Though it seems like a passive strategy on the surface, Lifegain is a legitimately powerful archetype in Commander. Using the right payoffs, these decks can wipe out pods with surprising speed, betraying their benevolent stylings. Though the archetype seems simple, picking up Lifegain can be tricky due to the sheer number of Commander options available to it. To help accelerate the decision-making process, we’ve picked what we consider the best Lifegain Commanders in all of MTG.
5 | Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant
One of Lifegain’s persistent problems as an archetype is closing out games, since gaining a ton of life alone won’t get you there. Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant offers a unique solution to that problem with its wild activated ability. This can win you the game in any number of ways, whether it’s pulling out classic Protean Hulk combo piles or just an overwhelming batch of heavy hitters like Blightsteel Colossus.
Gaining 71 life to get there is no mean feat, of course, but Bilbo’s first ability helps out a lot in that regard. It works best with frequent individual lifegain triggers, like those on Soul Warden and Guide of Souls. This extra lifegain also lets you get more out of payoffs like Sanguine Bond and Well of Lost Dreams, so you don’t have to rely entirely on Bilbo’s activated ability.
4 | Hope Estheim
Combining two of Magic’s more ponderous archetypes, Hope Estheim essentially lets you play Lifegain and Mill in one deck. With cards like Soul’s Attendant and Suture Priest in tow, this can whittle down your opponents’ libraries with surprising speed. This clock gets even quicker when you add in mill doublers like Bruvac the Grandiloquent, or ways to double Hope’s trigger like Y’shtola Rhul.
You can play less fair with Hope, too, by bringing in cards like Beacon of Immortality to potentially mill out the entire table in one move. This also gives infinite lifegain combos, such as Famished Paladin/Resplendent Mentor, a much-needed lethal edge.
While Hope can be a double-edged sword, since your opponents can gain advantage from their graveyards being stocked, hate pieces like Lion Sash and Tormod’s Crypt can easily fix that. Factor in its low mana cost, and Hope Estheim is one of the best MTG Lifegain Commanders we’ve seen in recent years.
3 | Will, Scion Of Peace
Offering a supercharged cost reduction effect for Lifegain decks, Will, Scion of Peace is a truly terrifying Commander to face. Even a simple Revitalize will essentially let it unlock a three mana discount, making any turn a pop-off turn. Add in bigger lifegain sources like Serra Ascendant, and untappers like Ioreth of the Healing House, and you can really get out of hand.
Once it gets going, Will makes big spells, like Storm Herd and Absolute Virtue, trivial to cast. It’s particularly nice with X spells, like Sphinx’s Revelation and Finale of Glory, since they can scale as high as your lifegain goes.
Will’s massive mana cheat potential unlocks a range of spicy infinite combos as well. You can make infinite tokens with Appa, Steadfast Guardian and Felidar Guardian, for instance, or draw your deck with Whispers of the Muse, Chakram Retriever, and a mana dork. While it’s a fairly simple design, Will is undoubtedly one of the most powerful and explosive Lifegain Commanders out there.
2 | Karlov Of The Ghost Council
Karlov is an absolutely terrifying Lifegain Commander, scaling up fast alongside cards like Suture Priest and Auriok Champion. After just a few triggers, it should be the biggest creature in play, at which point you can slap a Whispersilk Cloak on it and win a swift commander damage victory. You can even add in Lifelink granters like Basilisk Collar to turn Karlov into a self-charging engine of destruction.
This alone would make Karlov a worthy Lifegain Commander, but it can also exile creatures at instant speed, in exchange for six +1/+1 counters. Cards like Archangel of Thune and Heliod, Sun-Crowned can provide extra counters to make this cost less steep. You can also use ability doublers like Illusionist’s Bracers to increase your mileage and turn Karlov into a serious removal machine.
Taken as a package, Karlov is surprisingly flexible, capable of dominating alone or playing a more controlling game and policing the board. Heck, you can even run it as a Lurrus of the Dream-Den Companion deck, if you so wish.
1 | Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Though not officially named at this point, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic was essentially the earliest bearer of the busted Eminence mechanic. Even just sitting in the command zone, Oloro gains you two life a turn, which automatically turns on payoffs like Enduring Tenacity and Witch of the Moors. This also makes it much easier to hit the thresholds for cards like The Gaffer alongside your other lifegain pieces.
Once Oloro hits play, things get even better, as it becomes a terrifying draw engine to boot. You get a chance to draw for each lifegain trigger here, so cards like Authority of the Consuls can get you a ton of cards over time. There are even pseudo-combos available with cards like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and Queza, Augur of Agonies, where you can draw as deep as your mana allows.
While it lacks the explosive potential of some of its Lifegain peers, Oloro is unmatched in its consistency. With this Giant in the command zone, your payoffs will always be online, and your hand will always be well-stocked. For this reason, Oloro is the very best of the MTG Lifegain Commanders in the current game.
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