The counterpart to Forbidden Knowledge. This is obviously weaker, but I decided I just had to accept that, even though the drawback is hefty, it can't really increase three cards for four mana (even though G and U have got 2CC draw three cards without the drawback).

Huh. Funny thing... this card costs in my card from Magic 20XX called Extra Pages (Oh, hey, it turns out your card is a tad better in 2HG. Identical besides that). I do admit, though, that it's one of the better commons in the set (Especially in a set about Wisdom that could be shutting off Hellbent at the same time).

Playtesting has told me, though, that this card is probably fine at . You could probably get away with "Draw 4. Opponents draw 2." at this casting cost.

Yeah, I liked that this was one of the few cards that specifically got better in 2HG, so I was happy if it was a little bit below curve, but I won't cost it on that basis.

I think the fair cost may be somewhere between. Divination seems the standard common spell, and even if this isn't always stronger than divination, I think it's a swingier, assuming you can play it when it's good for you.

But also, this is plainly less good than Concentrate. I felt "less good than concentrate" was probably still very playable, since concentrate doesn't seem to show up much, but occasional five-cost instant-speed draw-3 spells show up every so often. So I was happy for this to be a not-very-strong spell that's probably still well worth playing, especially in a U/G deck.

Conversely, I think it'd be strong at 3 mana, but probably not too strong. I was nervous about this at common, but I guess it's probably comparable to Amass the Components in that it gives three cards worth of "good stuff", but provides two cards worth of card advantage. So ok at common, but I'm not sure about common and costing three :)

Me neither. It's funny, because this falls right into the Ember Shot problem I had to write about in the 10 worst cards according to Gatherer. From the point of view of a drafter, this card's effect and Ember Shot's effect is awesome... you'd pay a lot of mana for that... would be perfectly fair for Flowering Knowledge. 6 cost would be too much, but you'd play it if you didn't draft a good deck.

When is it okay to make a card better for draft by increasing its cost, thus making it worse for standard, and vice versa? There's no easy answer to that question.

I liked your article about the worst cards, but I don't think this is quite that bad. I don't know what the ideal mana cost for each format is, and if they were different, I'm not sure of the best way of compromising.

But it seems like it must be somewhere between Divination and Concentrate. And since Divination seems playable but weak, and Concentrate seems playable but strong, it could be either.

Sorry, Jack. I should have qualified my comment by saying that this card is nowhere near Ember Shot's level of suckitude. What I meant to infer was that this is a good card, and is a good card at a number of casting costs and/or rarities. Ember Shot would also have been a good card at a number of casting costs and/or rarities... but 7-mana for a common was not one of those combinations.

Oh, sorry! Then yes, I agree :)

Do we want a really good GU card draw card? Or a lukewarm GU card? Well, I think we usually want a lukewarm one. But any individual set might want a strong one. (Especially if this could be a strong colour-intensive uncommon for .)