MTG Salvation

So while I just thought this idea was crazy for a long time I began really looking into the cards in standard right now that gain life, and really started wondering if this might be possible.

Here are the playable BWx cards that gain life when entering the battlefield:

• Mardu Woe-Reaper
  
• Arashin Cleric
  
• Cleric of the Forward Order
  
• Kalastria Healer
  
• Linvala, the Preserver
  
• Siege Rhino

Here are the BWx playable cards that have or can grant Lifelink:

• Shambling Vent
  
• Warden of the First Tree
  
• Hidden Dragonslayer
  
• Seeker of the Way
  
• Soulfire Grand Master
  
• Lantern Scout
  
• Lightform
  
• Liliana, Heretical Healer
  
• Butcher of the Horde
  
• Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
  
• Ojutai Exemplars
  
• Sorin, Solemn Visitor
  
• Dragonlord Dromoka
  
• Felidar Sovereign
  
• Soulflayer

Here are the BWx cards that gain life in other ways:

• Blighted Steppe
  
• Scoured Barrens
  
• Prism Ring
  
• Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
  
• Mastery of the Unseen
  
• Shadows of the Past
  
• Surge of Righteousness
  
• Zulaport Cutthroat
  
• Blood-Chin Fanatic
  
• Drana's Emissary
  
• Harsh Sustenance
  
• Retreat to Hagra
  
• Brutal Hordechief
  
• Demonic Pact
  
• Ojutai's Command
  
• Alhammarret's Archive
  
• Palace Siege
  
• Sunscorch Regent
  
• Wingmate Roc

Now, while I tried to be thorough in listing all the cards, I did purposely leave some out since they weren't Black or white anywhere (like Feed the Clan and Retreat to Kazandu) I did this because they more or less fall into the X pile and are worth looking at only if a third color seems nessisary. As some may have guessed I feel that the two best WBx combinations for lifegain are Abzan and Esper.

Abzan notably gives the deck Seige Rhino as well as a number of other lifegain spells in green. Esper gives the deck Ojutai's Command as well as disruption in the form of counterspells, which could be very useful when it comes to protecting Felidar Sovereign.

Personally I'm leaning toward a pure BW build based off of ETB creatures and Mastery of the Unseen. While the two seem anti synergistic, I think they might work really well together. Playing 4 copies of Arashin Cleric and Cleric of the Forward Order in the main deck means the deck will give me an excellent chance at staying alive in the early game to get the Mastery of the Unseen lifegain engine online and keeping the deck's creatures cheap will mean that they'll be easy to flip to gain life off of mastery. Then when the deck's life total is above 40, it will hopefully have a manifested Felidar Sovereign on the battlefield to flip over at the end on an opponent's turn.

Here is what I may try to put together.



The Creatures are meant to be the deck's key to staying alive in the early game, that is why I am playing 4 copies of Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim. Her deathtouch is meant to act as a removal spell in the early game, always trading with the opponent's biggest attacker, or at the very least eating all of their removal.

Eldrazi Displacer is a late game plan which is why it's a 3-of. It is also why I decided on the white enchantment removal suite. Blinking a manifested Stasis Snare will allow me to still use it as a removal spell if I need to. The enchantments also will give me plenty of options when playing against Dromoka's Command's sacrifice an enchantment mode so that I'll never have to get rid of a mastery of the unseen if I don't want to. I'm playing 4 masteries, because I always want to see it by the time I get to 4 lands, but I may be able to go down to 3.

While the lifegain on Palace Siege is nice, it's mainly going to be set on the mode that recurs creatures from my graveyard so I can abuse their ETB effects as much as possible. The single Citadel Siege is in a flex slot and I thought it's +1/+1 pump could prove useful as an alternate win condition.

I'm still not too sure about the manabase, I don't know if 6 lands that can only tap for colorless by themselves are too much. Mortuary Mire seems good in theory as another form of recursion and it also helps make sure I manifest what I need in the late game.

