General Making Aggro more inclusive

FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
While I do support lifegain in general, there really needs to be one more support card. Pridemate, Archangel and Reaver are good (and Sanguine Bond isn't the worst if you want to go deeper), but it seems that there should be a slightly better curve. Stuff like Angelic Accord doesn't work due to needing 4 life and Wall of Limbs is just a pile of garbage. There is no shortage of cards with incidental lifegain/lifelink, but a 1 drop that isn't serra ascendent that is one theme would be pretty awesome.

Would a 1/1 for {W} or {B} Pridemate be acceptable?
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
Pridemate is only somewhat needy. It depends what you're looking for. If you see it as a 2-drop that usually becomes a 3/3 and sometimes gets much larger then you're fine. But it is by no-means Tarmogoyf. I had games where I was able to get a couple double-digit Pridemates on the table, which I found fun. Beating down with 2-mana 4/4's is also very satisfying.
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hmm...thats pretty under powered over here compared to what the champion and noble decks can usually achieve.

FlowerSunRain said:
Would a 1/1 for {W} or {B} Pridemate be acceptable?
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If it were a human in white, or maybe a vampire in black, I would play it.
 
GenericZero

GenericZero

Wasn't there an anthem effect enchantment in M14 that could make lifegain better? It goes in like any aggro deck, but it pushes the incentive to have more ways to keep your life total high. Lends itself right into B/W aggro weenies, and doesn't seem awful in other decks. Even if it isn't "turned on", at least it puts racing more in your favor and triggers your pridemates and whatnot....
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I like how compact that looks Rasmus. The archetype feels kind of techy, and I kind of want to constrict it down as much as I can: sort of as a sub-theme to the more powerful humans theme in white. I could probably sqeeze in a few 2cc life link creatures, such as the pilgrim, and be in pretty good shape. If I wanted to go with this as a primary theme in white, I think I would run the soul sisters. Archangel looks like such a blast to play, especially with a lot of the counter interactions we mentioned earlier.

I think I am going to go the felidar sovereign route rather than drogskol reaver. Reaver is the far better card, but part of why I want to do this is to encourage johnny player's creativity, and sovereign seems like a good way to do that. I am already imagining some crazy B/W/g sovereign reanimator deck with gnaw to the bone, gravecrawler, necromancer's covenant, and path of bravery.

Edit: For anyone wondering why I am reluctant to run the soul sisters, its because we play multiplayer magic, and in a multiplayer format soul warden is one of the best cards in magic.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

I like how life gain often also is an identity WotC likes to push onto white in retail sets but it never really feels that inciting, cubing seems to open up an opportunity for life gain to actually feel fun. I don't feel any particular way towards felidar sovereign, I can see how it sort of enables its own win con with lifelink and vigilance, but if its a multiplayer cube it probable gets a lot more fun, and ultimately the cube is made for the people who play it!

How can life gain be expanded into other colors? I know green has some instances of life gain (notably scavenging ooze) and black has powerful spells that costs life to play. Red and blue? Do they care about lifegain? Red usually gets to play the anti-life gain theme (ie skullcrack and sulfurig vortex) and I suppose blue just likes to gain life in general in the UW pair if it gets a controlly role?

edit:

I know that the 2CC easily gets sort of cramped, I think this is a better alternative to soul warden, as it plays into both lifegain and "wide-army" token decks with spectral procession and battle screech.
 
Jonas

Jonas

What you can do in tje 1-drop slot, depending on powerlevel, is put something like basilica screecher. A lot more techy then a lifelinker or soul sister, imo.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Pridemate/Pridemate/Archangel/Path of Bravery is definitely the core of the incentive package. I'd really like one more card here, though, possibly two (one black, one green?). Ageless Entity isn't the card we want.

I like Thrull Parasite and it has a solid place in my cube. It pumps pridemates but also is repeatedly usable with bouncy enchantments. Being able to hate on planeswalkers and +1/+1 counters is gravy.

I think Soul Warden is underrated as a card overall. Besides ticking up pridemates and keeping path of bravery going, she demands removal in a lot of matchups. I sometimes maindeck her if the table is slanted towards aggression and love having her in the sideboard. FWIW I was playing her before I added the lifegain theme.

Vault Skirge seems like an ok card, I don't know why I don't run it. My list supports the "Build a Baneslayer Workshop" plan.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Jason ran it in tandem with a tezzere theme, so maybe there's a way to work that in? Not necessarily tezzeret but related themes. The lifegain already works with the aforementioned +1/+1 counter theme, with archangel and pridemate. I'm unsure if I'd run more than 2 vault skirges though, possibly this is the one drop suite for the archetype



I sort of like there to be at least a single one drop on theme, since it rewards playing tokens in the same way path of bravery does.
 
