Cabal Drain

[EKM_Ichorid]

Cabal Drain BB
Sorcery
Name a nonland card. Target player reveals his or her hand and discards all card with that name. If a card is discarded, at the beginning of your next main phase, add X to your mana pool, where X is that card's converted mana cost.

[Anusien]

So it's Cabal Therapy + Drain Power?  I'm extremely skeptical, just because it can potentially be swings of +4 mana or more.

[EKM_Ichorid]

So it's Cabal Therapy + Drain Power?  I'm extremely skeptical, just because it can potentially be swings of +4 mana or more.

Well it can't be flashed back, and there's a chance you won't hit anything. BB is alot to pay to do nothing.

[jro]

Well it can't be flashed back, and there's a chance you won't hit anything. BB is alot to pay to do nothing.

There's generally not a lot of space in sets for cards that either do nothing or do something huge.  If you miss on a guess from this, you're way, way down on tempo (having wasted BB) and cards (having thrown away a card).  If you hit, you force a discard and get mana that you can use that same turn (by casting this spell first main phase).  It's really hard to use a spell with that kind of inconsistency.  Brain Pry used the "name a card" mechanic, but if you missed, you got to draw a card.  Cabal Therapy has a sort of assumption that you'll miss the first time, making it Coercion for "B, Sacrifice a creature".  (That you sometimes hit the first time is what makes Cabal Therapy the most expensive uncommon in Extended.)  I'd think this would be better using one of the other forms of discard (opponent's choice, random, your choice), adding the mana immediately to avoid memory issues (which are a huge problem when Mana Drain is played), and recosted appropriately.