The big question about this card seems to be: Why is this a mythic rare? A good question, as this card very easily could have been a rare. So, here's what happened. The card that filled this slot for most of design and development was a weirder giant effect involving life gain (I'm not telling you what it is because although it got rejected, I think we might be able to salvage part of it). Playtesting showed the card might be problematic and at the last minute it was decided to swap it out for a different card.
What this meant was two things:
- The card had to match the preexisting name and art. This forced us to consider cards that had something to do with life gain.
- The card had to be something development had total confidence in printing, meaning it had to be on the lower side of power. The reason we shoot low in this situation is if we miss the card will still be safe enough to print. R&D has been burned multiple times making a last minute switch that ended up with a broken card in the environment (Skullclamp and Umezawa's Jitte being two famous examples).
I'll be the first to admit that this card doesn't quite have the sexiness of most mythic rares. It can produce a very large effect (for example, late game, this card could easily gain a player 40 or 50 life), so it does have some "potential for awesomeness" (R&D's loose guideline for mythic rare). With more time and less restrictions, this card would most likely have ended up at rare.
