So I have seen a ton of fatestitcher dredge lists recently running Ancestral recall along side Mox sap, lotus, and petal and part of me really believes this is just a way to show off and that recall is just win more. The mana producers I get because they can power stichers and allow you to hard cast leyline answers, but recall seems wasted.
I've been giving it thought for a while now, and while on its surface, a straight up draw 3 seems like it would be amazing in dredge, but when you compare it to other cards that could take that slot, it starts to seem like a bad choice.
It's specifically not great early on in the game unless you have a good hand which would have to include a bazaar, recall, mox/petal/lotus, and you would have to draw into 3 dredgers after the bazaar. I'm not a statistics guy but the odds of you drawing into that hand seem remote enough. If you get it later on in the game, then there is a strong possibility that it's already at the point of being a win more card.
Just off the top of my head, lets compare it to some other blue 1 mana cards:
Careful study - While careful study draws 1 less card, which conceivably worse, it lets you drop 2 dredgers back to the yard. This is rather important early on when you may not hit other dredgers with your dredges, but even then if one of your dredgers is a troll it lets you maximize the dredge your getting. It's not instant speed but at the same time I'm not sure that is relevant since you really do want to dredge on your turn to maximize what you get. I could also make the case that an opening hand with careful study, blue mana, and no bazaar is probably more keep able than one with recall.
Brainstorm - Draws the same amount of cards as recall, but has the "downside" of making you put 2 back. I contend that this downside is almost a benefit more so than a determent. What brainstorm lets you do is put back Narcomoeba that wind up in your hand so that you can get benefit from them as opposed to them being dead. You can also toss back dredgers that will just get dredged next turn. Brainstorm in rare cases can also conceivably save cards from targets discard, though I doubt that will happen enough to merit it as part of the cards pros.
Breakthrough - Gives you more draw triggers than recall for 1 mana. Has the "downside" of you having to pitch cards from hand, but once again in dredge that can be a complete asset. Also the added benefit of the card being scaleable to keep things you may need and you can dodge misstep with x=1+
Gitaxian Probe - Yes it only draws you 1 and thus only gives you one trigger, but it is a great tool to have with Cabal therapy so you dont have to guess blindly. Also can be played for FREE, which is a big deal. First turn hand with a bazaar and a probe can get out of hand really fast and will happen more often than you drawing 1 of 3 non land blue sources. A deck running 4 probes can go REALLY fast, maybe even faster than fatestitcher, and be safer doing it by knowing his opponents hand.
So what do folks think? Is ancestral really worth it in dredge at all?
While that is pretty much the default answer I have been getting, the difference is that in any normal deck, you want to draw your wincons and interactions to your hand. In dredge you want them in your discard since thats where your casting them from. Your dredge cards do nothing in your hand. Ancestral does not put them there like other cards. As with most cards, the way dredge plays is so very different than most decks that it changes the very nature of a great many cards.
You are also not drawing into the same cards as any other vintage deck running blue. You don't have gushes or force or tinker packages or tutors. Your not really running blue at all, your running rainbow most of the time.
I think i would even go as far as making the argument for Timewalk over ancestral if i had to pick between the 2, a card I have not seen anyone run in dredge. Timewalk does the following:
Gives you an additional attack phase to get there with ghasts and ichords if you need to.
Gives you an additional draw step (to dredge with)
I don't think you understand. Let's say the enemy has some combination of whatever 1 or 2 hate pieces. At that point, you need all the help you can get.
Game 1, you can with with one of anything in your deck, so whether it is right to have A Recall in there is completely irrelevant.
In games 2 and 3, A Recall will be much better than Time Walk because it can help you out of bad positions. Time Walk, while giving you another draw step and possibly Bazaar activation, does nothing when you are behind in the game, essentially. A Recall does a much better job of refilling your hand when you are down cards in a Blue match up. It can also help to dig for answers to hate or a Blightsteel or similar opponent win condition.
In the end, if you are dredging, you are winning and both cards are largely irrelevant as they are win more. If you have a field of ghasts and ichorids, you are winning and both are win more. However, if you are behind to hate, only one of them is really good to help you back into the game and that is Recall.
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Game 1, you can with with one of anything in your deck, so whether it is right to have A Recall in there is completely irrelevant.
