I describe lifegain as "The second best cost". Some cards activate when you sacrifice a creature. Some cards activate when you spend mana on them. And some cards activate when you gain life. You don't gain life with the goal of gaining life, you gain life so you can afford your Aetherflux Reservoir, to pump up your Ajani's Pridemate, or to hit Felidar Sovereign's win requirement.

It's important to note that Richard Garfield and the other designers for Alpha always knew Ancestral Recall was way stronger than the rest of the boon cycle. From what he's explained before, alpha was envisioned with a very different play pattern than MtG, and TCGs in general ended up getting. They were expecting players would buy a few packs, trade amongst friends, and build decks from that. They wouldn't have any concept of what the wider card pool was, so their ability to optimize and take advantage of the power imbalance between cards would be highly limited. The game actually takes heavy inspiration from marbles, right down to the ante mechanic to ensure a circulation of cards. The purpose of the boon cycle wasn't to indicate that these are equivalent effects, but to imply the existence of other cards. If someone had no idea what cards even exist, but they see a Healing Salve and a Lightning Bolt, they might guess that there are cards in other colors that do 3 of something for 1 mana, and if they were to speculate based on what effects those could be, they might guess the blue one draws 3 cards, which is just obviously very strong (even if people underestimated how strong card draw was back then) and builds excitement for the set. In fact, while it's hard to tell because MtG didn't use any rarity indicators on the card back then, I believe Ancestral Recall was essentially a rare, printed at a much lower frequency than the rest of the cycle. Still, I do think the Alpha designers considered Healing Salve to be on par with at least Lightning Bolt or Giant Growth, which it certainly wasn't. I also feel like because of how rightfully panned pure lifegain is, incidental lifegain has become one of the more undervalued things in the game. Lifegain does have its matchups where it it's strong. Beyond aggro, there's also combo decks that don't deal more than 20-30 damage, sometimes with no backup plan. Any amount of lifegain when combined with pressure can almost be counted the same as damage dealt, since the opponent will need to do damage equal to all your damage and lifegain just to reach parity and having pressure means they need to do that. There's also so many life as a resource cards. With how many different ways there are to get value out of lifegain, any card that's decent enough at base, but has some way of gaining life on top of that is a lot stronger than it looks. Also, a recent trend for limited lately is that just about every set has a big green creature that gains life when it enters the battlefield. This is just an incredibly simple design, and the cards are usually a real menace in their respective limited environments. It works because it pairs lifegain where its often needed most. The kind of decks that want big green creatures usually aren't doing a lot relevant before the big green creatures come down, meaning they'll often be pretty low on life when that happens. Sometimes to the point where even after resolving the biggest creature on board, they're still dead on board. So between a big creature and gaining some life, it becomes real hard to die that same turn, and makes it a lot more likely that the deck going bigger can actually win the game when it survives long enough to capitalize on going bigger. Doesn't translate well to constructed, where extra consistency means the bigger deck isn't really as behind as much, just weaker against interaction than decks with a worse top end but better average card quality.

It is important to mention, that in the archangel of thune combo, while gaining 1 million life, you also get 1 million +1/+1 counters on your other creatures.

Lifegain has always been one of the weirdest mechanics in any game. If all a card does is gain you life, it's crap. But, if it does some other stuff, then suddenly the lifegain can tip it from good to great! Because gaining life isn't BAD, it's just not advancing your game plan of WINNING, just makes you lose slower on its own.

Life gain has potential as long when it’s an added benefit for a spell or on creatures that trigger a lot just not as all a spell does

Gaining life depends on other cards. The gain in life is not what you want - you want what happens when you gain life.

That moment you realize you can counter Death’s Shadow with Healing Salve

"aBAzan" Ascendancy at 5:14 really hurt me lol XD Also "neCRÓpotence" later on at 9:25 also dealt a big blow oof.

Pure life gain is pretty bad in most constructed formats but incidentally life gain does matter especially as mitigation tools to increase your chances at winning. Siege Rhino , Helix, meathook massacre to name a few while not used for life gain has a way to change tempo instead of being the main win con of your deck.

Holy shit. The way he said "Necropotence" too. I don't know if I can finish this video now. 2 strikes. You're on thin ice!

The lead developer of Magic at the time did some play testing a few years back, in testing they wanted to see what was the most life a 1 mana card with other no effect could have and be playable. In the testing, unless against burn, if the effect was not repeatable, had no board effect (like Ajani ulti you win the game) or 2nd effect on card Draw 1 for example. Then almost no amount of hp on the card within reason makes it playable.

