Is it intentional that this double-counts the discard cards? I guess it must be. It looks like the kind of card I wouldn't want to cast even so. A lot worse than Spring of Eternal Peace. It's like Feudkiller's Verdict that comes with One with Nothing rather than a 5/5.

It is intentional. There was no cleaner way to word "2 life for each card you discard, plus 1 life for each card in your discard pile that was already there before you just discarded."

You're exaggerating how bad it is. It's a mana cheaper than Spring of Eternal Peace and two mana cheaper than Feudkiller's Verdict, and in this 100-card deck with self-milling, it can often net a lot more than 8 or 10 life.

And yes, I recognize the hypocrisy with costing this card considering the environment it's in while not doing so for Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. If I remember correctly, this card started life one or two mana cheaper and let you discard any number of cards, rather than forcing you to discard your whole hand. But in playtesting I found that this card racked up a crazy amount of life, and it was always a no-brainer to cast because you could just refuse to discard if your hand was good. I increased the cost to 4 to compensate for the high numbers I was seeing, and then ended up requiring you to discard your whole hand to make it more of a trade-off to play. Sometimes you can't afford to drink the blood right away and have to wait until you can cast your good cards first.

Plus, it's more flavorful that way. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price -- you can't just choose not to live but a half-life, a cursed life.

It's mainly pure life gain (not that good of a madness / graveyard enabler) so unless it's doing absurdly high amounts of that, it's most likely gonna suck hard. Maybe a tad better than Archangel's Light but still really bad looking. Pure life gain just generally isn't that useful. Like even if you gain some 20 off this, it's just "meh" pretty much. If you actually have to discard some useful stuff that you didn't want to bin for it, then it's just horrible.

Another card that comes to mind is Gnaw to the Bone that's limited to creature cards though it has flashback, costs less, and doesn't require discarding. Spring of Eternal Peace is really, really bad as well btw. Something like Chaplain's Blessing is kinda "ok-ish" but obviously doesn't see competitive play.

How about discarding your hand for a Zombify effect. You still could tag a life gain/+1/+1 counter bonus for the discarded cards as some sort of reparation.

But if you get a card out of your graveyard for the cards you discard, that already seems like a better trade - especially since you obviously choose when to pull the trigger and always trade up.

And the messaging also becomes better: If you have this card to reanimate things, then the discarded cards immediately seem less like a "loss" and more as a "setup" for the second copy.

Mmm. Assuming you can save it until later in the game when you have a full graveyard, it's going to gain you maybe 12 life? That's pretty reasonable for 4 mana I'd think. So I don't have any actual mechanical problem with this.

But, well, lifegain does always kinda suck.

Discarding your hand is also "pain now" rather than "pain later" which is what the card is thematically meant to be. The quote about it is something like "Those who drink unicorns blood will forever after lead a cursed half life"? So episde-3 comments aside, this should probably be a big boost now in return for a nasty downside later. Something like Unstable Mutation where the extra life decays away, perhaps? Or maybe something like Lich where you flat out lose the ability to draw cards in future. To keep with the grave theme, maybe something like an enchantment with "You cannot lose the game due to having no life. If you would draw a card; instead put it into the graveyard and gain 2 life"? Which is of course just begging you to try and find a good time to get rid of it.

Gaining life sucks. It doesn't do anything

Like, there was discussion on Maro's twitter(?) recently about how you could balance the rest of the boon cycle to match Ancestral Recall's power level, and it was determined that Healing Salve would have to gain you something like 80 life to be equivalent

For reference to everyone who commented in 2020, this set was explicitly a Commander set, which I think some of you missed. Unicorn Blood is in Voldemort's deck which has a heavy graveyard/self-mill theme, which allowed this to gain a ton of life in playtests.

@Tahazzar: The Gnaw to the Bone comparison is a good point. This definitely reads way worse than that, and Gnaw wasn't overpowered or anything, it was a cornerstone of a fun deck. This comment is really the only one that makes me want to consider dropping the cost of Unicorn Blood.

@SecretInfiltrator: There is no second copy, this is a Commander card designed for a Commander deck. It's not designed to reanimate a creature, it's designed to keep you alive while you're doing your graveyard combo shenanigans and not impacting the board.

@Vitenka: I like the comment that it's more flavorful if the cost comes later instead of right away. I'll have to figure out if there's a clean way to adjust this card so it works like that, because that does sound more interesting.

@dude1818: Lifegain does suck, but they still keep making lifegain cards. It's an effect that exists, some people want it, I'm going to design some too. It serves a purpose in this deck, and people can always swap it out if they don't want to play with it. Also, 80 life on Healing Salve is a little ridiculous, something like 10-12 would be fine, and anyway, Ancestral Recall is OP so I'm not sure what use that comparison is.

Overall, from these 2020 comments, I wish I had redesigned this so it was a little cheaper and the cost came due later. I'm not going to kill the card or make it gain 80 life though.