So upon discussion from another thread, my curiosity was sparked to see whether or not others in the EDH community would consider the cards Ancestral Recall and Time Walk auto includes in every deck running blue under the hypothetical scenario that they were legal and anyone could easily afford them. I have heard some (if not many) people in the past and present say that they are auto includes and every blue deck would need them. I've also heard the opposite. This thread is to discuss what you think on the subject. Would you play them in every blue deck? What decks among your current Commanders would you play them in? What cards would you cut? Would the cuts be easy swap-outs, or require time and contemplation?
Edit: Please refrain from using price as a factor in this scenario. This discussion should be more based on the playability of these cards rather than how hard they are to get.
Can’t argue with DirkGently when he says they are universally useful. However, the cards are so scarce that it’s a moot question. They probably would not receive enough purchase demand to even blip their price. If no one in edh tries to buy them, value is not increased. Anyone who has that much money to say “oh, I gotta have these!” for edh can send that excess $$$ to me and save themselves all the angst that goes with protecting cards that expensive.
Can’t argue with DirkGently when he says they are universally useful. However, the cards are so scarce that it’s a moot question. They probably would not receive enough purchase demand to even blip their price. If no one in edh tries to buy them, value is not increased.
This. If I don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of affording them, why would I bother looking? As it is, even Ancestral Vision is more than I'd like to pay for a card, so these wouldn't even be on my radar.
Can’t argue with DirkGently when he says they are universally useful. However, the cards are so scarce that it’s a moot question. They probably would not receive enough purchase demand to even blip their price. If no one in edh tries to buy them, value is not increased.
I've updated the original post with the line "if they were legal and anyone could afford them." This thread is not to discuss the price of these cards, only their levels of playability in the eyes of the EDH community.
Can’t argue with DirkGently when he says they are universally useful. However, the cards are so scarce that it’s a moot question. They probably would not receive enough purchase demand to even blip their price. If no one in edh tries to buy them, value is not increased.
I've updated the original post with the line "if they were legal and anyone could afford them." This thread is not to discuss the price of these cards, only their levels of playability in the eyes of the EDH community.
All price and rarity aside, they're strong effects for VERY cheap, and they're super abusable. It's a no brainer.
Can’t argue with DirkGently when he says they are universally useful. However, the cards are so scarce that it’s a moot question. They probably would not receive enough purchase demand to even blip their price. If no one in edh tries to buy them, value is not increased.
I've updated the original post with the line "if they were legal and anyone could afford them." This thread is not to discuss the price of these cards, only their levels of playability in the eyes of the EDH community.
Shoot, if we’re divorcing reality here then yeah they are easy swaps and universally useful. They are power 9 because their cmc is so stupidly low compared to modern costing. Why wouldn’t I play them (since price is no consideration).
Can’t argue with DirkGently when he says they are universally useful. However, the cards are so scarce that it’s a moot question. They probably would not receive enough purchase demand to even blip their price. If no one in edh tries to buy them, value is not increased.
I've updated the original post with the line "if they were legal and anyone could afford them." This thread is not to discuss the price of these cards, only their levels of playability in the eyes of the EDH community.
All price and rarity aside, they're strong effects for VERY cheap, and they're super abusable. It's a no brainer.
Would you put them in all of your blue decks? What cards would you cut?
They both represent effects that are universally useful at an obscenely low CMC, you would have to set out with a deliberate goal to brew a blue EDH deck where these two are NOT easily worth the two slots that whatever else might occupy.
Can’t argue with DirkGently when he says they are universally useful. However, the cards are so scarce that it’s a moot question. They probably would not receive enough purchase demand to even blip their price. If no one in edh tries to buy them, value is not increased.
I've updated the original post with the line "if they were legal and anyone could afford them." This thread is not to discuss the price of these cards, only their levels of playability in the eyes of the EDH community.
All price and rarity aside, they're strong effects for VERY cheap, and they're super abusable. It's a no brainer.