Having played a mono white deep draw deck, I can say that life gain is very powerful. Life gain is normally a side mechanic in a combo. Mono white deep draw had life gain and draw on multiple cards. A card like rejuvenation is a great example of this. Gain three draw one. There is also life gain clerics in orzo colors.

Another thing worth mentioning is that a lot of black and white cards pair gaining life with the opponent losing life

You should have mentioned the win cons like Felidar Sovereign, Aetherflux Reservoir and Test of Endurance. Those are the big payoffs for gaining tons of life.

It’s worth knowing that life gain is only really bad when that’s all the card does. Lifegain stapled onto other stuff can be amazing in any race scenario. Just look at like Kitchen Finks. The fact that it gains you 4 life while being a recurring solidly priced beater makes him an amazing swing in the life race. As a bonus effect tacked onto other reasonably priced stuff, life gain can be amazing.

IMO Vito the dusk rose is one of my favourite cards and amazing life gain synergy ! Turns all your life gain into burn as well !

Aetherflux Reservoir, Test of Endurance, and Felidar Sovereign would like to have a word...

One of the big problems with Lifegain is just what it does to the fun factor if a game if it is too strong, which I imagine is why it has always struggled to be allowed to be good on it's own. If lifegain ever gets to the point where lifegain is good for lifegain's sake, it creates a situation where games perpetually stall out in competative play and no one wins.

I'm glad you brought up the syngeries because of the card Wellwisher, which gains you life equal to the number elves on the battlefield. Thus, I'd be more surprised you didn't mention that card in the video than I am because it's just a 1/1 for 1G that dies to practically anything unless you have a card like Akroma's Memorial (protection from black/red, among other abilities) or Coat of Arms (+1/+1 for each other creature on the BF that shares at least one type with it) portecting it.

Channeling his inner Megamind with that "Necropotence" pronunciation.

Angel's Mercy should have said...Gain 7 life and tap all of your opponent's creatures until the end of turn.

Most mechanics in MTG serves to teach new and old players a new dimension of play. Life gain serves to teach two lessons. The first, is that board state matters far more than life total. The second, you can still lose with infinite life. However, most players end up falling into a trap of avoiding life gain cards due to the two prior lessons. For example, I ran Fog in my mono-green tron deck back in 2016. The idea was to help my deck buy time till I placed game ending threats on board. It also helped that Fog tended to stuff certain aggressive decks which rely on state-based effects to kill you. It effectively traded a card for life, towards the gamble of my big threats beating your many small threats. Is Fog optimal? Probably not, but if Moment of Peace was in Modern, then you would see far more Fog-like effects in big mana decks.

I'd love more videos like this. Going deep into certain mechanics, and why they work/don't.

Life gain is fine, just not in a vacuum. Use it to trigger effects or mitigate paying life for things. Like anything else synergy and creating a "system" with your cards is the key. Sanguine bond makes those "terrible" lifegain cards amazing. Use it in a repeatable fashion through permanents or lifelinking for best results, but a nice "gotcha" lifegain trigger is nice too

It's wacky that it's sorta become the "generic trigger" combo effect, lime the effect on its own is so small that you make it valuable by having it trigger other things, and since the small thing it gives you is simply more time to run the engine it's an oddly fitting place for the mechanic

This video makes me think about another video I saw once about clerics in D&D and how people using them and their spells just for healing are not playing them to their true potential strengths. That video changed the way I saw clerics and later I played a cleric that would tank better than both melee combatants of the party.

The 'L' in salve is silent. Been bothering me since 1994.

Me, looking at several decks I have that are built around life gain and effects that proc off of it for ridiculous effect: 😏 Seriously though. Life gain, especially passive life gain effects, are RIDICULOUSLY powerful if used correctly. It typically just means that you use cards that either have life costs (so you have a consistent way to restore or expand your resources) or that gain benefits from the life gain event. Chaplain's blessing + Sign in Blood = +3 life and 2 extra cards for 3 mana. Life gain + sanguine bond = equivalent burn damage every time you gain. (Chaplain's Blessing is now gain 5, burn 5 for 1 mana. Lifelinkers now deal DOUBLE damage, 4 times if they have double strike...which white gives out like candy, and *EIGHT* times if you use a certain artfact) Life gain + sanguine bond + exquiste blood = instant kill on any/all opponent(s) without shroud/hexproof Life gain + Angel of Thune = counters added to all your creatures for every heal Angel of Thune + Soul Warden + Mycoloth = TOKEN SPAM + LIFE GAIN + +1/+1 COUNTERS FOR EVERYONE Sunbond + Spike Feeder = Remove a +1/+1 counter to gain 2 life, add a number of counters to Spike Feeder equal to the life gained (ie: get infinitely big creature and infinite life) Crypt incursion =Grave hate AND Life gain. There are hard counters to life gain (in red and black mostly), but generally speaking, a good enough life gain deck may not even need to BLOCK during the combat step if set up correctly. And to give an idea of how absolutely bullshit life gain can get, I have a deck that can consistently gain MILLIONS of life PER _TURN_ without an infinite or looping an interaction...said deck also drops millions of indestructible token creatures as well, so it's literally just "you have until the snowball forms to win".

