Staff of the Mind Magus

[serracollector]

Staff of the Mind Magus

3

Whenever you cast a blue spell or an island enters the battlefield under your control, you gain 1 life.


There is an entire series of these but I find the blue one very interesting due to its synergy with the gush engine. It nullifies fastbond damage and can easily move your life total up chaining cantrips and gushes. It can help give a life buffer thru the new onslaught of creature decks that continue to grow. Helps offset bob draw life loss as well.


I have also thought about the black/swamp version of this series for something full of nights whispers, sign in bloods, rituals, bobs, thouseizes, and tendrils. Chaining off efficient draw and not having the worry of killing yourself off grisle, or necro, or bobs, or well all black draw cards, is a very nice thing and at only 3 cmc could easily find a spot or two I believe.

[shrewarmies]

Kraken's eye was never played. This will see just as much play.

[Protoaddict]

There are better pieces for life off fast bond/gush. Crucible/zuran orb/fastbond comes to mind and that is a minor combo in the format at best.

Also, so many decks either win with infect or win with damage after the board is secure that this card just wont gain you enough to matter. Basically for life gain to matter a great amount of the time you have to go infinite or close to it.

[Meddling Mike]

Kraken's eye was never played. This will see just as much play.

[MaximumCDawg]

That's just because we never had critical mass before.   Here's my new deck:

4x Crystal Rod
4x Kraken's Eye
4x Staff of the Mind Magus

4x Paradise Mantle
4x Blistercoil Werid
4x Niv-Magus Elemental

1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Gigadrowse
4x Grapeshot

Some lands'n'stuff

[vaughnbros]

There are infinitely more powerful gain life cards, like kitchen finks and thragtusk, that have seen absolutely no vintage play.  So I really don't think we need to give any hype to a different version of krakens eye.

[AmbivalentDuck]

There are infinitely more powerful gain life cards, like kitchen finks and thragtusk, that have seen absolutely no vintage play.

In all fairness, CMC is a major consideration. Gaining a million life may not be worth 4WW.

[serracollector]

Krakens eye doesnt heal for land drops. I was just looking mainly at the effect of offsetting the draw back of fastbond. Fastbond, crucible and any of these staffs is a land lock/filter depending on fetches or waste, stripetc. Makes fetch lands free gain you life, makes shockland duals deal 1 less to untap. The land and spells together is what makes these different and worth trying out imo.

[Protoaddict]

With fastbond/Crucible and a fetch you could already use Zuran orb to gain infinite life and remove all the land from your deck, and Zuran sees fringe (if even) play. You have to make me understand why this 3 cmc card is somehow better than a 0 cmc one.

[psyburat]

What significance does this card have outside of Fastbond/Gush chains?  Isn't there something else significantly better you could be doing with three mana?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Lifegain is Vintage is underexplored. Gaining a million life for one mana is probably broken; gaining a million life for six mana is probably unplayable. Zuran Orb, Hide/Seek, Scavenging Ooze, and Tendrils are the only cards that have seen significant Vintage play and are used to gain life. Of those, only Tendrils sees significant play currently and its mini-Tendrils "mode" is increasingly uncommonly played with some storm decks entirely skipping on the card maindeck in favor of Burning Wish.

Against dredge, you need something like 12 additional life to push their critical turn back. Against MUD, the mana spent gaining 3-4 life could probably have been used to do something that actually impacts the outcome of the game. Storm is the most sensitive to lifegain since every 2 life gained is an additional storm needed, but it probably takes something like 5 life in the first two turns to significantly impact the outcome of the game. Grixis control has a tendency to go infinite or infect you to death, and doesn't really care about lifegain.

So...is this better than Elixir of Immortality? Even if it is, does the lifegain actually swing a critical matchup? I'd say no on both counts.

[Saya]

Many blue decks mount two nondamage win conditions:poison and libraryout.∞ life strategy is no longer helpful.