I feel like there may be room for a board wipe or two, and some draw in the form of Ob Nixilis Reignited or Painful Truths, but I opted to leave them out for now.

Thoughts?

This seems like a fantastic list and very cool idea. One problme i can see, however, is that Felidar Sovereign and your 1 Palace Seige are your only "real" win-cons beyond flooding the board (which leaves you vulnerable to Radiant Flames), and you're not guaranteed to draw one of these (tho with 4 total it's quite likely).
Something to consider

I agree that the deck is weak to board wipes, especially one sided wipes that leave big creatures standing like Radiant Flames, Flaying Tendrils and Languish. While I think some number of Make a Stand in the sideboard could help, it doesn't really solve the problem of the black -X/-X board wipes. To deal with the those it might be best to play Duress. But even duress can't protect me from them if my opponent and I are in top deck mode.

I've only found two things that really can pump the toughness of creatures at a moment's notice, but both of them need to be on the battlefield. Mardu Ascendancy and Dragon Throne of Tarkir.

The Ascendancy isn't a bad card and helps the overall plan of flooding the board to increase the lifegain from mastery of the unseen, but it really requires the mana base to be perfect and would be hard to fit into the deck. Dragon throne of Tarkir is bad, but strangely might also be playable in this specific deck. Since it offers a mass pump and addional win condition and the deck is supposed to keep me alive long enough that the throne's prohibitive 9 cost might not matter (4 to cast, 3 to equip and 2 to activate).

Edit-

On second thought, maybe a blue splash is in order for Stratus Dancer. However that probably means Evolving Wilds will get thrown into the mix, which is what I was trying to avoid.

When I first saw Felidar Sovereign as I was looking at getting back into standard, I immediately saw him as an opportunity to go for a really neat deck. I definitely think there are places you can go with it, and I look forward to seeing where this deck ends up. I see you already have Eldrazi Displacer earmarked, which is good, because blink and lifegain themed decks go hand-in-hand. However, I think you should consider looking at some of the other lesser eldrazi that generate scion tokens, and/or Thopter generators like Hangerback Walker. Chump blockers are a very efficient way to hang on to large chunks of life, and Tomb of the Spirit Dragon can convert colorless creatures (including morph and manifest creatures) into additional lifegain.

Here is a testable mock up

What about Make a Stand for board wipe protection and Encircling Fissure for damage prevention?

When you think board wipe, remember Crush of Tentacles. There's no protection from that unless you're running Dispel or some other counter.

Zulaport Cutthroat + Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim seems like the strongest engine for life gain. Look to cards like Wall of Resurgence and Jaddi Offshoot, or cards with other high toughness to sack. In the case of Jaddi Offshoot, the card even nets you life with landfall!

I wish there was some sort of effective recursion available. If there was a method to bring back the high toughness creatures you sacked, then it would make this particular idea much more reliable. Ojutai's Command kinda does that, but it's only for 2 CMC or less, leaving out Wall of Resurgence.



This is a start to the kind of thing I'm talking about. It needs alternate ways to sac and lifegain though, as everything hinges on Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim for the sac/life effect.

@Aezuriel: I like your list, but in my testing with Tomb of the Spirit Dragon I found it's lifegain lacking because I never had enough creatures out at once to make it gain more than 4 life per turn. Which can be underwhelming when an opponent is swinging in with a 5/6 Siege Rhino pumped by Anafenza, the Foremost. I much rather be holding up the 3 land required to gain that life to instead cast removal or cast more blockers. This is why I chose ETB lifegain as my main source of lifegain. It provides a blocker and gains me life at no additional cost. Hidden Dragonslayer and Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim are redundant creatures that serve the same purpose, they have abilities that gain life and also can act as removal. Eldrazi Displacer in my list is less there to abuse ETB effects a than it is to flip non-creature cards manifested by Mastery of the Unseen, and maybe cheaply flip a manifested Felidar Sovereign.

