Sideboarding Ancestral Recall In Stax

[Dxfiler]

Yeah, I'm actually making a thread suggesting that Ancestral Recall should be in a sideboard of a major archtype.  Don't jump to the reply button just yet.

First, a quick summary on how I decided to actually try this strategy out and the end result:

For the first time in I don't know how long, I decided to play a non-fish deck at a tourney last week.  I ran stax. 

First, the list:

// Lands
    3  Wasteland
    1  Strip Mine
    4  Gemstone Mine
    4  Mishra's Workshop
    4  City of Brass
    1  Tolarian Academy
    1  Bazaar of Baghdad
    1  Mishra's Factory

// Creatures
    3  Goblin Welder
    1  Sundering Titan
    2  Duplicant
    3  Gorilla Shaman (1)
    1  Triskelion

// Spells
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Trinisphere
    1  Balance
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Jet
    4  Smokestack
    4  Chalice of the Void
    1  Tinker
    1  Demonic Tutor
    3  Crucible of Worlds
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    4  Sphere of Resistance
    1  Mana Vault
    1  In the Eye of Chaos
    1  Time Walk

// Sideboard
SB: 1  ANCESTRAL RECALL
SB: 1  Ray of Revelation
SB: 1  Rack and Ruin
SB: 1  Darkblast
SB: 3  Seal of Cleansing
SB: 4  Juggernaut
SB: 2  Pithing Needle
SB: 2  Tormod's Crypt

This build is specifically aimed at gifts, as I thought the room would be infested with it.  Going by that logic, I expected many Misdirections to be floating about.  My line of thinking is that without anyway to protect it game 1, Ancestral Recall would be used against me at least once on the day and I would promptly lose the game... that's one game too many.  Stax is unlike other decks in that, more often that not, it cannot protect Ancestral game 1.  In my version, the only possible way I could feel remotely comfortable about playing Ancestral game one would be if I cast In The Eye of Chaos first.  There are other cards in the deck that could enable a Recall to safely resolve, like trinisphere or sphere of resistance, but In the Eye is the only card that practically guarantees I can resolve it. 

There in lies my dilemma: I want to play the best card drawing spell in the game, but I don't want to be forced to play a one-of (eye) before feeling safe to cast it.  If Misdirection didn't exist, this wouldn't even be an issue.  Sadly, it does exist...and it's in a hell of alot of decks right now.  So I made the decision to sideboard it, going by the train of thought that people playing the card would sideboard it out.  I made the concious decision before the tourney to side in Ancestral every single time post board.   

During the five rounds of swiss, 3 of my opponents had maindeck misdirection.  I lost only one game during the swiss... and that was to oath.   I ended up winning the match, with both games I won revolving directly around the presence of Misdirection.  He had kept MisD in for game 2 and it was a dead card, as I did not draw ancestral.  He boarded it out game 3 and I did draw recall early, resolving it and winning shortly thereafter.   Not drawing it won me a game because he had a dead card in hand, and drawing it after he sided out the MisD won me the other.

There ended up being four gifts in top 8.  To my knowledge, they all had maindeck Misdirection.  There was also a UW fish deck with misdirection... making 5 out of the top 8 packing the card.  The other 3 decks were 2 Stax and the mountains win again.  I ended up losing in top 4 to Mountains, a deck where admitedly I wouldn't have minded the Ancestral Game 1, but I think that would have been irrelevant.  He had so many hate cards for me (4 shattering spree and 4 hide/seek post board :p) that I don't feel it would have mattered.  I drew and cast ancestral game two and still couldn't overcome that much hate.  So I lost in top 4, but I do not regret sideboarding Ancestral Recall for that particular tourney, and plan on doing it again if I run stax in the future.

I feel that right now, the format revolves more around Ancestral Recall than any other card.  People go out of their way to get and cast the card, sometimes using up more resources than they should.  Players have noticed this and responded accordingly.  Misdirection is in many, many maindecks right now and that's something that traditional stax just doesn't want to see.  If you want to run traditional stax, it doesn't look like maindeck Ancestral is the way to go at the moment.  I've talked with many stax players who are in that camp, but none of them have ever sidebvoarded it.  They either don't play the card at all, or play it with alot of reactionary cards to protect it, like Pyroblast/REB.  Please note I'm not talking about sideboarding the card in a non-traditional build, like It's Raining Men.  That deck is not even close to traditinal stax, hence it has many cards to protect a maindeck Ancestral.  The issue I'm bringing up is being forced to protect Ancestral in traditional Stax builds.