I have never even considered the idea to just build a white life gain deck to directly counter a pure red burn deck. 1 for 1 it may seem effective, but against permanents that don't want to go away, it is a losing scenario. Same when burn is trying to go up against something like elves. Those elves will just build up until you run out of burn spells or they get too big to burn down. It is easier to support other colours with red burn magic, because ultimately, your goal is to deal lethal damage to your opponent, not directly counter each and every card in their deck, which is impossible anyway.

I agree with a lot of people in the comments here (and yourself in the video) that this isn’t 100% a failed mechanic, just a niche mechanic that was underpowered and overused for too long. Still, that’s a bit of a nitpick, and the video covered all the information fairly well. I feel like the term “failed mechanic” is a little bit less useful in MTG than YGO, because of the breadth of different formats mechanics can perform differently in; a mechanic being good in one draft environment, but completely uncompetitive in every other format, wouldn’t generally be considered “failed” by wizards or the players, as long as it was still fun and engaging for its purpose. But I suppose we are literally arguing semantics at that point. If you continue this series, here are some failed mechanics I’d like to see you cover: • Companions - everyone’s already asked you to cover this one so I won’t belabor the point • Banding and Bands with Other - The mechanic so complicated that most top level players didn’t know what it did when asked at a tournament. • Gotcha! From Unglued - a bit weird to put a joke set mechanic in here, but at the same time, it’s a joke set mechanic that punishes players for laughing. It actively works counter to what the set is trying to do. • Landwalk and some other color dependent effects (terror/fear, etc) - these are very rarely used now as they can lead to uninteractive, unfun games. • Partner - A commander mechanic that, in its initial form, was FAR too powerful, enabling players to easily run extremely powerful commander decks of many colors. It’s been semi-“fixed” now, with the introduction of Partner With, and the new partners being mono color. • Arcane/Splice onto Arcane - this is a big one, and was considered a big lesson for wizards about “parasitic mechanics”; mechanics that don’t interact with cards without the mechanic well, making the mechanic need more cards printed with it to be useful. • Epic - a mechanic that makes the rest of the game pretty boring for the player who uses it • Fateseal - just results in feel-bad moments

There was a period (Innistrad/Return to Ravnica/Theros) where Wizards was experimenting with how much raw lifegain on a card was too much. I remember drafting a lifegain deck mostly of cards that did other things AND gained life, but ran at least 2 raw gain x life cards. It was the only time I had an opponent say "I can't keep up with your life gain."

I remember in khan's standard, decks were running feed the clan to help them stabilise against mono red. Worked very well, especially with siege Rhino. Resolving a siege Rhino as a time walk turn 4 was great, and following it up with feed the clan was winning the game

If a thorns like affect was added to white’s color identity, it would synergize well with life gain. Thematically, it could match as well if presented as divine punishment or karma against the aggressor for attacking a righteous person. Imagine an affect that deals damage to a target controlled by a player who caused you to lose life, relative to the amount of life you lost. Then life gain would potentially translate into damage and thus board advantage. This would also add to white’s defensive color theme. The opponent would still have the option of deciding whether or not attacking was worth it, so the thorns affect wouldn’t immediately translate into aggression for the white player.

I’m surprised Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and effects like him weren’t brought up. Turning your life gain into burn damage is a huge benefit, and when paired with stuff like “gain life when a creature enters the battlefield” and Lifelink effects, he can threaten a game over as soon as he hits the field. Life gain is usually a lot cheaper than an equal mana cost burn, and since it’s often paired with other effects you can snowball advantage. When I did play MTG Arena, I paired him with Luminous Moth to trigger the “when creature enters the battlefield, gain life” effects and intentionally sacked my other creatures to further burn my opponent while threatening with my newfound Fliers all while protecting Vito from leaving the field. I had some other fun, silly synergies in the deck but that pairing is what I remember and enjoyed most fondly.

