I have had plenty of decks with life-gain cards in it, but this is my first idea for a life-gain deck. I was actually pretty impressed with how it turned out. However, I'm still working out the kinks in it and I could use some assistance. One of my biggest problems is that there are a lot of really good combos in the deck, but the creatures that I have all have low power and toughness and the only thing I have to make them stronger is the Archangel of Thune. But aside from that, this deck can gain life like crazy! Before I share some of the awesome combos that this deck can have, let me share some of the cards which are crucial to Decree of Life's success:
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Rhox Faithmender: This is probably the most important card in the deck. It is not a very powerful card in terms of attacking, but it has a high toughness that makes it a good blocker and it also has lifelink. The key feature of this card in this deck is that it doubles the amount of life you would otherwise gain. And, they stack, so keep in mind that there are four of them. Even having two on the battlefield at the same time is extremely helpful! For example, if you had two of these on the battlefield, and you for any reason, gained 4 life, instead you gain 16 life. (4 x 2 x 2 = 16) if you have three it multiplies it by 2 three times, (4 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32), and if you have four, (4 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64). So you can see how remarkable this card can be in helping you gain a lot of life really fast. And it is useful because there are plenty of lifelink cards in the deck and enchantments that help you gain life, et cetera.
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Lone Rider
/It That Rides as One
: A lovely low-costing Eldrazi card, the only thing that would make it better is flying. This card is easy to put out on the field because of it's low mana cost, and, when 3 life is gained (which usually happens more than often with this deck), it transforms to a 4/4 creature with first strike, trample, and lifelink (the original card also has first strike and lifelink). Also, there are 4 of them in the deck, so they come up often.
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Archangel of Thune: This card is a must-have when it comes to life-gain decks, because every time life is gained, you put +1/+1 counters on every creature you control. Since life is gained quite frequently with the deck, there is no doubt that your creatures will level up pretty fast.
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Odric, Lunarch Marshal: I think that Odric is probably one of my favorite Magic the Gathering cards of all time! I mean, just read the cards ability, and as you think about the deck, you will see its usefulness. There are a few cards in the deck which have deathtouch, and others have flying. If you have one creature with flying, and all of the other creatures don't, then this card gives all of those other creatures flying. It does the same thing for a myriad of other features, including lifelink and first strike! Such a great card to have in the deck, and its a shame I'd never heard of it before I compiled this deck.
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Sanguine Bond: Oh, the Holy Grail of life-gain/drain cards... or at least, I think so. This card is indispensable in this deck. Remember the Rhox Faithmenders? Well, with just two of those, and the Archangel of Thune, you can ramp up the power and toughness of your creatures, swing at your opponents with them, gain a ton of life... and have an opponent lose that much life! It's genius! Even if they only have 5 counters, and you swing with all three of them, that's 15 * 2 * 2 = 60, so you are gaining 60 life while having an opponent lose 60 life, and unless they have a life-gain deck too, it will most certainly kill them. And the good thing is you don't even have to deal damage to your opponents' life total, because even if they block with a creature, that creature is still taking damage, and the lifelink still causes you to gain life, triggering the effect. The only time that this wouldn't work (using cards with lifelink) is when your opponent uses something that would prevent the damage, such as Deflecting Palm, or Iroas, God of Victory, as the damage never goes through (i.e. is "prevented"), and therefore never triggers the lifelink ability. But there are other ways to gain life in this deck, and these will be explained further.
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Angelic Chorus: Another excellent for a life-gain deck, Angelic Chorus is remarkable because when you have a creature enter the battlefield, you may gain life equal to its toughness, and with other cards on the battlefield, this life gain can trigger some awesome combos!
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Purity: Both Purity and Serra Avatar are shuffled into their owner's library when they leave the battlefield so, unless they are exiled, you never really lose them. If someone were to deal damage to your life total via an ability or a spell (i.e. that is not combat damage from an attacking creature) you may prevent that damage and instead you gain that much life. I think I'd prefer that better than taking damage. Also, it is a 6/6, and it has flying, so it's generally pretty useful.
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Serra Avatar: Like I just mentioned previously, instead of going into a graveyard from anywhere, (including when this card is milled from your deck), you shuffle it into your library instead. This does not work when it is exiled, sadly, so watch out for that. The might of this card lies in the fact that this is a life-gain deck. Typically, whenever you use this deck, you're gonna have to break out the extra d20s that you never use, and maybe even your d100s, so, chances are this is probably going to be your most powerful card out on the field when you have it out.
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Exquisite Blood: Similar to Sanguine Bond, with this card you are gaining life as your opponent is losing life, only this one works the other way around. You gain life whenever your opponent loses it, instead of having your opponent lose life when you gain it. Having both this card, and Sanguine Bond on the field at the same time constitutes a true, massive, and deadly eternal combo. More on that later. Keep in mind that this card's effects also trigger whenever an opponent loses life due to another opponent. If somebody were to swing at somebody else in a multiplayer game, you would still gain as much life as the other person lost.
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Path of Bravery: Seeing as how most of the gameplay you will be above 20 life, this card will usually give all your creatures +1/+1, and it will trigger many other combos, because it gives you life equal to the number of attacking creatures you control.
