This became much better with the arrival of Infect and Proliferate. Previously, anything that gave you poison counters would probably also deal at least one damage; so activating this when you were almost dead of poison would tend to kill you or drop you to almost-dead-of-damage anyway unless you had a source of lifegain on top of it.
Against infect / proliferate decks, though, which aren't dealing damage, this card is incredibly valuable and might as well reset your life total to 20 for three mana. Still overly-specific, but that's what sideboards and wish cards are for.
Posted By:
Aquillion
(5/11/2013 6:11:58 PM)
There really should be more ways to deal with poison counters now that Infect is out. As is this will have to do, it seems perfectly made for infect actually. If they are playing an infect deck, and you aren't playing black you likely are at 20 life, and they likely aren't going to do anything to change that so losing 9 life isn't a bad price to pay.
I really think Infect should have used something other than poison counters. I know it fits the theme, but poison was balanced around cards that slowly added poison counters to you. If it used infect counters instead of poison and it had to deal 20 of them it would still get around life gain. And Since Wizard thinks 1 CMC is cheap enough to grant a creature infect for the turn, and they think 1 CMC is enough to make a Darksteel Colossus into a Blightsteel Colossus , then I think it really should have been 20 counters not 10.
Posted By:
GordonFreechmen
(7/19/2013 1:11:17 AM)
The Phyrexian invasion of Ulgrotha was a complete failure.
Posted By:
Goatllama
(1/21/2014 5:54:22 AM)
@Maximillini86
Nope.
Mark Rosewater hates this card with a vehement pa ssion.
He states that this card just makes poison 'another life total'.
There will never ever again be another way to remove poison.
Posted By:
HairlessThoctar
(9/6/2010 11:29:01 AM)
This is a terrible hoser. If you're actually able to use this to good effect, the game should reward you, not punish you. For God's sake, you just hosed something as obscure as poison, that's like playing Ertai's Trickery or Teferi's Response!
Even so, if anyone ever saves their own life by playing Leeches, they get bragging rights forever.
Posted By:
ScissorsLizard
(5/6/2010 12:48:42 AM)
Just wait leeches . . . your time will come!
When all those people that spent 200 dollars on a playset of Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon, just for a chance to rule their casual playgroup with a deadly poison counter giving monstrosity, you will be dug out of those boxes of Homelands cards that people have lying around in their basements to be used to get a fire going during blizzards. You will be the savior of many a player upon the release of Scars of Mirridon.
Perhaps this was the master plan for Homelands all along, produce cards that look like absolute crap, but eventually end up being useful in later blocks.
Posted By:
zarakstan
(9/18/2010 2:42:44 PM)
@Bandswithother: ... and then he negates your Hornet Stings with a healing salve, and when his turn comes, he plays a couple of Heroes' Reunion, just to follow your ridiculous theme of doubled card use.
Anyways, it's been a long time coming. Leeches might finally become another useful card from Homelands, as any future significant use of poison counters is bound to further strenghten it, unless, of course, R&D creates a more solid way of removing poison counters.
Posted By:
Tiggurix
(12/1/2010 4:20:19 AM)
I'm not sure if I agree with this being a white card. It isn't life gain, though it can be argued (against MaRo's wishes) that poison is another life counter and thus is similar in a way. The use of natural medicine from leeches seems more green to me, even if modern medicine occasionally would use such approaches as well. Then the drawback doesn't seem like either color, but I guess is more white than green, so perhaps it is best to be white. It just seems so wrong to me.
Posted By:
sarroth
(10/11/2010 4:17:15 PM)
Flavour wise, this is perfect. The leeches suck out the infection, but you lose life because they also suck out your blood.
I'm an infect player myself, and I thought the whole idea behind poison counters was that they couldn't be removed, like a black plague thing.
Posted By:
Sironos
(10/9/2010 1:10:24 PM)