Pointed Discussion

Heads will roll in Multiplayer.

Curse you Wizards! Double strike is too good! And lifelink? This is game over if they don't kill it before your next attack. At least you HAVE to be running white alone or close to it.

Rage Reflection eat your heart out.

Awesome!!! Gratuitous Violence white style!

Oh, win-more, how do you make the noobs quit you?

good endgame card!

Good, but boring.

Will it see constructed play? Not likely. EDH and other multiplayer formats? You better believe it. Once this hits the board, don't be surprised if everyone targets you.

LMAO!!!!

This just a red version of.... oh wait.

:P *splat*

When making cards like this, they should make a cycle, this seems unfair to the other colours.

People call this a win-more card, but the double-strike is a huge combat swing in a close game. Your opponent typically can't afford not to block, and the first strike will save your creatures in close match-ups.

I run a single copy of this in my current white deck, and it has swung the game for me on several occasions.

5/5

love it. My friend got one and then I got one in a pack and then everyone in our playgroup decided to get one. Sadness.

Pretty awesome for formats which allow for larger manapools. Oddly enough it's the same mana cost as Jareth, Leonine Titan

i have a question, sense double strike is effectively 2 attack steps, if you had Ajani pridemate in play, would it deal 2 with the first strike, then deal 4 on the second (as you would gain life from the first making him bigger.

Played this in my first FNM SOM sealed tournament. Turned every game around even though my deck build was pretty wacky. Made my 3 Kemba's Skyguard go from meh to a-meh-zing! 4/5 Costly and beastly.

It's good if the game lasts long enough for White to pull out 6 mana. =/ Definately not Standard friendly, but it will see use in Casual and EDH.

4/5 - Overall fun little card, but not fast enough to be uber competitive.

@Cheza: Right color. Double Strike is the epitome of goodness; expect either to have it.

With this enchantment out, Ajani's Pridemate would deal an increased amount of damage than his first strike damage.

I would say that this enchantment is Timmy, but not necessarily only win-more. Other than the opponent dealing with this enchantment, the controller's smallest of dudes become high class, removal worthy, threats. A combat step could easily switch life totals around.

there's no kind of kill like overkill. I don't like cards like this but I have to rate it a 4 for it's ridiculousness

Splashy and fun in EDH. There's no eldrazi quite like a double striking one, and what this does is essentially increase annihilator by 1. People just can't afford to take the 20+ damage from a single boom boom.

Does anyone else play this with Honor of the Pure and Conqueror's Pledge?

good addition to a black/white lifelink deck

Great to drop the turn after Sanguine Bond

Yes, that's a lot of colored mana but easy to do these days.

I can't call this overpowered when black can drop down a Wound Reflection second main phase and watch me suffer, lol. At least we can all agree that 6cmc enchantments that boost your creatures are god-awesome.

This and Carnifex Demon are the best limited rare bombs in the set. If either of them resolves and gets used even once, it is basically game over for your unfortunate opponent. I drafted a rather pitiful black/red deck where I SPLASHED for this, and this won me every game I won.

I feel kind of silly having bought Rage Reflection. At the time I was running mono-red, but now I play a red/white deck. Same converted mana cost and you get lifelink on top of double strike. It's all too good. Maybe Wizards will revise Magic rules and add a Quadruple Strike. And then they'll make both of these Legendaries so I won't feel like I should be running two of these instead of this and Rage Reflection. Now we need a Double Lifelink...

With this, it's always nice to have 4 Serra Angels in play. Flying 4/4's with double strike and lifeling is sure to make you a winner! ... unless your opponent has some Enchantment removal...

wrong color

QUOTE:
@Cheza: Right color. Double Strike is the epitome of Red or White goodness; expect either to have it.

It should have been red (maybe green), hence the lifelink. Double Strike is forced to be white, since white has first strike... so it would be just another step. In respect of flavour, it isn't white at all, (First Strike too). If you are well-protected and well-prepared, you don't have to strike first.
That's the reason, why I would swap colors of Nissa's Chosen and Longbow Archer, making green and black the secondary/tertiary color choices of First Strike instead.