It seems that if you're maindecking reactionary cards to protect Ancestral, you're cutting down the number of broken draws you can get in Stax.  I don't want to have to sacrifice power cards to play ancestral, and I don't feel lucky enough that I'll just dodge Misd's all day to run Anectral maindeck and unprotected.  This is why I feel that in the current metagame, sideboarding Ancestral is a viable option.

I wouldn't recommend doing this strategy at a large tourney, because over several rounds you'll probably encounter many different decks and who knows how many will pack Misdirection.  Right now I'm advocating sideboard Ancestral for small tourneys where you can pin down the metagame.  Furthermore, Stax is a deck that shines in small tourneys.  Not having a card like Ancestral Recall main is generally not an issue for Stax in small tourneys as the deck can just win on raw power through many rounds.  It is only in large tourneys, over 7-9 rounds where Stax starts to unravel, regardless of whether you maindeck Ancestral or not.

So yeah, I probably just opened a giant can of worms on myself, but I really believe in what I'm posting.  I've already faced some opposition on it and got some weird looks from people when they saw me boarding in what could be the best card in the game.  Still, the one time I tried the strategy out it worked well.  If I run Stax again, I will probably once again sideboard Ancestral Recal.  This isn't set in stone, as it depends on the size of the tourney, the expected field...and if I feel like gambling.  :p

I'm now prepared to face the firing squad.

- Dave Feinstein

[Elric]

Interesting points.  Clearly, the value of Ancestral is decreasing the more Misdirections you expect to see played.  Ignoring the differences across the decks that play Misdirection for a second, what would you call the "cut-off" point for the average number of Misdirections you expect to see (for each other deck in the field) above which you wouldn't run Ancestral in this deck and below which you would run Ancestral in this deck?  Of course, it might be that decks with Misdirections are generally favorable matchups for this deck and if you didn't expect a lot of them you'd play something else, but let's ignore that too

[warble]

Uba Stax would dispute your argument.  I mean, the deck will actually run some protection and draw power...wtf workshop can't protect ancestral?

The mountain plays mainly the artifact hate color, you can't expect to win that matchup.  Stuffy dolls help.

I'd rather leave ancestral in and play uba masks than take ancestral out and get free hate slots.

[Wudil]

I've been playing a lot with different Staxless then Stax lists (most of the time, with little to no protection like you play like ItEoC or SoR, the lastest being bad in Staxless Stax) lately and since I encountered many MisD on my Ancestral (or on other stuff like Swords to Plow etc etc), I finally just ended changing the way I was playing my targeted spells, this is mostly true for Ancestral Recall.

Before this, it was something like playing asap Sapphire/Rainbow Land + Recall and (nearly) always during my turn and see what's coming in to let me play my "best" lock/hate card. Recall wasn't use to refill my hand of stuff, it was simply used to see more stuff early and play the one you wanted of off the recall.

Now, I mainly play it to refill my hand when it's decreasing and most of the time in response to another spell played by my oppenent. The later is the better also now to play my Recall since most of the time, the MisD which was sleeping in my opponent's hand finished to be discarded to a TfK or pitched to a FoW or shuffled back with a Brainstorm most of the time.

In this way (which is far from a revolutionnary way of playing lol), I could escape the fact that my opponent would draw 3 cards instead of me.

My 2cts
Wud'

[LotusHead]

I feel that right now, the format revolves more around Ancestral Recall than any other card.  People go out of their way to get and cast the card, sometimes using up more resources than they should.  Players have noticed this and responded accordingly.  Misdirection is in many, many maindecks right now and that's something that traditional stax just doesn't want to see. 

I myself have sided Ancestral Recal (and many other cool 1cc spells/tutors/welders) to maximize my Chalice for 1 play game 2 and 3 while piloting The Gilded Claw.

Siding IN Ancestral in the absense of MisDirection is a pretty cool idea.

Many of these decks still pack REB post board, however reducing the MisD effect is kinda nice game one.

