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

[TheBrassMan]

I've been skimming TMD, and I think I may have found some tech from the unlikeliness of places ... The Bazaar Forum.

Sam Berse and others have said Recall is very good

It makes sense that recall is good

Sam Berse and others have said Recall is very good.

Woah

Now these are some smart guys who know their Dredge.  And it makes sense that Dredge would run some unconventional cards - it's a fundamentally unique deck, that breaks a lot of the rules of magic.  In Dredge, the ability to dredge 3 extra cards for one mana is a big advantage.

But then I got to thinking...

What if I tried running Ancestral Recall in other decks??

Now bear with me ...

Consider Tezzeret.  Traditionally you want to cram your Tezzeret list with high power-level cards.  You would imagine there would be no room for something like Ancestral Recall when you're playing Time Vaults and Yawgmoth's Wills.  But get this.  If I draw and cast Ancestral Recall, I'll draw three more cards.  There's a good chance that at least two of those cards will be relevant.  Instead of getting ONE broken play on my turn... all of a sudden I have TWO!  All for just one blue mana!

If you're really lucky, you could even get THREE broken plays off it.  And consider that Yawgmoth's Will.  If you draw Ancestral Recall and then Yawgmoth's Will, you can get three MORE cards.

I know general logic is to to not play cards that dont affect the game.  But I think with Ancestral Recall, a lot of the time you could actually end up with MORE cards that affect the game than you would without it.

Maybe someone good with probabilities can work this out.  But I think that even though you lose one card by drawing the Ancestral Recall, I think that if you run enough other good cards in your deck, you might actually net more cards the majority of the time.  It might not be worth the sacrifice, but I think it could be really strong.

Am I crazy?

[AmbivalentDuck]

I dunno, if it gets popular, people might start running Misdirection.  Just think how bad that would be.  I wouldn't even test it outside of mana Ichorid.

[The Atog Lord]

This seems questionable. Kowal told me that Ancestral Recall doesn't belong in Vintage Madness.

[GrandpaBelcher]

I'm afraid that if I draw three cards, at least one of them will be a Serum Powder.

[Delha]

It pitches to Force, must be good.

[honestabe]

Well, the closest thing ancestral does to actually winning the game is mill your opponent 3, which is depleting 1/20 of thier cards.  However, lighting bolt deals 3 damage, which depleats roughly 1/7 of thier life.  By this logic, lightining bolt is approximatly 3x more efficient than ancestral.

STICK WITH LEGACY BRASSMAN

[Bibendum]

I think you guys are believing the hype too much. I'll stick to howling mine as my draw since it sticks around turn after turn AND takes cards off your opponents library

[metalhead666]

Well, the closest thing ancestral does to actually winning the game is mill your opponent 3, which is depleting 1/20 of thier cards.  However, lighting bolt deals 3 damage, which depleats roughly 1/7 of thier life.  By this logic, lightining bolt is approximatly 3x more efficient than ancestral.

STICK WITH LEGACY BRASSMAN

can I use ancestral to draw 3 lightning bolts?  would that even be good?

[The Atog Lord]

Well, the closest thing ancestral does to actually winning the game is mill your opponent 3, which is depleting 1/20 of thier cards.  However, lighting bolt deals 3 damage, which depleats roughly 1/7 of thier life.  By this logic, lightining bolt is approximatly 3x more efficient than ancestral.

STICK WITH LEGACY BRASSMAN

can I use ancestral to draw 3 lightning bolts?  would that even be good?

Not as good as Searing Wind.

[SiegeX]

I hope this card becomes popular because my Underworld Dreams deck will steam roll this card.

[Evenpence]

When I first saw this post, I shrugged it off and just thought it was Brass Man being silly.  

       In fact, I thought he be trollin'...

...But then I thought, what if Ancestral Recall really IS good?

Draw three cards for one mana?  I mean, sure it's not going to draw you eighteen cards like Braingeyser will, but it's pretty good.

Moreover, everyone wants to start talking about Force of Will and how it is a good counterspell.  Are you guys kidding me?  Ancestral Recall can force the opponent to draw three cards.  IT CAN FORCE HIS WILL TO DO IT.  It has Force of Will built right into the card.

And it's blue too, so that's a plus -- that means it pitches to Disrupting Shoal when you want to counter opposing Brainstorms.  You can also pitch it to Snapback to bounce creatures.

So I tested it, and it was horrible.

       First of all, Chalice @ 1 is a pretty common play from Stax.  So right there, Ancestral gets shut down pretty hard.  And on top of that, Chalice @ 2 is a pretty common play too, so that Disrupting Shoal and Snapback you were sandbagging?  Yeah, not so good anymore.

...

Good Not even that good on paper, terrible in practice.

Edit:  Grade:  D+.  Card is totally "win more."

[Troy_Costisick]

He's got this all wrong.  They were talking about Recall, not that crappy instant from Alpha, Ancestral Recall.  I mean, Ancestral doesn't even affect the board state!

C'mon guys, 4 Real...

[Tha Gunslinga]

This card seems awful.  First, it's blue, which means it's affected by the popular color-hosers Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast.  Second, it costs 1 mana, which seems good until you realize it's shut down by Chalice of the Void at 1, and that against a Shop deck you might never get enough mana together due to Sphere effects.  Third, it draws random cards.  In Vintage you don't want to be drawing random cards.  You want specific good cards.  That's why people play tutors, to get specific cards.  If you're looking for a specific card, you want to be able to find it.  You don't want a 3-in-50+ chance of finding that card.  Finally, this card doesn't put you any closer to winning.  Tinker will put you a few turns away from winning.  Time Walk puts you a turn closer to winning.  Demonic Tutor gets you the card you need to win.  Ancestral Recall does nothing except draw 3 random cards, and I don't know about you, but I don't have enough good cards in my deck that drawing 3 random ones is going to win the game for me.