The same is true for lifelink. It's a power-oriented, combat-restrictive ability and this is contrary to anything white stands for. In my opinion, this ability should be red, green and black (primary to tertiary). It supports the red "attack centric" flavor, since the life gained makes any counterattack negligible. It also supports the red flavour of "loving to destroy a thing", so life is the satisfaction / reward for destruction.

It is also a green ability, since it goes well with the creature-centric flavour of this color It makes creatures much more relevant for your survival. Having more green creatures with lifelink would make the color much more reliable and threatful, increasing the fear of green creatures in general. And it's also a tertiary black, since it's the black life-leeching flavour.

So as you can see, this card would be best as a red or green version.

Best used in multiplayer and block. There is very little enchantment kill in Scars as a whole.

If it resolves and you have creatures out, you win pretty quickly.

@Cheza
Any comment on a card shows your ignorance of the color pie. The colors are defined as they are defined right now, you can't change that. Lifelink shouldn't be red just because 'it has do with combat'. I'm pretty sure red doesn't gain life often. If you'd like to change the entire history of magic than you might as well play a different game and stop whining about each and every card being off-color.

lifelink is red flavor? what? life gain is always white flavor. They gain determination as they fight or whatever.

doublestrike might be considered either red or white though.

This card is either dropped in regular games to win, or dropped in EDH to really *** off your opponents lol. I have a Mayael EDH deck running this, and usually by the time I drop it, 1-2 players are going to be killed. Everyone kept telling me what a horrible card it was, and that it wouldn't survive play long enough for me to use it...but every single game I've dropped it, I usually swing for the kill. 5/5 card, absolutely love it.

This is also the 6-drop in my 60 card soldier deck. Again, usually game-winning drop.

This card is like a cooler version of Celestial Mantle.
Only this turns all of your creatures into certified, double-striking, card carrying BA's.

@cheza

Sry but thats pretty stupid. Red is likely to be the most distant color in context of lifelink and there is rarely an ability that fits so well in white flavorwise. Geezus youre basically saying combat isnt white flavor. Open your mind - white is more than just defense.

True conviction + sanguine bond?! Quadruple strike anybody?

Changes the creature-type of Immolating Souleater to "Hound Horror."

@Airlacher
I like the way you think

to think i would have settled on this card if it gave creatures life link and first strike.

With Noble Purpose you have an entire horde of doublestriking double-lifelinking weenies.

@Cheza

I RARELY comment on cards (rather spend time deck building and playing) but your comments show not only a complete ignorance of the colors of this game but leaves me scratching my head wondering if you're even playing the same game as I've been playing since 4th edition.

Lifelink has been a staple of white since Spirit Link which first showed up in legends and wasn't taken out of standard until tenth edition.

I don't know what game you're playing but you obviously either haven't been playing very long or have NO clue what you're talking about.

Do yourself a favor and refrain from making any more ridiculous comments as you're only showing your lack of knowledge in regard to the game of Magic.

Un-freaking-believable.

Wrong color?

Where's my "confused" emoticon when I need it?

@benevolinsolense

I just searched some of his card comments and Jesus! I didn't even finish going through the As.

As for the card, it is not very interesting, but it is good.

Works nicely with a deck full of shrouded green creatures.

LOL What the heck, i never would thought that this Cheza guy would appear in the comments...Again. Hell he made another terrible comment here. Sorry guys if he's talking non-sense.

Anyway, i really love this card though its pretty lame for its casting cost but yeah the is reasonable since it grants lifelink and double strike. This would be fantastic if the made this atleast 4 to cast like for say ...that would be reasonable right? And in the SOM block, Red and White are the Mirrans' colors.

Follow this up with Volcano Hellion for infinite life. You know, as if True Conviction weren't going to win you the game anyways.

Is it worth the high mana cost an cruel color requirements? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that when cost isn't a consideration the buff enchantment I go to is True Conviction.
True Conviction, strength you can count on.

