Hello all, I'm a recently returning player to standard (looking to start again with Aether Revolt, mostly a casual player) and am just wanting to pick the brains of current players on how to play through all of the lifegain that is in standard now. Maybe it isn't all that prevalent (not too familiar with the current meta) but it seems to me that there is just a lot of it going around that would make it hard for aggressive decks (one of my favorite strats) to get around since there is no Skullcrack or Atarka's Command to help combat it. Maybe I've just always relied on those types of cards. Things will probably be shaken up a bit with the new set, but with cards like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Shambling Vent, Arborback Stomper, and the new Aethersphere Harvester that allow decks to recoup any life lost early, are aggressive red based decks even viable currently?
Honestly as of right now lifegain is almost non-existent other than Blessed Alliance and Heron's Grace Champion. There's really no way to deal with actual lifegain other than to just quickly overwhelm them or kill their lifelink creatures.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles