General Life Gain as a Thing

[Jason Waddell]

What about


I've always had a hidden love for this card and would love for it to work.

Could you push an all in red/white tactic with lifegain - as it could act as a buffer for lowering your defences?
I guess what gatecrash tried to do but better?

This could work, I had been trying Searing Meditation but I don't think it's actually a playable card. Good suggestion.

 

[CML]

"Trim your gold slots" "everything costs 4"

at this point i'm just being annoying because your denying some parallels is about as dumb as my insisting on their complete appositeness. really though pridemate is delightful but the 'lifegain' cards don't seem necessary (searing meditation to varying degrees), this may just be one of those 'themes,' like the delver theme, which work better when not explicitly supported. this would mean for me throwing a pridemate in my cube and seeing what happened, and if it worked well then that's more than enough of a takeaway to justify it, right?

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think the incidence of lifegain needs to increase beyond the normal rate to pull it off. Luckily there are lots of good cards that gain life, so the design can be pretty elegant.

 

[CML]

Aight. Sorry for getting all bitchy last night. I just like doubling up on Scooze and Deathrite and Blood Artist then, as I was looking for an excuse to add that other Vampire (even if Vampires itself was just lamer than Zombies). Maybe a couple Pridemates, WW costs are kinda piling up over here

 

[Jason Waddell]

Crosspost:

1 - 0 Drop LifePod (aka three ways to make an eternal Kitchen Finks)

Podding Kitchen Finks -> Baloth -> Archangel with Pridemate on the board is pretty neat. Blood Artist doesn't hurt either.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Time to bring back this guy?

 

[Chris Taylor]

ooo maybe. Would you play it without pingers? I'm kinda unfamaliar with the whole lifegain deck

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hmm... it's been a while since I've done some serious pinging. Cunning Sparkmage anybody?

 

[Eric Chan]

Cunning Sparkmage is a good man regardless of whether you slap a dog collar on him. Someone's gotta clean up the mess left by Noble Hierarch and Blood Artist.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Cunning Sparkmage is a good man regardless of whether you slap a dog collar on him. Someone's gotta clean up the mess left by Noble Hierarch and Blood Artist.

Good point, and killing Gravecrawlers and Bloodghasts all day long isn't bad either.

In the comments somebody else suggested:


I'll test it. I'm not super optimistic, especially because I don't run army-in-a-can dudes, but considering Pod has been running Blood Artist, they'd certainly run this.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I slotted him in over either lone missionary or Nearheath Pilgrim, and I'm liking the change.

 

[CML]

Hmm... it's been a while since I've done some serious pinging. Cunning Sparkmage anybody?

No excuses, play like a Champion

 

[Chris Taylor]

No excuses, play like a Champion

I actually just cut him for being too slow

 

[CML]

wtf try him again

 

[Throgan]

One way to make lifegain feel more like a theme as opposed to just jamming in Ajani's Pridemates is to focus on draining life. Lifelink, Extort, and any manner of black drain life spells could work (although maybe less so if they're competing with the likes of Deathrite Shaman).

I haven't been able to test my new BW Lifegain theme yet (at least it's better than lacking any cohesion), but I'll definitely keep in mind your subtheme assessment in case things go sour.

 

[CML]

Throgan: the difficulty (if I can try to summarize the thread) is in finding cards that fit the theme with appropriate power levels and good synergy with other themes, like not even I am throwing in Serra Ascendant. For a C/U Cube or something more carefully kept under wraps you could go nuts with Tithe Drinker and other stuff that's about that strong, but most Cubes on here have a narrower range of lifegain cards that fit these conditions. For example, Extort is mana-intensive enough to not scale well past regular draft ...

For some reason I forgot about Rhox War Monk, a very Cube-able 3c card that I like a lot. Sprouting Thrinax also brings me great joy, and if someone could find a real Esper card to put in my Cube I would be happy

I dunno, I jammed in a couple Pridemates today and it was great fun. Soul Warden and Suture Priest also fit well, and I'm sure a big part of that is their "free" nature

 

[Chris Taylor]

wtf try him again

Suggust a cut:
chandras phoenix x2
spikeshot goblin
fire imp
hasty manic vandal
yuk yuk the explorer

 

[Jason Waddell]

One way to make lifegain feel more like a theme as opposed to just jamming in Ajani's Pridemates is to focus on draining life. Lifelink, Extort, and any manner of black drain life spells could work (although maybe less so if they're competing with the likes of Deathrite Shaman).

I haven't been able to test my new BW Lifegain theme yet (at least it's better than lacking any cohesion), but I'll definitely keep in mind your subtheme assessment in case things go sour.

Yeah, I mean, draining life sounds great in theory, but the cards just aren't there to support it at my cube's power level.

 

[Changling Bob]

I feel like we have so many conversations where the conclusion is 'my cube is too high a power level for $swathe_of_cards'. Is this telling of something? I'm not sure if it's just that most cards are actually garbage, or we're setting our limited format dreams slightly too high, or just something else entirely.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I feel like we have so many conversations where the conclusion is 'my cube is too high a power level for $swathe_of_cards'. Is this telling of something? I'm not sure if it's just that most cards are actually garbage, or we're setting our limited format dreams slightly too high, or just something else entirely.

Well, the "shape" of the design space is (vaguely) a pyramid. The higher you climb in power level, the narrower your options get. We've all chosen to plant our flags at varying points on the slope. I really enjoy figuring out what it takes to get various archetypes to work at the level of my flag.

On the flipside, outrageous decks like Quadcrawler would be suffocating at a lower power level. I'm willing to accept that many strategies won't ever make it into my cube, because I love love love the ones that are in there.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Rhox War Monk is not remotely Cube-able IMO.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Rhox War Monk is not remotely Cube-able IMO.

I'm sure he's fine if your fixing can support him. 3 power hard to kill lifelinkers are super strong.
I've got a strong bias against 3 color cards (after being forced to include 3 from each shard and 2 from each wedge in my first cube) but this one I can at least see the appeal of

 

[Jason Waddell]

I'm sure he's fine if your fixing can support him. 3 power hard to kill lifelinkers are super strong.
I've got a strong bias against 3 color cards (after being forced to include 3 from each shard and 2 from each wedge in my first cube) but this one I can at least see the appeal of

Yeah, with fetches galore and things like Noble Hierarch and Deathrite Shaman, War Monk seems playable. Not that the Bant decks here need any help though.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yeah, with fetches galore and things like Noble Hierarch and Deathrite Shaman, War Monk seems playable. Not that the Bant decks here need any help though.

Help maybe. Does it need tying to the lifegain strategy? Is blue even involved here?

 

[Jason Waddell]

Help maybe. Does it need tying to the lifegain strategy? Is blue even involved here?

Oh ho ho, wait for Part 2 mister! But, yeah, blue is vaguely tied. I could consider Warmonk. Suggest a cut and I'll run it tonight. The power is yours!