[Rico Suave]

How good can this card possibly be if nobody plays more than 1 copy of it anyway? 

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Why is this even a topic? This card is utter shit right off the bat for being blue. Why ruin your goblin deck by splashing another color wtf?

Second of all, as we all know Legacy Merfolk cleans the floor with the two Fish decks that made T2 in Vintage "Worlds". At first this seems like a decent card for Merfolk, until you remember that Ancestral Recall is banned in legacy.

Thus I rank this card on the same tier as Leyline of Anticipation, AKA "keep dreaming scrubby".

[Juggernaut GO]

obviously should have posted this on urzatron...

[BC]

I think this card is pretty good.  I was already thinking about splashing blue in my mono-green deck because I think Flight combos really well with Living Hive.  So now instead of my mana base being 18 Forests, I'm going to change it to 14 Forests, 3 Islands, and Ancestral Recall.  Recall is really almost better than a land because you have a chance to draw a land, and also maybe another creature you could play the next turn (or Flight!).  I'll do some testing and let you guys know.

[Shock Wave]

This is actually a really bad tempo card. If you draw this in your opening hand, sure, you can draw 3 cards, but then you will have to discard. I'm sure it has its uses early in some decks, but most of the time it is just going to be a big tempo black hole.

[TopSecret]

If you're really lucky, you could even get THREE broken plays off it.  And consider that Yawgmoth's Will.  If you draw Ancestral Recall and then Yawgmoth's Will, you can get three MORE cards.

If you're really lucky, you should already be winning. Also, if you are resolving Will, you should already be in a winning position. This seems like a "win more" card.

[SiegeX]

Why are we talking about this card in a Vintage Community Discussion forum? Mods, please move this thread to the Other Formats forum because this card is clearly not vintage worthy.

[serracollector]

Don't forget that black, which happens to have all those tutors and that yawgmoth's will also has duress, thoughseize, and other discard cards, that easily negate the three cards you would draw anyways.  I wouldn't even make them discard the Acall, its rubbish.  Let them draw and I will duress that instead.

Altho, if you already have 4 cards in hand, and an Ivory tower in play, then this is as good as a Healing Salve, at least that gives you some life, which is obv important in vintage.  But doubt it makes the cut over howling mine.  Its an artifact, artifacts are NEVER bad.

[Rico Suave]

Altho, if you already have 4 cards in hand, and an Ivory tower in play, then this is as good as a Healing Salve, at least that gives you some life, which is obv important in vintage.  But doubt it makes the cut over howling mine.  Its an artifact, artifacts are NEVER bad.

Well of course Ancestral Recall is good with Ivory Tower.  Ivory Tower is so good that it was once restricted, and by default it can pair with almost any card and make for a nasty combination. 

[CorwinB]

How good can this card possibly be if nobody plays more than 1 copy of it anyway? 

I think that's smart metagaming against all the Runeflare Trap/Black Vise decks, actually.

[Marske]

Obviously this card is utter crap, How can splashing U make decks better? why would I want to splash U and not be able to cast Crusades in my Kithkin deck? Even IF I resolve it and draw into more Kithkin, how am I ever going to cast all of those cards! I mean, It's not like we have cards that say 0: Tap add <color> to your mana pool, or even better cards that say: 0: add 3 mana of any color to your pool (which makes casting Kithkin way more easier!! Wouldn't it be awesome if these cards where real?!?)

You'll be likely to discard all the cards you've drawn with this spell without ever being able to use them, which is a waste....

Bargain bulk 0.02 cent crap rare (at least I think it's a rare)... might be good in EDH though...

[Tobi]

Drawing 3 random cards has no effect on the game. Why should anyone want to play this card?
Heck, I'd prefer Dwarven Pony all the time! At least it swings.

[Marske]

@Tobi,
Dwarven Pony ?! Psh, C'mon why play 1 mana cost spells at all!! We all know that real Vintage starts at 2-3 mana.. for 2 mana you get Grizzly bears and at 3 mana you get Noble Panther.... (or megrim!!) Soooo goood !!

[Tobi]

@Tobi,
Dwarven Pony ?! Psh, C'mon why play 1 mana cost spells at all!! We all know that real Vintage starts at 2-3 mana.. for 2 mana you get Grizzly bears and at 3 mana you get Noble Panther.... (or megrim!!) Soooo goood !!

This was an ironic comment obv. I just wanted to illustrate on how bad Ancestral Recall is.
At least Dwarven Pony has a useful ability, and a great artwork btw.

[CorwinB]

@Tobi,
Dwarven Pony ?! Psh, C'mon why play 1 mana cost spells at all!! We all know that real Vintage starts at 2-3 mana.. for 2 mana you get Grizzly bears and at 3 mana you get Noble Panther.... (or megrim!!) Soooo goood !!

Eh. Megrim has good synergy with Ancestral Recall, though : if you target your opponent with Ancestral Recall when he has his hand full, he must discard, which means free Megrim hits. Can't see another use for this waste of cardboard.

[Bill Copes]

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.

[Marske]

@AbdullahTheButcher,
Since your article came out on Star City games and Not the obviously supreme Dojo nobody obviously reads it... also it didn't contain any graphs (the obvious criteria for articles regarding Vintage to be relevant)