Pointed Discussion

Even if it does gain you life, paying out five mana is not worth it. First of all this card can't deal with black creatures (it costs five mana, it should) and its unaccessible early on in the game. The only good thing about this card is its clear name and its interesting flavor text.

totally agree savagebrain

Are you kids crazy?? If this thing was any cheaper or better it would be brokenly powerful!

Compare with Dark Banishing. For two more mana (and based on the kind of things you should be using this on) you could be getting anywhere from 3-8 life or more. Plus if your opponent knows you have it somewhere in your deck they'll be scared to drop their big beasties until it's taken care of - the kind of beasties they'd be dropping around oh, I don't know, turn 5 maybe? Plus as a sorcery you won't be paranoid about saving enough mana to use it whenever, unlike an instant...

Overall, a very underrated card.

No, this card is just bad, and it wouldn't be broken even if it cost 2B. Why would any competitive player ever use this over, say, Doom Blade? The non-regeneration clause is highly situational, sorcery speed is in fact a disadvantage and not an advantage like you seem to think, and life gain alone is not worth an extra three mana, even if you do gain 6+ life off of it. This card would be a fine casual card at 2BB, instant speed, destroy any creature, but as it is it's not even worth running in casual.

this card can be used in edh. end of story.

Better than Death's Caress. Something costly to kill anything not hexproof/shroud/indestructible/pro-black/etc. That's all I can say.

Decent removal with a bit of lifegain.