Pattern Recognition #107 - Lifegain

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

2 May 2019

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Written by myself, berryjon, I aim to bring to my reading audience each week a different look into some aspect of Magic: The Gathering - be it an individual card, a mechanic, a theme, or even just general history. I am something of an Old Fogey and Smart Ass, so please take what I say with a grain of salt. I enjoy a good discussion on the relevant subject matter!

Hello everyone, and welcome back! Today's subject is an interesting one, I think at least, because it's been something that I've been getting quite a lot of mileage out of over on Magic Arena lately. If only because I spent a few of my wild cards building the best, and quickly found myself up in the Gold ranks because of it - whereupon I hit a wall of Sultai and Grixis control decks that stopped me from going any further.

I want to talk a bit about Lifegain, and what it is and is not. And it is the not part that I need to make abundantly clear from the get-go.

You see, Lifegain is the process by which a player's life total goes up over time, often with the goal or side effect of going above where ones life total actually started! Heck, while I was writing this (and because of this game), I lost a game where my opponent ended the game at 83 life.

Eighty Three

And that's just in current Standard! Not Modern, where I've seen decks go into the thousands!

But here's the rub - Lifegain does not have an inherent value to it. Yes, you gain more life, but the end response is a glorified "So what?". Life gain gets you nothing of intrinsic value. It has no intrinsic value. Your life total means nothing when you win. And that's a might big if.

Historically speaking, Lifegain has been in the providence of to start with, with one of two cards found in Limited Edition Alpha, that if reprinted today, would require no changes to the wording to be within the way modern cards are worded and formated.

Stream of Life was, literally, part of the opposition going on in that time frame, the counterpoint to both Howl from Beyond and Disintegrate. Now, as an aside here, I just want to say just how surprised I am at the number of spells in Alpha that have a casting cost of C. Disintegrate, Earthquake, Fireball, Guardian Angel, Howl from Beyond, Hurricane, Mind Twist, Power Sink, Spell Blast, and yes, Stream of Life. Wow.

I'm gonna have to do an spell article one of these days, aren't I?

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. While life gain is firmly in White's slice of the colour pie nowadays, White actually wasn't all that big on life gain back in the start of the game. Rather, they were focused more on Damage Prevention than gaining life. got that because they were the color of growth, and that included growing ones life total, but as damage prevention got phased out, started to get this instead.

But rather, the first actual creature that had a player gain life when dealing damage was given to of all colours, a taste of things to come, I presume. El-Hajjaj, printed in Arabian Nights, was a 1/1 for that, when he deals damage, you gain that much life!

Now, here's a very subtle, but also a very, very important distinction when talking about life link and its mechanically distinct mechanics. There is a difference between Combat damage and Damage in general. You get one by attacking with Prodigal Pyromancer, and the other with using Prodigal Pyromancer's activated ability.

White really started to get into the whole life-gaining business... oh, I want to say... M10 and Lorwyn. Well, technically it was with Future Sight, but I honestly can't credit Daybreak Coronet and Mistmeadow Skulk for creating the mechanic. Just showing what the future holds.

Actually, M10 is too early. That's the set where Loxodon Warhammer was reprinted with the Lifelink keyword, and not in its original wording. So let's go with Lorwyn then with cards like Knight of Meadowgrain.

But life link actually started life in Fourth Edition with Spirit Link, and that was the internal descriptor of the mechanic for Wizards Design and Development until life link was printed. And that was back in 4th Edition and Legends!

Of course, that isn't to say that only those two colours care about increasing their life totals. is also in this boat, and they have a completely different reason for it. Or rather, they have the same basic reason, but their implementation and the fallout from it is more nuanced.

And while I'll cover this in a little more detail when I talk about 's section of the colour pie, here I want to say that is a firm believer in the concept of the Zero Sum Game, a concept in which, when applied to this case, nothing can be gained without something of equal value being lost. And while can and will apply that to their own resources - sacrificing things to get other things - they can also apply that to life totals.

Specifically, will Drain Life in so many different ways, from Corrupt to Highway Robber to Epicure of Blood to the very recent, and very useful Banehound. They won't gain life. They'll take yours and add it to their own, and that's completely different!

It is because of this that in the modern game, and share Lifelink as a primary ability. They will get it in every set, from the utterly gorgeous Gift of Orzhova to the ability sharing Hybrid Mana Nip Gwyllion or Vizkopa Vampire.

And I'm going off on a tangent here. I'm talking about life gain, not life link, despite how closely the two are intertwined.

