This Life Was My Life (A Primer, with Song)

Commander / EDH Casual Combo Jank Lifegain RBW (Mardu)

Klazen

Ramp (12)

• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Worn Powerstone
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Treasonous Ogre

Lifeloss (8)

• 1x Soul Channeling
• 1x Unspeakable Symbol
• 1x Wall of Blood
• 1x Treasonous Ogre
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Necrologia
• 1x Evra, Halcyon Witness
• 1x Moltensteel Dragon

UtilityLand (8)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld
• 1x Radiant Fountain
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Tectonic Edge

Swap (4)

• 1x Axis of Mortality
• 1x Magus of the Mirror
• 1x Soul Conduit
• 1x Reverse the Sands

Draw (10)

• 1x Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Greed
• 1x Nihilistic Glee
• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Necrologia
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Land (28)

• 1x Boros Guildgate
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Orzhov Guildgate
• 7x Plains
• 1x Rakdos Guildgate
• 10x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Removal (6)

• 1x Font of Agonies
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Declaration in Stone
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Hide / Seek
• 1x Utter End

Safety (4)

• 1x Children of Korlis
• 1x Oketra's Last Mercy
• 1x Exquisite Archangel
• 1x Resolute Archangel

Wipe (4)

• 1x Winds of Abandon
• 1x Phyrexian Purge
• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 1x Fumigate

Commander (1)

Payoff (10)

• 1x Vizkopa Guildmage
• 1x Tainted Remedy
• 1x Cradle of Vitality
• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Greven, Predator Captain
• 1x Sanguine Bond
• 1x Defiant Bloodlord
• 1x Repay in Kind
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Utility (5)

• 1x Tainted Strike
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak
• 1x Whip of Erebos

Lifegain (4)

• 1x Gonti's Machinations
• 1x Tainted Sigil
• 1x Hide / Seek
• 1x Venser's Journal

Tutor (1)

• 1x Diabolic Tutor

---

Maybeboard

Other (2)

• 1x Phyrexian Unlife
• 1x Stunning Reversal

---

My life was my life, but now it's your life,
and it's all gone so, it's time you should die.
I understand that it doesn't seem fair, but,
This life was lost for you, not me.

As I was swimming the sloshing bloodway,
I saw you near me, you started to sway,
There was copious bloodloss you see.
This life was lost for you, not me.

I've built and broken, I've stabbed and bitten,
I've created a thousand rivulets of crimson,
A black thought echoed in my eternity:
This life was lost for you, not me.

When the sun withered and creatures slithered,
I felt my mind come vastly untethered,
It came together when heard my voice cry out:
This life was lost for you, not me.

As I went wading into the nightmare,
I felt the pricking of my skin's hair.
I drank deeply and became something else,
This life was lost for you, not me.

In the endless shadows of my people,
I stole silently, the thirst was deadful.
Now it is sated, for as I've stated:
This life was lost for you, not me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,
for I am undead, I kill violently.
I am Tribunal of your life and death,
This life was lost for you, not me.

Inductio

This is primarly a life exchange deck, built on a budget. Licia is a Voltron or life gain commander, typically. This means I'm building outside of her usual role, which means I'm going jank on it! I know she's not the perfect choice, but this isn't about perfection. You see, I love Selenia, Dark Angel, and I love the idea of exchanging your life total with someone else's, but I felt that Selenia is a bit too linear for me to build around. There's no fun in building her, for me. I wanted to create a life exchange deck that had a little more creativity to it. It turns out there's a reason that Selenia is the premier commander for that style, however: It's because she's the ONLY commander for it. The other legendary creatures that you can pay life freely with are Crovax, Ascendant Hero (but he's mono white), Kuro, Pitlord (mono black), Griselbrand (banned and mono black). Not pretty. I did, however, notice an interesting little vampire with a cool toolkit and an additional color, red. You can pay life wit her - though only once per turn, which isn't ideal, but does at least fit the game plan - and she can create different branches of play beyond simple life exchange. I guess what I'm saying is that Licia is a blooded badass, and that's why she's my champion.
This trade-off of having an interesting commander instead of a boring one is that I can't rely on Licia being the sole engine of the deck like I could with Selenia. This means we need redundant sources of life loss in conjunction with the life exchange staples like Axis of Mortality. Because we have several card slots taking up Selenia's role, I had to take out some of the control card slots in the deck. Too bad, but there are still enough control cards to remove the threats that absolutely need to be removed.

You may like this deck if:
-You like the thrill of Death's Shadow, even though he isn't in here.
-You have lifegain decks in your meta and hate them.
-You want to play combos, but not a full-on combo deck.
-You like to win in multiple different ways.
-You like building tall, not wide.

You may not like this deck if:
-You like playing fast/weenie aggro.
-You're a serious combo player.
-You only want to play token decks.
-You're very risk averse.
-You're playing a lifegain deck across the table from this one.


