Here’s a life gain deck that you can put together for pennies. Its mono white and there’s a subtle nod to my wall or nothing deck and the gentle aroma of Soul Sisters.
So what is the point of this deck? Well it’s life gain Jim, but not as we know it. Most life link comes from creatures that gain life when they cause damage by attacking or defending, this one does almost the opposite. In this deck you’ll gain life every time you block and thanks to a few tricksy plays that’s going to be a lot.... Anyway here it is...
I call it...
Soul Survivors...
You will need....
4 Serra Ascendent
So here’s the plan... most of your creatures like to block and the rest of them like to bring back the dead. So send your martyrs to the graveyard whilst pumping your life total and there are a couple of sneaky ways to really pump that total.
Golden glow moth gains you 4 life when it blocks right? So... if we equip echo circlet, it can block another creature... so that’s 8 life right? But then it dies... shame... mind you 8 life isn’t bad for a one drop, but hang on a second... What if we cast soul parry on the creatures it blocked? Now you’re getting it.... just because it didn’t take damage, didn’t mean it didn’t block Now add a Luminous Wave to it yep... that’s another 8 life each turn... So for a one mana critter and a two mana equipment and a 3 mana enchantment that’s 16 points of life gain in one turn and all it did was sit there... Palace guard can block any number of creatures... add a wave to that and you can see where this is going..
So what if your opponent has removal? Well it wouldn’t be a game, if they didn’t have some answers, but what are they going to do doomblade a 0/1 moth? Or maybe they’ll Mana Leak an echo circlet? The truth is your opponent won’t have a clue what you’re doing and therefore won’t know how to react. By the time they realise just how much life you are gaining each turn it will too late to Mana Leak the one drop Serra Ascendent ( or is that Baneslayer Angel ) and when they eventually doom blade it, you can simply bring it back with the Sun Titan... or you can choose pretty much anything else in the deck...
The Emeria’s are only really there for the long game and shouldn’t be your first play if you can help it.
It’s also a pretty safe bet that you’re only going to get away with the ploy once or twice early game, before your opponent realises you have more to gain by their attacks than you’ll lose. So my advice is to take the early swings if need be, so you can establish your board position. Then the next thing they’ll know you will have shot up to over 30 life and it’s not quirky little monks you're dropping, but huge 6/6 life linking angels...
Seperated at birth?
Of course they’ll see it coming, but what can they do? Either use valuable removal on cheap creatures leaving less for your real threats late game, or they could just not attack, which will allow you to play the long game and get Emeria online, but most likely what they will do is just grin and bear it and try to take out your life linking 0/1’s with assault after assault, of course they’ll expect you to gain a bit of life, but your first soul parry will wipe the determined grin of their face and before they know it you’ll be swinging in for 6 in the air. Your opponent will probably hate your deck and they’ll probably still be banging on about 2 for 1 and card advantage long after you’ve hit 60 life and laid the game winning Sovereign.
Now importantly this deck is misdirection... You want your opponent to think you are building up to something and that your army of little life linking moths and guards are there expressly to persuade him not to attack ( Emeria will help with this)... The last thing you want to do is let them see a Serra Ascendant until you’ve reached 30 life.
Importantly you’ll need to play game two in a totally different way. So sideboard in Rest for the Weary and Survival Cache. This time what you want is turn one ascendant, turn two rest for the weary and land drop and for the clincher turn 3 Luminous Wave on the ascendant, because as soon as you attack your life will jump over thirty and the Ascendant will become a 6/6, even if he wasn’t before you attacked.
You can try many different versions of this deck...
Splash green for lures and fog and force your opponent to attack every turn...
Splash black for removal and disentomb so you can keep recurring and playing the moths.
Splash blue for leyline of anticipation and flash in luminous wake and sneaky moths.
Weaknesses? Of course it has weaknesses, even superman wasn’t best fond of Kryptonite, like everything this deck has enemies and basically anything with wrath effects will give you headaches.
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