Life is good, cards are good, MTG is simple, right? Wrong, MTG is complicated and scary. Alright, it’s not, but it can be hard to notice all of the possible interactions of every card ever.
We’re going to be talking about a card that’ll give you cards and life and hurt your opponent, all at the same time. You may think that’s too much, but we don’t care.
What is Twilight Prophet?
Twilight Prophet is a four-mana black 2/4 Vampire with flying that reads, “At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have the city’s blessing, reveal the top card of your library and put it into your hand. Each opponent loses X life and you gain X life, where X is that card’s mana value.” For those who didn’t play Ixalan, the city’s blessing is granted if you control ten permanents or more, and it’s a game-long effect for you, as long as you have a card with ascend out, and this card has ascend.
Basically, as long as you’ve got permanents out, you get the blessing, and then every time you have an upkeep you get to draw an extra card, and potentially not only gain some life, but also drain your opponents of that same amount of life.
The two ways to play this are either going big on mana costs, or leaning into the life thing.
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Jodah’s Prophet
Jodah, Archmage Eternal is a four-mana blue, red, and white 4/3 with flying that allows you to pay one mana of each color instead of paying a cards mana cost. This means everything you cast will be, at most, five mana to cast.
So, the main aim here is to simply fill your deck with as many ramp cards as possible, and then as many expensive cards as possible, and then keep hitting them with Twilight Prophet. There’s nothing you really need to do here aside form picking big old spells that normally cost too much to cast. Seriously, just fill the deck with whatever you fancy, as long as it costs a lot.
Honestly, this style of deck can be so obnoxiously powerful that you may never even get to play the Prophet, but just in case you do, we really recommend putting a copy of Paradox Haze in the deck to double Twilight Prophet’s effect by granting yourself an extra upkeep step. It’s fun, kind of mean, and always entertaining.
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Twilight Rose
Our other choice here is Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose. Vito is a three-mana black 1/3 that can grant all of your creatures lifelink until end of turn, but also reads, “Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life.” Also, they’re a Vampire, which means you can go all-in on a mono-black Vampire deck, which is a huge amount of fun in and of itself.
Our favorite cards for this strategy are Blood Tribute, which can just outright kill everyone if you’re greedy enough, Sangromancer, which’ll constantly sap your foes of life, and Defiant Bloodlord, which mimics Vito’s effects rather well.
You should also make sure to include Sanguine Bond to get another copy of Vito’s effect, and then Exquisite Blood to create an infinite combo and win the game accidentally whenever you feel like it. This deck’s a lot more focused than the Jodah one, but they’re both a lot of fun, and you can play around with each to your heart’s content.
