Common?! Erm...

You might like to check out Archivist, Jushi Apprentice, or Sage of Lat-Nam, and in particular their rarity. The common version is Thought Courier/Merfolk Looter/Looter il-Kor etc, which has the important "discard a card" clause.

I don't care too much about the commonality. Drawing cards is a big blue thing, after all.

But wowsers this is cheap for that effect.

I don't think looting would fit the flavor. I've upped the cost of his ability so that it'd cost the same as Counsel of the Soratami as well as its mana cost equaling that as well.

On a side note: I think a recent Latest Development column pointed to Merfolk Looter as being the strongest common (or maybe blue common? Well, I, at least think it's the strongest) in 2010 and 2011. There's a good chance it won't be coming back. Unless there's some serious removal in your format, it's a stellar card that, uncontested, wins limited.

This costs one more, and has a (relatively) steep cost for activation. I respect that; they aren't the same card. But we may want to be careful comparing blue card draw/filtering to Merfolk Looter. I don't think it's the gold standard anymore. It's possible that Rummaging Goblin as bad as he reads to us, may be the new standard...