typical opening line

[Grand Inquisitor]

May not be the correct play, but its what I would do.  I am a little more aggro than most tho.

Not sure what 'aggro' means.  There's aggressive play and there's wasteful play.  Why tutor for a Lotus when you have nothing to use the mana on?  Why not Brainstorm to see if you can find protection for the Ancestral instead of playing it after the fact?  With lots of tournament experience I can tell you that Brainstorm is superior to prayer at leveraging tutors and resolving Ancestral.

[meadbert]

Even if this is true, you can still keep the Mox after casting Brainstorm.  But cutting off the option that you might want to put it back with Brainstorm is wasteful unless there is a greater reason to play the Mox on turn 1 (fear of Mystic Remora or Timetwister?).

Daze on Brainstorm.

[M.Solymossy]

3 fetchland, mox pearl, brainstorm, vampiric tutor, demonic tutor

You really have to analyze the realistic ways you will lose the game against control.
Against any possible situation, your hand is the reactive hand, meaning you are playing control.  *IF* they do something drastic, you have a Vampire AND a Demon to get solutions, otherwise, you want to get the maximum possible value out of Steve Menendians Quarter Hour Power.  


Turn 1:  Play Fetchland, pass
Turn 2:  Play Fetchland, pass
Turn 3:  Play Fetchland, pass
EO-op-T:  Fetch (19)->Island (t), Brainstorm

At this point you have 2 duds to shuffle back (Mox Pearl and Vampiric tutor), and two extra cards that you could ditch here, too.   This gives you the most value while playing around Spell  Pierce.

[JR]

I am honestly surprised no one has suggested vamp for lotus on turn one, play pearl turn two and DT for Jace and cast him. I don't think this is correct at all, I just would have thought at least one person would have advocated an aggressive strategy of going hellbent for Jace.

I think I disagree with cyberpunker that getting ancestral recall is always the best course of action in the control mirror. I think this line of play for most players, who will throw recall out there to try and get an immediate advantage, is asking to be blown out. If there is one play more lopsided than resolving an ancestral, it is getting one that you tutored for countered.

Soly, Jimmy and I were talking about this earlier, and we are sort of in agreement. The crux of your hand is Brainstorm, and the longer you can wait to cast it the better off you are. Soly is advocating holding vamp (which we both think is subpar here) as an additional card to get rid of off the brainstorm, while I say that if you use the vamp on their turn one eot for mana drain, while you are effectively down a card, you can potentially wait longer to cast Brainstorm, which I think will pay off in the long run.

I hope this helped explain my line of play a little bit better.

JR.

[Rico Suave]

Even if this is true, you can still keep the Mox after casting Brainstorm.  But cutting off the option that you might want to put it back with Brainstorm is wasteful unless there is a greater reason to play the Mox on turn 1 (fear of Mystic Remora or Timetwister?).

Daze on Brainstorm.

This seems to me that you would intend to cast Brainstorm on turn 1, whereas I was intending to cast it on turn 2, 3, or later. 

[Cyberpunker]

By not tutoring for Force of Will turn one when you can, you leave yourself vulnerable to almost everything they can throw at you.

Turn one Ancestral, you are defenseless
Turn one Jace, you are defenseless
Turn one KeyVault, you are defenseless
Turn one Tezzeret, you are defenseless
Turn one Oath, you are defenseless
Turn one Dark Confidant, you are defenseless

Its an unnecessary gamble. If they do not do anything their turn, you still have a Force of Will in hand to protect your Ancestral that you Vampiric Tutored for.

You have 2 tutors and no protection and no threats. Great, lets get protection and threats and win the game.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

I think the point is that if on turn 1 you go land->mox->demonic then you give your opponent the opportunity to try and force through their spell. You pretty much said "hey, I don't have Spell Pierce so go nuts". Granted that tutoring for Force of Will somewhat negates this, but if they have counter backup you may as well just scoop because your hand is basically dead.

My favorite play so far is land->go->pretend you have Spell Pierce+FoW then Vampiric for Drain if they do nothing. If they do something you need to respond to then you can always Vampiric for the answer assuming your decklist has a toolbox. Short of them winning on turn 1 this play sets you up for the long game and lets you hold on to Brainstorm for as long as possible. I absolutely agree that the key to this hand is Brainstorm which is why I think you should play defensively to get the maximum value out of the hand sculpting. The problem with this play is of course that you're kind of down 2 cards (they're on the draw+vamp) but if you can keep this game going as long as possible you already have what you need to just blow your opponent away (drain->demonic->will). Brainstorm means if your opponent has more than 1 dead card you're even on cards so I don't think it is that bad.

