Lifelink, Livewire, and Your Lifepoints

My wife plays Magic, bless her, and she has an unhealthy attachment to Lifelink.

Seriously.

If there’s an angel that is both pretty and has Lifelink, she’s all over it.

And, of course, not being a total newb at this game, I make fun of her for it. “Pff! Lifelink! Yeah… Good luck with that one,” I say as I pull out the deck I’ve been brewing and playtesting by myself for days. And then, when she wins because she has forty lifepoints and a ton of flying beaters, I think to myself, “What the crap?!”

So, to that end, in honor of my wife, I was thinking about Lifelink and whether or not I could make a Lifelink deck.

The jury is still out, but I have an idea or two.

Lifelink + Livewire Lash + Mutagenic Growth

So, Lifelink gives you life every time that creature does damage. The wording is very important because it says “that creature.” So, let’s say you have Seraph of Dawn, 2/4 flying angel with Lifelink. That means whenever Seraph deals damage, any damage, you gain two life. If you pump it with something like Mutagenic Growth, which gives +2/+2, she does four damage and you gain four life.

So, let’s say you equip Livewire Lash (all you advanced players out there see where I’m going?). Livewire is an equipment that gives +2/+0 and the ability “Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell, this creature deals 2 damage to target creature or player,” which means, if someone tries to kill your card with Doom Blade, before Seraph dies, she does two points of damage to a creature or player.

So, let’s say we equip Livewire onto Seraph. Seraph then becomes a +4/+2 flying angel with Lifelink. Then, we attack! She’s going in for four points of flying damage and you’re about to get four lifepoints back, but wait! Before we start calculating damage, and after our opponent declares blockers, we pay two life and buff Seraph with Mutagenic Growth using its Phyrexian mana cost (which means we pay two life instead of using green mana.) Instantly, Serpah becomes a 6/4 angel and we get to deal two points of damage to our opponent and gain the two points we lost paying for Mutagenic Growth. So, now we calculate damage. Seraph now deals six points of damage and we get six points back. All in all, on that one attack, we’ve dealt a total of eight points and gained six!

However, there are a few problems. Livewire takes two mana to play and two to equip, mean that we’re really not going to be equipping anything until at least turn three. Assuming we get a cheap creature, like Sunspear Shikari (two mana, one white 2/2 Cat) we can assume the play will be: turn one; land, go. Turn two; land, resolve Sunspear, go. Turn three; resolve Livewire, go. Turn four; equip, attack, Mutagenic Growth, deal six damage, heal six lifepoints.

This is a bit slow.

You could use Serra Ascendant (one white 1/1 Human Monk which then becomes a 6/6 if you have more than 40 life), but you’re still stuck doing damage on turn three. All of your mana is going to be used creating this thing. All of your eggs are in one basket and that basket could get Doom Bladed!

This is definitely a thing to do when you’re messing around with your friends (or your wife, or husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, reluctant sister), but you’re not going to be taking it to any tournaments.

So, anyway, that’s one idea for creating a Lifelink deck.