Somber Meditation

[Bezelfor]

Somber Meditation
WWX
Instant
Suspend - X
Target player gains 4 times X life.
You gain 2 life.
Draw a card.
Ignore all distractions, focus the body.


I think this card is a good way to combat aggresive decks and tip the hat to a type of card that typically finds itself weak in constructed: lifegain.  This is mostly due to that fact that it replaces itself and can be cast at instant speed reducing the suspend drawback.  A cast of WW1 at the oppoents EOT nets you a near immidiate six life and a card.

edit:
So to clarify, the card should have no cost with a suspend alternate cost of WWX (sorry still new to this). So I think the card should read:

Somber Meditation
Instant
Suspend X -- WWX
Target player gains 4 times X life.
You gain 2 life.
Draw a card.
Ignore all distractions, focus the body.

[andrewpate]

Renewed Faith saw play, and it gained 6 life for 3 or 2 life and a card for 2.  This packs a bit more punch but lacks the flexibility.  Also, its not-quite-instant nature keeps you from doing it in response to lethal damage, one way in which Renewed Faith was sometimes used.  Also key is that, while you can gain silly amounts of life with large amounts of mana, spending 8 mana to gain 32 life isn't really that great, since it'd be 8 turns before it payed off.  I'd say this card is fine.

[Bezelfor]

As a potential way to strengthen the card, it could be given a hard casting cost of U.  This would add some flavor and flexability and allow it to play smoother in drafts or other limited formats.  Under this secanario the X would obviously have to be zero thereby turning the blue hardcast into a cycled renewed faith (sort of) and could then be used as a fast effect to avoid lethal damage.  The flavor of the card can easly dip into blue for this.  I am not sure if the card should take on this additional complication however a cross color suspend could be interesting.

[Anusien]

Bezelfor, while you're right that cards with off-color suspend costs are interesting, this is not the card to do it for.  You're turning it into something it was never meant to do and it dramatically over-complicates an already very busy card.

Anyway, this doesn't actually work.  Since time counters come off each upkeep, there's no simple way to denote what X is supposed to be without grievious memory issues.  Wizards tries to avoid requiring memory from turn to turn.  Yes, things like Shapeshifters and Body Double do this, but they're active.  You're constantly remembering and making decisions based on what they are.  Here, a card sits around for some arbitrary number of turn where the X value is insignificant, and then BOOM!... how many counters did it originally have?

If you want to do this, you'd be better off making it like the verse counter enchantments from Urza block, like Serra's Hymn.

Also, the name doesn't fit the flavor of the card at all.  It's a very blue, Meditate type name for a healing White spell.

[OfficeShredder]

I think it's pretty weak, since you really can't reliably cast X for more than one or two without hating yourself when you get charred to death the  turn before this comes out.  If you gained two life as you suspended the card, it would definitely look a lot better, since you know that you at least got your two life out of it to help you out a little in the interimn

[Anusien]

I don't think that's a problem, considering Wizards was willing to print this card:

Heroes Remembered {6WWW} |Sorcery| You gain 20 life. / Suspend 10--W (Rather than play this card from your hand, you may pay W and remove it from the game with ten time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, play it without paying its mana cost.)

Also, why the extra "Gain 2 life"?  Makes it look less clean.

[OfficeShredder]

To make it basically a better renew faith.  But the extra wait time kind of blows