In games 2 and 3, A Recall will be much better than Time Walk because it can help you out of bad positions. Time Walk, while giving you another draw step and possibly Bazaar activation, does nothing when you are behind in the game, essentially. A Recall does a much better job of refilling your hand when you are down cards in a Blue match up. It can also help to dig for answers to hate or a Blightsteel or similar opponent win condition.
In the end, if you are dredging, you are winning and both cards are largely irrelevant as they are win more. If you have a field of ghasts and ichorids, you are winning and both are win more. However, if you are behind to hate, only one of them is really good to help you back into the game and that is Recall.
So if ancestral is mostly just to help you when your behind to find an answer to dredge hate (something like natures claim) and mostly just a win more card when your already winning, why not just use more hare answers as opposed to the recall.
Let's look at it this way, lets say your running 3 natures claims and 1 recall in the list. Then look at the following 3 situations and ask what would be better in the list, the current config or a 4th natures claim (or what have you)
Your already winning - Neither card is all that relevant. Both will probably just get dredged away and either in your hand may not be castable.
Your losing to hate - The recall will let you dig for one of your 3 natures claims. However if the recall was a 4th claim you would not need to dig. You will have a higher chance of getting a claim in your opener or mulligans or even draws with a 4th one in the list, and while recall can help you out getting to your hate answers, it may not help as much as the 4th claim. Having 4 also gives you a higher chance at having 2, which can be very important against someone playing with misstep and force.
Game is close - The card you need to draw is contextual to your match. If you need to dredge then recall is good, but only if you have already been dredging a fair amount. Its actually pretty corner case for recall to not be win more in this situation most of the time, and in this situation brainstorm can be better since it can let you put back narcomebias. Natures claim can be a dead card here, but it can also provide use against anything your opponent could do. Maybe it lets you force them to use their lotus so they cant stop your spells second main or something like that.
So I guess my point is since the card that can go in that slot is contextual to the situation your in at any given point, which will be a meta game consideration, why recall VS anything else. Recall does not have the versatility in dredge that it does in more standard lists, and there are specific stations, ones that dredge will often have to deal with like grave hate, where an answer in the opening hand is going to be far more valuable than a recall drawing one in the opening hand.
I'm not by any means saying that recall is not a correct choice, I'm just saying it seems like there are other valid options that weigh just as heavy as recall, meta contingent.
Whenever I cast an ancestral recall the opponent literally has to counter 99% of the time. Or I get to draw 3. I see zero reason to not run a. call in any deck that can produce U sans 5c stax. Sure there are other options but a. call is the best option by far and is quite helpful in games 2 and 3 at finding nature's claim or chain of vapor. Breakthrough is quite bad in postboard games; sure resolving one game one with a dredger in the yard is probably game but game one consists of you typically getting a bazaar of baghdad and tapping it until the opponent is dead.
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So if ancestral is mostly just to help you when your behind to find an answer to dredge hate (something like natures claim) and mostly just a win more card when your already winning, why not just use more hare answers as opposed to the recall.
Let's look at it this way, lets say your running 3 natures claims and 1 recall in the list. Then look at the following 3 situations and ask what would be better in the list, the current config or a 4th natures claim (or what have you)
Your already winning - Neither card is all that relevant. Both will probably just get dredged away and either in your hand may not be castable.
Your losing to hate - The recall will let you dig for one of your 3 natures claims. However if the recall was a 4th claim you would not need to dig. You will have a higher chance of getting a claim in your opener or mulligans or even draws with a 4th one in the list, and while recall can help you out getting to your hate answers, it may not help as much as the 4th claim. Having 4 also gives you a higher chance at having 2, which can be very important against someone playing with misstep and force.
Game is close - The card you need to draw is contextual to your match. If you need to dredge then recall is good, but only if you have already been dredging a fair amount. Its actually pretty corner case for recall to not be win more in this situation most of the time, and in this situation brainstorm can be better since it can let you put back narcomebias. Natures claim can be a dead card here, but it can also provide use against anything your opponent could do. Maybe it lets you force them to use their lotus so they cant stop your spells second main or something like that.
So I guess my point is since the card that can go in that slot is contextual to the situation your in at any given point, which will be a meta game consideration, why recall VS anything else. Recall does not have the versatility in dredge that it does in more standard lists, and there are specific stations, ones that dredge will often have to deal with like grave hate, where an answer in the opening hand is going to be far more valuable than a recall drawing one in the opening hand.