[M.Solymossy]

People put WAYYYYY too much value on Ancestral Recall.   But in reality with your play, you're really -1 draw, and also -1 Demon AND 1 Vampire for +3 Random cards, that way too many times can be Land, Mox, Inkwell Leviathan or etc.   

In this situation, Brainstorm IS a functional Ancestral Recall, as your mox, possibly another land, and your vampiric tutor are all just dogshit. 

Also;

Turn one Ancestral, you are defenseless

true, but who cares.  Again;  players put way too much value on Ancestral Recall.  It's obviously the Stone Blade, but it doesn't end games on it's own.

Turn one Jace, you are defenseless

You have Demon AND vampire to find answers your deck plays.

Turn one KeyVault, you are defenseless

True, but nice nut draw, Steve Menendian.

Turn one Tezzeret, you are defenseless

You have a Vampire and Demon to deal with this.

Turn one Oath, you are defenseless

Vampire or Demon for a Natures Claim isn't an answer?

Turn one Dark Confidant, you are defenseless

You have Demon AND vampire to find answers your deck plays.

[voltron00x]

People put WAYYYYY too much value on Ancestral Recall.

I kind of agree with this, to an extent.  The valuation of Recall is fine, the card is insane, right? The problem is the lengths to which people will go in order to find and resolve Recall are sometimes at odds with its in-game strategic value, and some of the lines of play suggested in this thread are examples of that.

[M.Solymossy]

People put WAYYYYY too much value on Ancestral Recall.

I kind of agree with this, to an extent.  The valuation of Recall is fine, the card is insane, right? The problem is the lengths to which people will go in order to find and resolve Recall are sometimes at odds with its in-game strategic value, and some of the lines of play suggested in this thread are examples of that.

That's my point;  It really puts you ahead, but very rarely has it single-handedly won or lost me the game.   


One of my favorite plays when I'm in the control mirror is to Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall, and just sit on it for like, 7 turns.   People are SO afraid of losing the counter-war over Ancestral that it allows me to turn usually dogshit hands into thebomb.com

[policehq]

It is similar to a chess player using all of his resources to kill the opponent's queen instead of king.

[Killane]

It is similar to a chess player using all of his resources to kill the opponent's queen instead of king.

This is the best analogy I've ever seen between Chess and Magic. Nice.

[JR]

Cyberpunker- I think Soly pretty much summed it up from my point of view, but again, I can't stress enough I think that tutoring for FoW leaves you in poor shape. If they have a blow out hand, with turn one vault key or something equally silly, you lose anyway. If they tinker on turn one, you have two tutors to race. I just don't see any value to tutoring up Force here. If Demonic was Merchant Scroll and we were playing Meandeck Gifts vs. Pitchlong, the answer is different. That isn't the matchup, so I see nothing that makes this play strategically better than others.

Matt and Soly are pretty correct here, as well. Ancestral is a very good card, but it is close to irrelevant at this point if you tutor for it. The only way that I think I would tutor up Ancestral immediately is if I knew 100% that all my early spells were resolving, so I could cast ancestral off the vamp, and demonic up yawg will to do it again, which would but me hugely far ahead. That being said, if I knew my opponent had no counters, I think you just tutor up Vault and key and go to town.

JR.

[M.Solymossy]

I'd be very interested to see how the plays change against Workshops.

actually... NEW THREAD

[zeus-online]

People put WAYYYYY too much value on Ancestral Recall.

I kind of agree with this, to an extent.  The valuation of Recall is fine, the card is insane, right? The problem is the lengths to which people will go in order to find and resolve Recall are sometimes at odds with its in-game strategic value, and some of the lines of play suggested in this thread are examples of that.

That's my point;  It really puts you ahead, but very rarely has it single-handedly won or lost me the game.   


One of my favorite plays when I'm in the control mirror is to Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall, and just sit on it for like, 7 turns.   People are SO afraid of losing the counter-war over Ancestral that it allows me to turn usually dogshit hands into thebomb.com

I think you're underestimating it a bit, it's kind of subtle when ancestral "wins you the game"* - Just like LoA and Brainstorm.
I've done the same with Mystical for Y. Will btw. People will let just about anything resolve if they're saving up counters for what they assume is your "bomb".

*No card really does that alone.