General Life Gain as a Thing

Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
A comment from the CFB article itself:

Brendan Goold · Top Commenter · Seattle, Washington
we had to beg CML to take all the life gain cards out of the cube it was so horrible playing with them, it took forever because you guys were so high on them but I think we finally got rid of most of them

I don't have Facebook, but if I did, I would like this post.

also where the hell is CML
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Eric Chan said:
A comment from the CFB article itself:

Brendan Goold · Top Commenter · Seattle, Washington
we had to beg CML to take all the life gain cards out of the cube it was so horrible playing with them, it took forever because you guys were so high on them but I think we finally got rid of most of them

I don't have Facebook, but if I did, I would like this post.

also where the hell is CML
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This is a fair point, and one I kind of responded to in the article, but maybe we can expand it here. One of the things that was needed was ways for a Pridemate deck to actually finish off the opposition, and I added some of those.

The other was an attempt to minimize raw life gain while maximizing the number of triggers you get, and that's a tricky balance. I didn't go the Serra Ascendant route because I don't want the decks needing to gain infinite life or whatever. Same with, say, Martyr of Sands. These decks are gaining life at a lower pace than the constructed lifegain equivalents. From my experience there will be some games that drag because the lifegain piles up, but the large majority involved gaining small chunks and swinging in with a titan-sized 2 drop.

Anybody have ideas for further refining the archetype? I don't think it's as great a design as zombies et. al., but it has produced fun, from both a player and design side. Dom, you drafted a lifegain deck. Care to chime in?
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
The biggest hurdle to overcome is that Ajani's Pridemate is the only real 'payoff' (sure, you can go animal with Archangel of Thune, but that's not something you can build around by itself), and you can't do it halfheartedly. I know you said you once had a Junk deck with incidental Pridemates where they grew to 4/4 or bigger naturally, but that's an exceptional case. With Zombies, I can have a 'normal' BW deck but get value from my sac outlets via Lingering Souls or Kitchen Finks or whatever; I have to be fully committed to the lifegain theme for it to work. You might have to go deeper with cards that want you to pay life - Unspeakable Symbol? Zur's Weirding? - and raw life gain cards.

Lifegain is also only suited to winning fair games; in that draft I lost to CML's UG deck because he just went off with Gaea's Cradle and there wasn't much I could do. As much as I like Glimmerposts here, it's awkward that both lifegain and Cloudpost.dec want them but the latter wins that matchup very easily.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Dom Harvey said:
With Zombies, I can have a 'normal' BW deck but get value from my sac outlets via Lingering Souls or Kitchen Finks or whatever; I have to be fully committed to the lifegain theme for it to work.
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This is the thing I struggle with in cube as a general rule. I posted about this very thing in my cube thread - IMO you have to find a balance between arch type support and general synergy. It's very much the question I posed in the debate thread: how much do you want your cube to play like constructed (where people are assembling consistent and efficient decks) versus limited (where it's a bit looser and random). That is likely a very play group dependent question with no right answer. For me personally, I prefer the more limited slant. I like arch types too though, so there's some internal conflict for me. I haven't found that happy place with my cube yet.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
So. Not a life gain theme, but do we have any more black lifegain cards? Nighthawk is doing way too much heavy lifting.
 
Alphez

Alphez

I was not into cubing when this theme was first explored, but I am under the impression that most people finally cut it. Why so? Was it too crippling for aggro decks? Were the cards too narrow?

I am asking because I find Grampa Karlov to be very very tempting. Maybe we don't need to go into Ajani's Pridemate territory to push the theme. Maybe cards like Karlov, Sanguine Bond, Serene Steward, Archangel of Thune and possibly Malakir Familiar would be enough of a push? Most of them are decent in a non-dedicated deck, or are powerful enough to justify building one... and I think most cubes already pack enough lifegain that we don't really need to add more to make this work.

We could also pack some incidental hate cards in the form of Punishing Fire, Atarka's Command and Erebos, God of the Dead which are easily maindeckable on their own.

I don't know, what do you think? I am also curious to hear the impressions of people who tried this before!
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Its just too narrow and underpowered for most cubes. Karlov is i.m.o runnable, but it should be done within an aristocrats type package, where you are already gaining life for sacrificing things, and value reanimating cards that are CC 3 or less.

