It's right--but I'm wondering, would it push Test more if it was a 1/1 instead?

As a 1/1 it is far more likely to end up in the graveyard early when you may need the Test ability to stabilize your mana. As a 1/2 its likely to stick around for a little longer making Test less important.

Getting a leg up on mana isn't typically as important for white as it is for other colors; white loves cheap, efficient creatures and can usually play around a missing land drop. This meant that Test for Lands wasn't necessarily going to be the #1 reason you wanted this guy in a deck. Other colors got dudes that are a little easier to kill, but apart from the green one, all of the Test scouts need a little help, usually from an opponent, to get into the dumpster.

Fair enough, I was only looking at this from a pure ramping point of view.

Well, I wouldn't chump block with this guy to test for land unless I was desperate. Paying to do nothing (which will happen close to 40% of the time) would feel bad, and waste my time. I haven't looked at the rest of the set design, so I don't know, and I suspect the creator of this card is trying something different here... but when I see this card, all I can think is "Why can't I reveal cards until I reveal a land?". Strictly speaking from the point of view of a player, I wouldn't run a card with this ability, even if the creature attached to it was superior to all the other cards in the environment, because I wouldn't want to feel foolish and/or get disappointed when it didn't work.

You'll have to excuse me. Part of that previous paragraph was just me grumbling about something that bugged me, but there was an important other point to make. Assuming you, the designer, like this card and this mechanic, I wouldn't design these cards (except with an occasional exception) with the card intending on going to the graveyard. I think I like this ability better when it is a bonus on an already good card... A creature I was planning on attacking or blocking with, that, if it ended up in the graveyard, I can play a little mini-game. This plays out a little like clash did for me. Cards like Pulling Teeth kind of sucked since they failed to do something useful when you lost the clash ( for target player discards a card is bad), but cards that were already worth playing before the clash were great... the clash ability was just a nice desert topping (for example, Gilt-Leaf Ambush put 2 elves into play at instant speed. That was already a good ability. getting deathtouch 30% of the time was just gravy. Gravy, in this scenario, is a desert topping.)

@jmgariepy- I hear what you're saying and I think there's room for there to be better cards with Test but how is a 1/2 for W at common with an extra ability that's icing, bad? Cards like this are meant to die. It is pretty much their only function in the game. Sure, there's some tribal effects and with auras/equipment they can do stuff but these are meant to be the cards picked in Limited formats to help smooth your deck out.

Plus, how else does the mechanic get pushed/spotlit if not presented at common on a card like this?

Mmm, I don't disagree with you Bombshell. I was responding to the card being a 1/1 for , where the whole point of the card is to test... that's the sort of thing I'd personally avoid.

What I was saying, mostly, is that the mechanic itself isn't bad, but it becomes a bad mechanic when it is the point of the card. If I was to design your set, I'd make sure that cards with test were resilient, or were solid cards before they went to the graveyard (4/4 for 3U that went to the graveyard if it got targeted makes a good example test creature, since you'd prefer it to be in play, but you don't mind that it went to the graveyard). For this reason, I'd generally avoid test on low converted mana cost creatures, since people will try to rush them in their graveyard in the early game. One 1/2 in white, though, shouldn't be too big a deal... there's always room in a set for an enigma.

Simply put, if I can afford to play a 4/4 for 4 mana, I probably don't need to Test for Land. This particular flavor of the Test ability is most relevant early in the game when your mana base is in question. Hence, a cycle of 1 CMC creatures that, if killed, can help you ramp back into the game.

Now that Test is gone, this guy is your basic early chump.