Would you put them in all of your blue decks? What cards would you cut?
I would go as far as saying that not only would I play them in every blue deck I played, but I would have a hard time playing non-blue decks at that point. The presence of those two cards would be format warping in the worst way.
I would warp my blue deck's gameplans to include those cards. Ancestral Recall is a no-brainer in my Niv deck(as is Time Walk), but I would take out theft effects from Merieke or zombies in Thrax, just to have those effects. 1U for an extra turn? I dare you to say no. U for draw three(AT INSTANT SPEED) with no balance, like Brainstorm? Um, again...YES!
There's just no reason not to run them unless you want to gimp yourself...hypothetically speaking.
I would play them in every blue deck. In some decks that have similar effects (like Brainstorm), it becomes an easy swap out. In other decks that do not have "equivalent" cards, it is just a matter of cutting any card. Really... I think no matter what you take out it is still probably a good swap.
In a willy-nilly universe where these were affordable and legal in EDH, sure. I'd cram them into every blue+ deck I had. I'd then take a hard look at any non-blue decks I had and wonder if they were worth the trouble of keeping up in this island-fueled dystopia.
As for the "difficulty" of making cuts, I'm sure that, if I closed my eyes and selected any two non-land cards at random in a blue deck, Ancestral Recall and Time Walk would be a straight upgrade.
I wouldn't play them in every deck because that's boring. I don't play Sol Ring in every deck. But yeah, I'd slam them into my more competitive decks if I could somehow afford them (most likely via proxy).
Those two cards make it hard to justify playing non-blue decks. Time Walk is essentially a free card, and worst case its 2 mana to replace it self and give you your mana back. Ancestral Recall is so much better than any other cantrips, it would be worth tutoring regularly. It instantly negates any card disadvantage you would have accrued over the game, and allows you to be much more reckless with your gameplay. Its also an amazing topdeck. Can you imagine imprinting it on Isochron Scepter...
If I could afford them, then they would be the first two cards I add to every blue list, regardless of what the commander or overall strategy of the deck is.
I can say that I would never play them in Commander if they were legal (and affordable) because I would stop playing Commander. Every single deck would play Blue which would make the format unfun. The format already leans too heavily towards Blue and/or Green as it is, but this would take it from leaning to outright falling over.
Those are the best cards, so every Spike would play them. Spike is Spike.
Obviously, allowing such cards is a horrible idea. Richard Garfield assumed these cards would be balanced by rarity. He also assumed Magic wasn't going to exist in five years. In EDH, this is only 2% of your deck, but it's enough to ruin everybody's fun.
In a willy-nilly universe where these were affordable and legal in EDH, sure. I'd cram them into every blue+ deck I had. I'd then take a hard look at any non-blue decks I had and wonder if they were worth the trouble of keeping up in this island-fueled dystopia.
As for the "difficulty" of making cuts, I'm sure that, if I closed my eyes and selected any two non-land cards at random in a blue deck, Ancestral Recall and Time Walk would be a straight upgrade.
IMO they are strong enough to just randomly pick any two cards including lands. Honestly if you open the game with a one land hand but have Ancestral Recall you are most likely to draw your land for the turn anyway.
Seeing as Brainstorm is nearly already an auto include in blue, taking away its drawback clause is absurd (even though that clause has its own uses).
As all the other posts indicate, there isn't much to debate given the OP parameters. If I was given one and only one copy to use that would be a bit more interesting discussion since i have 7 decks with blue. I would have to put Ancestral in my Jeleva cedh deck. Time walk would be a little more difficult. Jeleva, Ezuri Claw of progress, or animar...probably Jeleva again.
Yes, Recall and Walk go into virtually every blue deck. The more interesting question to me is how someone actually thought this would make for an interesting topic of discussion.
