Interesting Card Draw

[magus888]

(Card Name) U
Sorcery
Reveal your hand to target opponent. That player chooses a card from it. Discard that card.
Flashback- Draw 2 Cards.

I don't know if this would be too broken with cards like Quiet Speculation and Intuition, but I like the idea. Any Suggestions?

Would Black be a better color?

[jro]

Drawing cards while paying a cost is something that new cards try not to do.  That's why Terrarion and Chromatic Star are worded the way they are (with separate graveyard trigger abilities), as opposed to how Chromatic Sphere is worded.

Also, if you play this and then use the flashback, it's like a Careful Study where instead of you choosing the discards, you get Coercioned.  I don't understand why that would ever be desirable.  I guess it's better with Quiet Spec or Intuition (+2 CA from Quiet Spec, +1 from Intuition), but that comes at the cost of giving up the three (QS) or two (Int) best cards in your hand.  That seems still bad.

So I don't see how this effect is interesting enough to warrant a) a card that's downright lousy by itself b) messing with the rules about what is a cost and what isn't.

Can't you just rework this to behave more normally and still maintain the interactive dynamic of the card?

[magus888]

Would you rather have it:

(Card Name) U
Sorcery
Discard a card.
Flashback- Draw 2 cards

But thats an Ancestral Recall off Queit Speculation!

[jro]

That version a) is still lousy by itself b) still has rules problems c) does away with the interactivity d)is pretty much just Careful Study, but it gets RFG'ed when used and is broken with Quiet Speculation.  You could at least fix the rules problems by doing something like this:

Card Name
U
Sorcery
When you play ~this~, if you didn't play it from your hand, draw two cards.
Reveal your hand and discard a card of target opponent's choice.
Flashback 0

But then the card is still terrible, right?  If you're suggesting this as a card that might be useful in marginal combo decks that try and exploit it, then I guess clearing up the rules issue is enough.  But if you actually were trying to make an interesting card drawing spell, I don't think that's what you have.  It's like you're trying to cram too many effects in one card.  You have the "inverse costing" thing going on by reversing what we normally think of as a cost, but then you also have a card draw spell that lets your opponent take away the best card in your hand.  One of these things seems like more than enough for a card to do.

[Guevara59]

I don't think that this card is bad at all.  If it gets into your graveyard by dredge, intuition, memory jar, wheel of fortune, etc. its a free 2-4 cards, how is this bad??

[jro]

If it's in your yard, each copy is one free card, unless you happen to draw two instants you can play right away off the ability.  You draw two for the cost, and then discard one when the ability resolves.  But, from the original version, you lose the best card out of your hand after you've drawn the two.  So, assuming that getting it into the yard didn't cost any cards, it's (most likely) +1 CA.  I'm not saying you can't build a deck to abuse that aspect of the card, but that doesn't make the card good, either in terms of play value, or in terms of design.  I like the idea of reversing costs and effects, and I like the idea of a card draw spell where you get Coercion'ed.  But I just think this particular implementation is no good, because it's bad by itself (the second version is less bad but is more or less identical to Careful Study), and it causes rules problems.  Again, I don't think the card is interesting enough to warrant those downsides.