Maximizing the pain of Chalice for 1 has been my primary reason for siding out a  broken blue card that draws three cards at instant speed that I resolve 1 out of 10 games.  Chalice for 1 baby.  It's hot!

Still, a SB Ancestral is just as painful to my eyes as a SB Black Lotus, even if Vroman laid the groundwork for siding Lotus out against opposing Welders.

[Evenpence]

Uba Stax would dispute your argument.  I mean, the deck will actually run some protection and draw power...wtf workshop can't protect ancestral?

The mountain plays mainly the artifact hate color, you can't expect to win that matchup.  Stuffy dolls help.

I'd rather leave ancestral in and play uba masks than take ancestral out and get free hate slots.

What?  I seriously do not understand this post at all.  How does Ubastax dispute his argument?  Ubastax is a completely separate deck that doesn't run Ancestral Recall.  Maybe in 5c Ubastax, but that is a different monster entirely.  Also, in my 5c Ubastax list, I did not run Ancestral Recall maindeck because of Chalice @ 1 dissynergy and Misdirection.

Every single one of Feinstein's points are valid and I agree with him on the issue 100%.  I wish I would have been smart enough to actually sideboard it instead of just taking it out of my list.

Sideboarding in Ancestral is a win-win situation, because if they board out Misdirection you have the ability for a game breaking play, and if they leave them in, that's more dead cards that don't do anything against you the vast majority of the time.

Feinstein - it would be really funny to no longer board Ancestral, that way people might leave their MisDs in for you because you made this thread!  Haha!

[warble]

Uba Stax would dispute your argument.  I mean, the deck will actually run some protection and draw power...wtf workshop can't protect ancestral?

The mountain plays mainly the artifact hate color, you can't expect to win that matchup.  Stuffy dolls help.

I'd rather leave ancestral in and play uba masks than take ancestral out and get free hate slots.

What?  I seriously do not understand this post at all.  How does Ubastax dispute his argument?  Ubastax is a completely separate deck that doesn't run Ancestral Recall.  Maybe in 5c Ubastax, but that is a different monster entirely.  Also, in my 5c Ubastax list, I did not run Ancestral Recall maindeck because of Chalice @ 1 dissynergy and Misdirection.

Sorry, I didn't know anyone still ran ubastax with only one color...but clearly I was not talking about monored ubastax dude.  Dissynergy with chalice for 1 is certainly a valid point, but doesn't have to do with the protection that was referenced in the initial post.  Rather, the purpose of the post was to point out that there are control elements other than iteoc that can allow safe play of ancestral recall and also have synergy with the rest of the deck.

I believe the most important reason to not play ancestral would be the misdirection threat, swinging 6 cards away, the important difference being you drop your welder prior to the SoR, trinisphere, ubamask(turn 1), whereas you actually rather cast protection prior to the Ancestral Recall.   This implicitly lowers the power level of ancestral recall...anyway that was the path I wanted to point out.  Given that it's hard enough to fit wheel and other draw7's into ubastax, it's really where ancestral has to be played in workshop to play around misdirection that's being discussed.  I think I'm actually convinced after writing this that ancestral doesn't belong in the maindeck with everyone playing Misdirections.  Hell, I've got two MisD's in my CS build.  Ahh, forget it, I can't find any good reasons in a misdirection-infested environment to play ancestral maindecked when you can't protect it.  I've played too many games ancestral turn 1 has meet force of will, I'm not about to start walking that play into a far worse outcome.  I try, I fail.

Edit:

Sorry you don't understand, but I really don't think my posts are confusing...at all...

[TopSecret]

     I like this idea.

     Additionally, do you think it would be wise to side out
     most win conditions game 2 if you won Game 1,
     just to rely on lockdown for the time limit,
     decking the opponent, or beating with a Factory?
     With so little draw in stax, it almost seems that
     deckout is feasible.

     Also, you could Ancestral them for the win!

