Let's get some discussion going!
This here is a bit of a draw engine for straight priests. It keeps a similar spirit as the previous versions of the card (withdrawal and underdeck protection as opposed to preventing ignore and 'repel'), but also gives some speed when the high priest has support (which, to be honest, was what I had set out to make). There may be a better way to word the last part of the ability - suggestions are welcome! Though strong - often the risk of placing artifacts on characters is that they follow if the character dies - this gives a bit consistency to the draw engine, and makes sense historically - the breastplate was passed down from High Priest to High Priest, they didn't make a new one each time. This is also the reason for the "once per turn" on the draw - there could be some YWR shenanigans otherwise. It is not CBAnything, so it is possible to stop the transfer. Also note that if the player doesn't have any other High Priests in play, the breastplate follows its bearer.
Also note that the card doesn't specify heroes - like U&T, this works on Ananias and (the three) other evil High Priests. I almost restricted X to "of the same alignment" but that felt like the identifier was getting too long.
A few weaknesses of this card are that it adds to the priest archetype's already heavy dependence on artifacts. This is somewhat alleviated by the fact that it is activated on a character (and doesn't take up your artifact slot while doing so
), but priest decks tend to have too many arts as it is. In addition, it requires running several priests (and particularly high priests) to get value - the most splashable priests (Melchizedek and Every Tribe) aren't High Priests, so while they can support the draw they can't use it themselves. This card supports running more or less straight teal, which, while not terrible, could use some help.
A couple scrapped ideas for this card:
I almost made the last part of the ability an Add to Battle (likely something along the lines of "if bearer is being removed from battle you may add your High Priest to battle and activate this card on it"). I figured this was likely too powerful.
I almost added CBI. While the card would certainly be better (honestly, what wouldn't?), I eventually decided that CBI bouncing to the next HP was strong enough. Not a ton of cards interrupt neutrals, and if it's targeting everything in battle then it makes sense that the breastplate doesn't survive.
As mentioned above, I'm still considering adding "of the same alignment" to the X. If so, it might make sense to bump the limit up to 4.
What do you think?
