana, once. I mean really, how do you watea slot on these when you could be running Chimney Imp?

[Ravager Sam]

One fundamental problem (don't get me started on all the others) with this card is that it requires 1 blue mana to cast. I recognize I have said in the past that it is good...but without that one blue mana, you can't possibly play it! I'm going to digress for a second because the second fundamental problem is if you are playing dredge and you dredge it into your graveyard, it is totally USELESS, just like serum powder! Thus, it is perhaps beneficial to not play it, especially if it derails the consistency of your deck by creating a 61st card. Jake Gans is known to play 61 cards in dredge and consistently find Bazaar of Baghdad without any serum powders and without crop rotation AND WITHOUT RECALL. Instead, he opts to play black lotus for the 61st card. However, Jake Gans is also known to respond, "EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" when asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how old he is; although the relevance of this is questionable. Thus, I can purport that we should play 61 card decks without A. Recall. It has been proven to get there, his results don't lie.