Retract, is it broken?

[atog]

Looking over the darksteel spoiler i can across a card that caught my eye.

Retract U
Instant

Return all artifacts you control to their owner's hand.

The strange thing about this card is that not to long ago hurkyl's recall was restricted and now they print a card which in my eyes is superior to it. The card has plenty of synergy with storm and seems like a natural fit into storm combo decks. i came up with this (rough) decklist.

Land-12
4x city of brass
4x gemstone mine
3x glimmervoid
1x tolarian academy

artifacts-18
7 SoLoMoxen
1x mana vault
1x mana crypt
1x lotus petal
1x grim monolith
4x helm of awakening
1x memory jar
2x candelabra of tawnos

Search/Draw/Broken-22
1xdemonic tutor
1x vampiric tutor
1x mystical tutor
1x ancestral recall
3x impulse
1x frantic search
3x meditate
1x mind's desire
1x time spiral
1x timetwister
1x tinker
1x windfall
1x wheel of fortune
1x crop rotation
1x regrowth
3x retract

Disruption-4
4x force of will

kill-4
2x brain freeze
2x cunning wish

Sideboard
1x stroke of genius
1x brain freeze
1x capsize
2x red elemental blast
1x blue elemental blast ( pyro pillar)
1x disenchant
1x seal of cleansing
1x stifle
1x hurkyl's recall
2x abeyance
3x xantid swarm

Other possible MD cards
- fastbond
- future sight
- mind over matter
- abeyance

This list still needs some work but it has the skeleton of neo-academy with a more flexible kill and not as dependant as academy. I think the cunning wishes make it alot more flexible. Critisism is very much welcome.

[jazzykat]

I think this would fit better into a tendrils deck personally. Tendrils only takes 9 spells for a kill usually and will allow you to buy time by casting a smaller one to go up life.


I would just try to fit them into a tendrils build with tweaks.

[TheFram]

It fits tendrils, but the question that begs asking is: Isn't Hurlkyl's Recall's versatility be worth the additional mana?

-TheFram

[sWoRdFiSh`]

personally, my vote goes to hurlkyl's recall for the added versatility to defeat the ever present, combo deck hoser that goes by th ename of chalice of the void.

[EchoBoy]

Again, I also stand behind the fact that Hurkyl's Recall is just better. With all that moxen you're bound to have the extra colorless, and as stated before, it only takes 9 spells to win, instead of like 20.

[atog]

Actually, in this deck barely runs black and doesn't run rituals. Consider this, under helm, 1/4 of your spells are free, and brain freeze cost only U, with retract/recall i don't think it would be much harder to play 10 extra spells, especially when you add in mind's desire, meditate, memory jar etc. When i play rector-tendrils i find that i can ussually cast 20+ spells if i wanted to.

[Flurp™]

i play rector-tendrils i find that i can ussually cast 20+ spells if i wanted to.

But you want to have the ability to win without casting 20 spells.  For example a good tendrils player can with over a pyroclastic pillar, where that is much harder for the brainfreeze player to do.  Its much easier to play 10 spells with chalace or sphere of restince in play than 20, the point is that when you are going off undisrupted it dosent matter how you win, its the other times that count.  Tendrils is just a better win condition and is worth the BB casting cost.

[Necrologia]

Don't forget that some decks like Big O tend to pack a maindeck Gaea's Blessing as well, which kinda ruins the decking plan.

[Lashkar]

Doesn't the fact that you run 4 Helm of Awakening sort of annul the advantage that retract has over hurkyl's recall?

But for general utility, I will gladly pay the 1 extra for hurkyl's recall, in playing long.dec and similar decks. Null rods, spheres and chalices are really your biggest enemies (excluding arcane lab and sphere of law   ) and to some extent pyrostatic pillar. Might as well play chain of vapor over both as it can be used for the same purpose when going off (bouncing a few moxen or similar to generate mana and spellcount), oh well...