Ageless Entity

This plus Ajani's Ultimate make for some obnoxious games.

EDIT: Does Cheza make anyone else sad?

@Cheza

You're totally right dude, and Rage Reflection should be blue because it's an expensive spell and an enchantment. If you're going to get off expensive spells, you're going to need the stall blue has, same with keeping an enchant on the field with counterspells so clearly everyone can see that the color wheel is just screwed....

Or we can all learn to build multicolor decks... You know, make a cool little red/white aggro deck, throw in some Lightning Helix and Lightning Bolt to get through in early damage and late game drop this bad boy to help stay around and to increase the damage of your little red and white dudes. Just a thought.

Strong enough to justify a faith's shield. Cards this powerful can be dangerous. Be careful of attacking with this when a naturalize will allow your army to be mauled. On the other hand, if they are tapped out, you can attack like mad knowing that they will not be able to swing back with enough power to undo the life gain.
Also, you cannot count on a blocked creature without trample gaining you life equal to twice its power. If it kills the creature on the first pass, it will not gain you any more life.
Furthermore, this loses a lot of value after Wrath effects, where for the same cost, Twilight Shepherd shines.

I run this in my artifact/white Myr deck - works amazingly! Always (okay, for the most part though!) a game winner (through it down with 6-10 (if not "infinite") myrs with a couple Myr Galvenizers and a Myr Matrix, making them all 3/3-4/4 (Give or take a Myr Battlesphere or two)

A definite 5/5 in my book!

When I put Ajani Goldmane's Avatar on the battlefield and this, with each attack phase I made my life goes up TRIPLE times.

The art is fun, we call him "Zeus".

Ageless Entity

This is a better, if more expensive and harder-to-splash, way than Krark's Thumb of effectively attacking with Goblin Psychopath. Just sayin'

Fun with Rhox Faithmender

Unless it's immediately removed, it basically hands you the game on a silver platter. Double strike is crazy good, and lifelink will keep you alive even if you can't strike the winning blow immediately.

@Cheza: all the hate towards your comment made me very curious what it was you said to *** everyone off so much lulz.

And after reading it (twice because you're grammar is...ummm...it wasn't totally clear what you were saying at first, but I got it in the end I think), I realized EXACTLY what you were thinking, and actually agree with you. Well partially. Maybe only technically. Let me explain.

What Cheza did here was apply purely Vorthos-thinking to the color pie. He said Double strike is only White because First strike is already White, and that seems to me obviously true. He raises reasons why he thinks First strike even could be -Just- Red, which don't all make sense to me because White is 'military' more than 'defensive', and militaries can attack OR defend, but I'll give him that it would be interesting to see a world where Double Strike is not White because it DOES seem a little too Aggressive.

He's using Time Spiral-Block Logic here, talking about the Crust of the Flavor Pie. Now, with First and Double Strike, this actually raises some neat debate topics, because I don't think the mechanics of the game would be hurt by moving his ideas from the Crust to Mantle (they simply aren't Core though...and methinks some of you who down-starred his comments don't know anything about Flavor beyond "The Core Set teaches what things are supposed to be". Well the Core teaches the Core, yes, but the Mantle actually sees print quite frequently as well, and the Crust, rarely, even gets seen outside of Time Spiral. :P

But my dear Cheza, let me explain to you why Lifelink can't ever be Red, and I'm going to say something I didn't see in the other comments: Bah-roh-ken. Not for Design or Flavor reasons (your describing of Red Lifelink made me think of Spartans or Keldons.) It was a nice thought. :) But a pipe-dream that can't and won't come to pass. Red is too fast, too quick, too powerful at dishing damage.
The only thing keeping Red Decks Wins from dominating all the tournaments is it's reckless nature makes it vulnerable. Lifelink buys you time. Lifelink gives you reach. Lifelink is like armored padding.

