Pointed Discussion

Some people will tell you that life gain on its own is always worthless. Those people have never gained twelve or sixteen life for two mana. With those kinds of numbers, it really DOES buy you the extra couple of turns you need for that big alpha strike.

It's true that 12 life for 2 mana can make a big difference, but the other half of the truth is that to get to that level, you already had to spend 2 cards and 2 slots in your deck and thus you are already pretty much behind your opponent in both card quality and card advantage. With the very few exceptions (I can think of Congregate in Urza block which was so much efficient that it was worth playing), pure life gain just is not good in limited play. In constructed though, I remember a type 2 g/w control deck full of wrath and fog effects and life gain which played this card. Poor opponent's creatures...

@stygimoloch Yeah man, I know how you feel... but really, lifegain IS pretty lame unless it's tied to some other effect. Take for example these lifegaining cards that did see serious play: Ravenous Baloth (you get a fatty), Kitchen Finks (you get a persistent, efficient beater), Primal Command (you can slow your opponent down or fetch a creature) or even Martyr of Sands (it's still a 1/1 creature!) and Captured Sunlight (Cascade is awesome). The point is: "not losing" is not gonna win you the game.

Run four of these with Serra Avatar and/or Ajani Goldmane. I just with that this card could have had a companion card like Diligent Farmhand or Pardic Firecat.

These burst cards are fun with Pyromancer Ascension and Font of Mythos and support like Book Burning. Can become a lot of power, and this combined with the two burn burst spells, it can be a simple and fatal deck.

Wasn't this Jenson's icon?

I remember playing against a Test of Endurance deck on MODO way back when.

I knew a guy that religiously ran 4 of these in all his white deck's.. lol. It wasn't that big of a deal but sometimes he'd put it on an isochron scepter with 1-2 life bursts already in his graveyard then it could get kind of annoying.

Awesome art! Still, I don't get why a lady with a button shirt gains you life.

I like the art. And the effect. And the repetition in the art that mirrors the effect. :3

@BaneSlayerKirby

You consume her flesh for sustenance, you'll notice every burst she gets bigger and thus there is more to consume.

My buddy built a deck with these and Phyrexian Processor. If he gets the processor early game, he's not afraid to lose 5 life just to keep pumping out 5/5 fatties. Or late game, when he has ~30 life, he pumps out 15/15 fatties.. Needless to say, these are essential for any deck built around loss of life. 3.5/5

Ah, my friend would get so mad at this card back in the day. Its still nice, even if its been overshadowed by never and stronger lifegain.

Why do people always say that not losing won't win you the game? Of course it will win you the game. What, do you expect a draw? The problem with lifegain cards isn't that "not losing" won't make you win; the problem is that most lifegain cards just aren't good enough at preventing you from losing.

Well in magic you can not lose, and your opponents can win (which causes you to lose) I mean there are a lot of "you win the game" effects, there aren't a lot of cards that stop you from "losing"

Lich's Mirror will stop you from losing, no matter what (I mean for a turn usually)
Platinum Angel, as long as you have it, will protect you from losing.
Angel's Grace protects you from quite a bit of all in's

Those are the only three I can find that stop you from 'losing' for any reason, here are some that protect from loss of life, although with big drawbacks.

Lich's Tomb
Lich
Phyrexian Unlife
Transcendence

Interesting that these effects seem quite white, and the ones with bigger drawbacks are black, pretty cool too

Life gaining is normally lame, unless it's lifelink, which is repeatable, and pumpable, and in general just plain stupid fast when you think about it. untapping with a Double Strike, Lifelink creature should win you the game if it's power is greater than 2. Seriously.
3 power = 3 damage to them
lifegain you gain 3, total 6 difference swing
doublestrike = they lose 6, you gain 6.
12 difference total. that's over half of a starting lifetotal. And you can swing again if it doesn't get killed. And pump it.

12 + 18 (let's say you giant growthed it) = 30 life in two turns. And you've dealt 30 damage. kill.

compare to just gaining life, and not bringing the opponent directly closer to losing. If you have 40 life and they have 20, there's nothing stopping them from paying 19 into Necropotence and comboing your face dead.

That's why people say 'not losing isn't the same as winning'. Also take as an example, seven cards of mana ramp and 3 turns of tempo, vs. a deck without ramp, but with a mean curve and violent board presence, or a deck with little colored ramp, but a few mana stones to offset a Strip Mine/Wasteland package in a control deck. The deck that is aggressive and proactive will defeat the deck that is defensive and reactive. Control Decks might be the ultimate Kings of Magic, but that's only because they also have proactive, aggressive elements. There is no such thing as a non-interactive deck that wins. There IS such a thing as winning deck where the interaction is one-sided.

I really like the concept and art. If you were somehow able to cast all of them, you'd gain a total of 40 life. Probably best used in a defensive deck with a lot of card draw to increase chances of drawing these things and to make up for the card disadvantage. I'm thinking control. The truth is almost any card can be useful if you can be creative enough when building your deck around it. To me, that's the beautiful thing about Magic.

3.5/5

I actually dislike this art.

There's one main reason to run Rest for the Weary over this.
You need to play three of these to equal the life gain per card spent. only the forth one gets you more life for the cards spent. When was the last time you cast all four copies of a card in your deck?

One of the better lifegain cards. I remember I started playing around this block and I wanted to get x4 of these badly. I only had 1 copy :(