Swamp Leech
Swamp Leech is a 1 Mana Cost Common Neutral Minion Beast card from the The Witchwood set!
Card Text
Lifesteal
Flavor Text
A face only a druid could love.Swamp Leech Card Review
Lifesteal isn’t a very powerful keywords, especially when it’s on a 1-drop and a minion that will likely die immediately. Early in the game, you don’t really care about your health – you’re either at full (so Lifesteal is completely useless) or nearly full, which makes it a meh early drop. Later in the game, where you might start caring about the health, it’s a 1 mana 2/1, so also pretty useless. This realistically won’t heal you more than once, and often won’t heal you at all. Seems like it’s on a similar power level to Voodoo Doctor – the upside is that you can buff it to heal for more, but the downside is that it’s not guaranteed.
That said, it’s another cheap Lifesteal Beast for Deathstalker Rexxar‘s pool of Beasts. That’s great news. Previously when you wanted Lifesteal, you hoped to get Bloodworm, which was very overpriced. This seems fair if you need some healing in Hunter after you’ve turned into DK.
Card rating: 2/10
Why is everyone talking about rexxar here? Also I couldn’t disagree more with the review. Clearly people couldn’t be arsed to review every single card properly.
This card is huge pick-up on to the new – wait for it – zoolock deck.
Comboing this with the glinda crowskin you have access to 18 lifesteal and 18/9 stats on the board for 10 mana or should you want to summon them on the same turn you get 8 lifesteal and 8/4 stats on the board along with your glinda. Say what you want but in my book this is huge. And definitely an instant pick-up for me.
The 1-mana cost seems to give people the completely wrong idea about the card while it’s the best part of it.
5/4 lifesteal for 1 mana or 4/6 for 1 mana?
This with Dire Frenzy on midrange is not bad at all.
Hunters are not just aggro.
I dunno, a 2/1 beast being played on turn 1 in Hunter is never going to be terrible; you kinda have to kill it in case of a turn 2 Razormaw (+3 health or +1/+1 would be the worry) and with Alley Cat and Fiery Bat going out of rotation it could see some play… I’d still rather play a Dire Mole on 1 though.
It’s cheap enough to combo with Houndmaster or as an activator for Kill Command if you draw it a little later – pretty much useless in every other class though.
Voodoo Doctor tends to be better and more reliable as a source of healing if that means anything.
Voodoo Doctor will always be better than this in a vacuum. And Voodoo Doctor is not played. This should never be included in a deck, but it’s meant to boost DK Rexxar’s viability.
Deathstalker Rexxar is probably the best Death Knight card when looked at outside of the context of their class. The battlecry murders aggro decks’ boards and the Hero power functionally reads, “Draw a good minion.” It did not desperately need a source of healing since Taunts come up rather often in the choice pools.
The other cheap, lifesteal minion will always be a better option since that has Rush. Granted, seeing either will happen just less than 30% of the time, so it can’t be relied on either way. Sometimes, it will be the best choice in the pool, but including the Death Knight in a midrange Hunter deck has always been a question of, “Should I sacrifice some of my early game viability to be able to last longer in the late game,” more than anything else.
Control Hunters have never been in great need for healing since the class typically takes control of the board initially with just their minions and loses due to running out of cards. What the class need to create control variants is more draw.
I’m glad they’re printing more generic Lifesteal minions to enable Corpsetaker/Ashmore, it’s a good idea, but that doesn’t mean this one ever makes the cut. I could see SOME card like this get into a deck, but it’ll need to be more impactful.
OMFG this will raise the power of deathknight rexar so much!
I’m unsure if adding a couple cheap lifesteal minions will do a whole lot more for Deathstalker than the hero power already does for it. You will see one of the cheap lifesteal options just under 30% of the time in the second pick, but the other cheap option tends to be better since that has Rush.
The issue with Deathstalker Rexxar has always been the class its in, not the power of the card itself
this card enables a corpsetaker/quest hunter.. with lifesteal/diveneshield/taunt (+windfury if you want)
That sounds awful to be honest, mostly because of the quest part of that equation though.
Ew.
Otherwise this card is nice to have on Arena.
POWER CREEP!!!!!!!
Just Kidding 🙂
Hunter need 1 drop best, ty for give me this shit
1/5*
Hunter doesn’t need another 1-drop, we got Dire Mole and Jeweled Mackaw. I mean, sure, Alleycat rotates but that won’t be a big deal.
As a 1-drop this is average-bad. Lifesteal does nothing in the early game. HOWEVER. If you get a Houndmaster buff, it’s some nice health that you get back. BETTER STILL. It’s great stats for little cost on a Zombeast. I’m excited to play DK Rexxar this expansion. Also, Hunter is losing his cats, so at least you get another 1-drop beast to play with Dire Mole. But as a rule of thumb Dire Mole is waaaay better than this. 2/5 stars as a card, 5/5 stars as a Zombeast.
Hunter players’ prayers are being answered. These lifesteam beasts are amazing with buffs like houndmaster, dire frenzy, and dinimancy.
Not to mention the dk.