You give Lifelink to Red, it's like the same as giving straight Time Walked extra turns to Blue. It gives them all they need to GUARANTEE a closed-out game. Red already has Haste and Double Strike. Y'know what cheap mana, hasty, double striking, LIFELINK armies would look like?

It would look like Poland circa 1938, or Frace circa 1940 (was it '39?). It would be Blitzkrieg, plain and simple. Literal, veritable, Armored, Speedy, Aggressive TANKS of Doom.

Anyway, the point is, from a DEVELOPMENT reason, NO LIFELINK IN RED, even if the Flavor DOES make sense. The only way to justify Red Lifelink is if they brought back Counterspell itself. Which they will not do.

I'll close with this- I -do- think this card is wrongly-colored. I think it should be Gold with either Red or Green. It's too powerful, even with triple-White, for me to buy it's mono-White. {2}{R}{W}{W}? {2}{G}{W}{W}? If this being Mono-White is fair, than Akroma, Angel of Wrath having Trample and Haste and being Mono-White is also fair. Who actually agrees with that? :P (Please nobody put these two cards together. That would be...wrong. :P )

Play this in my EDH enchantment deck, but it does tend to make everyone turn on you. I had a 1/1 unblockable creature hitting for 16 with some enchantments on it, and every one started casting all their hate spells on me, killed all my creatures and then me, but they never got rid of of this card LOL.

@Cheza:
White is the primary colour of first strike and it has loads of double strike tooo...:
Mirran Crusader
Fencing Ace
Silverblade Paladin

And then there's the countless Boros double strikers that incorporate white. In fact, white probably has more double-strikers than red.

@cheza Each color doesn't do just one thing. White is the color of preparedness, sure, but isn't having an extra spear or something being prepared? And lifelink has and always be white. Never has it been red. At all. Just no.

I don't feel as if their choice of chestpieces are going to get them very far..

cheza:
i enjoy reading your comment with comic-book guy's voice in my head. please continue to put players in their place, and don't pull any punches. also, that's awesome how you've been playing since the time the game became really popular. i've been wearing crocs since 2005 and drinking coconut water since 2011. we should start a club, yes?
also, i like this card a lot

@Cheza.
White is traditionally the representation of life magic in many types of fantasy and RPG style gaming. Pallly's, priests, monks, whatever. White magic traditionally is considered holy and has blessing type magic and life gaining type magic. For "lifelink", it is not surprising at all for this color. Blessings which reward life every time you deal damage. Flavor wise you can imagine white lifelink as the focus on healing its user, while black lifelink is more of stealing another users life force. In a flavor sense nature magic or green has had some part in healing, in many other games besides magic. So life magic (white) and nature magic (green) are natural allies. It makes more sense to me flavor wise for the lifelink blessings to be found in white and black, natural enemies and covering 2/5 of the magic color pie.

In many other fantasy RPG type games, life magic has had creatures with the first strike type abilities. Chaos magic or red also has these kinds of abilities. The flavor of life is that they are righteous warriors and charge bravely into battle making the first strikes against impossible odds. Chaos flavor is that they are reckless and brutal, will make a giant leap attack right in the thick of battle, driven by bloodlust to get that first swing. Death (Black) warriors are completely without fear, and this allows some to rend there enemies flesh in combat. Chaos and Death are natural allies. Chaos (Red), and Life (White) are natural enemies, and the doublestrike ability covers 2/5 of the magic color pie.

Why do so many people so arbitrarily rate others down merely because they disagree with them?
Cheza brings up a point that is just a bit out of the norm, and is bombarded with .5/5 star ratings and hate comments. He posted his honest opinion, stated his reasons for his argument, and defended it intelligently. Only the people who are able to question the prior beliefs of others, their motives, and the ethics of societal norms will bring about change in this world, and the Gatherer community. I applaud him for that.

@NeoKoda
I would ask which Ajani you're talking about, but both of their ultimates make this silly.

Those saying that it should be red are wrong. White has quite a lot if not the most double strikers, as well as flavor wise, it is an Auriok card, who are white