Let's get into it!

Licia, A Crimson Queen

Licia, Godess of Gore, Crimson Queen, Sanguine Seperator, Double Bladed Destroyer, One Woman Tribunal: Licia is an alternate win condition for this deck. She isn't always easy to cast as the life gain in this deck is built to be very spiky, not constant, so her cost reduction mechanic will only occasionally be triggered, and often you'll have used all your mana doing it, leaving you with none left to cast her. Still, when she is left on the field, she can help lose you life, and power up at the same time. There is a small amount of evasion available in this deck, using cards like Whispersilk Cloak and Rogue's Passage. If she gets through, you're looking at lots of commander damage, or you're looking at adding in Tainted Strike for an instant kill the turn after you cast her.
In order to cast her more efficiently than at 8 mana, there are some cards in here that were placed specifically with ramping to her in mind. First there are Gonti's Machinations and Tainted Sigil. Both of these can sit on the field until you're ready to cast Licia. Secondly there is some passive life gain in Venser's Journal. Venser's Journal may be passive life gain, but because we have the possibility of drawing too many cards with Vilis, Broker of Blood,Necrologia and Alhammarret's Archive, giving ourselves life gain and no maximum handsize on one card is just too much utility to pass up in a single card slot. Combined with those aforementioned cards, the Journal's life gain can be pretty darn huge, anyway.

Fuel the Feeding

Image courtesy of Jonas de Ro, via Reddit.
Before anything else can be done, we should ramp up. This deck doesn't have an absolutely enormous average mana cost, but it is slightly high, and exchanging life totals really works best if your opponents don't see it coming. To make that happen you need to be able to do things like cast Soul Conduit and pay it's tap ability on the same turn, which means having 12 mana available. Because we want to cast at high mana costs, I've put in 12 ramp spells. I could have honestly run a couple more, but had trouble cutting cards, so settled on just 12. It's also important not to hit a critical mass of ramp spells, where all you're drawing is more ramp. This deck is on a budget, so the ramp includes a lot of color fixing. In fact, the only pure colorless ramp spells are Worn Powerstone which is still very efficient as a fair version of Sol Ring, and Mind Stone which can draw us a card if we badly need one. The other 9? All color-fixing. As for the land base, I totally forgot to purchase that along with the deck, so I ended up using the mana fixing lands I had laying around. Luckily one of those was Luxury Suite, and another was Temple of Triumph. Unluckily the rest of them were guildgates. If you decide to build a deck like this, I highly recommend turning those guildgates into scry lands like Temple of Malice and Temple of Silence. Honestly, I'm not even sure the deck needs THAT much color fixing. I've had good luck running mostly basic lands, due in large part to this being an almost entirely Orzhov deck. Still, by the time you'll want to cast Licia you do want a red mana, and you'll want at least 2 red mana by late-mid game in case you need to cast Chandra's Ignition.

Dare Sanguinem

This deck wants to lose life. It will do it slowly over time on its own, but it can also do it at instant speed, for as much as it wants. Enter cards such as Doom Whisperer,Evra, Halcyon Witness,Moltensteel Dragon,Necrologia,Soul Channeling,Treasonous Ogre,Unspeakable Symbol, and Wall of Blood. All of them have different benefits to getting rid of basically all of your life total. Doom Whisperer can help you fish for combo pieces. Unspeakable Symbol can potentially make Licia a one shot killer. Wall of Blood can make nobody want to attack you, or risk losing their creatures. What is true for each of these is that you can lose basically all of your life at once, and at instant speed. That's an important thing to do before exchanging life totals, and because it's instant, it allows you some degree of surprise. If people know the moment ahead of time, they will try to stop it happening. Instant speed takes that away from them. Knowledge is a weapon, don't let them have it.
Repay in Kind can be quite powerful at this stage of the game, as well, if you have enough mana available to toss it in before exchanging life. Bonus points if you have Exquisite Blood on the table already. In fact, if that's the case you don't even need to worry about exchanging life totals. You just did.

Bibens Sanguinem

You have just a life or two left? Well, good news, your opponent is now about to have that much life. Axis of Mortality,Magus of the Mirror,Reverse the Sands and Soul Conduit. On a budget, these are the entirety of the cards you can own with this effect. If you're rich or have played Magic since the old days, you may also add in Mirror Universe. If you're in blue you can also add the VERY situational Psychic Transfer. If there are other cards with this exact effect, I don't know them. Most of these can't be done at instant speed, unfortunately. Axis of Mortality and Magus of the Mirror will only work during your upkeep. Reverse the Sands can be done only on your turn. Soul Conduit does it at instant speed, but obviously you can't cast the artifact itself at instant speed in normal situations.
Having to do these on your turn is fine, for the most part, since the first half of the equation (losing the life) can be done at instant speed. The difficult part is in having the permanents that the life loss abilities and life exchange abilities are attached to stick around. They will get removed by players who know what you're up to, so don't actually cast one of these precious 4 cards until you're reasonably sure most available removal has been fished out, and you have the 'pay life' cards in hand/on the field.
Alternatively, any spell that gains you life combined with Sanguine Bond or similar effect can also potentially do the same thing.