[Komatteru]

I once proposed to my team that we board it out in some matches.  They balked a little at it, but the argument was this:  In some matches, you need pretty much all your maindeck cards, or have more cards you want to bring in than you actually would like to take out.  That is, if you assume that you leave in all the restricted cards.  Now, if you need to have certain cards to improve a bad matchup, and those cards aren't in your decks, you cannot draw them with Ancestral Recall.  Ancestral all you want, but if you need card X, and it's not in your deck, or there's less copies of it than desired/needed, then you're not so likely to draw it with Ancestral Recall.  At that point, the mana that you spent to attempt to draw the needed card would be better spent on casting the needed card, given that if you board out Ancestral for that card, you would be drawing it instead of Ancestral Random Chance Recall.

The Misdirection argument sounds good on paper, but the reality of it is that it doesn't happen with nearly enough frequency to worry about it.

Misdirection will matter so little in a Stax match that the number of times your Ancestral is Misdirected will be astronomically small.  When your opponent sees Stax, they will pitch all Misdirections available to Force of Will, and bury then with Brainstorms.  Basically, you're looking at the precentage that your early game Ancestral is Misdirected, since it won't be happening late.  That means your looking at the probabilty of the event that you have Ancestral near your opening hand intersected with the probability that your opponent has Misdirection near his opening hand.  For just the opening hands, the Ancestral is 7/60 = 11.67%, and the Misdirection (assuming 3 copies) is 31.5%, making the probability of the intersection of the two events (their independent because they come from different decks) around 3.68%.  It goes up a little if you consider the top 8-9 cards instead of just the opening hand, but it's still less than 5%.  That's not enough to warrant moving Ancestral to the sideboard, in my opinion.

Now, let me dispell possible objections to the "it won't happen late game" argument.  I tell you that it shouldn't happen, or that if it does, it doesn't matter.  If you are losing in the midgame, and your Ancestral is Misdirected, the game just swung from probably going to lose to most definitely going to lose.  Big deal.  If you were banking on an Ancestral Recall to save you, you were in trouble anyway, so it doesn't actually matter.  More often than not, it will be not be Misdirected for the reasons I listed above.  When it does happen, chances are that you were going to lose anyway, and taking a risk to win the game is better than just going down without a fight.  Now, if you are winning, and there's a good chance your opponent will Misdirect your Ancestral, then simply don't cast it in those situations.  You don't need the 3 cards at that point because you are already in a good position.  This is called "playing Magic," rather than simply saying "OMG! ANCESTRAL! DERF BOO 11!!!" and walking it into a loss.

The only time where it's going to matter is when the game is on the bubble--that is, the game could swing either way.  At that point, Ancestral either wins or loses the game for you.  If you resolve it, you probably win, and if it is Misdirected, you probably lose.  However, once again, there's a good chance your opponent has gotten rid of his Misdirections to Brainstorm/Fetch or Force of Will, reducing the chances that he has one.  Even so, it's probably worth the risk.  If the game is 50/50, and you have a better than 50% chance to resolve Ancestral and win, shouldn't you take it?

Now, it is a different point all together to explore the purpose of Ancestral Recall in Stax and why you might board it out or not play it alltogether.  I won't go into it in depth, but the basis of it goes like this:
1) Opening with land, Ancestral Recall is not a particularly strong play for Stax.  Similarly, if you are relying on Ancestral to draw certain cards, you're not only losing tempo but also taking a random chance and hoping to mise the right cards.
2) If you are in an unfavorable position, there's often only a few cards you could draw that will save you at that point.  If your opponent has 4 islands in play, is Smokestack really going to help you at that point?  Strip Mine is about it, but you need to already have Crucible, and need to get a turn or two to even get that rolling.

Forgot about this:

He had kept MisD in for game 2 and it was a dead card, as I did not draw ancestral.  He boarded it out game 3 and I did draw recall early, resolving it and winning shortly thereafter.   Not drawing it won me a game because he had a dead card in hand, and drawing it after he sided out the MisD won me the other.

Well, your opponent boarded incorrectly, so Ancestral Recall was really irrelevant.  I mean, if you lose b/c Ancestral is Misdirected in a postboard game because your opponent was a bad player and left them in, that's just really misfortune. Stax has one Misdirectable card in Ancestral Recall, so keeping in Misdirection is just bad play.  Now, he might have suspected you would bring in Swords to Plowshares, but where are his Christine Angels to guard against that?  In addition, when has Stax ever boarded multiple StPs to deal with Oath?  Bring in Ray or Revelation or Jester's Cap or any one of 15 other cards you might bring in against Oath and that Misdirection is going to look pretty silly.  I get upset when my opponent does something terrible and beats me because of it, but I don't give up on the play that backfired because my opponent was awful (when the play is good against a sound player).

