Here's one you've overlooked! It does a decent impression of
Metallic Mimic, but it gets actively good if you've got a Humans theme going. This is mostly because these effects get a LOT better in multiples--for example, while
Ethereal Absolution is somewhat beatable
Elesh Norn really isn't (if you don't have a kill spell
). Yeah, there's the tradeoff of a lack of flexibility and the fact that the Vanguard gives buffs and not counters, but a bear is a lot more plausible as an attacker than a 2/1.
I love the idea of having a bunch of Deal Brokers! I would be happy to run a lot of those and either Cogwork Librarian or Lore Seeker, if only because the bodies are actually kind of reasonable.
The problem with Lore Seeker is that it's arguably an automatic Pick 2 unless you see the perfect card for your deck, as the numbers say that you're likely to get a better card out of fifteen than out of fourteen, but if your group isn't a bunch of statistics freaks like me it could be pretty good (though I'd still pass it because that sort of certainty sucks the fun out of the game for me. If I wanted certainty, I'd fill out a Sudoku or crossword puzzle, or just a regular jigsaw puzzle, for that matter.). I'd actually like it a lot more if it came with the text "Lore Seeker must be in your deck" to trade off for the fact that another first pick is such freeroll value.