Hematomancy

[Ephraim]

You may all thank Anthony Alongi for today's card. In his article at wizards.com/magic, he made me aware of the existance of the word "Hematomancy", which means "divination using blood." The first thing that occurs to me is that this is the the name that belonged on Skulltap or Night's Whisper. I'll just have to come up with something else. My idea here is that while other colours reward your for correct predictions, black traditionally punishes you for incorrect predictions (see: Demonic Consultation, Spoils of the Vault). This card will allow one to retrieve multiple cards if they're in the top six, but will be more painful the more cards you try to retrieve, but fail to.

Hematomancy
{B}
Sorcery

Name any number of cards. Reveal the top six cards of your library. If a named card is revealed this way, put it into your hand. Remove all other cards revealed this way from the game. For each named card not revealed this way, you lose three life.

Okay, the previous idea didn't work out, so I've come up with a new idea. It is a powerful card drawing effect, but painful, particularly if you've already got cards in your hand. I considered making it just one life per card, but I figured that and 3 life was too little for an Ancestral Recall, no matter what the circumstances. and 6 life, if this is the last card in your hand, is painful, but possibly worth it.

Hematomancy

Sorcery

Draw three cards. Then, for each card in your hand, pay two life or discard that card.

[Ephraim]

Current Wording:

Hematomancy
{B}
Sorcery

Draw three cards. Then, for each card in your hand, pay two life or discard that card.

[Matt]

Is this too much like:

Soul Search

Sorcery
Name a card. Reveal the top ten cards of your library. Put all cards with the chosen name into your hand and remove the rest from the game.
You lose life equal to the number of cards put in your hand in this way.

which was one of the first black cards we ever made? I notice it's also much, much more costly - twice the mana and three times the life, and 60% of the searching power. In fact, Soul Search itself might be badly undercosted, but it's in the set and we'll find that out in testing.

[Ephraim]

I agree that they're too similar. I'll go back to the drawing board, but I also want to clarify why I costed this as I did. Although Soul Search can get up to four cards, they'll all be the same card and you'll lose life for each of them that you get. On the other hand, while my card doesn't dig as deeply, it could get as many as six cards, with good guessing, or deck-fixing. Suppose I've just cast Serum Visions; I know the next two cards I'm going to draw. Suppose I've just cast Index; I know the next five cards. For two black mana, I could then name all five of those cards and draw every last one of them in a single stroke. That's where this card becomes truly powerful. The life loss is to prevent its use as a strong tutor. Even if you name just one card, you may lose three life if it's not in the top six cards. On the other hand, if you're going to lose next turn if you don't get ahold of two particular cards right now, you can hope they're in the top six, but if neither of them is there, you'll lose six life.

[Matt]

I hadn't noticed that you could name multiple cards. That's interesting.

[Ephraim]

I changed this to something else, but I preserved the original idea in tiny text, up at the top. Let me know if you think I ought to change it back. If you want me to bring the first idea back, I'll come up with something else to call the idea that's there now, sicne I like it, too.

[Matt]

Hey, now. I like this a lot.

[dandan]

It looks like a fixed Greed to me (as Greed sucks) and that is a good thing. Greedy Ancestral looks like a winner.

I expect that Matt will point out how this interacts with Mindslaver  :wink:

P.S. The original idea could be in non-bold in a font that is legible

[Shadow-Walker]

I like this alot but it is very powerful.

[Jacob Orlove]

This is really strong, but at two life per card, the ability is probably fair. It should definitely cost more than just B, though.

[Matt]

Infernal Contract is underpowered, but you're right, this should probably be BB or 1B or 2B. BBB is no longer feasible without Ritual.

[Ephraim]

If I increase the mana cost at all, this becomes almost strictly inferior to Night's Whisper. The only advantage it will have, in that case, will be that it digs three cards deep. However, even starting with an empty hand, to keep two cards (the same number you'd keep with Night's Whisper), you'd have to spend four life (twice as much as with Night's Whisper.) You can see that in circumstances where you begin with more cards, the card/life tradeoff is even worse, since you may spend much more life than with Night's Whisper and still end up losing card advantage.

[Matt]

I didn't realize that you had to pay life for EVERY card in your hand, not just the three you drew. That makes it more than fair, since you'll never play it on turn one (14 life is too much for even combo - if it didn't play Spoils of the Vault, it sure as hell won't play this).

For some reason, I always miss something on an Ephraim card. Always.

[Ephraim]

I'm having second thoughts about this card. I noted earlier that and 3 life wasn't appropriate for an Ancestral Recall effect, under any circumstances, but I'm beginning to rethink that. You'd have to have an empty hand and it's a Sorcery, besides. If I changed it to one life per card, that would still be eight or nine life, if this were the first thing to be cast, and nothing were discarded.

[Shadow-Walker]

This card is more of a tutor than anything, if you're playing combo you just play what you can from your hand and use Hematomancy to grab what you're missing (draw-7, mana source) and go off.  Now just because its useable doesnt mean that it shouldnt be printed but if wizards announced it was I would be salivating over it.
EDIT: unlike brainstorm it fills your graveyard too for Yawg Will.

[Matt]

I REFUSE to alter cards on the basis that they're good with Yawgmoth's Will.

I think it's fine at 2 life but at 1 life it's too strong. 3 cards for 3 life and B is WAY better than Night's Whisper. It's not THAT hard to empty your hand, and black is one of the colors that most would like to discard their own cards.

[Shadow-Walker]

The Yawg Will was just a side note I wouldnt expect you to alter it based on that.  This card may very well be fine but I wanted to point out some of its combo potential (and i like combo).

[Ephraim]

*shrug* Okay. I'll leave it at 2 life. Even if it's a little bit dangerous, combo will probably use it and control might.

[Ephraim]

24 Hour Clock

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]