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Angelic Accord: As you will be gaining 4 or more life quite often, this card will help you amass an army of 4/4 flying angels, which is always nice to have, and you can use them for sacrifice as well, for reasons I will explain in the next card description.
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Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim: This card has a few great features on it. Firstly, it is worth noting that it has deathtouch, so it's going to kill whatever it comes in contact with. Secondly, you may use it to gain life, and to get rid of pesky creatures your opponents control by exiling them. Sometimes, sacrifice can really help you, especially when you're down on your luck and there aren't a lot of options left. When you pay mana and sacrifice a creature, you gain life equal to its toughness. Very useful if you want to trigger some great life-gain combos. When you pay and sacrifice a creature, you may exile target creature as long as you have 10 or more life than your starting life total. I used this ability to get rid of some really nasty indestructible god cards during a very dire point in a game, and it was well worth the sacrifice.
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Vampire Nighthawk: A favorite card among Magic players, Vampire Nighthawk is great because its low-costing, it has flying, and it has deathtouch, and its a very inexpensive card to purchase. There isn't a whole lot of explaining I need for these cards, as you can probably ascertain their usefulness for yourself.
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Ajani's Pridemate: This commonly used card is nice in a life-gain deck because as you gain life, Ajani's Pridemate gains strength.
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Archetype of Finality: I don't know how commonly played these cards are, but I have only ever seen myself use them in a deck. I love the archetypes, and they can be very mean to the opposing players. This one, the Archetype of Finality, gives all of your creatures deathtouch, and removes and prevents deathtouch from all of your opponents' creatures. I noted earlier that there aren't enough high-powered creatures in this deck, and so I added this card to compensate for that.
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Alhammarret's Archive: This card has an effect similar to Rhox Faithmender's, but this one is an enchantment-like artifact, and it costs more mana to cast. If you were to have each of your Faithmenders on the field at the same time as Alhammarrett's Archive, then your life gain would ramp up like (X * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 = X * 32, where X is the amount of life you would have originally gained). Seems quite powerful if you ask me. In such a situation, even if you were to only gain 1 or 2 life, you instead would gain 32 or 64 life respectively. it just multiplies your life-gain exponentially.
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Garruk, Apex Predator: This planeswalker card is a good fit for this deck, and it comes with some nice, combo-triggering features. One of these is if you +1, then you may create a 3/3 Beast creature token with deathtouch. This can be important if you have an enchantment like Angelic Chorus where you gain life equal to a new creature's toughness, and you have your Rhox Faithmenders to multiply that life-gain. You can also use the new creature as cannon fodder, or to sacrifice for an ability such as Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim's. You may also use its -3 ability, to destroy any target creature, and gain life equal to its toughness. This is great if you want to get rid of an opponent's card, and gain life at the same time. Finally, the mega-ability is -8 and you give target player an emblem that makes it so that when someone attacks them, the attacker's creatures get +5/+5 and gain trample until end of turn. That could be very nice.
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Felidar Sovereign: This card is almost comical. If you have more than 40 life at the beginning of your upkeep, you win the game. It's laughable for this reason: as I've playtested this game against other decks, I have made it to up to 286 life by the end of the game (that was against 2 other decks, one of them really, really powerful). It is funny because you will have 40 or more life is most likely more than 50% of the time. Besides that, it is a 4/6 creature with vigilance and lifelink. So... pretty powerful.
And, last but not least...
All of these cards are extremely powerful and they all work really good together. If there is only one thing this deck is good at, it is gaining life, and it does it pretty damn well. Now, Let me explain some incredible combos that are sure to help you win the game.
As a friend of mine once told me, this is a truly infinite combo! If you gain 5 life, your opponent loses 5 life, and you gain that much life, and your opponent loses that much life...etc... kind of like a snow ball, until your opponent is squashed like a bug and you have drained the life force out of them and taken it all for yourself! It also triggers the other way around, where your opponent loses life and you gain the life and then your opponent loses that much life... Quite expert and extremely fun to use. Play this combo, and your opponents will be frantically rummaging through their decks to find an "Exile target enchantment" card.
Not to mention that if you have any of your Faithmenders on the field, you can grow the amount of life that is usurped exponentially. E.g. If they lose 2 life, you gain 4, life, and they lose 4 life and you gain 8 life and they lose 8 life and you gain 16 life and so on, and so forth, until they are dead and you have the highest life total anyone's ever seen!
Those are the two major ones that come right to my mind. Of course, there are plenty more combos that can be used in this deck. It would take me a long time to list them all here, and it would get long and messy. Just use your imagination! Playtest it if you'd like. Try it against one of your favorite decks and see how it does! And I want your feedback. Tell me what you like about it, what you don't. What you think is absolutely awesome, or what you think I should change.
I'm always looking to improve, and I like getting feedback about my creations. If you really like this deck or think it will be any good, then give it an upvote via the button somewhere on this page, and share it with your fellow MTG-playing friends! I am fascinated by the inner-workings of this game the more I play it and am excited to explore new and different things!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these cards, this is merely a concept-idea type deck, a wish-list, if you will. I hope to purchase these cards sometime in the near future, as it would be really fun to try this deck against my friends'.