Martyr of Sands was part of a relatively short lived in standard deck that used Proclamation of Rebirth/Adarkar Valkyrie/Debtor's Knell with Martyr of Sands to gain a bunch of life. It was called Snow White and lasted not too long but it was effective for a couple weeks during that particular time in Magic (late 2006).

3:00 - I am going to watch this through, but I am already seeing a counter-argument to this. So far in these first three minutes, the main point of the failure of Life Gain has been its effect on Card Advantage and its typical result in only delaying an inevitable outcome. To which I have not only personally witnessed the opposite, but know of several cards that utilize Life Gain triggers to improve board advantage. My best deck built on Life Gain was in the past rotation in two forms. Mono White Angels and White/Green Angels. The decks were mostly the same with the only variation being that the White/Green deck included green sources and 4 copies of Collected Company. The Deck remained mostly (with 1 exception but varied between players) Angel Tribal and would become brutally aggressive by no later than turn 4 in most games, resulting not only in a Life Gain Engine that was very difficult to shut down but also in spawning 4/4 Angel Tokens. The decks core cards were all a cmc of 3, and with a 2 drop tribal angel being added later that would just further push the decks aggression, it made the deck a prime target to have CoCo variants that were equally effective. Prior to this, I had an enchantment focused deck with a mix of artifacts that created a small steady life gain engine every turn. Among the cards were several enchantments (most being 3 or 4 mana) that would trigger a token spawn as long as X life was gained. Some creatures also possessed that ability, most notable Resplendant Angel. In both the deck above and in this deck, I would also see copies of the Sun God who would turn life gain triggers into +1/+1 counters. All of which, ultimately, accumulates to either having an overwealing boardstate that is hard to keep in check because the engines are easily re-ignited or with such a stark difference in life, it was only a matter of time before the engine kicked off again and you were back to dealing with the fruits of the engine's labors. And that is not included several cards that allow you to draw cards when gaining life. Typically at the cost of mana but usually that can be waved aside with a solid engine in play. So, at the moment I have currently marked, I have to strongly disagree that Life Gain is ultimately just a play to stall. Perhapse in the past yes, but I will watch further to see if what I just mentioned comes into question and if not, then I may need to post several deck lists here of Life Engine decks that have proven to be brutal advisories. They aren't invonerable. No deck ever is. But they have defiantly made some of the players at my table take the mechanic a bit more seriously than they used too. EDIT: Okay, I do not feel so bad about this now. You had a very misleading into and I was expecting the whole video to just be bashing the life-gain mechanic. Glad I was wrong. I will in part agree, its still not as previlant or as strong as Wizards may have intended, but I think this is also good. Life gain, on its own, we can all agree is pointless without something to sync with it. And I think it really does work best in a deck that does sync with it. I have played a few myself like the ones above.

My first deck was a white life gain deck that was almost unbeatable in 2v2 games. Most of the life gain effects came from interactions with other cards like playing creatures or existing for too long. Having another player on my team with a strong front game allowed me to play the long game by racking up tons of life and converting that into an advantage later. Serra Avatar & Akroma's Memorial were a fantastic pair that won me a lot of games by letting me throw an flying 90/90 at my friends that they couldn't respond to because they mostly played black decks. Also being able to transform Chalice of Life on the same turn it's played was fun.

One pure life gain card that was playable outside of hosing burn was Gnaw to the Bone in Innistrad limited. With a well-built self-mill deck, you could be gaining ~16 life off one cast. Further it had flashback, meaning not only could you get another 16 life, but also if you milled it, you got that without spending a card.

Well, Martyr of Sands was very good in Mono-White control and could be recycled with Proclamation of Rebirth, Serra's Ascendant was a nice addition but absolutely not necessary. Also, Necropotence wasn't a great card by itself, the deck was great because of the lifegain cards in it (Ivory Tower, Zuran Orb, Drain Life) which helped to constantly refill your hand while keeping a stable life total.

My first MtG deck was mono green lifegain and I brought it to a local tournament. I had no idea I had illegal cards in my deck until a judge told me in the middle of the round, my table was the last match left, and the crowd groaned as I gained a billion life per turn but I had no other wincons except fat creatures. I accidentally made a mockery out of the game and completely humiliated myself in front of God and everyone, but they still let me play even when they could have just as easily disqualified me. I had to learn all of the important lessons about the game the hard way and all at once, but I have no regrets. Thank you, lifegain.