[Cross]

I don't think this is a good idea at all. This is like playing fish without Black Lotus, once you have the two together they just make too much sense. Recall is too good not to play it mainboard.

[49 Cents]

I think you should ask yourself 2 questions: "How many games am I going to win because I resolved Recall" and "Howmany games am I going to lose because Ancestral got Misdirected / I had a Chalice for 1 in play".

I know I'm not cutting Recall from the maindeck of Staxx. It won me too many games..

[desolutionist]

I agree with JDizzle on ALL points.

Sorry, I didn't know anyone still ran ubastax with only one color...but clearly I was not talking about monored ubastax dude.  Dissynergy with chalice for 1 is certainly a valid point, but doesn't have to do with the protection that was referenced in the initial post.  Rather, the purpose of the post was to point out that there are control elements other than iteoc that can allow safe play of ancestral recall and also have synergy with the rest of the deck.

I don't understand this post at all.  Ubastax has Bazaar, it doesn't need Ancestral.

I believe the most important reason to not play ancestral would be the misdirection threat, swinging 6 cards away, the important difference being you drop your welder prior to the SoR, trinisphere, ubamask(turn 1), whereas you actually rather cast protection prior to the Ancestral Recall.

Ancestral draws three, not 6.  Your opponent is only netting (+2), which means that the worst case scenario of an Ancestral being Misdirected is the equivalent of two Bazaar activations.  Misdirection is not a good reason to not run Recall but Chalice is, a bad mana base is, and the fact that it isn't necessary is.

[Tin_Mox5831]

Darn you, Mr. Feinstein! I was just thinking about making a thread on this same topic. I played Stax last Sunday at the Soldiery without Ancestral Recall in the deck. (I did, however, play a pair of Dark Confidants. You know, because extra cards for Stax = Problems for other players.)

Between my Bazaar Of Baghdad and my Dark Confidants, I was actually compelled enough to cut Ancestral Recall entirely. I find myself playing Chalice Of The Void @ 1 so often, it's just an added irritant to rip Ancestral with it out. (Which I always seem to do!)

Excellent points overall, folks.

Peace,
Dave

[Purple Hat]

Feinstein - it would be really funny to no longer board Ancestral, that way people might leave their MisDs in for you because you made this thread!  Haha!

OH the mind games!!!! the game within the game within the game.  I'm not sure I can keep up with all this. 

Closer to the topic, I've been noticing the same problem with the dragon engine recently.  People play too many MisD's to allow me to use DA to refill my hand after using bazaar.  The high number of misdirections being used these days forces us to make some non traditional card drawing choices.

I believe the most important reason to not play ancestral would be the misdirection threat, swinging 6 cards away, the important difference being you drop your welder prior to the SoR, trinisphere, ubamask(turn 1), whereas you actually rather cast protection prior to the Ancestral Recall.

Ancestral draws three, not 6.  Your opponent is only netting (+2), which means that the worst case scenario of an Ancestral being Misdirected is the equivalent of two Bazaar activations.  Misdirection is not a good reason to not run Recall but Chalice is, a bad mana base is, and the fact that it isn't necessary is.

clearly the poster meant something similar to what a sports announcer means when he says an interception in the endzone returned for a touchdown is a 14 point swing.  it's from the perspective of planning and what you thought was going to happen, not from the perspective of the actual math.  Obviously the team that got intercepted didnt' actually get 7 points taken away, the same way that the player casting ancestral wasn't forced to discard 3.

[yespuhyren]

Sorry, I didn't know anyone still ran ubastax with only one color...but clearly I was not talking about monored ubastax dude. 

I'm, I think most people still do dude...I don't know why you think otherwise lol.  Unless its cause that one guy T8'ed you think eveyrone is gonna change their decks...though Vroman T4'ing at worlds with Mono R must mean something to you...and Evenpence consistantly playing mono red at SCG   :lol:

[Wudil]

It's all about cycling.

