While pure lifegain is usually considered bad, artifacts which slowly give you life can be useful. This can help refund the life used to pay for cards like sign in blood. While not quite as effective as the Mirrodin cycle of lifegain card, this does have its uses. If it affected all players, it would probably be somewhat playable.
Posted By:
MasterOfCruelties
(7/9/2013 1:41:30 PM)
If this and the rest of the cycle tapped for mana of the colour of the staff, they would be borderline playable. As is, this cycle will make no one happy and it makes you wonder if Wizards just threw in whatever trash they could think of rather than putting actual decent cards in M14.
Posted By:
Lifegainwithbite
(7/26/2013 5:39:13 AM)
I'm not a fan of this type of cards either, but just so you know, this was featured as a 4-of sideboard card of the winning Grand Prix deck (GP Beijing 2014).
I'm not going to pretend to "know it all", but that goes to show that some cards, even such as this, have their place, depending on the metagame you're playing in.
Posted By:
Dabok
(3/30/2014 6:25:19 AM)
Four of these in sideboard of a winning decklist of a Standard Grand Prix (Beijing). Probably deserves more than 1.9 stars :)
Posted By:
Mightyass
(3/30/2014 6:47:38 AM)
Costs 
too much.
Posted By:
Syrtees
(10/29/2013 6:31:45 PM)
Pure sideboard material, but it's a lot better than its current rating. 2.5/5, maybe even 3/5 if it keeps making strong showings like it did in Beijing.
Posted By:
Continue
(4/4/2014 9:27:02 AM)
Holy cow, this crummy little core uncommon is an important part of Standard in Black Devotion decks! After the Staff is dropped, those decks will consistently gain two or more life per turn, while playing exactly what they want to anyway: Swamps and black spells. Wasting three mana is a big deal against aggressive decks so it's only a sideboard card, but it stops burn decks better than a brick wall.
Posted By:
JimmyNoobPlayer
(4/5/2014 8:19:26 AM)
Sideboard card for red burn when nothing else is available.
The significant part of this card is that it triggers off a swamp, which means you gain as much as 2 life per turn early on, allowing you to afford your own Herald of Torment, Underworld Connections, and other bleedy things.
Posted By:
DmitryM
(4/17/2014 4:58:03 AM)
Ugggghhhh. I would have been plenty happy with another year of the ring cycle. I would actually argue that these are even worse than the original lucky charms, since they cost 1 extra and don't activate on spells your opponents cast. The pseudo Landfall is different, at least...
Posted By:
Totema
(7/9/2013 5:01:15 PM)
With Lilly this is the best of the cycle in limited maybe with sanguine bond as well. It still is awful though. At least it isn't another lucky charm I would rather have three worse cards than more of those horrid things..
Posted By:
master_biomancer
(7/9/2013 5:42:33 PM)