I'm not by any means saying that recall is not a correct choice, I'm just saying it seems like there are other valid options that weigh just as heavy as recall, meta contingent.
who says you can't just run it in addition to the fourth Nature's Claim?
To say that Recall is worse in places than a 4th Nature's Claim is incredibly narrow. What if you opponent has out multiple Yixlid Jailers? Or has resolved a Blightsteel? In this case, Recall is going to help you dig for Firestorm or Chain of Vapor where holding your hypothetical 4th Nature's Claim will do nothing.
To be honest, I would much rather run 3 Claims and a Recall then 4 Claims. If I am playing out my deck as a janky aggro deck (which can happen in games 2 and 3, I've beaten Dredge where it was forced to hard cast creatures and win by attacking with them) I would much rather see more fuel to my hand than an irrelevant Claim. It can net you the possibility of drawing more of what you might need and possibly of that in multiples.
There are certainly a myriad of ways in which we can craft a situation where Recall looks "bad" but in the end it allows you to draw 3 for 1 blue, which, outside of corner cases, is arguably the most broken thing you can do in Magic.
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No, Recall is straight savage. It extends your opening hand by another 3 cards. It's really good if you draw it off a Bazaar of Baghdad too.
Like: Bazaar > sapphire/lotus/petal/ > draw 2, discard 1-3 dredgers, cast recall, dredge/draw 3, if you hit a lotus or LED + a fatestitcher or 2 that's GG.
My turn 1 recall normally gets drained/FoWed. If you can make U mana, play recall, it's never dead. It may even win you the game if someone activates Oath and is low (< 2 cards).
There is only one time Ancestral Recall is not worth it or doesn't need to be in a deck. That time is when you are at three life and your opponent has underworld dreams out.
Edit: ok ok, maybe when you have two cards left in your library and it's in your hand.
yeah, Timetwister is strong but pretty niche. i'd only really consider it in a storm deck
Agreed. It's one of the few cards I really want to use, but unless I throw it in a casual deck for fun it's meh in my vintage decks because I don't run storm.
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I've been giving it thought for a while now, and while on its surface, a straight up draw 3 seems like it would be amazing in dredge, but when you compare it to other cards that could take that slot, it starts to seem like a bad choice.
It's specifically not great early on in the game unless you have a good hand which would have to include a bazaar, recall, mox/petal/lotus, and you would have to draw into 3 dredgers after the bazaar. I'm not a statistics guy but the odds of you drawing into that hand seem remote enough. If you get it later on in the game, then there is a strong possibility that it's already at the point of being a win more card.
Just off the top of my head, lets compare it to some other blue 1 mana cards:
Careful study - While careful study draws 1 less card, which conceivably worse, it lets you drop 2 dredgers back to the yard. This is rather important early on when you may not hit other dredgers with your dredges, but even then if one of your dredgers is a troll it lets you maximize the dredge your getting. It's not instant speed but at the same time I'm not sure that is relevant since you really do want to dredge on your turn to maximize what you get. I could also make the case that an opening hand with careful study, blue mana, and no bazaar is probably more keep able than one with recall.
Brainstorm - Draws the same amount of cards as recall, but has the "downside" of making you put 2 back. I contend that this downside is almost a benefit more so than a determent. What brainstorm lets you do is put back Narcomoeba that wind up in your hand so that you can get benefit from them as opposed to them being dead. You can also toss back dredgers that will just get dredged next turn. Brainstorm in rare cases can also conceivably save cards from targets discard, though I doubt that will happen enough to merit it as part of the cards pros.
Breakthrough - Gives you more draw triggers than recall for 1 mana. Has the "downside" of you having to pitch cards from hand, but once again in dredge that can be a complete asset. Also the added benefit of the card being scaleable to keep things you may need and you can dodge misstep with x=1+
Gitaxian Probe - Yes it only draws you 1 and thus only gives you one trigger, but it is a great tool to have with Cabal therapy so you dont have to guess blindly. Also can be played for FREE, which is a big deal. First turn hand with a bazaar and a probe can get out of hand really fast and will happen more often than you drawing 1 of 3 non land blue sources. A deck running 4 probes can go REALLY fast, maybe even faster than fatestitcher, and be safer doing it by knowing his opponents hand.
