Rochester Draft Card

[zimagic]

The discussions on Morton's Fork and a couple of other ideas have me thinking about a "draft" style card. Rather than making pile splits as with Gifts & FoF, could the cards revealed be drafted:

Painful Seperation
Instant
Reveal the top 4 cards of your library. Choose one of those cards and put it into your hand. Target opponent then chooses one of the remaining cards and removes it from the game. Put one of the 2 remaining cards into your hand and remove the other from the game.

In a situation where you have all the mana sources you need you get the best and 3rd best card for your current board position. In a situation where you need a specific card, like a mana source or one of a specific colour, your first choice will require you to take that so that your opponent doesn't RFG it.

As to the card itself. I decided to keep FoF & Gifts mana cost & speed and have it top 4 cards rather than top 5 or 6. The reasoning is that revealing 6 is a lot for only   knowing that you will pick cards 1, 3 & 5, essentially netting you 3. But also because having 4 in your deck gives you the potential to see almost half your deck (4 Seperations + (4*6) revealed cards is 28 cards) At 5 cards revealed, picking first gives you 3 cards over 2 lost and essentially gives you the "better pile" of a FoF every time so I left it at 4 and it seems good but not broken.

Thoughts?

[RichardD]

It now looks like you "repeat this process", which includes revealing the 4 cards.
If this is not meant to be so, then I suggest to write out the process instead.

As far as I understand it would mean that the card would look like this:

Painful Seperation   
Instant
Reveal the top 4 cards of your library. Choose one of those cards and put it into your hand. Target opponent then chooses one of the remaining cards and removes it from the game. Put one of the 2 remaining cards into your hand and remove the other from the game.

[zimagic]

It now looks like you "repeat this process", which includes revealing the 4 cards.
If this is not meant to be so, then I suggest to write out the process instead.

As far as I understand it would mean that the card would look like this:

Painful Seperation   
Instant
Reveal the top 4 cards of your library. Choose one of those cards and put it into your hand. Target opponent then chooses one of the remaining cards and removes it from the game. Put one of the 2 remaining cards into your hand and remove the other from the game.

Indeed, I was so caught up in the choosing that I forgot it would repeat the reveal as well. I have used your wording for now. THanks

[jro]

The mechanic as written is more like a booster draft than a rochester draft, yes?  It's more powerful to get the 1st and 3rd "picks" rather than 1st and 4th, but it might read better.  Here's the "rochester" option:

Reveal the top 4 cards of your library. Choose one of those cards and put it into your hand. Target opponent then chooses two of the remaining cards and removes them from the game. Put the remaining card into your hand.

Would having the cards the opponent chooses go to the graveyard be too strong?

Also, great design.  3U instant draw spells can get pretty insane, but this seems to do a fine job of not being strictly better than Inspiration while still creating interesting gameplay.  In a way, it's kind of like Impulse with a cantrip stuck on.

[zimagic]

The mechanic as written is more like a booster draft than a rochester draft, yes?  It's more powerful to get the 1st and 3rd "picks" rather than 1st and 4th, but it might read better.  Here's the "rochester" option:

Reveal the top 4 cards of your library. Choose one of those cards and put it into your hand. Target opponent then chooses two of the remaining cards and removes them from the game. Put the remaining card into your hand.

Would having the cards the opponent chooses go to the graveyard be too strong?

Also, great design.  3U instant draw spells can get pretty insane, but this seems to do a fine job of not being strictly better than Inspiration while still creating interesting gameplay.  In a way, it's kind of like Impulse with a cantrip stuck on.

Thanks. The effect I'm going for is a back and forth choice rather than a split. I really want to keep the first pick for the casting player, after that I'm not stuck to you-me-you so allowing the opponent to have picks 2 & 3 is fine. That's weaker than the initial version so the RFG could be changed to graveyard.

Actually it could be quite good if you're trying to force a card to the graveyard or if it gives you benefits either way. The parallel here is FoF level rather than Gifts as you're revealing not tutoring. My RFG suggestion was really a power down so that card wouldn't be overly abusive but I can see 4 cards, graveyard, you get picks 1 & 4 working well.

Painful Seperation (a la jro)
Instant
Reveal the top 4 cards of your library. Choose one of those cards and put it into your hand. Target opponent then chooses two of the remaining cards and removes them from the game. Put the remaining card into your hand.

Here's the graveyard option with the 1st & 4th picks:

Painful Seperation (a la jro)
Instant
Reveal the top 4 cards of your library. Choose one of those cards and put it into your hand. Target opponent then chooses two of the remaining cards puts them into your graveyard. Put the remaining card into your hand.

Interesting that you mention Impulse too because yesterday evening in EDH I actually hit another Impulse where I wanted more than 1 card from the pile and putting the cards under your deck generally means you won't see them again for a while (if ever) just like the RFG scenario I suggested initially.  On the other hand, had I put any 2 of the remaining three cards into my graveyard and the last into my hand, with the recursion I had available to me on the table at the time, that would have been an extremely strong play however random it was with a reveal effect (i.e.: it could have been 4x lands)

[Anusien]

I really like this, but I'm pretty sure it should cost 1UU or even 2UU.  Fact or Fiction was too easily splashable, and they've since said the card was a mistake to print that way.  Also, Wizards would probably make this a Sorcery, but screw them.