The alst guy is both black and white, which is why he gives you a choice. If he was only black, following the color pie he'd probably just do it every turn, as depicting black's ability to drain itself dead on its lust for more and more power. However, adding the white, I give it the flavor of self-sacrificing for the greater good (greater good being the vanquishing of the enemies, in this case), which is why I made it optional. As for Chance Strike, you WERE right, it was kinda sucky as it was, so I'm changing it slightly to this:
Chance Strike (U/R)(U/R)
Instant
Flip a coin and call "heads" or "tails" while its in the air. If you win, Chance Strike deals 3 damage to target creature or player. If you lose, Chance Strike deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
U
This way, it makes it at least versatile, depicst a bit of color-pie bleeding that is in league with the set's feel, AND it's made slightly better, I mean, monoblue removal spell? Yes please! Of course, it's still strictly worse than Incinerate, but to be honest most burn spells are, and it has the added bonus of color-fixing or off-color playing, so I guess it makes up for it (and for being an uncommon!).
For the other ones, as I stated before, this is the general feel I want to capture by these other multi-colored spells. They are good, but they are not perfect, because let's face it,
thos colors are not very well-suited to be doing that. So black helps you get a big creature, but it comes at a chunk of your life. Blue helps deals damage, but not reliably. White gives you control over a self-draining ability, but the creature is made weaker. Blue and green combine to draw cards (while not exactly DRAWING them, mind you, so it can't be abused by, say, dredge, which is why I worded it that way) AND ramp up, but not doing any of those in a very good manner (although it might be useful, who knows?
). And white and red combine to get a nice combat trick, a pseudo-vigilance or a surprise strike force to bounce back from a crippling spell (Cryptic Command?), or maybe even just some more shots at a given tap ability, but one that may end up helping the opponent as well.
Anyway, IS Chance Strike more palatable now?