I think what white's identity should be is taxing and stax since it already does it so well with all the thalia, drannith, ghostly prison, smothering tithe, etc

My main deck in modern was Soul Sisters. Fun deck that just gains so much life that burn scoops turn 2 sometimes

I remember making a life gain deck that was pretty fun and effective during its time. I played Well of Lost Dreams and Words of Worship to gain tons of life and draw as many cards as I want to. It also played Wall of Shards to stop early aggression and give my opponent life and Pulse of the Fields to catch up to them without losing card advantage.

Best part is that Wizards tried to backpedal and say that "Ancestral Recall was supposed to be rarer than the others, so it needed to be better to get excited about pulling it." Not realizing there are documented spoilers of Ancestral having a common's pull rate, same as Salve.

I have one lifegain card that I actually really like in my mono green commander deck, its called predators rapport and for three mana i gain life equal to the power + the toughness of a creature i control, because my deck has huge creatures (my commander is ghalta primal hunger) i often get 20+ life for three mana and that is usually on the low end. its not the best card in my deck but i eally like it.

My friend has some sick old and very valuable cards such as the 2003 world champs winner deck, and just for fun he sometimes use that deck in casuals basically you win by casting decree of justice, you pay 4 mana (2 white) + 2x in order to swarm the field with x number of 4/4 flying creatures for lethal. So it has a big number of draw power cards to access the win cons, + a card called renewable faith. By paying 3 mana (1 white) you gain 6 life, but you can also pay 2 mana (1 white) for its cycling cost, to discard it, draw 1 card and gaining 2 life. As a yugioh player never understood why he never uses cycling because gaining life doesn't give a bigger chance to reach the win con

People think it's useless until they play my deck that has weaponized life gain and to a game breaking degree. I once got up to 40,963 life before my opponent scooped. Also 4 copies of Serra Avatar, 4 copies of Flourishing Hunter, and 4 copies of Chandra's Ignition. It's not useless it just needs to be weaponized.

6:22 "astral" recall

20something years ago I liked playing a Flesh Reaver on turn 2 (4/4 for 2 mana, but deals damage to you equal to the damage it deals), puting a lifelink enchantment on it on the next turn and attack on turn 3 with a 4/4 that instead of costing you 4 lives would make you gain 4 lives. (You gain 4 with the initial damage, then the reaver deals 4 damage to you, then you gain 4 more lives). Even better if two lifelinks were on it, you would end gaining 12 lives each turn. Of course a removal would cost you card advantage, but it was fun to add that "semicombo" to an agro black deck.

Angel of Destiny is by far my favorite card to use with Lifegain-Oriented decks. It adds a lot of aggro and purpose to Lifegain, and in some color combo decks, you can run it with things like Insurrection, making it incredibly fun to take control of your opponent's creatures, then group hug Lifegain yourself to winning while they don't have blockers

Simple fix for raw lifegain being useless: 1 rulebook entry that says ANY alternative non-mana cost also requires the caster to pay 5 life per point of colored/colorless mana substituted, on top of any existing lifepoint costs, and this extra cost can be lethal. Would fit perfectly for Phyrexian Mana too.

That end card music is the menue theme from balders gate dark alliance 2. Is that a public domain song?

Ironically, some of the banned cards also gained life but that is usually the reason they are banned other than the already loaded effects.

one of my first comanders and one of my favorite decks is Golgari lifegain (Ikra and Reyhan) the deck is build on moving counters , spike feeder and Sanqine bond effects. with lifelink and green lifegain added in

Mana Reflection lets any PERMANENT tap for double mana, not just land. This is significant as there are many things that aren't lands that produce mana, such as mana rocks and mana dorks. That this is in Green makes this particularly nice as it means you can tap all your lands for this and still have a Llanowar elves or three that can take advantage of the effect.

Surprised that Heliod + Ballista/Oak were not mentioned as they are more recent examples of "Life Gain" combos. Another way WotC has tried to rebrand life gain is by implementing effects when you either gain certain amount of life in a turn (think Resplendent Angel) or reach certain life (think Righteous Valkyrie), which have seen nice play in Angel decks.

In a commander game, a guy threw his whole board at me and I used a card that converted the potential damage to health. At the end of the turn I had 156 life. He killed me by just hitting me a few more times.

