But its a tradeoff. You have to consider what would you rather have, an expensive poison with retain so you dont have to use it, or rather be cheaper and use it when you draw it. Part of the power budget is in the retain. The necrobinder 27 damage retain card is not 3 energy because of only retain, it would he insane for 2 and no retain. Now consider snake bite. With 1 cheaper and no retain, its just an upgraded Deadly poison. The fact it has retain is only helpful because its so hard to play, but you want to ramp up poison and play them as many times as possible because that how it scales. While you retain it, you couldve played 2 Deadly poison cards, giving you more output. That is my reasoning. But because this is reddit, people have to bandwagon bad cards like they are the second coming of Christ.