1. I still think the card is too busy, even if you weaken any of the abilities. It still is an artifact that provides three ways to draw cards. The first ability alone makes this an incredible Madness enabler. With a lot of Madness decks packing Wonder, Genesis, sometimes Anger, and Roar of the Wurm, even the second ability has the potential to be stupid with Madness.
2. If I can direct your attention for a moment to
Phil and Anthony's article at SCG, I would like to point out the section that cautions against overly synergistic mechanics. That alone cautions me that putting two abilities on a single artifacts that further enable a pair of overly synergistic abilities (namely Madness and Flashback) is a bad idea.
3. Experience shows that artifacts are not supposed to be particularly good at drawing cards. Typically, they're mediocre at best, even in a deck designed to abuse them (see: Serum Tank). On the contrary, this artifact seems very good at drawing cards.
4. Arc-Slogger has demonstrated that milling oneself for ten cards is a small price to pay for a small, but potentially game-breaking effect. For some decks, the ten cards are the actual effect and the card-draw is a pleasant side effect.
(Late comment) I just re-read Arc-Slogger and I've had to readjust my mindset a little bit. I just realized how powerful either Arc-Slogger or this would be if they moved the cards to the graveyard. Not only would they be dangerous Threshold and Flashback enablers, but they'd be totally broken with Gaea's Blessing. For this card to be even a little bit fair, the cards must be removed from the game. I concede that this renders my arguments regarding Threshold and Flashback somewhat void, but they'll remain in place, to show how dangerous this can be even if it isn't being used in conjunction with Gaea's Blessing, which it would be.
All of these things lead me to conclude that you need to scale this card down a little bit. I do not think that it would be out of line to give it one of the first two abilities, but not both. With that said, if you
do tone it down, the ability can be made nominally better. For example, I don't think that either of the abilities needs a mana activation cost. In fact, I don't think that the sacrifice effect would require a mana cost either. I also think that with just one of the possible abilities, you could lower the mana cost. I would readily go for either of the following two ideas:
Thought Sphere
Artifact
Discard two cards from your hand: Draw a card.
Sacrifice ~this~: Draw a card.
OR
Thought Sphere
Artifact
Remove the top ten cards of your library from the game: Draw a card
Sacrifice ~this~: Draw a card.
***
On two somewhat unrelated notes, you need a
current wording post. Also, who the heck is Alzor? Is there any reason why his name has to be attached to this card? As shown in my mockups above, I think this is just cleaner looking as "Thought Sphere."
