The Reserved designation was applied to most cards from Alpha and Beta , as well as higher rarities of cards from the limited-print expansions that existed at the time
While its true youre going down on life, a dedicated mill deck thats looking to win from the graveyard absolutely would play an effect that said mill a card, if its not a land, lose a life for as much mana and in this case, life as theyre willing to spend
A repeatable Threaten is good stuff
On the leaked card with this mechanic, the equipment also grants an extra creature type, like Samurai or Knight
Saprolings you control get +2/+2 as long as you have the city's blessing
Anything that takes out an opposing threat is nice, as are looting/card draw triggers or those which chain into further reanimation these are effects we need all the time anyway, and the more we can overlap them with this other core function of huge deadly attacker, the more consistent we will be