Pointed Discussion

When I saw this card, it reminded me of the days when I introduced some friends to magic back at the Rise of the Eldrazi expansion....this would have blown their minds.

Eh... This is the obligatory "bad lifegain spell for newbs" that every set has. I completely understand why they print it, but I'm not gonna be excited by it.

Cool art, move along.

Lifegain is bad when it is inefficient and/or impractical. This is reasonably cheap, splashable and instant speed, but most importantly scaling. Gets some extra value out of combat tricks (say, Bloodrush) and works nicely with evolve too.
It may be just lifegain, but at least it's somewhat clever lifegain.

Pretty bad in most places, but this could gain life to buy a turn if you use it after combat in an Exalted deck.

First I will enchant my Serra Avatar with Rancor....

Power plus toughness. Could potentially get you a lot of life. So could Archangel's Light, I suppose, but that doesn't make it good.

my buddy swung for 4/4 today. bloodrushed it with +5/+4 and trample. then played this. hit for 9 then gained 17 life. for like, 5 mana

As far as lifegain cards go, this one seems pretty decent. Green is the color of efficient fatties, and frankly, you could probably find some decent tricks with this to get 14-20 life in one go early game. Phyrexian Soulgorger for instance is a T4 16 life with no acceleration or tricks (respond to its trigger.)

Imagine a game like so:
T1 Llanowar Elves
T2 Soulgorger
T3 Gain 16 life using this card, sack the elves, play Rancor, attack for 10 trample

That's a T3 26 health point swing. It's not the worst you could do in casual.



The problems with this lifegain card are many of course:
-It's similar to burn where you have card disadvantage to do nothing on the board
-It targets, leaving you open for 2-for-1s
-It requires you to have a creature with good stats or pumps, meaning it probably won't save you from aggro
-While it can get you outrageous amounts of life, it happens at the wrong point of the game IMO. I could see it working well in casual here and there, but I imagine most often this is "winmore" or "lose anyway."

That said, people knocking lifegain forget that there are plenty of *good* lifegain cards that work well in strategies no matter how you cut it. Gaining 8 life for 2 mana is decent enough to swing one aggro deck over another. Having a Soul's Attendent can keep you just out of the death range of many decks long enough to get your 4-6 CMC answers to their deck out. It's not *always* bad; it's just not inherently good.

*spits drink everywhere*

2.217?! Are you people mad?!

That landfall lifegain card from zendikar got a lot of love, and this thing will help you explode with just a single chunky creature!

Everyone says lifegain doesn't win games, but when you shove your life back up to a comfortable level with a single 3cmc card your opponent suddenly has a lot to do to get you back down.

EDIT: It's even in the same block as Giant Growth! That means for an added green mana you get an extra 6 life!

Ageless Entity Then several of these.

It's some pretty efficient lifegain. I mean, it's no Gnaw to the Bone, but it's pretty decent, and can be used in any deck that likes beefy creatures. gaining 10 or so life for 3 at instant speed is pretty much okay. Not great, but okay.

I will add it to my milling deck with consuming aberration. One time bang 72 lives.

Cards that are nothing but a one-shot lifegain effect are crap in 99% of all cases. This card is crap. The reason is following: What is the point of the match? To win. How do you normally do that? By dealing damage. Does this card deal damage? Nope. Does this card help you find something that deals damage? Nope. Cast something to deal damage? Nah. Does this card prevent your opponent from playing stuff? Or make him discard? Destroy anything? Does this card have just the slightest impact whatsoever on your opponents plans or board position? Nope, nothing.

If your opponent deals little damage to you right now anyway, this cards effect is not relevant at this situation anyway. If you got a lot of life, this card doesn't matter either. If you got few life, and your opponent deals a lot of damage, this card didn't help you either, because you just basically spent one turn to survive for one turn, doing nothing to actually stop your opponent from killing you. If your opponent plays a combo deck, he doesn't care about your life either. Nor if he plays a mill deck. Or in other words: in 99% of all cases, this card does nothing relevant.

Now, so far about cards that do nothing but gain life in general. This one is even crappier than most pure lifegain cards. Why? Because it's unreliable. It only gains a lot of life if you have a huge creature in play. Otherwise it gains very little life. Or none at all. Or if that creature is bounced, killed or stolen in response to you playing this card. The question is: if you got a huge creature in play, why don't you win? Because you can't attack? Well, maybe playing a removal spell would be more useful then than gaining life. And if you got such a huge creature, can't you block? If you can block, why do you need to gain life? This card makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes, there are a few combos with it. But not only do they involve huge creatures (which, as said, makes me wonder why you don't just win then by turning them sidewise), but it also has the disadvantage that this is only good with good cards. Or in other words: to have to make this crappy card somewhat less crappy you have to play a good card. Because playing another crappy card would result in your deck consisting out of crap which is no good strategy to win. But placing crap like this among good cards is no good strategy either. In short: this card sucks. It's like a newbie catcher.

Wild Defiance?
At least that way your pumping one of your creatures at the same time.

@psychichobo
Totally agreed. 4/5

Turn 18 of a Simic mirror match. We each have about 8 creatures out. The biggest one on my side is a 14/10 Adaptive Snapjaw, and he has trample courtesy of my Crowned Ceratok. My opponent, not willing to give up his life lead (he's at 20, I'm at 15) and with a 5/9 Elusive Krasis with two ciphered Last Thoughts (for some reason he hasn't attacked much; he agreed that this was a misplay), figures that I can't outlast the three-turn clock and quad-blocks him.

