25 Best Life Gaining Cards in Magic! The Gathering.
Magic has been around for almost 30 years now and is one of the first things that comes to mind when someone talks about TCGs. In that time we have seen many others come and go, (Anyone remember DuelMasters? And we don't talk about Digimon TCG) but magic it seems is here to stay. It has the perfect blend of simplicity and complexity that make learning the basics of the game whilst also allowing you to constantly learn new combo plays and strategies. Today we are going to look at one of the simpler goals in MTG which is Life management. Life is almost everything in the world of magic for if you lose all your HP you lose the duel. These are 25 of the best cards for keeping your life as high as you need.
25. Adorable Kitten
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This is a relatively easy card to place on this list because it only costs one mana to summon and gives you a 1/1 cannon fodder. The upside is when it is summoned to the field you can roll a die and get anywhere from 1-6 hp roll the die and may the gods be with you.
24. Alive//Well (Well)
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This is a must have in a green white deck. With so much that allows you to increase the damaging power of the 3/3 that you get for 4 mana but for only 1 white mana you can get 2 life and you don't have to play both halves of this card if you don't want to or have the mana to.
23. Balefire Liege
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If you can get this card to stay on the field it can be incredibly broke. You like lightning bolt? Well when you cast your lightning bolt you get another lightning bolt. Lava axe? Add a lightning bolt to that. Wanna play any of the other white cards on this list gain an extra 3 life. Oh yeah gonna summon any other white monsters to get some lifelink, give them a +1/+1 and gain 3 life. Need I say more why you need this card in a red/white deck?
22. Angel’s Mercy
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When you are building a white deck and you need some instants this card is a must have. You can run 4 of these in a standard deck and for 4 mana you can get 28 life. There are other cards in the game that allow you to instantly declare victory for having 40 life in a standard game.
21. Absorb
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Being a blue white card this brings the best of both colors together in a frustratingly beautiful way. Everyone hates counters and everyone hates when they gain life so doing both at the same time is enough to make any opponent internally scream. Run four of these bad boys with 4 regular counters and watch your opponents rage quit and give you a very satisfying victory.
20. Abuna’s Chant
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Amongst the healing cards this is a very versatile card to have in your arsenal. If you have low mana you can only get one of these effects but for 2 extra mana you get both and being an instant you can use it at any time. Throw it out to save a creature with lifelink and watch your life rise.
19. Ajani
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I put Ajani as a whole in this entry because Ajani himself seems to be the symbol of what white is all about. They seem to give you a way to regain massive health with Ajani Steadfast giving all of your creatures lifelink and if you have both, you can get vigilance as well as giving you a free attack and still have defenders left over.
18. Bargain
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This card is a pretty easy card to discuss, with the small cost of allowing your opponent to draw a card you gain 7 life. With the low cost of only 3 mana why wouldn’t you want to have this card in your deck?
17. Archon of Redemption
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This card is a great card for gaining life. A lot of creatures' abilities activate when they enter the field. This bad boy right here works if on his own entrance but every other creature as well. Anybody got an eldrazi devastator or an ulamog?
16. Armadillo Cloak
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This is quite a big enchantment. It gives you a +2/+2, grants you trample and essentially gives you life link as well what more is there to say about this card. This is the card that perfectly embodies white and grain, bolster your own life and trample through your enemies. The possibilities with this card are endless but if you can keep this card on the field it can snowball quickly.
15. Benediction of Moon
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This card isn’t too powerful in a solo 1v1 but the more players that you decide to take on the more powerful this card can become. This card only costs 1 white mana to cast and at its worst you can get 2 life from this card. With plenty of cards that can kill monsters in white it shouldn't be hard to activate its second ability sometimes even on the same turn.
14. Tamanoa
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This card allows you to gain life for every card that isn't a creature that deals damage. Lightning Helix/Lightning bolt/Lava Axe or really any other card of the like should be enough to get your life pretty well fortified.