Ancestral Recall would be an autoinclude in all decks with a blue color identity. It's so much better than every other card drawing spell that it would be wrong to not play it; even some sort of theoretical creatureless blue deck (Animorphs, Momir Vig toolbox) is probably worse in some measurable way by not adding Recall. For my part, I'd probably replace Ponder/Brainstorm in most lists, unless that list was already running Jace's Ingenuity or Stroke of Genius or whatever - straight swap to a card drawing spell. As others have noted though, Recall is SO powerful you could cut a card at random and Recall would likely be an upgrade.
Time Walk is a card that is "just" an Explore early on, so it is theoretical to have a blue deck that doesn't really want it, because it isn't set to abuse it. It's stupid easy to abuse though, and even a "fair" use for it is fundamentally unfair given its cost. If Recall is on the snap autoinclude 10/10 level (like Sol Ring, or Cyclonic Rift), then let's call Time Walk a 9.5 out of 10 - it's going to be busted with minimal investment, and it would take a very bizarre and specific list for it to be wrong to include it as even in a non-optimized list it's going to be pretty excellent and will do no harm. For my part, I don't own a blue deck that doesn't have some sort of minimal abuse power with it (I.E., run Archaeomancer, Eternal Witness, creatures that like to attack, planeswalkers, upkeep triggers), so Time Walk would absolutely be the most powerful thing I could add into any of them. That above parenthetical indicates just how easy it is to clear a minimum threshold for abuse - you'd almost have to go out of your way to not have a deck that has at least one of those things in EDH.
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Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
In mtgo, we wouldn't even have to go into hypothetical beyond them getting unbanned. If they were unbanned tomorrow, mtgo would be flooded with blue decks running them within the hour. They aren't cheap, but they are certainly affordable there, enough that a large percentage of the user base that plays commander would be able to easily get them if they don't have them already. I would immediately update all my blue decks to include them, and possibly change over a few non blue decks that aren't particularly reliant on their commamder to include blue just for them. I have Timetwister in about half of my blue decksz and thats merely very good in this format, not great (I don't include it in decks where I am unlikely to empty my hand before my opponents, or where I am trying to utilize the graveyard).
I guess this conversation is needed every once in awhile to remind people why the 9, except Timewtwister, are banned. Their paper value combined with their inevitable ubiquity among those that could afford then would create a percieved barrier to entry for casual and a real barrier to entry for competitive. Online, commander would become singleton vintage. At least while Sol ring, mana crypt, and mana Vault are auto includes, they've actually been reprinted pretty recently (and in the case of Sol ring, ad nauseum), and they are, for lack of a better term, "commander cards", because this is the format where they shine. The are merely OK in vintage and completely overshadowed by the moxen, and barely make the cut. Vault is bad in any deck with black because its a dark ritual that makes colorless and can't be yawmoths willed. Of them all, only mana crypt is actively good in Vintage, being the colorless mox.
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Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
You're actually underselling it here. It's an explore that untaps your land and other mana sources. So worst case it effectively says "0: Draw a card. You may plan an additional land this turn". The first of those two effects alone, to all intents and purposes, lets you run a 99 card deck. Which is better than a 100 card deck. That's the non-abusive use of Time Walk - no matter what you're running, (unless you're doing something utterly insane like trying to adapt 1 land Belcher or manaless dredge for EDH) it makes your deck better.
Edit: Please refrain from using price as a factor in this scenario. This discussion should be more based on the playability of these cards rather than how hard they are to get.
This. If I don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of affording them, why would I bother looking? As it is, even Ancestral Vision is more than I'd like to pay for a card, so these wouldn't even be on my radar.
I've updated the original post with the line "if they were legal and anyone could afford them." This thread is not to discuss the price of these cards, only their levels of playability in the eyes of the EDH community.
All price and rarity aside, they're strong effects for VERY cheap, and they're super abusable. It's a no brainer.
Would you put them in all of your blue decks? What cards would you cut?
