Gnaw it to the bone... twice. Yeah that's good flavor.
Gabriel422
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(6 votes)
Mill yourself like mad and this will gain you 40+ life alone, with an additional amount of life in the double digits in the form of milled flashback. Nuts.
A0602
★★★★☆ (4.2/5.0)(2 votes)
and it's... COMMON!?
WWoody
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(4 votes)
I can see this being really, really good.
sonorhC
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
The flashback is a nice touch, since even if your self-milling lands this in your graveyard along with your creatures, you can still use it (once, at least).
jsttu
★★★☆☆ (3.0/5.0)(1 vote)
in the pre-release an opponent had two of these as well as a tree of redemption, but very little defense. he used the tree when his life was at 2, than fully used both of these for ten each time, or 40 total.
18 +40 +13 = 61 damage. That match took forever, but at least it was inevitable.
NoobOfLore
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
What's this? Straight lifegain with a rating higher than the basic lands?
Studoku
★★★★☆ (4.9/5.0)(5 votes)
As lifegain goes, this is pretty good. The right deck can get 10+ life from this, twice. Alternatively, self-mill shenanigans can cast it pretty easily if it does end up in the yard.
UPDATE: Playing UG-lhurgoyf and gaining 20 life a shot from this. After milling it. I know lifegain sucks but this is an exception.
axiobeta
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
Om nom nom on yo creatures again
mike_stubbs1
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
In a self-milling deck, this is bananas. In one game I played it once legitimately and twice flashbacked and gained something like 48 life. The fact it's an instant is great, as you can use it whenever you didn't use a combat trick (or deadly surprise-snake).
joeah100
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
Drawing this late in the game with a pile of creatures in your graveyard is nice.
Drawing it late in the game when you have 2 life and your opponent is practically packing up his cards because he thinks the game is over, using cards that he milled into the graveyard for extra life, is priceless.
Villainous1
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Ah dammit, all my guys are dead... might as well tuck in!
Lash_of_Dragonbreath
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
My first thought was: "This would be great against mill decks."
Which was quickly followed by something among the lines of "Duh".
But seriously, as all lifegain cards, its kinda situational, but if you are playing around having stuff in your graveyard you probably have ways of throwing it aside should you draw it. And if your opponent is using reduction of your life total to 0 as his win condiction (a surprising amount of them do), this could slow him down a lot. And it's not even card disadvantage, as eveyone complains in other lifegain cards.
I'd totally throw one of it in a Dredge deck, and maybe sideboard a couple more. Innistrad is making BG Dredge an interesting archetype again. Gotta shop for some Darkblasts and Golgari Brownscales for my casual decks.
Tanaka348
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Man I just saw the full art in an article and holy hell it's fantastic. The skull in particular look like a god damn photo.
And yeah, I guess lifegain can be good when it's something like 3g for 12 either twice, or dumped into the yard reliably with the rest of your stuff.
Saved my life several times in prerelease, in constructed perhaps there are better choices but I think it's a decent card. 3.5/5.
Enemy_Tricolor
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
EXTREMELY annoying in limited. Hitting your opponent with lots of burn spells and board sweepers? Enjoy the 15-20 points of lifegain for your opponent. Twice.
seath
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I love that this is an instant. I have it in my mono green deck with Huntmaster of the Fells. "I play nothing, my huntmaster transforms and kills a critter, your turn. *their endstep, after not playing 2 spells specifically to make sure it doesn't swap back* I play this spell and flash it back...i gain a ton of life and at the beginning of my turn my huntmaster switches." >.> <3 flashback at instant speed...something you don't see too often as green
KnexWiz
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Am i the only one who saw this and checked just to make shure this wasnt baned? runnig 4 of these in gravecaller deck gives you a ton of life and your almost garentied to drop at least one in the grave yard. the only times i have lost when ive goten to use this late game are the times i end up milling my self to deat well i guess thats what Laboratory Maniac is for
DritzD27
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
A friend of mine plays a U/G self mill deck and this card is just dumb. It gives him so much time to mill and build. Three mana for 26 life with a three mana flashback is just insane.
ramon6249
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Does using this card consume the creatures in your Graveyard? I have played this deck a few times, seems very unfair to gain life from Graveyard creatures, then boost another creature using the same Graveyard creatures.
TherealphatMatt
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I love it when a card you underestimate turns out to be surprisingly powerful.
Powercat
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(2 votes)
Pure lifegain is usually a waste of a card, but this can give you enough to transform Chalice of Life into Chalice of Death. With instant speed, 2G cost, and 2G flashback, this card is better in several ways than Archangel's Light.