I have made an Abzan life gain deck work, but that was because I also included a lot of cards that cost life as well. It designed around actively using life as a resource. I mean it also helps that it has Siege Rhinos in it, which at the time at least was considered a pretty busted card…

Even if your channel is new, your are making some of the best mtg content out there. Keep up the great work! One recommendation is to maybe redo some audio, as sometimes you mispronounce some words like abzan, and ancestral, but still great work!

There are also cards like Sanguine bond or Vito which turn your lifegain into damage as well.

I think it's worth mentioning that incidental lifegain on gold cards generally makes those cards hyper-playable. Loxodon hierarch, lightning helix, siege rhino, RTR Obzedat, hydroid krasis, sphinx's revelation are all examples of maybe slightly mana:stat inefficient cards that still towered over competing slots due to the tacked on lifegain. I think it would be deceptively easy for WotC to make straight up broken lifegain cards if they aren't super careful with the numbers.

the way I've always explained it is that gaining life straight up is a one time effect but having a permanent on the board (or removing one of your opponents) has an ongoing effect... and lifegain was something that allured me when I started playing around 2014... but I wonder what the threshold would be where something that is pure life gain would be considered "good" seeing as you could just make the numbers bigger.

I actually built a commander deck around life gain. My commander is Athreos and the big combo in it is cliffhaven vampire and exquisite blood. I add a trigger, like tanglebloom to start the combo and win by dealing damage to my opponents as I gain life.

I've ran a Licia deck in commander for years at this point. As a whole, I rely on it to cast my commander reliably (cost reduction based on life gained in a turn) or to achieve goals like Aetherflux or other cards mentioned by calemr. On top of the card disadvantage, lifegain ends up as a win-more effect in many cases to get more value out of a good boardstate.

Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

Only can think of that aura that gives more attack/toughness based on your life gain. Makes certain monsters with like hexproof or trample real crazy.

I can't speak for competitive decks, but you can definitely make some decent casual decks using the lifegain + additional effects/strategies these days. On arena too many players opt to just go for the 'growers' strategy (cards like Ajani Pridemate that get counters when you gain life), which is IMO just too weak overall - those creatures don't have evasion, and die to basically every form of non-damage removal. I have two decent historic decks myself that include lifegain as a big feature - one is one that has a lot of the good 1 mana life-focused creatures (like Ascendant and the dude that taps to make angel tokens), as well as the 3 mana enchantment that either gains a life on your end step, or returns a 1CMC creature from your graveyard to the battlefield. The other is a monowhite control deck that uses Fountain of Renewal (1 mana artifact that gains 1 life each upkeep, and can be sacced for 3 mana to draw a card in a pinch) and Dawn of Hope as a card value engine. Fountain of Renewal is a surprisingly good 1 drop against aggressive decks, and syncing it up with Dawn of Hope helps you get to those sweepers that will keep the opponent out of the game.

life gain is definitely at its best when it's incendental, especially stapled to creatures or draw spells so it puts you ahead on board presence or card advantage. cards like scavenging ooze, knight of autumn, thragtusk, siege rhino, elder gargaroth, sphinx's revelation, hydroid krasis, etc, are all able to give you that life but also give you some other ability so that either you can choose the life when you need it most, or just get it as a bonus and it might save your life in the right game or matchup. like what was said in the video, it's not useless, just kind of niche.

When I heard "infinite life gain combo" my mind went to heliod sun crowned + walking ballista/triskellion which is infinite damage and infinite life gain since the combo shown while yes gives you "infinite life" alot of decks can just beat you down before you can get to that combo since it's a combo that requires you to have 2 realitivaly high cmc cards where as the heliod and walking ballista combo only requires you to have the mana to cast heliod and walking ballista x=2 which is pretty easy to get off the it was a deck a while ago back in pioneer called Heliod's company

Once I got a 154/154 cat with flying and lifelink, and some equipment that, whenever I healed, I put as many +1+1 counters on it. It was hilarious

I remember when the Darksteel "Lucky Charms" were new. I thought they were so cool. "When a player casts a [color] spell, gain 1 life." Passive lifegain throughout the match including off my opponents? Yes please! Alas, it can take a player a long time to learn the lesson of "only the last life point matters". I almost tossed Golem's Heart in a commander deck this month, and I did a cartoonish double take wondering "what am I thinking?". Now that cycle hasn't been reprinted in a decade.

