General Fight Club
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
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I'm already running these life gain effects:
And these "pay offs":
If I'd add also these three:
Would that be enough in a 500-card cube to have an actual theme you could draft around? I try to figure out, if these changes would be an easy way to integrate a new way of deckbuilding with very little cost, or if it just wouldn't be something my drafters could grasp. Maybe Karlov as a anchor card helps? Maybe he's just too ambitious (like it's usual in his family)?
And these "pay offs":
If I'd add also these three:
Would that be enough in a 500-card cube to have an actual theme you could draft around? I try to figure out, if these changes would be an easy way to integrate a new way of deckbuilding with very little cost, or if it just wouldn't be something my drafters could grasp. Maybe Karlov as a anchor card helps? Maybe he's just too ambitious (like it's usual in his family)?
The lifegain matters cards that I run ATM:
Not the best cards, but Felidar sovereign looks kinda boring and archangel of thine is off the power scale by miles.
How do you mean that the black draw spells make decks bad?
Sometimes drafters will draft the black life pay cards without any lifegain and put themselves in precarious situations that will lose them games. Maybe saying that the decks will be bad is hyperbolic on my part.
It was a fun build around in Dominaria limited that I think can translate well to cube if you have a lot of incidental lifegain and ways to make a lot of bodies.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Karl9v has a frustrating mana cost for how well he fits, as bw Multicolour anchor bears are plentiful
I agree with Dom here. And it seems like there needs to be a ton of slots supporting lifegain, and I can't see them fit as a natural theme as some other stuff that these colors can do (Imagining primary white, secondary black and green, here).
I don't think this makes sense at all, and this is a good example why:
And these "pay offs":
Besides Karlov and Path to Bravery, none of these cards will make you want to actually play life gain in your deck. These cards are as much of a pay-off to lifegain as Scarab God is to graveyard decks, taking a recent topic discussed here. If I pick up any of these cards in my draft, life gain is the last thing that should be in my mind.
My take-away from this is also the same reason I avoid life gain as much as possible: Given enough life game, a game goes longer and card advantage will matter more, and sequencing and tempo plays less.
Maybe the biggest question here is "what is lifegain doing as a theme?" Is it providing triggers to make creatures bigger? Is it increasing the pool of resources available for lifepay effects? (and what lifepay effect is this that demands you to gain life to survive). So far, I feel like lifegain as a theme is better represented with a soul-sisters type of archetype, and Rowan_CB's and Jonas' suggestions seems to fit well.
But being practical:
I agree with Chris that anchor bears are the way to go, but I'm not sure Karlov on it's own would do much. For a 500-ish card cube, you might need about 3-4 real payoff cards to have at least a couple available in a draft, so I guess it would depend on how deep you want people to go into this theme. Taking a previous version of my list as an comparison, white had a major humans-weenie theme with 5 major anchors, and it wasn't hard to build that deck at around 600 cards. The tough thing is that most creatures that fit a white weenie deck are incidentally humans, while incidental life gain is much harder to come by.If I'd add also these three:
Would that be enough in a 500-card cube to have an actual theme you could draft around? I try to figure out, if these changes would be an easy way to integrate a new way of deckbuilding with very little cost, or if it just wouldn't be something my drafters could grasp. Maybe Karlov as a anchor card helps? Maybe he's just too ambitious (like it's usual in his family)?
Other thoughts on lifegain:
- Instead of Greed as a driver for lifegain support, I'd suggest:
- I played this deck in standard, and it was the most life-gain deck I've ever played:
+UrzatronI don't think it would translate that well to the cube environments, but it might spark some ideas for people working with this theme.
- A while ago, I wanted to play around a life loss theme:
If you follow the Waddellian doctrine, you already play lots of fetchlands and some shocks as well, and most of these cards look great with humans as a theme. Problem is that mostly I wanted to play Death's Shadow, and the redundancy of this effect is so low that it barely exists outside these three cards. If anyone has had any success making a life loss theme work, I'd love to hear!
