One strategy that many players gravitate towards regardless of format is life gain. Something about gaining incremental advantages while your life total gets further and further out of reach is thoroughly enjoyable.
Unfortunately, while life gain decks can be fun in Commander, they rarely come to fruition in competitive Constructed formats. In a surprising turn of events, though, mono-white life gain managed to boast a 5-0 record in a Magic Online Pioneer League.
This decklist is not only abusing a spicy new payoff but also features a neat combo that essentially makes you immortal! Despite being on the more casual side of things, there are some things to like about what’s going on here.
Playing the Long Game
Like many traditional life gain strategies, you’ll find a healthy mix of enablers and payoffs. Your enablers are the cards that reliably gain you life, and your payoffs are your rewards for doing so turn after turn.
In the enablers department, you’ll unsurprisingly find some “Soul Sisters” effects that trigger whenever a creature you control enters. Cards like Lunarch Veteran and Case of the Uneaten Feast are very efficient and are bound to provide a ton of triggers over the course of the game.
This is important for payoffs like Essence Channeler and Exemplar of Light, which can threaten to grow absolutely enormous if left unchecked. Add in Voice of Victory as a way to generate tokens and thus life gain triggers every turn cycle, and you’re in business.
While Essence Channeler obviously has the potential to win games in short order, part of what gives this deck its edge is actually its grinding power. This is because at three mana, you have two powerful rewards that generate value each turn, as long as you can gain three or more life.
The first card is The Book of Exalted Deeds. This is a funky card with a neat activated ability. Even ignoring the second half of the card, though, if you can consistently make 3/3 fliers, you’re going to eventually overwhelm the opponent.
The second of these payoffs is a new addition from Edge of Eternities: Haliya, Guided by Light. Haliya is a huge addition to the deck. Not only does it serve as a source of card advantage, something life gain decks typically lack, but it also functions as a life gain enabler in its own right. Sometimes, in order to get to the three life threshold, it’ll be worth Warping Haliya and triggering Lunarch Veteran and friends.
Given the presence of two cards that each give you a benefit for gaining three life exactly, it’s natural that Carrot Cake would also make an appearance. Carrot Cake has proven its worth in mono-white tokens shells in Standard and fills its role nicely here.
The Combo
While the primary goal of this deck is to gain small advantages through life gain, the presence of The Book of Exalted Deeds does give you the option of assembling a really sweet combo. Obviously, The Book makes Angels for you to target with its activated ability, which prevents you from losing the game. The problem there is that all your opponent has to do is draw a removal spell for the Angel, and you’re out of luck.
The way to work around this is to pair The Book with Mutavault. If your opponent ever taps out or you’re confident they don’t have instant speed removal at the ready, you can animate Mutavault, target it with The Book’s ability since it has all creature types, and pass the turn. From there, Mutavault will retain the enlightened counter, but you never have to expose it to removal again.
This means that unless your opponent has land destruction in their deck, they’re in trouble. Mono-black midrange and Azorius control decks often have Field of Ruin, so they’re not cold to this effect. However, other archetypes like mono-red aggro will be.
Just be careful not to go for an activation of The Book if your opponent is representing a way to kill Mutavault in response. Voice of Victory can help you set things up, since you know your opponent can’t cast spells during your turn with Voice in play.
Metagame Position
In a metagame dominated by mono-red, mono-white life gain naturally has some appeal. The problem is that the mono-red matchup is far from ideal. First of all, Screaming Nemesis and Sunspine Lynx can singlehandedly shut down your life gain synergies. On top of that, fast starts involving Monstrous Rage or Manifold Mouse can easily overwhelm you, considering you don’t play much removal.
You also don’t do a great job applying pressure to the opponent’s life total at all. This means that your matchups against combo decks like Simic Scapeshift aren’t the best.
In grindy games against decks like mono-black midrange, though, Haliya and The Book can generate a lot of value. Mono-black isn’t well-equipped to get The Book off the table, which helps your cause. There are also some archetypes such as Selesnya Angels that don’t play much in the way of instant speed answers to Mutavault, making The Book combo much more threatening.
All in all, this mono-white life gain shell is still far away from any of the top tier decks in Pioneer. Regardless, it’s still capable of stealing games, and the addition of an extra life gain payoff in Haliya makes your gameplan much more consistent and powerful. If you want something unique to grind the ladder with on MTG Arena, think about giving this shell a shot.
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