I like this card because it is easy to block with shields (completely useless for conversion against the diamond shield in upgraded form). Unupgraded is useless against various upgraded shields. Some shields are not going to do much against this card when upgraded, though. Bone wall won't do much to a life deck with adrenaline, of course, but phase shields, dusk mantle, procrastination, thorn carapace, etc. are all fairly effective.
I'm a little concerned about the fact that it converts to water, since Forest Spirits could be made to grow extremely quickly this way. In a light/life deck with rustlers, it would be extremely powerful (put out a few frogs, cast Luciferin on them, and use a rustler to convert). I've played that light/life deck quite a lot and it's very strong on its own since quantum denial strategies do very little to it once it's gotten up to full steam. I found myself sitting on over a hundred Life quanta at the end of a number of matches. Still, the forest spirits are weak to Otyugh (early on), Reverse time, etc., but they can easily outgrow death by most effects.
Basically, this card would give someone the power to make a (really good, possibly too good) trio deck with cards from only two elements (light/life). The ability to put freeze and squids (with a permafrost shield) alongside cheap spammable life creatures and pump up Forest Spirits for high end damage could really shut someone down and kill them very quickly, as their creatures can no longer attack and life's got quite a bit of cheap damage as it is. Combine with Adrenaline and the player could be sitting on mountains of Water quanta and can get Life anytime needed if quanta is squirreled away in light and converted by rustlers when needed. Use all the light emitters to create a ton of quanta in life and ice bolt is going to do some serious damage. Mind flayers become accessible to life pretty easily, which is pretty nasty since Otyughs and Scarabs become useless against them and are one of the primary vulnerabilities of life as currently designed (so many low hp creatures are easily edible). I can think of several ways to make awesome trios with this.
It's interesting that the unupgraded card is vulnerable to Maxwell's Demon, but the upgrade is not. That's exactly the opposite of the Horned Frog -> Giant Frog.
I can't really think of another element that would seem thematically fitting for life (as plants, Air, Earth, and Water all are sensible combinations) but wouldn't give access to too much good stuff for too little, but I can't really imagine one, since all of those other decks have really strong cards with abilities life doesn't have access to at all. I think perhaps it's not a good idea to give Life access to another conversion card (other than rustlers) without some nasty downside to using it. For example, if antimatter caused a reversal in conversion or caused this card to drain the quanta converted instead.
I'd put Kathrin Polikeit's name in the "Art By" instead of Wikimedia Commons.