I may actually have to find a way to build a deck around this and the chalice.
jjmalove
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
There are only a handful of cards in Magic worth playing that do nothing but gain life. This is one of the few. It takes a lot of things to make it happen but this does it. First, its splashable with blue or black easily because of the mana. Second, it has flashback with perfectly synergizes with its style of life gain. The deck is going to have a way to dump stuff into the graveyard and if this happens to get dumped its still usable. Third, the style of deck that would play this focuses on the midgame. By playing cheap, weak early creatures to fill the graveyard, this gives enough of a lifeboost to get into midgame and drop real threats that care about the yard. Lastly, the sheer power. 20+ from a cast, then 20+ from a flashback is not uncommon midgame. Even a modest 10 and 10 is an incredible amount of life in midgame.
This goes side-by-side with Martyr of Sands as some of the only playable lifegain cards.
Penguin_Master
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
i had an opponent drop 4 of these with 4 flashbacks on me against one of my battlefield control decks. He gained around 100+ life, but still ended up losing because after all, it's still just life gain. Without deck tactics to back it up, all gaining life does is delay the inevitable. Besides that, this is a very good card, with an excellent life gain to mana ratio potential.
DacenOctavio
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The incentive to run this is it doesn't cost you a card if you mill it. Innistrad-era self mill combined with Odyssey-era threshold/flashback and Ravnica-era Golgari Dredge is quite potent. This is essentially bonus lifegain while you carefully (or otherwise) stock that graveyard. Basically, any deck that runs Svogthos is more than likely capable of running this as a 1-3-of without worries.
nopemx6
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I'm surprised this card is rated so low. Love it. :)
MRK1
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Minty fresh life gain.
WindMasterArceus
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Okay, having 9 creatures in your graveyard gives you 18 life. Activating flashback immediately gives you another 18. IF you haven't taken any damage, you're already at 56 life! Great for an archenemy or a regular game
Casey130
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
So awesome when you have milled this and your opponent doesnt know and they think they're gonna win :)
idrinkyourmilkshake
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
In my MTGO Laboratory Maniac self-mill, this is the card that causes the most concessions. Thanks, Wizards!
The thing about a self-mill deck is that you spend a huge part of the game developing your own side of the board, and very little disrupting your opponent's side. By the time you've milled enough to get a huge Splinterfright or Boneyard Wurm or Ghoultree out there, they've usually beaten you down for enough damage to put you in the danger zone of losing the game.
This card is the perfect way to gain back all of that lost tempo, and then some. Any proper self-miller will be able to net 16 or 20 life each time one of these things is cast, and then flashback it again. The fact that this thing has flashback in the first place is brilliant design because it allows a self-miller to use it even if it gets run over in the process of milling. Odds are, you'll have one of these things in your hand or graveyard by the midgame, and odds are you'll be thankful.
Comments (34)
18 +40 +13 = 61 damage. That match took forever, but at least it was inevitable.
UPDATE: Playing UG-lhurgoyf and gaining 20 life a shot from this. After milling it. I know lifegain sucks but this is an exception.
again
Drawing it late in the game when you have 2 life and your opponent is practically packing up his cards because he thinks the game is over, using cards that he milled into the graveyard for extra life, is priceless.
Which was quickly followed by something among the lines of "Duh".
But seriously, as all lifegain cards, its kinda situational, but if you are playing around having stuff in your graveyard you probably have ways of throwing it aside should you draw it. And if your opponent is using reduction of your life total to 0 as his win condiction (a surprising amount of them do), this could slow him down a lot. And it's not even card disadvantage, as eveyone complains in other lifegain cards.
I'd totally throw one of it in a Dredge deck, and maybe sideboard a couple more. Innistrad is making BG Dredge an interesting archetype again. Gotta shop for some Darkblasts and Golgari Brownscales for my casual decks.
And yeah, I guess lifegain can be good when it's something like 3g for 12 either twice, or dumped into the yard reliably with the rest of your stuff.
I may actually have to find a way to build a deck around this and the chalice.
This goes side-by-side with Martyr of Sands as some of the only playable lifegain cards.
This card is the perfect way to gain back all of that lost tempo, and then some. Any proper self-miller will be able to net 16 or 20 life each time one of these things is cast, and then flashback it again. The fact that this thing has flashback in the first place is brilliant design because it allows a self-miller to use it even if it gets run over in the process of milling. Odds are, you'll have one of these things in your hand or graveyard by the midgame, and odds are you'll be thankful.
Great job, wizards.