woah cool flavor.

Is this undercosted?

Not really. Spellbook is cheaper and Kraken Hatchling has better stats. This is probably right.

right-o

This has no reason to be a rare. I could even see this at common, but uncommon is likely the most suitable rarity. Reminds me of Graceful Adept and Minamo Scrollkeeper. For commander, we got Thought Vessel.

The Adept and the Scrollkeeper both come from a block where your hand size mattered. Plus they're 14 years old. In Commander, Sol Ring's an uncommon. Not the best sample pool.

­Reliquary Tower is in Magic 2019, though. That's a pretty solid vote for uncommon. I don't have a real problem with this being a rare... but it's admittedly a hard sell. It asks the question: "Who is excited to see this card?" Timmy's the most likely person to want this effect, but probably not on this body.

I could be wrong. Sometimes I think we over-evaluate perfectly fine cards for the sake of making an argument.

Oh, one more thing. One of these days, Wizards should reprint Library of Leng. It's a Spellbook with built in protection against discard (or gives you options when you use discarding as a resource.) Solid card. Probably hasn't been reprinted due to its name is a proper noun... what a shame.

Yeah, this is an uncommon that you'd rather'd like to be a common. At rare it's just disappointing.

Regarding Library of Leng: The discard protection is also a little more complex because it does the same weird thing madness does, but it has all the weirdness in plain rules text rather than safely tucked away in reminder text. Otherwise I imagine it would get more reprints in plane-agnostic sets.

jmg said "I could be wrong. Sometimes I think we over-evaluate perfectly fine cards for the sake of making an argument"

guilty as charged

i do think this would be more appropriate at uncommon, kinda boring rare. Timmy would definitely want a big boy with this, johnny might tutor this in a treasure-hunt-esque deck (ofc one that isnt that, because this breaks that deck)

is someone supposed to be italicized, if so, i wonder who this drifter is .... ?

ok