Making lifegain good

[Jacob Orlove]

I think there's a cycle of cards like this in darksteel, but lifegain is so bad that wizard's cards almost certainly won't make it decent. Thus, I give you:

Essence Sculptor
3
Whenever you gain life, you may pay X, where X is the amount of life you gained. If you do, put X X/X White essence token creatures into play.
They move with the grace of flowing water, and gleam with the light of a thousand stars. Made of the essence of planeswalkers, these spirits are life itself--but they will not hesitate to kill.

[rvs]

pretty cool

Shouldn't the tokens be flying?

[Matt]

Wizards' cards may not be good, but that one is downright AMAZING. Make it just one X/X creature, and it's still really, really good.

[rvs]

X X/X..... I read it as X 1/1's for a reason. I think X 1/1's with flying is really balanced and cool.

[Bram]

Does this work? Isn't gain life incremental or something? I mean, if you gain 3 life, don't you go from 10 to 11 to 12 to 13?

If you're an 10 and you gain 6 life through renewed faith, do you get the option of making 6 1/1 tokens instead of 6 6/6 tokens?

[Puschkin]

Woah, that is outright sick, just couple this with Ivory Tower and you would have no need to play any card since you create 3 3/3s every turn for 3 colorless ... CotH is shit compared to this.

It should produce either
a) X 1/1s
b) X 1/1s with flying
c) 1 X/X with flying

where b) and c) should require tapping the artifact.

Since I am sick of the hundreds of ways to produce 1/1s we already have, I would not vouche for a), though.

[Jacob Orlove]

How about this:

Essence Sculptor
3
Whenever a player gains life, he or she may pay X, where X is the amount of life gained. If he or she does, put X 1/1 White essence token creatures with flying into play under that player's control.
They move with the grace of flowing water, and gleam with the light of a thousand stars. Made of the essence of planeswalkers, these spirits are life itself--but they will not hesitate to kill.

1/1s makes more sense because of memory issues. Flying makes sense for flavor. But I don't want this to tap.

[Bram]

Seems acceptable. I don't believe it has to tap, either. It's probably comboable this way, but not easily. I kinda like this. It could create a new decktype.

[Matt]

Well, it's a combo with Carnival of Souls and Soul Warden/Angelic Chorus.

What if we made you sacrifice these tokens whenever you were hit with a "loss of life" effect (but not damage)? If lifegain-> essence, then life loss->loss of essence.

[Dr. Sylvan]

It's certainly no more dangerous than Army of Squirrels as a combo, and seriously, a life gain combo? My pituitary gland has informed me that such a deck will never be good, because life gain is for wimps.

The X X/X version is...beyond insane. However, mandating that you pay the same as the quantity of life gained makes this very slow. How do you guys feel about changing it to "up to X"?

[Jacob Orlove]

Well, it's a combo with Carnival of Souls and Soul Warden/Angelic Chorus.

3-card, non-T2 legal combos with multiple cards that do nothing on their own are not so good. Somehow, I don't think this is going to become some kind of sick engine.

I like that you have to pay the exact amount; it makes things more interesting.

[stijndon]

Make it some sort of Lich! Indeed, when you are dealt damage or are going to lose life, you can opt to sac a token to counter the loss of life, or prevent the amount of damage.

Makes the tokens way better. Hmmm. Too much so, I'm afraid. Perhaps you should die when you have no tokens left to sac? Or am I too drastically moving away from the original card?

[Bram]

Yes

I see no problems with the proposed current wording.

[Jacob Orlove]

So, 24 hour clock?

[Matt]

Not until there's a current wording post, in bold.

[Jacob Orlove]

okay, 24 hour clock then.

[Jacob Orlove]

Closed and added. Whoops.