B/W Life pay, on the other hand, is fine
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Jason Waddell said:
I wish either of these really worked in control.
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I don't know. What is our definition of control? There are interesting things that can be done with disciple in controlish builds IMO. Like Shadowborn Demon and when he's all you have left, Disciple of Bolas draw 5 cards and gain 5 life. That's definitely not a midrange or aggro play. Maybe it's too cute though and only works in slower formats? I know your environment is faster and more efficient so what happens over in my group may not be viable other places.

Gray Merchant is sweet with a lot of permanents in play and ways to reuse him, both things that are more control focused than aggro IMO. What about adding Necropotence?

But even in more aggro flavored black decks, they aren't true aggro in my mind. Not even midrange really. Conventional black aggro sort of sucks in cube (every version I've tried anyway). Diregraf Ghoul decks suck. Gravecrawler decks on the other hand don't because of the recursion and what that opens up design wise. Those decks are technically based on CA, which is more control than aggro even if you are using what seem like aggro creatures. Repeatedly wiping the field, recurring threats and building board presence over time is exactly what control does and merchant I think fits into that well even if he isn't a big scary flyer. Who cares what your finisher is? Isn't control more about how you win the game versus what you win the game with?
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I think the important thing that distinguishes control from other archetypes is that it is reactive in nature, with a focus on card advantage. Eventually its ability to present answers should out pace the opponents ability to present threats, and at that point the control deck can leisurely find whatever its win con is and close in for the kill.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
ahadabans said:
I don't know. What is our definition of control? There are interesting things that can be done with disciple in controlish builds IMO. Like Shadowborn Demon and when he's all you have left, Disciple of Bolas draw 5 cards and gain 5 life. That's definitely not a midrange or aggro play. Maybe it's too cute though and only works in slower formats? I know your environment is faster and more efficient so what happens over in my group may not be viable other places.

Gray Merchant is sweet with a lot of permanents in play and ways to reuse him, both things that are more control focused than aggro IMO. What about adding Necropotence?

But even in more aggro flavored black decks, they aren't true aggro in my mind. Not even midrange really. Conventional black aggro sort of sucks in cube (every version I've tried anyway). Diregraf Ghoul decks suck. Gravecrawler decks on the other hand don't because of the recursion and what that opens up design wise. Those decks are technically based on CA, which is more control than aggro even if you are using what seem like aggro creatures. Repeatedly wiping the field, recurring threats and building board presence over time is exactly what control does and merchant I think fits into that well even if he isn't a big scary flyer. Who cares what your finisher is? Isn't control more about how you win the game versus what you win the game with?
Click to expand...

I should have elaborated. It's more that both have some sort of creature / board dependency, whereas Lightning Helix of Finks or Nighthawk can all just do their thing on their own.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
safra said:
both Pact and Siege are legit.
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I think I'm going to try both of these - they seem sweet, especially in lists that aren't pushing the boundaries of power level.

To the folks that run Demonic Pact - how many cards do you typically slot in to reset and/or destroy it? Is zero acceptable?

Anyone got any good stories about Pact?
 
B

blacksmithy

I do!
So my wife and I don't play against each other on Cube nights, because, just, no. We value our marriage. To correct the problem, I made a silly format called "Cube Horde" where you play team-sealed against a horde-version of the cube cards not in your pool.
Our most recent session was her GB Pact deck and my UG Self-Mill deck splashing for Tasigur. We faced a super-stupid Mardu aggro horde that kept us at ~2 life for most of the game. We stabilized by running Pact out, killing it at the last second, recurring it, and playing it again... And then we couldn't find a way to get rid of it the second time and lost to our own Pact. Great game! Would lose to Pact again.

EDIT: Ahadabans, NEVER EVER go full Necropotence. I'm saying it cuz I love you. If you want control cards that boost devotion, I suggest Phyrexian Arena, Underworld Connections, Vile Reqiuem, Whip of Erebos, Seal of Doom, Stab Wound... There's probably some others too.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
japahn said:
What do you run that can reset Demonic Pact?
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I could have sworn we had a Demonic Pact thread, but I searched and couldn't find one. I don't feel like I have more than like 3 cards in the whole cube that reset it, but maybe if there were a thread I would see it's actually 4.
 
B

blacksmithy

Demonic pact resetters include anything that removes an enchantment or "nonland permanent," plus a good portion of my blink package. Pact is remarkably safe in any color combo except rakdos.
 
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