Lucre

Lucre

Lifegain is kinda a gimmicky premise that doesn't really interact very much with your card count or change the avenues aggro decks get to play the game. It's best attribute is that it creates more opportunities to run lifelink creatures which are marginally more interesting to white midranged decks and control decks than say some other attacking 2 power idiot is. It's biggest downsides are that it's a linear strategy that sits ill with players, it slows down games and it keeps your cube full of cards that are still only all that exciting to narrow decks that do narrow things.

Life payment isn't an awful idea, but that is the aspect to be focusing on, not putting counters on white creatures that resemble every other white creature you decided not to run. Running Soul Mender to make your life proc cards work feels about as healthy to the format as throwing in a bunch of auras to make a pants deck work, and just about as much fun.

Black's zombie revitalization was so successful because it amped up the number of interactions you could get, it worked with many things aggro and other colours were already excited about doing and it grounded one of the obvious aggressive strategies in the sort of card generation and resiliency that control and value decks could at least pretend to be interested in.

I feel like cards like Loyal Cathar and Kitchen Finks are 100000x more interesting than Pridemate, it's just such a shame they are so inherently oppressive to aggressive decks too if fielded in number. I guess that's better than just having a million cards that control and midranged want nothing to do with though. It's also just applying to white what's worked in green and black's small creature section and that seems shallow to me.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Granted, lifegain is in itself a very stale theme, but part of the idea here was using cards that are, by themselves, actually good enough to just run in a regular cube. Both Kitchen Finks and Archangel of Thune are cards, and running Ajanis Pridemate was a way to capitalize on upsides of those cards.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Yeah its an interesting problem: running lifegain to enable aggro, which itself is normally oppressed by lifegain. It does work really well as a B/W midrange concept.

I will admit it feels a bit loose. If its being run incidentally, as a sub theme, it probably needs to be tied in with an exsisting established aggro archtype. For me that would be humans, so I think I would need to run soul warden, since it works well with the champion of the parish->gather the townsfolk->mentor of the meek engine. Which makes it a question of whether I really want to run soul mender.

It might be better to look at convoke. Triplicate spirits and chord of calling would both provide a lot of play to a small creature deck running that engine and are just good in general. Convoke is also kind of a ramp mechanic that rewards Timmy for playing small beaters.
 
Jonas

Jonas

I actually cut my finks, and run centaur healer instead. I've only played that cube once after that swap, but it worked pretty well, and wasn't as hard on the aggro decks.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, lifegain theme definitely has less oomph to it than sac-theme.

It would be fine if Pridemate were a bit better by default and needed less support. But there's not a very wide range there. Like, if it were a 3/2 or something. Or if there were other cards with incidental lifegain riders, e.g., whenever you gain life, each opponent loses one life, OR, whenever you gain life, scry 1.

It wants to be a subtheme but many of the cards aren't strong enough unless you make it a theme. That's the central problem.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
whenever you gain life, each opponent loses one life, OR, whenever you gain life, scry 1.
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The first one is Sanguine Bond. How far can you push that effect before its broken? They put it on that Guildmage, but having to pay 3 to activate it makes it really bad.

The second on is awesome and needs to be put on a card asap. The question is, which card? A 1/1 for 1 with that is unplayable, but the lifegain decks sure as fuck don't need a 2 drop.

Crappy design incoming:

{W} 2/1 text from Alms Beast AND "whenever anyone gains life, scry 1".
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
FlowerSunRain said:
The first one is Sanguine Bond. How far can you push that effect before its broken? They put it on that Guildmage, but having to pay 3 to activate it makes it really bad.

The second on is awesome and needs to be put on a card asap. The question is, which card? A 1/1 for 1 with that is unplayable, but the lifegain decks sure as fuck don't need a 2 drop.

Crappy design incoming:

{W} 2/1 text from Alms Beast AND "whenever anyone gains life, scry 1".
Click to expand...

He deserves to be a 2/2. Alms beast got to be Grinning Demon, this kid can be a 2/2 :p
 
Lucre

Lucre

Token instants and sorceries theme in white? It gets along better with delvers and spells matter and sac themes, and you get the same lame theme with anthems as pridemates with lifelinkers. It's still pretty shallow and doesn't really expand gameplay though. You also get a weird symptom where 1 toughness creatures become a lot less safe in environments with a lot of spirit tokens and raise the alarms.

Maybe we can focus on what cards control and midranged and value decks would be interested in that fit into aggro's roster well. I know I've played a lot of blade splicers in a number of decks. I've included strangeroot geist in many kinds of decks too, that thing blocks like a beast.

Which control cards (lets focus on permanents right now) do you find have a lot of aggressive potential? Sure there are great midranged fatties with haste like thundermom that are obvs choices but I'm looking more for vensers, ajani vengeant, phyrexian arena and goyf.
 
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