Sacred Offerings

[Zelc]

Despite all of WotC's attempts at making White Weenie a viable deck, it still stinks.  This card is an attempt to help the sagging classic.

Sacred Offerings
2WW
Sorcery
Affinity for white creatures (This spell costs less to play for each white creature you control.)
Discard your hand.  Draw X cards and gain XX life, where X is the number of white creatures you control.
At the sun's last gasp, the broken and beaten army's commander offered the last of the supplies to the gods.  At the sun's new birth, the soldiers woke to discover themselves rejuvenated and with a new bounty of food and equipment.

[Matt]

That card is absolutely, incrediblely powerful. Far too good. This should be at least 3WW, possibly 4WW, and also lower the lifegain to X. Compare to Patriarch's Bidding, which - even at 3BB, and used in mostly nonblack decks - is still a format-defining card.

[Zelc]

While this card may at first seem really good, it really isn't that great for a few reasons.

1) This card leaves you open to mass removal.  In order to maximize the effectiveness of this spell, a player would have to play 2+ creatures.  As this spell would get played mostly on turn 3 in t2, it leaves the player open to the turn 4 Wrath of God (or turn 3 Pernicious Deed, turn 4 set it off in 1.x).  While the extra cards somewhat make up for the overextension, not all of the extra cards drawn will be useful.

2) Creature kill is played a great deal.  If your opponent can't pare down a white weenie horde, he'll probably lose anyway.

3) On turn 3, assuming a player played first, didn't mulligan, missed no land drops, and has 3 white creatures, this spell would result in only +1 card advantage (7 spells played, 9 cards drawn, and therefore, 2 cards discarded).  Later on, this spell would make an awful topdeck, as most of your weenie army should have died.

4) White weenie just stinks.  I think this card should be somewhat good to make up for the fact that in order to play it, one'd have to be running not so great weenies in a not so great color.

Therefore, it seems to only be insane in a stall situation where neither player can attack with an advantage.  That makes somewhat conditional (useful only in the early game, in stall situations, or if your opponent doesn't play creature kill), and maybe even a bit underpowered.  Suggestions?

[Frappie]

I disagree Matt,
On several levels this card seems better then bidding, however after taking a closer look, you see that the white creatures need to be in play. that means that your gonna need 7 white creatures in play to mimic wheel of fortune. As it is the life gain does very little to make the card powerful. Woudl be fun to play with mobilization though. The casting cost needs some work though. I think it would be more appropriate if it cast for 2WWW. The idea behind this is that it reduces the likely hood of dropping two guys first or second turn, only to discard rootwalla's and glory. Overall I think that the card is possible and would help in making WW a possible aggro build.

Frappie

[GerryMander]

this, Isocron Scepter, Raise the Alarm.

this isn't happening.

[Matt]

[card]Collective Unconscious[/card] was almost playable, and this is a LOT better - it gains you lots of life and costs about a third as much, which is about six times as powerful.

[Zelc]

this, Isocron Scepter, Raise the Alarm.
this isn't happening.

If your opponent cannot stop an Isochron Sceptered Raise the Alarm, he's going to lose anyway.  In any case, that probably won't happen until turn 3, and will draw you at most 3 cards while discarding a few.

Collective Unconscious was almost playable, and this is a LOT better - it gains you lots of life and costs about a third as much, which is about six times as powerful.

Collective Unconcious was in Mercadian Masques, when Fires and such were around.  In Fires, one played with green fatties, and no one was going to get a turn 3/4 kill on you.  This card pretty much forces you to play 1/1s and 2/2s as your only threats with little acceleration, and the current environment is most certainly faster.  Heck, people played with Power Sink and Lin Sivvi back in those days; I don't see them played at all now.

The biggest plus for this card is that it almost cancels out mass destruction, making playing a great deal of small creatures not suicide.  Since White Weenie almost has to do that to win, I think this card is a pretty good way to curb that handicap.  Chances are, under normal circumstances, this card will draw at most 4 cards and gain 8 life.

[Necrologia]

Heck, people played with Power Sink and Lin Sivvi back in those days; I don't see them played at all now.

As tends to happen when cards rotate out of a format.  

Seriously though, I think this card would probably have the opposite effect you're looking for. This combos with Decree of Justice so well, isn't it more likely that it'll just make control even stronger and leave WW in the dust yet again?

If you word it as non-token creatures it might help, and it'll prevent any Raise the Alarm/Isochron abuse as well.

[brendan]

This doesn't seem that strong to me.

That statement about control using it is just wrong. Control would never use such a conditional card drawer.

If you're worried about isochron scepter/raise the alarm abuse, you should be more worried about why you've let the scepter run so out of control anyway. If you've let it be activated a few times then you're probably stuffed anyway.

This is a card that promotes white weenie to overextend, something that you don't want to do since you'll just eat a starstorm or a couple of fires or something in response to your sacred offerings, leaving you with an empty board and an empty hand.

It could probably be upped to 4WW, but it doesn't need to be higher than that. At 4WW, you need to get 3 creatures in play to make the card better than inspiration, and 3 creatures in play (barring raise the alarm) is an overextension. You risk being thrashed by balance/whatever, but if the risk pays off you get a decent card drawer.

[Frappie]

i agree with brendan on this one. upping the cc to 4WW would make the card more balanced. would be cool to use that bad rare in 8th to make all critters white then use like earthcraft/squirrelnest and go for the nuts.

Frappie (who should be hung for the bad pun)

[Zelc]

Heck, people played with Power Sink and Lin Sivvi back in those days; I don't see them played at all now.

As tends to happen when cards rotate out of a format.  

Seriously though, I think this card would probably have the opposite effect you're looking for. This combos with Decree of Justice so well, isn't it more likely that it'll just make control even stronger and leave WW in the dust yet again?

If you word it as non-token creatures it might help, and it'll prevent any Raise the Alarm/Isochron abuse as well.

Lin Sivvi's still in 1.x.  Besides, there's also Blastoderm, Fires of Yavimaya, Pandeburst, etc.  Finally, there's also the Onslaught fatties.  There are many examples of cards used in one format that completely stink now.  Besides, Collective Unconcious also rotated out, so that's a null argument.

I want this spell to be playable before the mass destruction hits, meaning turn 3 (Starstorm for 2, Wrath of God, Infest, Flamebreak, etc).  If I cost it 4WW, one would have to play three 1cc creatures by turn 2 to get it off turn 3.  If I cost it 3WW, one could play 2 1cc creatures and a 2cc creature and still get it off turn 3.  That would only force WW to play 1cc creatures, making it weaker, as 2cc creatures > 1cc creatures.  Besides, a WW draw two gain four life spell isn't that strong with Skullclamp, Thoughtcast, and Thirst for Knowledge in the format, and if one looks at 1.x, there's AKs, Brainstorms, and Deep Analysis.