And to finish off with another topic, but within the topic of this thread:
xI've been playing To the Slaughter over Diabolic Edict because I didn't need to get the most powerful cost/benefit ration given that black has all sorts of other removal spells already, and the delirium clause looked so cool (and it has been a few times where it actually counted). But now I tested Virtus's Maneuver and I'm not sure. It's easier to get full potential out of the Maneuver, but this is not necessarily a good thing. Has anyone had experiences with these?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Virtus's Maneuver is a clean two for one, but you still have to work for it to make the most of it. I quite like it in theory, as it's an edict that still has some value against token decks.
My thoughts on lifegain are this: I want it to be a theme with cards that are otherwise pickable, so no stream of life but rather cards that are very playable outside of a lifegain matters archetype, such as knight of meadowgrain.
Path of bravery, is it worth a slot in a deck that has no other lifegain cards? Sure, specially if you have an agressive deck. Does it get even better with other lifegain matters cards? Triggering +1/+1, deathtouch, flying, life switch, etc, as you attack makes it a pretty great card. Might be too good for my environment now that I think about it. But without lifegain matters it's still a decent enough card, a conditional anthem is more fun than a glorious anthem.
Concerning life loss and black, I don't see the need for additional life gain just to support life payments. You get a cheaper mana cost but have to spend another resource instead, they are usually fairly costed. But life gain could be fun to offset the symmetry of flesh reaver and other sui black critters.
Path of bravery, is it worth a slot in a deck that has no other lifegain cards? Sure, specially if you have an agressive deck. Does it get even better with other lifegain matters cards? Triggering +1/+1, deathtouch, flying, life switch, etc, as you attack makes it a pretty great card. Might be too good for my environment now that I think about it. But without lifegain matters it's still a decent enough card, a conditional anthem is more fun than a glorious anthem.
Concerning life loss and black, I don't see the need for additional life gain just to support life payments. You get a cheaper mana cost but have to spend another resource instead, they are usually fairly costed. But life gain could be fun to offset the symmetry of flesh reaver and other sui black critters.
Well, the repeatable life pay effects can become pretty painful in a deck with no life gain. Cards like Phyrexian Reclamation or Graveborn Muse actually do make me prioritize life gain more. And they make it less likely that I would pick up more and more cards, that cost me life. So a
life gain deck could make a lot more out of grindy vlaue cards like Reclamation or maybe Greed.The thing I like about this idea, is that it is not as linear as adding a bunch of cards like Ajani's Pridemate. You're just playing good (mostly white) cards, that gain you life and good black cards, that use life as a resource.
It is basically the same like Jade Mage is a decent card in many green decks, but you get more mileage out of it, if you play ramp. You have a good card, which needs certain resources, raising the amount of that resoruce you have makes it better - that's the idea.
And to Carlov, I just think (or hope) that guy is good enough to make you want more lifegain but be fine with only a few effects in your deck, which will happen naturally to some degree in an Orzhov deck I'd say.
I think a life-pay theme sprinkled with just a few good lifegain-matters cards is a good way to go both supporting it organically (lifepay for powerful effects that wants lifegain) and some signalling elements to get the idea implanted in a drafters mind (the lifegain-matters card). Giving two angles to the theme hopefully could make it a little deeper, as well?
edit: Ok so I can think of some cards that fit in both categories of payoff (lifepay and gain-matters) but what actual lifegain cards would people run? That aren't really miserable to put in your deck?
edit: Ok so I can think of some cards that fit in both categories of payoff (lifepay and gain-matters) but what actual lifegain cards would people run? That aren't really miserable to put in your deck?
It's very easy to just wave a hand without listing the actual cards necessary to get the critical mass for a theme to be viable.
Well, the repeatable life pay effects can become pretty painful in a deck with no life gain. Cards like Phyrexian Reclamation or Graveborn Muse actually do make me prioritize life gain more. And they make it less likely that I would pick up more and more cards, that cost me life. So a
I respectfully disagree with this assessment. If I'm drafting for a chance to actually win games, I can't see a way that these life-for-continuous-card-advantage cards would prioritize life gain instead of the usual BG midrange deck (or zombies aggro, in the specific case of Graveborn Muse), that seems a lot more capable of having life as a resource to be traded for advantage.