13.Arterial Flow
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If you are not running vampires in a black deck what are you even doing. Making your opponents discard cards from their hands plus making them lose life while increasing your own is just a very unpleasant double whammy that you are definitely gonna wanna run with your vampire nighthawk, child of night or whatever other vampires give you lifelink or even with Epicure of Blood.If you pair this with those above cards and exquisite blood tyou could activate an infinite loop with another card mentioned later,
12. Divinity of Pride
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This card is a force to be reckoned with. A flying with lifelink can only be blocked by creatures with reach and other creatures with flying. There have been plenty of instances where flyers have run rampant on many players myself included if this thing hit the field I would seriously hope that i had something to counter with.
11. Krav the Unredeemed
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This card is great if you run token decks. There are many cards that allow you to summon a token including the partner Regna, the Redeemer. If you have a few of them on the field you can get multiple tokens and then sacrifice all of them to add their powers to Krav, your health, and your hand. I’ll let you decide how broken you can make this card.
10. Obzedat, Ghost Council
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This card has a great enter ability in the sense that it steals life from enemies gives it to yourself and then bounces itself back to your hand during your next upkeep allowing you to do it over and over again until an opponent has counters but there are plenty of counters you could run that would negate the opponent counter, trust me people get quite aggravated when you counter counter.
9. Arctic Nishoba
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This card comes with a cumulative upkeep which usually becomes quite annoying to deal with and dont have too many upsides if you can’t pay the upkeep. This card on the other hand allows you to get 2 life for every counter on this card which you gain every time you pay the upkeep. If you manage to summon this creature you have enough mana already to be able to pay its upkeep for 6 turns unless your opponent sends him earlier but you still get the life.
8. Arashin Cleric
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This card is very simple: you summon it and get 3 life then you get a defender that can protect those 3 life. There are also a bunch of cards that increase the powers of clerics and can snowball quite quickly.
7. Akroma’s Will
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This card can be extremely broken as long as your commander is on the field forget the flying and protection from all colors, which is something I've never seen before, but having vigilance, lifelink, and double strike is just monstrous but when you add the other effects its a devastating card to play but when you add the fact that it affects ALL of your creatures and you have one seriously broken cards but not the most broken on this list.
6. Appetite for the unnatural
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Does the card deathclaw scythe mean anything to you? Well that is an artifact that reduces your life by half every time an equipped creature attacks. However throw this card out after they spend all their mana to equip it and watch your opponents rage and scramble to come up with a new plan.
5. Ancestor Dragon
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This is a card that can snowball well with the akroma’s will card from earlier as it will give this card and every other creature you control vigilance meaning you don't need to worry about attacking with everything you have and Skyrocketing your life even more which will help tremendously with the number 1 card on this list.
4. Angelic Skirmisher
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This card is a monster version of a nefred Akroma’s will when you attack with this creature it allows you to choose one of these effects to apply to every creature that attacks. So which one do you choose all 3 because you are definitely going to run 3 of these in any angelic white deck.
3. Archangel’s Light
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This card is a mill decks worst nightmare. If you know you are going to run into a mill deck you are gonna wanna have at least one search card that will allow you to pull this card out of your deck and if your playing standard or modern then you can run 4 of these and could gain a staggering 39-40 life if you run the standard 20 mana but if any of those hit the graveyard than that gives you even more life and allows you to get our entire graveyard back to essentially start over laughing as your mill opponent decks out. What could be more satisfying.
2. Exquisite Blood
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This card is at this spot for 1 main reason. This card partners with a few other cards that lead into infinite loops that can kill an opponent pretty much by themselves, if your opponent cant stop this card from hitting the field, with cards like Sanguine blood, Epicure of blood, Marauding Blight-Priest, Vito, Thorn of the dusk rose, Defiant bloodlord, and cliffhaven vampire. There are a few infinite loops that require a few specific cards but having one that can be used by so many different cards, this card definitely deserves its spot.
1. Aetherflux Reservoir
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This is the cream of the crop when it comes to life gaining cards. Not only does this card give you life every single time you cast a spell (which is everything but a land card) with the goal being to get your life up to 51 so you can instantly kill any opponent with card alone. Mix this card with a bunch of counters and control decks and you can frustrate your opponent by stopping everything that they do and just stacking health until your finally have enough to give you the instant win.
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