Here's the thing. Life Gain, in of itself has no value. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Being at 20 life is no different than being at 200 is no different than being at 1 when you win the game.

No, what life gain is, is two things. And I'll cover first the lesser of the two first.

This lesser aspect is that Life Gain dealys the inevitable. Ask any player about the effort required to get through twenty life as opposed to 25 or even thirty, and they will tell you about the escalating costs and time and effort needed to get to that magic number. The more life you have, the more effort your opponents need to put into bringing you down to zero.

But this is not a stable state of affairs. Either you run out of resources to fuel your life gain - upto and including drawing out your deck if the game goes on long enough, or your opponent is more efficient with their ability to deal damage than your ability to offset it and they win.

Heck, while writing this, I'm also playing on Magic Arena. I just conceeded a game where I ended off with 101 life, but no cards left in the deck. Friggen Grixis Control Decks. If you're reading this, AnromedaX, I'm shaking my fist at you! Elder Dragons everywhere! Pah I say! Pah!

But to put a better spin on this, Life Gain does indeed have its uses. And its use actually plays into the fact it does nothing. You see, the gaining of life is actually an enabler for other effects, other mechanics and other things that you simply might otherwise run out of resources to run! Or life gain causes you do other things in the process!

Or even win you the game.

First, resources. I mentioned that got lifegain as part and parcel of its " sum game" outlook on life, and that still holds. But here's the thing - is also the chief colour when it comes to paying life as an additional resource!

Let me show you. When I talked about card draw years ago, I showed that in Wizards' eyes, drawing a card in the void is worth or when applied to the casting cost of a card. And while I stand by that statement for ... oh, say, 95% of all cards, that's not the only resource that can be used. You see, when playing , the established exchange rate is One Life for 1 Card. I'm serious! Phyrexian Arena, Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted, Ambition's Cost, Damnable Pact, and many, many others set the standard! In fact, when you pay more for the cost of a card, you're paying a premium because of some other passive or active effect in the process.

Now, if you're thinking that combining and to gain life and draw more cards, coming to an equilibrium in the process, you're not the only person to think of that, I assure you, and it can be quite viable in the right decks that can ply the extra draws into something useful.

can also get into the act, with cards like Char that deal damage to you when you cast them, or even just making the effort to survive an Inferno of global damage. and not so much though.

Second, Lifegain also has secondary effects. Cards that synergize with your life total, like Serra Avatar, or perhaps more immediately relevant - Ajani's Pridemate. The former is a very old card that plays to the idea that ones life total matters as more than a barometer to lose, and as something to be shepherded and maintained to get the most out of this creature. And if it dies to direct removal, well, it just comes back!

But it's Ajani's Pridemate that makes Lifegain so interesting in the current Standard. The ability to gain life is easy enough to come by, and the re-introduction of Proliferate to add additional counters despite not gaining life in the process makes this cheap creature remarkably effective if allowed to grow for even a turn or two with multiple sources of lifegain involved.

Seriously. The sheer amount of hate directed at the Pridemate when he hits the table is something I've used to my advantage to draw out responses that would go to more valuable (to me) cards, like, well, Dawn of Hope. Don't let the costs fool you, this card turns lifegain into card draws, and there are a lot of sources of the former and not a lot of the latter in Standard. Or in general.

And is more than willing to capitalize on that with cards like Defiant Bloodlord or Sanguine Bond. Why just gain when your opponents can lose at the same time?

That's the strength of life gain. Life is just a number, but when you have lots of it, it becomes a resource to be used. And use it you must if you want to take full advantage of it. After all, it's not like there's a lot of ways to lose despite your life total, right?

But lastly, despite what I said earlier, your life total can win you the game. Formats like Commander look to life totals for who would win when the time for the round comes, but perhaps the most important facet of this would be Felidar Sovereign. This creature, and cards like Celestial Convergence or Test of Endurance, while rare in publication (I think those are it) all allow you, if you're lucky to turn a high life total into a victory condition.

Why no, I haven't won thanks to Felidar Sovereign before. What makes you say that? Commander games starting at 40 life? What? Never!

Now, so you can see it in action, here is the deck I built for Arena. It's based on the Mono-White Challenger deck that is available now in your local stores, so you know it has a solid base to it. May I present:

Pattern Deck Lives

Join me next week when I talk about my War of the Spark Pre Release. It was fun! I'll break down my card choices, the deck I built and how well it ran.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!