Could that just be a counter?

No, past me. Not at common.

I don't see why past you is incorrect. Bloodbriar exists, along with other cards that get +1/+1 counters at common for set-relevant actions.

Well how about that.

I guess it depends. If artifact sacrifice is something you're going to be doing all over the place; then this could be common.

If it's, instead, one of the 5-7 things you can build a deck to do; then this is a build-around uncommon. I'd lean to the later, given the gold-colour. Gold colour is hard to build into a deck, hard to cast, and annoying as common. Unless this is a very big set with a lot of mana fixing.

The ability is fine. It could certainly be a counter rather than ueot. Though that would mean that basically, any deck I build from this set in these colours is sacrificing artifacts. If that's the set archetype - go for it. I mean, it's a 3-mana gold-colour bear. It needs something to pep it up!

+2/+2 seems like enough of an upgrade that I would tend towards making this a build-around uncommon.

What is the idea behind this at common anyway?

It's also notable that your synth creatures manage to look very same-y even just looking at the three I found. I mean, Synth Husk right now is just this cards partner at the same cmc, p/t and also getting +2/+2.

Oh, gee; you're right. It's been a while since I managed this set.

I like this new design really much since it also happens to feel much more blue-black without knowing the environmental cues.

True; black for the sac, blue for the loot. And, presumably, pair it with a butt-load of spellbombs and suchlike.

This is rather off-topic but what do you guys think about looting in black? I'm personally not really a fan, but IMO WotC has seemingly been testing the waters with that idea at higher rarities (Necromancer's Stockpile, Dark Deal, Midnight Oil?). In the elder days it was pretty much given that couldn't really even discard to pay for costs: Ie. you had to combine it with in order to cheat fatties with reanimate spells.

I think black is tertiary looting, both due to madness and black getting to do anything if it's willing to sacrifice hard enough.

None of those examples feel like looting to me. That said, black is primary at discard and secondary at card draw. Looting was not explicitly mentioned in the mechanical color pie article for black though.

Stockpile is literal rummaging that's restricted to creature cards. Deal is a variation on the wheel effect. Midnight is arguable the closest to traditional looting (ie. draw then discard) though it certainly plays out differently, maybe more like a wheel effect, and isn't really meant to be used that way so whatever.

IMO they have implications of looting in . Let's put it this way — what kind of an effect to you would feel like looting while not explicitly being looting (or rummaging)?

Out of the three that you mentioned, Dark Deal is my least favorite, because it looks like a red card on first glance. Necromancer's Stockpile is probably the most acceptable one.

Personally I think in Black, discard and draw should be kept on separate cards, because they already have so much graveyard interaction. If the discard was tied to getting card advantage, like Spellshapers or Madness, that's fine. The closest black should get to rummaging/looting is a spellshaper version of Diabolic Tutor.

Back to the card, this honestly feels like a card to me, but I can see it in . Given the amount of multicolor you have in your set, I don't feel like the earlier iteration of this would feel out of place at common, though it's probably better to just have a filler card that's maybe an artifact or maybe less explicitly reinforces the set themes at that rarity. I'd actually like this better in if it read something like

>At the beginning of your end step, if you sacrificed an artifact this turn, draw a card.

or something of that sort.

In my book, it only counts as looting if a. you're exchanging a small fixed number of cards for a small fixed number of cards, b. you do it all at once, and c. that is the meat of the ability. So Dark Deal doesn't count since that's just a wheel, Stockpile doesn't count since it spellshapes zombie tokens and just cantrips to make it worth using, and Midnight Oil is more of a Phyrexian Arena variant.

@dude1818:

That's pretty much the definition of looting, yes.

What I was after is that a card like Stockpile implies that rummaging is doable by . Dark Deal as a wheel effect suggests that strongly as well. Ie. "What kind of a color can do wheel effects, but can't rummage? Isn't a wheel effect like rummage effect multiplied?"

They could rather easily be cited as precedents by some designer. So they "feel" like looting/rummaging since their effects bare resemblance.

... but like I said initially, I don't care much for the idea of looting/rummaging in .

Of course, the previous version of this card did a blue thing when triggered by a black thing, which imo made it a great multicolor design.

I might go back to a similar looting design, but I don't think it'll be in this slot.