@jAvAkiLLS: I did consider Zulaport Cutthroat and decided not to use it because they both require more synergy in the rest of the deck than just Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim. Having only 4 cards that can be used as a sacrifice outlet doesn't work well with the cutthroat, especially since the outlet requires a 1 cost per sacrifice. The Cutthroat I feel works better in a aristocrats style of deck that constantly can recurr and sacrifice its creatures for a low cost, the current Rally the Ancestors deck popular in standard does this way better than this deck would be able to, and since the cutthroat is a 1/1 that usually dies the turn it is cast I decided I rather have immediate lifegain without needing two specific creatures in play to get any benifit.

I'm not playing Jaddi Offshoot because this is a budget build and I feel that the offshoot shines the most in builds with fetchlands and spell's that ramp.

Encircling Fissure I think will become a more playable card when Wild Slash rotates out of standard, but unfortunately it will rotate with Mastery of the Unseen and make this particular build of the deck harder to play, since mastery of the unseen is this deck's main late game card advantage and lifegain engine.

Quote from DarklingScribe »

@Aezuriel: I like your list, but in my testing with Tomb of the Spirit Dragon I found it's lifegain lacking because I never had enough creatures out at once to make it gain more than 4 life per turn. Which can be underwhelming when an opponent is swinging in with a 5/6 Siege Rhino pumped by Anafenza, the Foremost. I much rather be holding up the 3 land required to gain that life to instead cast removal or cast more blockers. This is why I chose ETB lifegain as my main source of lifegain. It provides a blocker and gains me life at no additional cost. Hidden Dragonslayer and Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim are redundant creatures that serve the same purpose, they have abilities that gain life and also can act as removal. Eldrazi Displacer in my list is less there to abuse ETB effects a than it is to flip non-creature cards manifested by Mastery of the Unseen, and maybe cheaply flip a manifested Felidar Sovereign.

I'll happily take a siege rhino to the face every turn if I am gaining 4 life a turn and racing while generating more tokens -- though he is better as a target for mirror mockery. I am not advocating that you drop control from the list, but use effects that give you more options. Eldrazi Displacer + Drowner of Hope is ludicrously strong in the current format. Its like a combination of Meloku, the clouded mirror and Brine Elemental. Do a little thought experiment with me. Lay out 6 lands (1 of which being Tomb) Displacer and Drowner (and his 2 tokens). Imagine any deck entering combat against you and figure out the best solution.

Skyspawner is a tool to help you get from t3-t6, similar to Reflector Mage, that incidentally, can also be abused with Displacer or Mirror Mockery to generate even more spawn tokens. I first happened upon drowner and spawner in another deck I am working on, and I looked over these cards countless times before I finally put them in a list and tried them out. The results blew me away. I didn't even NEED lifegain any more to have a chance vs atarka red (though it is still nice), I didn't have to waste turns hoping to topdeck answers. Even in ridiculous scenarios, I could just take damage to the face, increase my army of colorless spawn dudes and gain the life back, while still clocking my opponent.

I am not asking you to rake the whole list... but definitely take a look at how much going wide with creature tokens can actually benefit you, and pick out what works best. You might be surprised, how quickly you turn games.

My meta is very aggro focused, so as a result the people that don't play aggro tend to have board wipes in their main deck to deal with aggro. I rarely can hope to get more than 4 creatures on the battlefield at a time, that is why my list above has Palace Siege to give the deck a better long game and a bunch of 2 CMC creatures that will usually give me some value if my opponent plays a board wipe their next turn. While I like Drowner of Hope, it's not my first choice for my meta when I was assembling my decklist above. That doesn't mean that it isn't a great card for your meta in your list.

The additional body{ies} are really good vs aggro, especially in conjunction with life gain. Control decks running wipes should be at a disadvantage vs the aggro decks, and they absolutely hate Mastery of the Unseen, Hangarback Walker and Eldrazi displacer. Also, the added threat density allows you to spread their resources thin, trying to control everything.