Random generator gave me Pulse of the Dross and Spiritualize. I played around until I ended up with this. I'm kind of sad that I couldn't pull forward the 'Pulse' part without cluttering the card up. I am happy, however, that the flavor texts lent so well to a flavor mash-up.

Wording suggestion:

"The next time target creature would deal combat damage this turn, instead target opponent reveals that many cards from his or her hand and you choose one of them. That player discards that card and you draw a card."

Yes, that's better, thank you.

Cool.

Should it be "target creature you control" or "combat damage to you"? It's certainly allowable that it could be either, but it seems to confuse the card.

It does confuse the card, I agree. Spiritualize has this same problem... a lot of Gatherer comments talk about how that card is underpowered, but they're thinking it can only be used as a Reverse Damage for one creature. They aren't seeing that it's probably best applied as a combat trick.

Since Spiritualize leaned Spike over Vorthos, I figured I'd lean Spike over Vorthos with Unrefine. If Spiritualize wasn't setting a precedent, I'd lean Vorthos. Some day, in theory, I'll be testing these cards. When I do, I'll make sure to gauge player reaction, and see if they like/don't like the Spike lean.

Doh! I missed spiritualize had the same problem. Then yeah, I see why you did it that way.

Although I think I'm still confused about something. Spiritualize gains life but doesn't prevent damage? So the normal play is to just play it on the largest creature, yours or theirs. Or, when you need to gain life, usually theirs. And it doesn't affect creature combat?

But Unrefine, like reverse damage, does prevent damage, so 90% of the time, it's better to use it on their creature in order to save your creature if you can. But occasionally, if they have no creatures but lots of cards, it might be worth using this on your own creature, forgoing the damage, in order to get them to discard?

So the 90% case is usually better, but the 10% option exists. And I agree spike likes extra options, but the card without that choice seems plenty Spike-y enough. And I don't think it's a matter of flavour, it's a matter of complexity. Having an apparent choice that isn't really a choice is the sort of thing wizards try to avoid on as many cards as possible, even powerful/rare ones (but especially common ones), for the benefit of beginners, but also so experts have less to remember.

D'oh! myself. I thought Spiritualize prevented damage, but it doesn't. Well, no wonder people weren't so enthralled with this combat trick. I thought it might be a hidden monster, but it's just a little better than Reviving Dose.

Well, that throws a monkey wrench in my 'Spiritualize sets a precendent' answer, eh? I'm going to go ahead and switch this to dealing damage to a player, as opposed to anything. That should at least cut down the number of applications to two: You usually use this card to prevent damage from an attacking creature and force a discard. Spikes and some Johnnies are happy to point out that it's a good spell to cast on your own attacking Lantern Kami, though.