Viability of Life gain in Standard
When you think of deck types you think control, aggro, midrange and mill, rarely do you think of life gain decks. Life gain decks are usually played only by casual players and rarely do you see pure life gain decks in competitive standard. This strategy is constantly criticized as having no way to win and life gain spells have been cast out because either the life gain isn't significant enough or it is takes a slot of another card that would serve the deck better. Lately though, things have been picking up for life gain and one of the most expensive cards of the new set, M14, is one that is best in life gain decks: {Archangel of Thune}.
The Innistrad block brought us a few life gain cards like {Archangel's Light}, {Chalice of Life} and {Cathedral Sanctifier} but not really enough to prompt someone to make a good competitive deck with the only real win strategy in a Innistrad block life gain deck being {Chalice of Life}. M13 really started making life gain a reality though. It brought us {Rhox Faithmender}, {Serra Avatar}, {Healer of the Pride}, {Vampire Nighthawk} and {Thragtusk}; playable cards that could double your life gain, give you a more stable supply of life (as opposed to one shot life gain spells like {Angel's Mercy}) and combined with Innistrad provided a good base for a life gain deck.
Finally, Return to Ravnica hit providing us with a third color (not just the traditional white and black) that could support serious life gain (green) and in a time where three and even four color decks became extremely realistic due to the amazing mana base. Selesnya gave us a lot of options including {Centaur Healer}, {Aerial Predation}, {Heroes' Reunion} and {Trostani, Selesnya's Voice}. Trostani works great especially with {Serra Avatar} because it doubles your life total, {Heroes' Reunion} halved the price of 7 life from 4 with {Angel's Mercy} to only 2 and both {Aerial Predation} and {Centaur Healer} gave you a functional spell with addition life gain on the side. But the best was yet to come.
Gatecrash came out, finally answering the question "you have all that life but how are you going to win?" with extort. Extort allows you to cast a spell and drain life with any extra mana. The best part about it being it is not just "I gained 3 life!" it was now "I gained 3 life and you lost 3", providing a crucial way to win with life gain. Orzhov has given us thirteen cards (total between Gatecrash and Dragon's Maze) with extort allowing for life gain decks to fill in gaps in their mana curves and providing a constant source of life drain as long as you are casting spells. Many cards with extort also fill many other roles. {Thrull Parasite} allows for not only a one drop 1/1 with extort but it allows you to use your extra life to chomp on pesky counters, slowing planeswalkers and denting +1/+1 deck strategies like Golgari and Simic. {Blind Obedience} slowed the game down for you and provided another extorter. {Knight of Obligation} provides a nice size vigilant blocker with extort on the side.
Dragon's Maze was nice, giving a few cards to support life gain like {Alive // Well}, {Debt to the Deathless}, {Unflinching Courage} and {Blood Baron of Vizkopa}, but it wasn't overly impressive. Lastly we have M14 which gave us a nice base for a life gain deck with {Archangel of Thune}, {Soulmender}, {Voracious Wurm}, {Dawnstrike Paladin}, {Fiendslayer Paladin} and {Sanguine Bond}, finally making life gain a viable option for standard.
Life gain or rather life and death decks now have some solid footing in the standard format. Think, on turn five, assuming you have one extorter and a {Sanguine Bond} out (which is perfectly reasonable), you can easily cast {Heroes' Reunion} (gain 7 life), extort for one (totaling a life gain of 8 and because of {Sanguine Bond} your opponent has lost 9 life) and then you play a 2 drop 10/10 {Voracious Wurm}. The mana curve has also worked out nicely on life gain decks. One drops include: {Thrull Parasite}, {Trained Caracal} and {Soulmender}. Two drops feature {Voracious Wurm}, {Blind Obedience} and {Heroes' Reunion}. Three drops get {Fiendslayer Paladin}, {Path of Bravery}, {Centaur Healer}, {Gift of Orzhova} and {Unflinching Courage}. Fours get {Angel's Mercy}, {Knight of Obligation} and {Trostani, Selesnya's Voice}. Five and up gets {Archangel of Thune}, {Dawnstrike Paladin}, {Exquisite Blood} and {Archangel's Light}. Even if your mana curve doesn't work out though, extort allows you to cast a spell at any point and still use all of your mana.
Overall, I think that W/B life and death decks and Junk life gain have finally received the cards it deserves to create competitive decks in standard and I don't know about you but I am already working on my deck.
When writing an article about an archetype you generally want to provide a sample decklist to emphasize your point.
Also while you did a list an overwhelming amount of cards dealing with lifegain, some of those cards are really just BAD and they ruin your credibility by listing them.
Life gain has been a viable strategy (at least in my meta) for a little while now. I've been running my 'junk token spam switch' deck and it is a house. So much decent power in the life gain side of it, I run that as my primary and switch out for token madness if I need to race.
Lifegain is a solid midrange /anti agro strategy and gives you distance to play out the longer games. Agro decks are good at dealing 20/22 damage in a short burst, if you are able to make them try and take 30 or 40, they will be tested on how versatile their deck is.
I've used life gain in competitions before and I came in first place
I like the article. G/w life gain has always been my favorite deck.
Quote from: Taysby on July 29, 2013, 11:37:16 PM
He put a lot of work into a well thought out article and all you can do is criticize? You can't say one good thing?
It's not that I couldn't it's i chose not to. I assumed he wanted to make it into the articles section and so I chose to evaluate what was missing. I was confident that other would people see the work put into the article and compliment him on it as he deserves, note I do admire that he was able to list many cards just that he went overboard with it.
Quote from: Taysby on July 29, 2013, 11:37:16 PM
I thought it was a really good article. It made me want to run life gain (must resist. Just spent $30 today for my deck mono green pounds face, and I still need to finish, I've done way too much trading also to change). Yes, some cards aren't amazing, but ey would work really good in that deck. In my populate deck that was consistently taking 3rd or 4th out of 28 people at fnm, I ran 3 growing ranks. Everyone agrees that {growing ranks} is a garbage card, yet in that deck it worked good enough to make me want to keep it. Don't discredit a card just because it doesn't fit into every deck.
{angel's mercy} is a BAD card not even niche
{trained caracal} and {soulmender} are not reliable enough to give you a mana's worth of health
{knight of obligation} is incredibly underwhelming in the current meta where 4 drops are able to win on their own
{debt to deathless} costs too much mana to get to full effect unless you splash green to ramp. {in which case you're running shocks which will probably shock you for any life you gaines up to that point}
{archangel's light} is among the worst cards printed because it WILL not win you the game in standard.
A lot of how good a card is depends on how you use it though. For example I thought that {Soulmender} was horrible too, I played in a tournament last week where it was the difference between win and lose. It got him just enough so that turn three he had 30 life, played {Path of Bravery}, turn four {Sanguine Bond} and turn five {Blood Baron of Vizkopa}. Also your point about "life gain can't win you a game", that's why {Sanguine Bond} is so good. It turns even {Angel's Mercy} into a power play because they are losing seven life and you are gaining seven life for four mana. I said "life gain spells have been cast out because either the life gain isn't significant enough or it is takes a slot of another card that would serve the deck better" but when you combine the cards with cards that give you bonuses to gain life like {Archangel of Thune}, {Blood Baron of Vizkopa} and {Path of Bravery} they become much more playable.