Yay!
I have just the thing, time ago I built a deck around Sorin here is where it is atm

Ehehehe! You trying to get Barney to quit? XD

I'm def in on this one. Already got a deck plan in mind and its gonna suk soooo bad!

hehe, so the only restriction is to have at least a dozen lifegain cards, right?

I'll go through my decks and see if I have anything. I got up to over 40 life the other night playing something but I can't remember what it was. Was it Flaky's White Priveledge? I honestly can't remember.

So my initial idea is something like:



Told you it was gonna suk!

i played against some ally lifegain deck the other night which kept putting +1/+1 counters at instant speed when there was lifegain. It was a real pain, those things got big.

...then I bounced them back with Baral's Expertise several times with Nighthawk's Emerge deck. fun

I tried forever to make a BW ally life gain deck, they're just sooooo sllllooooowwww. And annoying. Once you get into lifegain + counters you just spend hours twiddling your stack, it makes me want to rage quit my own combo.

Think I'm going with my Cartouche build. Just had to add an abbey to make it qualify. Might need to tweak a land, will test further.

Creatures (22)
4 x Sacred Cat
2 x Selfless Spirit
2 x Sram, Senior Edificer
2 x Glory-Bound Initiate
3 x Lone Rider
2 x Wharf Infiltrator
2 x Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun
2 x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 x Reflector Mage

Spells (17)
4 x Cartouche of Solidarity
2 x Smuggler's Copter
4 x Cartouche of Knowledge
2 x Aethersphere Harvester
3 x Trial of Solidarity
1 x Trial of Knowledge
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Land (21)
9 x Plains
5 x Island
2 x Prairie Stream
2 x Glacial Fortress
1 x Westvale Abbey
2 x Sandstone Bridge

ah yes I think it was Kel's cartouche build that made me a ton of life

That looks interesting, I have my doubts on the wharf infiltrator is it there only to dump the cats to the graveyard?
have you tested Oketra monument on that deck?

I was thinking that maybe i should write 12 nonland spells. I mean Westvale Abbey doesn't count for the requirement, it's not reliable. But the main reason is Shambling Vent, this card obviously should count, but it is already a must in orzhov, so it basically makes a 2 cards discount for orzhov only, while any other combination of colors has to go up to 12. Not sure if it's ok or unfair, that's why i'm thinking about nonland spells.

Blessed Alliance and Sorin count?

yes 100%

anything that reliably gives you life should count

Sorin, Shambling Vent, anything with Lifelink, NOT Westvale Abbey (the land doesn't give life, and the flip is rare), Pulse of Murasma, Nissa's Renewal, even Noxious Gearhulk, etc

joker, i'd leave it as 12 cards that give life. Shambling Vent should count. So should that stupid white land that gets sac'd for life based on number of creatures.

Infiltrator is great with embalm, but here it's more for churn while going wide. Also works with copter and I guess trial of knowledge (but that's too slow to really be useful), smooths out mana and makes extra legendaries useful. The skulk can really help finish a game against a mid-range build that's starting to stabilize as well.

Monument is too slow and expensive here. T3 ideally I want to be flipping a Rider or getting down a 3cc creature/artifact. Plus everything's so cheap that the cost reduction doesn't really get me all that much.

Giocher, I guess that's fair. Abbey is definitely a cheat; as I mentioned in the Cartouche thread I don't even like it for this deck. I'll find something else.

Hey cool, this reminds me of when I built a really wacky Defiant Bloodlord ramp deck a long time ago...

My first Instinct would be to go orzhov, but since other builders are already going that route, I'll try ramp and see how that goes...

This is the list I'm gonna start off with:

I may have gone a little overboard with 24 lifegain cards... But I had to cut plenty to get to 60 cards.

Wow, that looks incredibly annoying. I hope I don't actually meet any of these on the ladder while testing.

Oh heck. I am still thinking whether I participate; and if I do with what.

Like, there are options to go full-jank mode with Defiant Bloodlord+Blighted Steppe...

Or you could just build Orzhov Control goodstuff with Blessed Alliance, Kambal, Essence Extraction and other fun things.

The ramp deck is a dud and isn't nearly as much fun as I hoped...

So I made a mono-black that is wrecking face.

Good call, I tried it a few rounds against AI and agree with your assessment. This one looks properly mean.

I tried several decks this weekend. I wanted to use Annointer Priests to get some big sustained lifegain. I tried Zombies and also a Mysteries deck. Zombies was decent, but not quite there for me. Mysteries was fun, especially when it would go off, but too many games it was just a pile of junk.

So...I ended up with something that is less focused on lifegain as a main theme/ Regulating Lifegain to a secondary theme in an established archetype has been pretty successful so far.

Anyway, here is the deck. I may still adjust a bit (Wish Offerings were Cast Outs, but needed 1 more life gain so Solemn got the spot. Needed for Flagship and Mirror matches.)

EDITED decklist

I was going back and forth on the Solemn Offerings, I really wanted them to be Sages. So I made them sages. I added 2 Blighted Steppes to get back to 12 Lifegain sources. Also took out Thalia and a Familiar to make room for an additional land. This is almost what I normally run for this deck. The non lifegain version is currently +3 Aven Wind Guide to get damage through (or block), -2 Familiar, -2 Blighted, +1 Plains.
Monumental Life

Creature(31)
2 x Hanweir Militia Captain
2 x Selfless Spirit
4 x Aviary Mechanic
4 x Annointer Priest
2 x Filigree Familiar
2 x Bygone Bishop
3 x Trophy Mage
3 x Reclamation Sage
3 x Reflector Mage
2 x Spell Queller
1 x Angel of Invention
3 x Cloudblazer

Split(2)
2 x Dusk

Artifact(3)
3 x Oketra's Monument

Land(24)
2 x Prairie Stream
4 x Plains
3 x Island
2 x Canopy Vista
1 x Forest
2 x Glacial Fortress
2 x Hinterland Harbor
2 x Westvale Abbey
2 x Blighted Steppe
4 x Evolving Wilds

Yeah, there's not much payoff in duels just for gaining a bunch of life; it seems most useful to buy a little time for another strategy.

By my count you have 13 lifegain sources there (don't forget angel of invention has lifelink). You could swap one offering for cast out.

This is what I've been messing with

2 x Glory-Bound Initiate
3 x Lone Rider
2 x Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
3 x Gifted Aetherborn
1 x Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
1 x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 x Gisela, the Broken Blade
1 x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 x Angel of Invention
1 x Regal Caracal
1 x Bruna, the Fading Light

2 x Aethersphere Harvester

2 x Always Watching

3 x Blessed Alliance
2 x Grasp of Darkness
1 x Declaration in Stone
1 x Essence Extraction
2 x Anguished Unmaking
2 x Cast Out

1 x Liliana, the Last Hope
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

7 x Plains
7 x Swamp
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Westvale Abbey
2 x Isolated Chapel
4 x Forsaken Sanctuary