I tap 3. Predator's Rapport. Suddenly I'm at 39 life. The three-turn clock spins back five turns.

I tap another 3. Predator's Rapport. I go up to 63 and can stall for another dozen turns.

I tap 3 more and without even seeing the third Predator's Rapport, he scoops.

This card isn't particularly good — I give it a 3/5 for being a little useful in stalling for time — but a draft match tonight has made this card legendary for me.

Don't be fooled by the people saying this card is ignore worthy...they just don't want anyone playing it so they won't have to go against it. Face it, someone using this with a 10/10 on the board is gaining 20 life, resetting the game for THREE MANA. This card is gold in G/GR ramp decks and can be the game winning card on many, many occasions.

Can't target Emrakul. 0/5

super underrated card. i saw somebody gain 16 life from a soulbonded wolfir silverheart.

@majinara- you know what it does, it keeps yourself alive. I play decks that are not early starters. I might take 10-15 in the first 3 turns. Later game this card saves me by giving me instant live gain. Soon I do not have to worry about life anymore because THAT IS THE WAY YOU WIN. You sir are wrong. You can play your lightning bolt and do 3. While I put this card on the stack and gain around 10 life.

Ageless entity

It ain't gonna win you any games, but if you use this on one of your big creatures, say a Prime Speaker Zegana or a Bloodrushed creature, you can get some insane life gain for 3 mana. Sure, that won't make it easier to win, but it can make it harder to lose.

Does this card work with just the base power and toughness or can it be combined with +counter spells from other cards?

So a 5/5 card with a +3/+3 counter would that be 10 life or 16 extra life?

My bud sideboards three of those in his Gruul deck. Will not win the game itself, but gives you sometimes a bit more breathing room.

This on something that got bloodrushed with Skarrg Goliath. Sheeeet.

I gained 140 life with this thing. Ancient Ooze. ^^

Malignus troll. Serra Avatar.

this won me a game last night, my 32/32 Cloudfin Raptor buffed thanks to Vorel of the Hull Clade was about to get Murder, i double the countes on it with Vorel of the Hull Clade and then use this, so in the end i gain 129 life, so i do think this deserve a better rating...

There are plenty of reasons to be unimpressed with lifegain, but it does have its uses - if it's powerful enough it's at least an extra turn or more added to your clock, lifegain can help make aggro/burn decks peter out as you strengthen your position (slower decks may very well need either lifegain or serious damage prevention), use it as a combat trick if your opponent might commit to an unwise attack in hoping to finish you, and even its greatest haters can't forget the combos that lifegain can get - buffed up creatures or even win the game straight-up among other effects.

In the right deck this card is extremely good lifegain. It can be 15 life easily in even a pretty generic greenish deck, and with the right kind of cards can be 30 or more life with no great stretching. It deserves at least the respect of a card that can excel within its effect type.

For targeting tips, forget about the Eldrazi. Try a pacified, ignored Primordial Hydra. Yes, I will take 512 life, thanks.

I guess I'll do 3.5/5 for being good at its job.

I'll never understand how this community got Heroes' Reunion to 3.7. There's no way this is a full star rating lower than that card when they're in the same block, this is common vs Reunion being uncommon, and though this has 1 more CMC Reunion can easily be harder to fit into a deck with a W color weight. And I'd say this is going to be as powerful or more powerful 95% of the time in 90% of decks, conditions to be met or no (yay for made up statistics), and of course Rapport has much, much more potential power.

This card fits rather well into my hexproof green aura enchantment deck. Weedy little one mana 1/1 omg aura'd up to a 4/4 maybe add an giant growth. Boom dropped a predator rapport and i've gained 14 life and swung for 7. Im not complaining helps put a small distance between you and your opponent.

this thing is a lot better than people think

turn one forest elvish mystic
turn 2 sylvan caratid forest
turn 3 forest arbor colossus
turn 4 forest Giant Growth, Predator's Rapport gain 18 life.

and that's only if you need to do it that turn. you could wait one more turn and gain more life if you used the monstrosity ability. This card really allows green to just eat damage from aggro decks early on and laugh later when the aggro deck gets outlasted.

Even crazier combo's late game when you have karametra's acolyte out. You can drop Polukranos and then tap an acolyte, make him ridiculous with the monstrosity, (usually around a 10/10+) and gain over 20 life in one turn. In team games this can be really epic too. If you get your teammate to help you buff something and then play this... just watch your opponents rage when you gain 52 life in one turn lol (true story).

Wins games for me when paired with Voracious Wurm. Maybe with Rancor for good measure.

this is another card that could change the game... get a Transguild Prominade, play a heavy drop like Risen Sanctuary and then play this... 16 life added. but you know gaining any life is still good.

F*ck this card.
F*ck this so f*cking much.
Mon-green Ramp is so *** broken now.
Way to go Wizards, nothing about this card was a bad idea at all.
This f*cking card should be a mythic, god *** damn.

Predator's Rapport + Sunbond + Centaur Battlemaster = Game changer. Especially paired with a Pheres-Band Warchief and enchanted with Unflinching Courage. :D