I will come back to the question I had in my previous post: What is life gain as a theme trying to do? And if life-as-a-resource is the theme instead of life gain itself, again, green seems to be a lot more equipped to play this role instead of white. The payoff for life-as-a-resource is whatever the life is being traded for, and not the cost of the trade. Life payments itself is never a theme by itself because the cost doesn't have any payoff (except for Death's Shadow and fateful hour, in a way), and people don't generally build decks around a theme if there is no payoff. Now, if the plan is to just trade life for CA, then the theme is really "surviving until CA wins the game".
To exemplify how I see this discussion, some decks in Modern:
Soul Sisters - A life gain deck. Gaining life is a theme. It is important to the way the deck is built and the way the game is played.
Grixis Death's Shadow - A life loss deck. Losing life is the theme, and controlled loss of life is a resource.
Jund - A "trade favorably until card advantage/card quality wins the game".
From these three decks, the one more likely to want Phyrexian Reclamation, Graveborn Muse, or Dark Confidant is Jund.
EDIT: Could we have these posts split and transfered to a new topic about life gain/life loss/life payments for the sake of organization?
It's a bit tangential, but the most fun I've ever had playing "a lifegain deck" was with this crew:
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Is there any squadroning going on there or are they all separate picks
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I'm guessing this was in a Magic 2014 draft.
vs vs Aristocrats, spells matter, and flickering are all in play.
War Marshal if you/your group is fine with the complexity, Dragon Fodder if you want the spell support, Goblin Instigator if you want a simpler version that supports creature recursion/flickering .
Not very helpful I know, but I think it boils down to figuring out the little balancing touches your cube needs, probably just test each of them. Personally, I run Mogg War Marshal just because I find it more interesting and I want to maximize decision density. Imagine you drop War Marshal turn 2 with a 3 mana removal spell in hand, and nothing else to cast turn 3. However you do have a sacrifice effect to drop turn 4 (let's say Heart-Piercer Manticore). Your opponent has a 3-drop in play (say a 3/3). Now, it's the upkeep before your third turn. Do you play the Echo cost, or will you use the removal spell to kill the opposing creature? Now imagine how your decision changes based on your removal spell and your opponent's creature. What if they have Yahenni, Undying Partisan in play? You're holding Collective Effort? The decisions can become quite complex. Besides, I'll take any excuse to jam more time spiral cards in my cube.
Not very helpful I know, but I think it boils down to figuring out the little balancing touches your cube needs, probably just test each of them. Personally, I run Mogg War Marshal just because I find it more interesting and I want to maximize decision density. Imagine you drop War Marshal turn 2 with a 3 mana removal spell in hand, and nothing else to cast turn 3. However you do have a sacrifice effect to drop turn 4 (let's say Heart-Piercer Manticore). Your opponent has a 3-drop in play (say a 3/3). Now, it's the upkeep before your third turn. Do you play the Echo cost, or will you use the removal spell to kill the opposing creature? Now imagine how your decision changes based on your removal spell and your opponent's creature. What if they have Yahenni, Undying Partisan in play? You're holding Collective Effort? The decisions can become quite complex. Besides, I'll take any excuse to jam more time spiral cards in my cube.
In my humble opinion:
100 % not the Goblin Instigator
In many ways Mogg War Marshal is just way more interesting because there are decisions to be made during the game. It also supports the same strategy as Instigator but also benefits Aristocrats/GY themes even better.
100 % not the Goblin Instigator
In many ways Mogg War Marshal is just way more interesting because there are decisions to be made during the game. It also supports the same strategy as Instigator but also benefits Aristocrats/GY themes even better.
Check the spoiler in my previous post, I gave out a list of every white/black lifegain card I'm running.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I've played a white-shifted Mogg War Marshal in the past, and that card is a-w-e-s-o-m-e in white! If you're running customs, of course.
I'm sorry for my short answer, and I will write up a longer response when I am at a computer.
That's fine! I just have found myself to be a bit hand-wavey, so that's why I mentioned it. These days I even like to go as far as try to write up what an actual 40-card deck with a theme would look like. It's much harder to argue against something very concrete.
I can say that the deck I forced in the last draft did not have enough lifegain effects