I think I'm misusing the term "tempo" here, which happened in another thread similar to this one. Here's what I'm trying to suggest and doing a bad job explaining. If the average power level of the cards in your pool are such that drawing 3 cards is an extremely powerful effect, this is where TC is likely better than DTT. Here the extra card is better than getting 2 of the best cards in the top 7. This is not always going to be true, but it assumes that your power band between the best card in your deck and the worst card in your deck is relatively close.
Moreover, because the cards are lower power level overall, if you are behind on the board getting one specific card is unlikely to have enough of an effect to turn the tide. Sweepers are an example. In Peasant/Pauper, if you are hopelessly behind in board position, how many sweeper options are there? What are you digging for that is going to save you? Here, 3 cards versus 2 is likely more useful (assuming you can survive long enough to play them - and if not, it doesn't really matter anyway). If you are ahead, drawing 3 cards is still most likely better since you can't dig for the dagger that seals the game. What card could that possibly be when the best blue creature in the entire cube is
Riftwing Cloudskate?
Let's not get carried away here. Nothing can be easily proven or disproven in a game this complicated, or there wouldn't be discussions like this. Just want to point that out.
The more powerful your cube, the likely larger gap between the best card in your deck and the worst. So I think this is where DTT is simply the better card. Not sure the power max crowd on MTGS still agree with this, but they certainly did at one point.
I'm going to stop you right there. Pauper is not like most formats. It has shit mana fixing, retardedly bad finishers, non-existent mass removal. It's basically limited without the rare bombs (I personally don't see the appeal but to each their own). Applying that to a rare cube though is completely apples and oranges (whether you are down with pauper or not). Are you arguing that TC is capable of obsoleting entire archetypes in a rare cube? Because I have a hard time believing that. But I'm open to being convinced I have my head up my ass about what TC is capable of doing.
As much as I appreciate the back and forth, I feel like we are getting wildly off topic. The intricacies of pauper vs. rare formats seems like a deflection, as is assessing whether TC or DTT is stronger. You seem to be trying to draw some distinguishment between TC in pauper and TC in other formats, and I'm not really sure what that is?
If you want to see TC and DTT in action in vintage, you can watch VSL seasons and see the affect it has on games. TC was restricted before DTT in that format, which is factual, as it was identified as being the stronger card, though this is again off topic, as both cards being
ban worthy restricted in vintage again supports that they are busted in higher powered formats due to the power level of the hits you can make off of it. Either case suggests that both cards become more powerful in high power formats, not less. There was some argument right before DTT was restricted in vintage, that it was overshadowed by cruise, but due to the restricting, we still don't have the data to make a reasonable conclusion. As it was though, the consensus opinion seems to be that TC was the stronger card, an opinion largely driven by the potential impact of hitting
three ultra powerful cards off the top, any one of which might be capable of winning the game. TC gives you a critical mass of high power cards, and a good hit off of it has the potentially to easily win the game, something it does for less mana. On the other hand, DTT is probably more consistent.
And I feel like I'm explaining why ancestral recall is restricted
A lot of the stuff you are writing about pauper seems misinformed, or exaggerated, and I'm confused where some of these claims are coming from. The point is that even in low powered formats, the card was busted, for the same ultimate reason it was busted in modern, legacy, and vintage: it grants both tempo and card advantage at the same time. The power level of the cards involved has zero impact on the ability to be able to pull ahead on CA while simultaneously sequencing out spells, and TC was able to do this without any specialized support.
If you're wondering why TC was so strong in pauper, the answer is very simple: it gets you three cards at one mana. In lower power formats, where individual card power is less likely to meaningfully impact a game state (outside of certain decks like MBC or Tron),
you have to rely more on achieving a critical mass of effects. TC grants you
three cards which is insane in a format operating in that manner. In addition, pauper is a format that stresses efficiency, so being able to simultaneously gain a large number of cards, without giving up the ability to sequence spells is game breaking good.
You asked for an example of a common operating at a power level sufficient to single handedly turn around a game. Here is a picture of one:
Believe me, casting
ancestral recall in a format dominated by commons, is good.
In peasant you don't actually need to relay on critical mass of cards to turn a game around, since you can hit cards like skullclamp or mother of runes. In the Penny cube, there are a multitude of individual rares capable of turning a game around.
The concept of time, or tempo, is core to the game's mechanics. Tempo functions the same way across formats regardless of the power level of the format, just as card advantage does.
Its abnormally good to both be able to draw a large number of cards, and cast them in the same turn. Thats why the card is banned across every eternal format and restricted in vintage, regardless of power level.
Edit: updated banned/restricted list stuff for vintage, might have missed a few spots.
