Cost of Water spells
1|1, 2|1, 1|1, 7|6 
+ 1 card
Cost of Aether spells (Fractal is valuable)
2|1, 7|6, 4|3, 10|9 
+ 1 card
Miracle: 12|15 
Herring is an alternate cost for spell cards.
It has only a X% chance to succeed even if it just uses pillars and spells (Nymph's Tear or Parallel Universe)
The average spell used in the deck costs Y 
+1card
Herring costs Z + 1 card for a X% chance at using an effect worth Y +1card on average.
Z+1 = X% (Y+1)
As a rough estimate (+/-2 casting cost) lets guess (X%,Y) = 50%,5
Z+1 = 50% (5+1) = 3
Z = 2
Sidenote: Chains are not a concern. Each herring acts independently. Balance 1 and you balance them all.
And, through those calculations, do you take into account that relying on Herrings for quanta generation can result in dead(ish) draws? For example, if you balance the deck's quanta to play all the spells, then you may be running with too much quanta. In those cases, Herring is just a faulty Precognition without the Seer ability, so it shouldn't cost as much (elemental affinities aside). If you balance the deck's quanta so that you rely on Herrings like they're Cremations, then you'll find that the average performance of the deck is lacking.
Why Water?, Why Herring?
Yeah, I actually don't have Justifications for Water. I could try to BS about water's property of flexibility, whether it be the shape-the-container property of liquid H2O or the ability to change states in a relatively small range of temperature, but that still doesn't make sense with the deck-drawing and the spell selectivity. Maybe that all Alchemy cards are Water cards, and so an auto-spell card
must be a Water card rather than a Time or Entropy card?
I guess I have to rely on the fact that it's a Herring. I originally wanted to do Red Herring
glares at Xeno, but that wouldn't make sense as a swimming water creature, so I dropped the Red. Anyways, why the mechanic fits Red Herring is because sometimes it brings to attention things, like putting a pillar in your hand, that aren't actually relevant, like being unable to play it. Plus, I don't actually know that many types of fish, so Herring it was.
It looks very fun but can also be totally OP or totally useless.. Hence I can't vote but I really like this card it's very fun
Fun? Objective Completed!
