Fair Ancestral Recall

[rvs]

Ok, I can see how cards like these are generally uninteresting and therefore either pretty bad or just too good (like the original ).

But, I won't let that stop me, so I figured we could at least discuss what's possible. I came up with the following version that I deem to be fair in every format right now. If the mechanic (assuming no cards exist that do this yet) is interesting enough, maybe I can come up with something unique-er to add to our master list.

Fair Ancestral
U
Sorcery
Draw 3 cards. You cannot play any more spells this turn.

It's a sorcery, otherwise the drawback would make no sense at all.

Thoughts?

[Jacob Orlove]

That's waaay too good. You can just play it in your second main phase. And then tap Aether Vial to put out the ravager you just drew.

[Shock Wave]

fair ancestral = oxymoron

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

I think this is almost fair right here.

Ancestral Re-recall U
Sorcery
As an additional cost to play Ancestral Re-recall, discard your hand.
Draw 3 cards. You may not play anymore spells this turn.

[Jacob Orlove]

I think this is almost fair right here.

Ancestral Re-recall U
Sorcery
As an additional cost to play Ancestral Re-recall, discard your hand.
Draw 3 cards. You may not play anymore spells this turn.

That's still way too good. In affinity or u/g madness, you have your whole hand on the table by turn 2-3 anyway, so this becomes merely a broken, undercosted card drawer for standard and extended. I hope I don't have to explain how good this would be in Vintage.

[Ephraim]

To give you an idea of the difficulty of passing powerful card drawing, I was barely possible to persuade people to approve this card:

Biased Opinion

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

It costs two, only yields a net card advantage of two, and has a fairly huge drawback.

[stolen]

Hey, I already did this.  No more trying to balance Ancestral Recall.

The simple fact is that it's still one mana for three cards and, unlike my card above, it's a net gain of two cards no matter how you slice it.  This is still very broken everywhere.  Even Vintage would abuse this, and because it still allows you to cast spells before it and on your opponent's turn, the drawback is very small.  And really, even if it did take your whole turn ("play ~ only if you have not played a spell this turn"), wouldn't you give up your turn to draw three cards?  Especially when it can be a first turn, as this only costs one mana?

Conclusion: this is way too powerful.  And CaptainPlanet.dec's version, as Orlove pointed out, is just broken.  Maybe if instead of "discard your hand" it was "discard your library."  Then it wouldn't be broken.

Maybe something more along the lines of:

Ringing the Ancestors
Sorcery -
Draw three cards, then choose one card in your hand and remove the rest from the game.
"Hello.  Your ancestors are unable to answer the phone right now.  Please leave a message after the beep."

[Sanity_XIV]

Mise is the fixed ancestral, isn't it? It's one mana for three cards. It just happens to be non-tournament legal and rather bad.

[rvs]

ok this can be closed.