Most Used (of many dozens) EDH Decks:
Brago, King Eternal - Stax
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - Aggro Combo
Wort, the Raidmother - Spellslinger Swarm Control
Animar, Soul of Elements - Tempo Combo
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - Spellslinger
Exodia the Forbidden One:
Oona, Queen of the Fae - Combowins.dec
So if I had only one of each, Time Walk would either go in Zedruu, replacing Walk the Aeons, or Yidris replacing Temporal Extortion. Ancestral Recall would go in Dralnu replacing Recurring Insight, or Lazav replacing Opt.
If cost/rarity/legality was not a barrier, 100% of every blue deck I would ever build.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
There's just no reason not to run them unless you want to gimp yourself...hypothetically speaking.
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
As for the "difficulty" of making cuts, I'm sure that, if I closed my eyes and selected any two non-land cards at random in a blue deck, Ancestral Recall and Time Walk would be a straight upgrade.
Obviously, allowing such cards is a horrible idea. Richard Garfield assumed these cards would be balanced by rarity. He also assumed Magic wasn't going to exist in five years. In EDH, this is only 2% of your deck, but it's enough to ruin everybody's fun.
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IMO they are strong enough to just randomly pick any two cards including lands. Honestly if you open the game with a one land hand but have Ancestral Recall you are most likely to draw your land for the turn anyway.
Seeing as Brainstorm is nearly already an auto include in blue, taking away its drawback clause is absurd (even though that clause has its own uses).
As all the other posts indicate, there isn't much to debate given the OP parameters. If I was given one and only one copy to use that would be a bit more interesting discussion since i have 7 decks with blue. I would have to put Ancestral in my Jeleva cedh deck. Time walk would be a little more difficult. Jeleva, Ezuri Claw of progress, or animar...probably Jeleva again.
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Time Walk is a card that is "just" an Explore early on, so it is theoretical to have a blue deck that doesn't really want it, because it isn't set to abuse it. It's stupid easy to abuse though, and even a "fair" use for it is fundamentally unfair given its cost. If Recall is on the snap autoinclude 10/10 level (like Sol Ring, or Cyclonic Rift), then let's call Time Walk a 9.5 out of 10 - it's going to be busted with minimal investment, and it would take a very bizarre and specific list for it to be wrong to include it as even in a non-optimized list it's going to be pretty excellent and will do no harm. For my part, I don't own a blue deck that doesn't have some sort of minimal abuse power with it (I.E., run Archaeomancer, Eternal Witness, creatures that like to attack, planeswalkers, upkeep triggers), so Time Walk would absolutely be the most powerful thing I could add into any of them. That above parenthetical indicates just how easy it is to clear a minimum threshold for abuse - you'd almost have to go out of your way to not have a deck that has at least one of those things in EDH.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
I guess this conversation is needed every once in awhile to remind people why the 9, except Timewtwister, are banned. Their paper value combined with their inevitable ubiquity among those that could afford then would create a percieved barrier to entry for casual and a real barrier to entry for competitive. Online, commander would become singleton vintage. At least while Sol ring, mana crypt, and mana Vault are auto includes, they've actually been reprinted pretty recently (and in the case of Sol ring, ad nauseum), and they are, for lack of a better term, "commander cards", because this is the format where they shine. The are merely OK in vintage and completely overshadowed by the moxen, and barely make the cut. Vault is bad in any deck with black because its a dark ritual that makes colorless and can't be yawmoths willed. Of them all, only mana crypt is actively good in Vintage, being the colorless mox.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
You're actually underselling it here. It's an explore that untaps your land and other mana sources. So worst case it effectively says "0: Draw a card. You may plan an additional land this turn". The first of those two effects alone, to all intents and purposes, lets you run a 99 card deck. Which is better than a 100 card deck. That's the non-abusive use of Time Walk - no matter what you're running, (unless you're doing something utterly insane like trying to adapt 1 land Belcher or manaless dredge for EDH) it makes your deck better.