It reminds me when GaT was DA beast to beat and MisD were everywhere killing Suicide and its low pretentions and forcing in the meantime Keeper not to run Mind Twist and other stuff like this, then all MisD left the metagame to come back latetly.

The difference here is that Stax has little to no protection...

I'm thinking the same way as 49 Cents and think it's too good not to run it.

I also should admit that I usually play CotV@2 more than at 1 (Having only 1 card at this cc and to prevent Mana Drain, Hurkyl's Recall, Oath and so on to be played and to prevent my oppenent to play his own Chalice @1) and in the worst scenario, Bazaar will let me recycle this dead Recall so it's not a problem (meeting a MisD while playing the Recall being so rare as JDizzle showed us...).

Wud'

[pyr0ma5ta]

On the other hand, Gifts will usually side out Misd against Stax.  I would keep it in for game 2, since it is very likely that the Misd slots will be occupied by Rebuild/Hurkyl's in game 2.

[Kirika]

I think Ancestral Recall is too good not to run.  So it might not be good to play against Gifts or Oath because they run Misdirections.  How much of the field is that?  Against every other deck that doesn't run Misdirection you draw 3.  Also they have to draw a Misdirection.  If you cast artifacts first maybe they will pitch mis-d to force or something.

[Purple Hat]

gifts and pitch long are a pretty big part of most metas and misd is showing up elsewhere too these days

[Komatteru]

gifts and pitch long are a pretty big part of most metas and misd is showing up elsewhere too these days

And this means precisely what?  We are all aware that Gifts and Pitch Long are popular decks, and that both decks play Misdirection.

[Moxlotus]

gifts and pitch long are a pretty big part of most metas and misd is showing up elsewhere too these days

And this means precisely what?  We are all aware that Gifts and Pitch Long are popular decks, and that both decks play Misdirection.

I assume this was in response to the "does MisD really show up that much???" post

[Purple Hat]

gifts and pitch long are a pretty big part of most metas and misd is showing up elsewhere too these days

And this means precisely what?  We are all aware that Gifts and Pitch Long are popular decks, and that both decks play Misdirection.

obviously not given that the post directly above mine says:

I think Ancestral Recall is too good not to run.  So it might not be good to play against Gifts or Oath because they run Misdirections.  How much of the field is that?  Against every other deck that doesn't run Misdirection you draw 3.  Also they have to draw a Misdirection.  If you cast artifacts first maybe they will pitch mis-d to force or something.

[madmanmike25]

Putting Ancestral Recall in the sideboard solely for the CHANCE that it might be Misdirected doenst make that much sense to me.  To me, its like saying you should side out your moxen because of Null Rod.  I would keep ancestral main since the only draw you have is a lone bazaar.  I understand your argument, but honestly its just too good of a spell to be in the side.  Worst case scenario:  dont cast it when playing against Misdirection decks if you are afraid.  Hell, you can even use it as bait if needed.  Best case scenario:  you get to use the most broken card draw in the game against ALL other matchups.

[President Skroob]

Putting Ancestral Recall in the sideboard solely for the CHANCE that it might be Misdirected doenst make that much sense to me.? To me, its like saying you should side out your moxen because of Null Rod.? I would keep ancestral main since the only draw you have is a lone bazaar.? I understand your argument, but honestly its just too good of a spell to be in the side.? Worst case scenario:? dont cast it when playing against Misdirection decks if you are afraid.? Hell, you can even use it as bait if needed.? Best case scenario:? you get to use the most broken card draw in the game against ALL other matchups.

There's a huge difference between getting your Moxen shut down by a Null Rod and having your Ancestral Recall get diverted by a Misdirection. Null Rod can be answered in a variety of ways (assuming you need to), and after that point your Moxen will be just as good as ever. Null Rod also does not boost your opponent's tempo; it is strictly a disruptive move. When the play is made to Misdirect Ancestral Recall, you either have an answer to it at that point (which Stax will most likely not) or you're boosting your opponent's game and netting only a loss to your own.

Null Rod shutting down your Moxen does not present nearly the kind of threat that casting Ancestral Recall on your opponent does.

[Komatteru]

Null Rod shutting down your Moxen does not present nearly the kind of threat that casting Ancestral Recall on your opponent does.