So what do folks think? Is ancestral really worth it in dredge at all?
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You really need to consider the more relevant games - 2 & 3.
You are also not drawing into the same cards as any other vintage deck running blue. You don't have gushes or force or tinker packages or tutors. Your not really running blue at all, your running rainbow most of the time.
I think i would even go as far as making the argument for Timewalk over ancestral if i had to pick between the 2, a card I have not seen anyone run in dredge. Timewalk does the following:
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In games 2 and 3, A Recall will be much better than Time Walk because it can help you out of bad positions. Time Walk, while giving you another draw step and possibly Bazaar activation, does nothing when you are behind in the game, essentially. A Recall does a much better job of refilling your hand when you are down cards in a Blue match up. It can also help to dig for answers to hate or a Blightsteel or similar opponent win condition.
In the end, if you are dredging, you are winning and both cards are largely irrelevant as they are win more. If you have a field of ghasts and ichorids, you are winning and both are win more. However, if you are behind to hate, only one of them is really good to help you back into the game and that is Recall.
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
So if ancestral is mostly just to help you when your behind to find an answer to dredge hate (something like natures claim) and mostly just a win more card when your already winning, why not just use more hare answers as opposed to the recall.
Let's look at it this way, lets say your running 3 natures claims and 1 recall in the list. Then look at the following 3 situations and ask what would be better in the list, the current config or a 4th natures claim (or what have you)
Your already winning - Neither card is all that relevant. Both will probably just get dredged away and either in your hand may not be castable.
Your losing to hate - The recall will let you dig for one of your 3 natures claims. However if the recall was a 4th claim you would not need to dig. You will have a higher chance of getting a claim in your opener or mulligans or even draws with a 4th one in the list, and while recall can help you out getting to your hate answers, it may not help as much as the 4th claim. Having 4 also gives you a higher chance at having 2, which can be very important against someone playing with misstep and force.
Game is close - The card you need to draw is contextual to your match. If you need to dredge then recall is good, but only if you have already been dredging a fair amount. Its actually pretty corner case for recall to not be win more in this situation most of the time, and in this situation brainstorm can be better since it can let you put back narcomebias. Natures claim can be a dead card here, but it can also provide use against anything your opponent could do. Maybe it lets you force them to use their lotus so they cant stop your spells second main or something like that.
So I guess my point is since the card that can go in that slot is contextual to the situation your in at any given point, which will be a meta game consideration, why recall VS anything else. Recall does not have the versatility in dredge that it does in more standard lists, and there are specific stations, ones that dredge will often have to deal with like grave hate, where an answer in the opening hand is going to be far more valuable than a recall drawing one in the opening hand.
I'm not by any means saying that recall is not a correct choice, I'm just saying it seems like there are other valid options that weigh just as heavy as recall, meta contingent.
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who says you can't just run it in addition to the fourth Nature's Claim?
To be honest, I would much rather run 3 Claims and a Recall then 4 Claims. If I am playing out my deck as a janky aggro deck (which can happen in games 2 and 3, I've beaten Dredge where it was forced to hard cast creatures and win by attacking with them) I would much rather see more fuel to my hand than an irrelevant Claim. It can net you the possibility of drawing more of what you might need and possibly of that in multiples.
There are certainly a myriad of ways in which we can craft a situation where Recall looks "bad" but in the end it allows you to draw 3 for 1 blue, which, outside of corner cases, is arguably the most broken thing you can do in Magic.
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Like: Bazaar > sapphire/lotus/petal/ > draw 2, discard 1-3 dredgers, cast recall, dredge/draw 3, if you hit a lotus or LED + a fatestitcher or 2 that's GG.
My turn 1 recall normally gets drained/FoWed. If you can make U mana, play recall, it's never dead. It may even win you the game if someone activates Oath and is low (< 2 cards).
Thank you mchief111, great sig
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Wip
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Edit: ok ok, maybe when you have two cards left in your library and it's in your hand.
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Yeah, IMO Timetwister is the only piece of power that should be questioned in a deck.
Thank you mchief111, great sig
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yeah, Timetwister is strong but pretty niche. i'd only really consider it in a storm deck
My Deck Index
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:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg: Last Stand
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Vintage
:symu::symb::symg: Demon Oath
MUD
:symu::symr: Landstill