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My main standard deck right now has a ludicrous amount of life gain. I don't have any straight up gain life spells, its just the synergy of my creatures. No thrag or resto angel. Probably outgain that deck too. The difference is that games aren't getting drawn out even half of each players deck. Yesterday i had 1400 life on turn 13, and promptly won. I don't know why someone would build a straight up life gain deck with 0 win conditions. With that being said, IM not sure why any of you are arguing about the aforementioned.

Jan 22, 2013 -- 2:38PM, Fleshbits wrote:

The thinking when the deck was built was not "I need to bore my opponent to tears until he quits."

Thought this is a perfectly acceptable goal.

There are a whole lot of ways to use lifegain these days, but you need a win condition.  I had a dedicated lifegain deck that I played in a Standard Daily on MTGO last weekend where I got to 70 life against 1 for my opponent who was playing Bant control and he managed to come back and win because I had no way to push that last point of damage through.  He got out a Tamiyo, and then I was completely immobilized between that and all the Verdicts and Unsummons.

Where I do really like it is in more of a mill or bleeder deck.  This should pair nicely with Dimir mill decks and Orzhov extort bleeder decks in Gatecrash standard.  My favorite lifegain trick for the moment is using  Tablet of the Guilds to compensate for the life costs of Underworld Connections and Sign in Blood .  Exquisite Blood paired with Curse of the Pierced Heart and/or Curse of Thirst is a fun trick too.  However, it seems likely that we will see more hate on enchantments with people trying to combat the cipher mechanic.

Jan 23, 2013 -- 7:59AM, S1AL wrote:

There's too much lifegain  many overpowered creatures in standard right now.

FTFY

Jan 23, 2013 -- 10:02AM, S1AL wrote:

Nah, there's a specific problem with lifegain IN PARTICULAR at the moment. Centaur, tusk, angel, vault, and revelation is a legitimate foundation for a deck. That's sad.

Not really, they are virtual Time Walk s most of the time.

The issue isn't the actual lifegain but the type of strategies used to actually finish games with the decks that are sandbagging. Naya wins through Wolf Run and nut goldfishes, Bant Battleship wins through Nephalia Drownyard or just having more cards than the opponent. The only deck that punishes them is Rakdos, and that was the deck that Bant was first geared to fight against. Kibler's list plays well against all 3, but not without difficulty.

When riding utility lands and stroking into oblivion stop being largely unpunished (and I don't mean through hoser cards, but through actual gameplay)- then the need for massive lifeshields will decrease.