A Dangerous Game Made Safer

I'm sure you can imagine that bringing your life down to single digits can be dangerous. There are some cards in place to make it less dangerous. Children of Korlis,Exquisite Archangel,Oketra's Last Mercy and Resolute Archangel can all save you if things go bad during the process detailed in the last two sections. To a lesser degree Gonti's Machinations and Tainted Sigil along with the other life gain cards can also save you, but that's not their primary role.
Repay in Kind everyone if they undid your plans, in spite of these safety nets. You probably won't win if you and everyone else is at 1 health, but at least it won't be a long game.

Pay to Play

This deck is decent but not amazing at card draw. When it's on, it's very on, but it really only has 8 card draw spells, and a couple others that can be feasibly called card advantage spells. Some of them can draw you massive chunks of your deck. The best ones for that are Necrologia,Vilis, Broker of Blood,Greed, and if you're out of cards in hand or have discarded down to nothing, Nihilistic Glee. I feel that Arguel's Blood Fast   is, ironically, a bit too slow to be considered among the ones that can draw quickly for you, but is repeatable and can ramp you and/or save your life in the right situation, if you need it to.
There are also several sorcery options for low-end-but-low-cost card draw in the deck, and Alhammarret's Archive turns all of them into high-end card draw instead.
Lastly, Bolas's Citadel gets lumped into the card advantage category due to it basically always ensuring you have a card available to you to cast. Running into lands can be an issue for it. I have included no solutions to that in this deck, but if you own a Sensei's Divining Top and want to build a deck like this one, feel free to use it. I don't.

Occiditis et Exsilium

Let's talk removal. We're in white and black, which means we have access to efficient removal, and exile effects. Let's take advantage of that.
Anguished Unmaking and Utter End: Remove any non-land permanent... permanently. I'd typically save these for enchantments, artifacts and planeswalkers, unless you need to remove a creature that turn because it's about to kill you.
Font of Agonies: You're paying lots of life. This thing should re-fuel pretty easily, and is a repeatable Murder, for one mana fewer.
Swords to Plowshares: They think they're going to keep that life?
Phyrexian Purge: Destroy as many creatures as you can pay life for. A selective removal spell whose downside actually feeds into our gamplan. Auto-include.
Fumigate: A board wipe that ramps us back into casting our commander. With Lightning Greaves on the battlefield, you can start smacking away the turn that you wipe.
Declaration in Stone: Efficiently priced to exile a single creature. Nearly a single player boardwipe if you target a token - beyond efficient in that scenario.
Winds of Abandon: Reasonably priced for exiling a single creature. Incredible when used as a boardwipe. Your opponents won't have trouble casting anything after it, but they also may not have anything left to cast. Also punishes people who don't run enough basic lands.
Chandra's Ignition: Finally into a fun red one. This one assumes you'll be casting your commander or powering up Greven, Predator Captain to insane levels. It can act as a simple boardwipe. It can also act as a finisher when combined with Tainted Strike or that pumped up Greven.

Drink Blood, Eat Combos

I did not design this as a combo deck. All combos came together by simply being synergistic cards. This deck does, however, have some game-ending, or near game-ending, combos. I'll discuss a few here, and leave the rest unspoiled.

Exquisite Blood+Sanguine Bond/Vizkopa Guildmage/Defiant Bloodlord: Two card infinite combo. I tend to hate these, and was dismayed that I even put it into this deck, but Exquisite Blood is too good combined with the rest of the deck to not be included. If I already have a Sanguine Bond effect on the board, I simply won't cast Exquisite Blood unless I'm about to lose.

Chandra's Ignition+Tainted Strike+ a creature pumped up to power 9+: Talked about it in the last section. It's instant death for everyone but you.

Repay in Kind+Exquisite Blood: As I mentioned in the Dare Sanguinem section, if you're the lowest on health at the table and use Repay in Kind with Exquisite Blood on the table, you'll gain all the life that your opponents lost. Leaving them at one health each and you at, usually, much-more-than-one is pretty great.

Vizkopa Guildmage + any life-loss outlet + Children of Korlis/Oketra's Last Mercy/Reverse the Sands/etc.: Lose all your health, gain it all back and hit everyone for damage equal to how much you gained back. Double the life gained and damage dealt with Alhammarret's Archive on the board.

Alhammarret's Archive+Necrologia+Vilis, Broker of Blood: Deck yourself and lose.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 31 - 0 Rares 27 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.78
Tokens	Clue, Energy Reserve
Folders	Commander Ideas, Mardu Lifetotal, Favs