Life Gain has long been a fan-favorite archetype in MTG. There’s something special about building around life gain payoffs and making life as miserable as possible for your Red Aggro opponents. Unfortunately, though, it’s been a while since dedicated Life Gain decks have flourished on the competitive scene.
This makes it all the more impressive that a Selesnya Life Gain shell managed to win a Magic Online Pioneer Challenge this past weekend. Elevated by the power of two MTG TMNT Turtle legends, this deck got a big boost from the latest set.
New Payoffs
As is quite typical for Life Gain strategies, most of the cards in this deck fall into one of two categories: life gain enablers or life gain payoffs. For this reason Aunt May, Prosperous Innkeeper, and Haliya, Guided by Light are particularly scary in this deck, acting as enablers with a smaller payoff attached.
While neither of these cards are that scary by themselves, sticking Trelasarra, Moon Dancer or Leonardo, Cutting Edge will quickly snowball the game in your favor. These legends threaten to keep growing and quickly outsize any threat your opponent has in play. Notably, thanks to Lifelink, Leonardo makes it trivial to meet the three-life threshold needed to keep drawing cards with Haliya.
Once you set up this combo, Michaelangelo, Weirdness to 11 doubles the speed at which you accumulate counters. Michelangelo only appears as a one-of in this decklist because his effect is a bit narrow, but between Haliya, Enduring Innocence, and Collected Company, you have tons of ways to dig for him.
Thanks to the new TMNT lifegain tools being legends, this Pioneer archetype can also support legendary synergies. For a deck focused on getting on board quickly and casting Collected Company ahead of schedule, Mox Amber plays a pivotal role.
Fun and Versatile
Overall, while Selesnya Life Gain’s gameplan is very simple, its flexibility makes the deck very intriguing. Obviously, a deck filled with life gain elements has some appeal in Pioneer considering how popular aggressive red strategies are. At the same time, the presence of Enduring Innocence and Collected Company gives Selesnya Life Gain a real shot at out-grinding Golgari and Rakdos Midrange.
Even against combo decks like Greasefang and Scapeshift Combo, Selesnya Life Gain can apply a lot of early pressure with a fast draw featuring Mox Amber. In fact, this deck’s pilot beat both of these archetypes en route to their Pioneer Challenge victory.
This isn’t to say that Selesnya Life Gain doesn’t have its fair share of flaws, though. For example, this deck can struggle in games where it doesn’t stick a payoff or one of its grindy tools. Thanks to this, Azorius Control, with meaningful interaction to all of this deck’s key pieces, is a difficult matchup.
Additionally, as powerful as Life Gain is against Mono-Red historically, a well-timed Screaming Nemesis or Sunspine Lynx may ruin your entire day. This deck doesn’t have a ton in the way of removal, and using Dromoka’s Command as a fight spell versus Screaming Nemesis doesn’t exactly solve your problems.
Nonetheless, Selesnya Life Gain’s sudden success is still quite impressive. If you want to surprise your friends with a cool and perhaps underrated deck at your next FNM, Selesnya Life Gain delivers.
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