Squadron Thought

[DubDub]

Based somewhat on Squadron Hawk:

Squadron Thought - 
Sorcery
You may search your library for up to three cards named Squadron Thought, reveal them, put them into your hand, then shuffle your library.
Draw a card.

So basically, you draw a card instead of getting a 1/1 flier, and the card itself is blue.

I'm pretty sure Vintage players would play the heck out of this card.  It replaces itself four times over for  , and the excess ones you find are the perfect pitch fodder for Force of Will.  Obviously like Squadron Hawk these are nutty with Jace/Brainstorm, so that not just the first one gets you the burst of cards.

Just as obviously this is terrible if restricted, since that automatically shuts off the first line of text on the card.  I think this is too good to be printed, and if printed would likely need to be restricted (which would de facto de-print it).

[StanleyAugust]

Very interesting card actually! I like it! You're probably right that's it's too powerful, though.

[DubDub]

If I may expound a little bit:

I think in Vintage in particular there is enormous importance on the quality of the first copy of an unrestricted card, BECAUSE games are decided so quickly and the first copy may be the only copy that's relevant to decide a match.

The first copy of this is about four times as good as the remaining copies unless there's setup with Jace/BS, roughly speaking.  But that's enough to make it a four-of (hypothetically) over something like Night's Whisper, which may have a value of 2 each time.

So, 4-1-1-1 is a ton better than 2-2-2-2 when choosing cards for a deck, because in a typical game if you only cast one copy you're getting 4 vs 2 in value.  And in a 'long' game where you cast two copies of each you still come out ahead with (4+1) = 5 vs (2+2) = 4.  The ancillary benefits/costs like 'being blue' or 'losing 2 life' are also factors of course.

An interesting exception to this general rule is Accumulated Knowledge, which has value like 1-2-3-4, but uses the interaction with Intuition typically to skip the first two so that you end up capitalizing on the later copies and get (3+4) = 7 out of two casts.  The tradeoff is the investment into Intuition and the larger number of deck-slots needed to run that package.

The first Dark Confidant is so dang good, but no one wants to fan out a hand with four of them because playing them in multiples is increasingly dangerous.  Just trying to illustrate a principle with this card.

It really was no different with Squadron Hawk, except that obviously Jace (to get repeated multi-value) and Stoneforge-Sword of Feast and Famine existed in the Standard format dominated in conjunction with Hawk, because the 1/1 flier was really good there when it hit for three and amplified your resources while diminishing those of your opponent.  Obviously in comparison "draw a card" is much better in Vintage where the top of your library can always hold restricted bombs like Time Walk or Ancestral Recall, and your opponent may have a two-mana 5/3 to trump your 1/1s.