­Royal Herbalist + ((C12254))

Guh. Well, I guess a 1/1 is worth something on top of a Fountain of Youth?

And... an interesting temporary critter; it's a 3/3 for , +, +, +... Sorta kinda like the various clockwork beasts. Makes a combo if you can transmute it into Sandstone Needle I guess.

So, deplete to gain life? That could work. Exile cards to become a creature? If it was a BIG creature; that could be kinda fun. Let's go there. Using the lovely old tech of culmulative upkeep.

Flavour comes from effect; name comes from that. Cost is maybe 1 too high?

Heee. Fun use of a semi-beneficial cumulative upkeep.

I could see arguments for costing this 6 (cf Purity) or 7, but I'd probably go with 7 at least to start with.

This is kind of tricky to cost, since Royal Herbalist is one of the most hated mechanics of all time. Not the Herbalist's fault... I like the mechanic... but something about exiling cards in library as a cost makes people's skin crawl.

Which means that the cost for this card would likely be anything but 7, since 7 is a reasonable number... as silly as that sounds. IF, for example, the card costs 9, then most players would call it a junk rare, and be comfortable with it. They only play with it if they really like the mechanic, or if they're drafting, and it's the best card for their deck. If the card costs 6, then it's overpowered for cost. Spikes everywhere sit up and take notice, and feel clever for having 'discovered' a card that looks bad, but wins games. The correct cost, however, just makes players uncomfortable. They should play with it... but they don't want to... which often means they won't... but they'll feel bad about it...

I can kinda see that. And it's a lot riskier in a draft, with correspondingly smaller deck.

Ok; let's make it a bit spicier.

So it seems my reaction to "That causes tension" is: "Good, let's make it MORE tense."