Cool Card Design of the Day4/8/2014 - Pain Song is a much-less proactive Sanguimancy. Instead of asking you to build up a small army, this asks you to lose life. My preferred version is the sorcery, which appeals to Johnny because he's got to figure out how to lose life on his own turn, perhaps by playing it after Sanguimancy.
Changing Pain Song to an instant makes it much more intuitive, allowing players to use it in response to an attack or burn spell. I suspect both of these spells are a bit undercosted, but its interesting how much more the instant version needs to cost.
The costing is really format dependent. In Standard with Spellskite, it would need to be 8CMC. In the current Standard? I think you have it costed correctly for a Sorcery, but I'd start at {4}{B}{B} for an Instant.
ReplyDeleteAs a guideline for costing, this is a lot like Necrologia but more work.
ReplyDeleteCrack, fetch, draw three, I'm Conley Woods.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather have this be damage triggered rather than life loss. That way it would avoid silly shenanigans involving phyrexian mana and other repeatable life payments.
ReplyDeleteThe five mana instant version isn't undercosted at all. It's perfectly fine for a very conditional 5 CMC draw spell to have a high upside. See Hunter's Prowess as a recent example.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the card is basically worthless if you're at 6 or less by the time you draw it, plus the fact that it doesn't affect the board at a time when your life total is probably precarious makes this a long way from being broken.