Lifegain becomes good when its passive and one card gets a lot of mileage, especially in singleton formats like EDH. Sun Droplet in a crowded game can put you pretty far ahead to the point where some players won't bother attacking non-general damage. Then Lifegain is also pretty cool on auras and equipments with other stuff going on, as that can gain kinda double the life total swing on an opponent in a way that sticks around. Then you have the rare effects that make Life Gain go Bigmode like Alhammarret's Archive and Well of Lost Dreams, a couple of cards that certainly have high ceilings in certain EDH decks. Overall it is definitely a noob favorite, but it's for that reason that it's slept on just a little bit more than it should be, in casual formats especially. It can be a fun sub theme for a mono white deck of something like that, if for no other reason that it's some of the whitest sh*t you can possibly do in Magic

I think the issue here is a difference in tournament type play vs just having casual fun with friends. Back in the day I had a lifegain/protection deck built around clerics. It isn't something that would be viable competitively but it was still a lot of fun to play.

Gaining life on its own is very weak nonetheless which is the point of the video. Lifegain weponizing (which is the key) is still lacking... Moreover, 3 cards to serve as wincons for said strategy of card types is Not enough to propel it as a powerful strat. More effects need to be printed that serve in lifegain strats (create tokens, draw, give keywords, actual damage or something) to make it stand with the other color identities... And I say this as a Lathiel player in commander

A bit like Necropotence. I remember pulling Mana Crypt out of a double master pack, and being utterly excited. Friend didn't know what the card was, he read it, and then said it didn't seem that good 'cause 3 life is a lot of life lost. And then I used it against them. And then they saw how much it didn't matter and how good it was once they saw it in action.

This is really SO FUNNY Cause when I first started with MTG in 2017/ 2018, I was seriously HATING Ajani Pridesmate / Impassioned orator. Almost every game. Love your vids. This one Idk I'm a victim of lifegain

Lifegain is absolutely relevant, but only against decks that have a tempo based wincon like aggro or some midrange decks. Against a control or combo deck that doesn't really care about your life total, it's pretty bad, but gaining 2 life can often make the crucial difference that helps you stabilize against an aggro deck. I think that lifegain cards tend to be better in Standard than eternal formats because Wizards rarely prints viable combos into standard, meaning lifegain is actually going to matter in a lot of matchups. I splashed green in my standard Oni-Cult Anvil deck specifically to run Gala Greeters, and it has consistently been one of the best cards in the deck against aggro and decks with Sheoldred, mostly because of the lifegain mode. Even though lifegain is usually only playable if it's tacked onto another card that gives you additional value, pure lifegain cards have actually seen some amount of play, such as Nourishing Shoal in Modern Reanimator/Through the Breach and Weather the Storm in Pauper Turbofog (though I guess it may be telling that to make pure lifegain good, you have to attach it to a busted mechanic like free spells or storm).

I built an Oloro deck that gains a crap ton of life but I wasn't happy with it until I started exploring ways to use the life gain that I had. and thus it has turned into a deck where life gain is more or less used to allow me to pay lots of life for card advantage.

Having played a lifegain deck for a while now, here is what I have learned. There needs to be a follow up. Gaining life is fine but when there are so many ways to eliminate a player, having a huge life total does not win the game. Ghalta with double strike for commander damage, Bruvak + Vorpal Sword, Atemsis Allseeing.

Cards like Serra Ascendant could have actually have been a nice way to make life gain matter, by making your life TOTAL matter for effect it would make those cards matter to your board state. The issue being, of course, that would require those decks to play under basically different rules than all the others, and the card would need to be really OP to balance those effects. And they would be very vulnerable since they would either be in a very good spot or very bad spot. And they would need to be balanced around commander now. Honestly, the real fix would have just been giving life gain and life cost to the same color in the beginning (which would have made sense), but it's too late now.

Back I played one of my favorite combos was Well of Lost Dreams and Words of Worship

You should do a Failed Cards on Shrines! They're some of the most fun cards to play imo (a lot of beginner players have no idea how to deal with Sanctum of All), but are pretty bad competitively for MANY reason

Good points. Thanks. But I don't play any cards that just gain life. I play some life gain cards to have triggers so I get the life over and over AND it's usually a creature card, which also has a life gain trigger. I agree: a sorcery or instant card that just gains you 5 life is terrible.

All of your chanels are amazing at their job. Excellent for listening to, since you explain everything, no need for visuals, while also being gorgeous to look at.