Actually, it does.  Your opponent has mana (not as affected by Null Rod), and you don't.  A proper amount of mana leads to a properly functioning deck, while enough does not.  Thus, your opponent is able to steal all sorts of tempo from you because his deck is working like it was made to do, while yours is not.  Each artifact source you draw while Null Rod is on the table puts your opponent up one card--its as if you didn't draw that card at all.  Two Moxes negated by Null Rod is equivalent in raw cards to Misdirecting an Ancestral Recall.  The third artifact source you draw nets your opponent more card advantage than that Ancestral.  Given that decks against which Null Rod is effective play 9-10 artifact sources of mana, drawing 3 of them is not an unlikely situation.

[President Skroob]

Null Rod shutting down your Moxen does not present nearly the kind of threat that casting Ancestral Recall on your opponent does.

Actually, it does.  Your opponent has mana (not as affected by Null Rod), and you don't.  A proper amount of mana leads to a properly functioning deck, while enough does not.  Thus, your opponent is able to steal all sorts of tempo from you because his deck is working like it was made to do, while yours is not.  Each artifact source you draw while Null Rod is on the table puts your opponent up one card--its as if you didn't draw that card at all.  Two Moxes negated by Null Rod is equivalent in raw cards to Misdirecting an Ancestral Recall.  The third artifact source you draw nets your opponent more card advantage than that Ancestral.  Given that decks against which Null Rod is effective play 9-10 artifact sources of mana, drawing 3 of them is not an unlikely situation.

I must admit that this is true.

I do think that you as the player have a much better chance of answering the Null Rod, whether by actually taking care of it or playing around it, than the Misdirected Ancestral Recall.

Consider the two following statements:

"I played Ancestral Recall and it got Misdirected. As is the norm after that event, I lost."
"My opponent played a Null Rod. As is the norm after that event, I lost."

I would say that the first is much more common. Perhaps the second is not heard quite so much because the danger compounds over turns rather than at the moment of the play, though, so perhaps I am shooting down my own argument...

[pyr0ma5ta]

I still don't understand why we are considering boarding out AR against Gifts.  As the Gifts player, I absolutely know that Misd is the worst card in my deck in game 2.  I'm not fighting any counter wars, so why keep it in?  It's the first card to get boarded into Hurkyl's and Chain of Vapors.  How is boarding out AR when he has no Misd's left in his deck any good?  I think it should only get better in game 2!

[Purple Hat]

I still don't understand why we are considering boarding out AR against Gifts.  As the Gifts player, I absolutely know that Misd is the worst card in my deck in game 2.  I'm not fighting any counter wars, so why keep it in?  It's the first card to get boarded into Hurkyl's and Chain of Vapors.  How is boarding out AR when he has no Misd's left in his deck any good?  I think it should only get better in game 2!

we're not talking about boarding it out.  we're talking about having it in the board game 1 and then boarding it IN vs everything instead of having it in the main and getting wrecked by misd vs half the field.

[wethepeople]

Well I am just going to point out the obvious and mention that neither Gifts, nor Pitch Long ALWAYS have Misd. Accordng to Smmenen's MDG thread in the Closed forum, Gifts only maindecks 3 Misd's. Now three decreases the odds even more of having to worry about the re-directing of your Ancestral towards them. So you are saying, since they MIGHT have Misdirection, you want to get rid of one of the most powerful cards in the game because there is a possibility that it will help them?

This argument seems stupid to me, because if you think about it, it is like saying you are going to take the creatures out of your aggro deck because UW Fish runs Swords to Plowshares. Now I am sure I will get flamed and a half for disagreeing with Dave Feinstein. But really, Ancestral is insane. I dont understand why you would ever want to decrease your chances of having it, even if it gets Misdirected every once and a while.

[dicemanx]

The argument becomes "less stupid" if you consider a case where you remove that lone creature knowing that the decks in the field pack lots of creature removal. That is a better analogy.

If the field has a large percentage of decks that run Misdirection, then I wouldn't hesitate to cut Recall in a deck like Stax and put it in the SB. I would rather not risk autolosing because I decide to risk it and cast Recall, even if that Recall wins me the odd game. Basically, if I reduce it to very simplistic scenarios, even if a card would produce 60% autowins versus 40% autolosses when cast, I would NOT play it.