My personal favorite decks are essentially “fuck you” decks aka something happens this thing happens for example casting a spell playing a creature attacking beginning of turn end of turn creature dies etc etc you lose 1 or more life i gain 1 or more life or same for mill possibly card draw you make it you could probably build a “fuck you” deck around it

As someone who runs Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn in Commander, I think lifegain is a devastating mechanic. :D

I have a Lifegain Commander Deck (White and Black is the Commander's colors). It works by giving me life when my creatures do damage and when I get enough life I either win the game on my upkeep or use a card to pay 50 life to do 50 damage to my opponent. I don't win all the time, but my Lifegain deck does work

The problem with lifegain synergies is that you need to draw both the enablers and the payoffs and they are usually very easy to disrupt by killing one of the two. Very aggressive lifegain decks can see some success, especially in best-of-one formats, but most lifegain decks are noob traps imo. Where lifegain really shines is incidental lifegain such as Meathook Massacre, The Wandering Emperor, Graveyard Trespasser, creatures with lifelink etc. Gaining a few points of life could give you an extra turn when you are trying to stabilize, it mitigates any card that require you to spend life (e.g. fetchlands and shocklands). Lifegain = tempo and depending on the match-up tempo is as important as card advantage, if not more. There's a reason when Meathook was nerfed in Alchemy the ability that they removed was the lifegain.

Abazan Ascendancy, Astral Recall, what are these cards you're saying?

Never heard someone pronounce necropotence like that before.

Here's a card idea that might make life gain pretty strong: Once per turn you can cast a creature from your hand with cmc equal to the amount of life gained this turn without payings its mana cost. Definitely not balanced, but some form of this could be balanced yet strong

I think you are missing one part of gaining life. When you play a lifegain deck in Magic, the sinergies and combos take some time to set up even when the decks are built like Aggro decks, the advantage of lifegain there is that they can just let the damage go trough many times and preserve their sinergy creatures instead of having to block, and thats an advantage that lifegain decks have because of the lifegain itself. The other thing is that Lifegain can be very broken in some cards as the additional effect. for the last few years in Standart, the meathook is a good example, the card won matches that were almost lost because the lifegain keept the player alive and took him out of risk. Lifegain is not great but it can be very good these days.

in EDH life is kinda nice, but you also get around it with commander damage, and you also have infect/poison or what its called thats even more brutal than commander damage. it would be interesting if white gained some kind of healing in those instances, to "heal" commander damage, for example gain 5life and remove 5commander damage. then it would see more play in atleast commander.

I won a local with a life gain deck Was playing with archangel of Thune and double strike life link Life gain is underrated

I just played a mono white giada lifegain Angels deck and steamrolled my buddy’s printed $2500 mirrym Sentinel worm deck, as well as an elf deck led by latheil, and a Krenko Goblin deck. In commander. Second game fought scarb god krenko and mirrym again and won then too. Do not underestimate lifegain.

I want to make a life gain deck centered around when you gain life triggers and pay x life effects

My favorite color in magic is white and black in second place. I'm a big fan of white black decks too. I sometimes play a black white Life Gain burn deck it does a lot of damage but takes a while to set up. you need cards like Vito thorn of the dusk rose or Sanguine bond . which causes any Life Gain you get to be dealt to the opponent as damage.

You correctly identified that pure life gain is bad cause it doesn't progress the game state. Although generally lifegain stapled onto other cards tend to be insanely powerful. I remeber nyx fleece ram being pretty good v.s aggro. Obstinante baloth and thragtusk come to mind as other card like this. The bigger issue is that generally white life gain is not in this form as much, although they do have pay offs for gain life or being aboe a specific ammount of life. Angelss in explorers is pretty much a life gain deck gaining sometimes up to 20 life every turn. Pure life gain is bad though, life gain plus something else is in alot of cases good (unless the card was unplayable to start with in which case wasn't really the fault of the life gain)

i think life gain is underrated as it's great as a supplementary ability to stretch out the game for Mono white control or Selesnya control. Like in a deck i built where i used a combo of soul warden, ajani's pridemate, voice of the blessed and light of promise and added those with a bunch of life gain cards. i gain life and don't block while my creatures get bigger and i use a combo of exile, hexproof and indestructible to protect my creatures. Life gain is good it's just that many MTG players use it incorrectly. you also forgot the infamous Orzhov Gain and Drain decks.

I actually have some pure life gain cards in my lathiel commander deck sense the card lets you gain put +1/+1 counter for your total health you gained that turn. So a huge life gain card = huge ass creatures. I am actually surprised you did not bring it up when talking about interesting ways Wizards has tried to make life gain better.