Gain life

People say that gaining life is worthless and pointless.
Why is this and how it's fixed?

Gaining life has no impact on the game other than preventing you from losing a little longer so it should never really be a maindeck thing unless it's on a high value creature (Kitchen Finks) or it's your own game plan (Soul Sisters).
It works in sideboards against decks like Burn with limited damage. Lifegain works just fine and doesn't need to be 'fixed'.

Gaining life don't wins you the game or helps you to establish board presence.

Why would you want pure lifegain to be playable? It sounds like a really boring strategy.

Lifegain is fine as is; it's a way to help out. Morons just make it the primary focus of their deck.

Life gain isn't worthless. It's fantastic because in a tempo-based game it's equivalent to extra turns. If my opponent and I are hitting each other for 3 every turn and I gain 6 life that's two more turns of 3 damage I can survive that he cannot.

Cards that do nothing but life gain tend to be rather bad because you aren't just paying mana, you're also paying a card to play them. If I'm locked in a tempo war with my opponent some life might give me a few extra turns at the same tempo, but an extra creature would swing the tempo in my favor that I might not even need the extra life to win.

This is why Kitchen Finks is a ridiculously good card. I'm not giving up on playing a good card that can help me win the game. I'm playing a good creature, and then as a bonus he gives me life to extend my tempo advantage even further.

tl;dr: Life is a fantastic rider effect but seldom worth an entire card.

user you are using tempo wrong. You are talking about a race where you just hit each other every turn.
Life gain is anti tempo beause it does nothing for the game state.

I agree with everything you meant you though.

>cards that gain life and do nothing else aren't worth pla--

Incidental lifegain is the tits. Pure lifegain is trash because its a waste of resources. Lifegain in general is good for sideboards against burn, or for grindy control decks. For a deck that jus wants to last six turns before it wins, a good lifegain source will buy you the extra turn so you can establish a winning boardstate.
Consider Sphinx’s Revelation. Instant speed card draw by itself is okay, instead speed (pure) lifegain is bad. But both stapled together would win you the game against aggro decks.

>he's never played a test of endurance deck

Back when it was in standard, sphinx's rev would win you the game against ANY deck.

rest for the weary is pretty good too

Lifegain is bad except when it wins you the game.

Is this a cycle, or just a weird coincidence?

Give me the basic rundown, wise user

They're not from the same set user. You could call it a recurring theme.

>Gain x life AND DRAW X CARDS
Which half of the text do you think helped win you the game?

If it was just a draw X spell it would still be good but decks that ran it would lose to aggro more often.

MTG noob here, why "target player"? It seems incredibly stupid to be able to heal your opponent, and I don't think I've ever seen a tag-team game played.

Both.

The life gave you time to cast all your cards. The cards gave you something to do. There's a reason (also Supreme Verdict, Azorius Charm, D Sphere, Elspeth) that Rev was a pillar of the format while Pull From Tomorrow barely sees any play.

Two-headed giant games do get played. There's also jank like Tainted Remedy. Or it's just politics, ie. keeping the non-problem opponent alive who can potentially deal with the problem opponent.

It's for tag team games you mental midget, you answered your own question. There are also 9000 cards in the game, you don't think there might be some combo where it's good to make your opponent gain life? Also if your opponent draws from an empty deck, they lose, so there's that edge case even without some wanky combo.

MTG made it say "target player" because that's badass and it gives you flexibility? Is there any downside? Why does this even bother you? Why didn't you ask a productive question?

And go back to r3dit t if you want people to be nice to you and answer your pointless question and suck your dick just because you are an ignorant new player.

Unless you have shroud it's pretty much strictly better to be able to target any player even though you will target yourself 99 out of 100 games.

Did you have a tough day?

I went on the dota 2 red it once and top post was some noob who was bragging about getting 6 kills 3 deaths against easy bots. And everyone unironically was celebrating and upvoting like mad. This culture of worshipping shittiness and mediocrity has to be fucking purged starting with you

I don't really play MtG much, but I can tell that life gain in CCGs in general is only good if you have effects that trigger off it, or if you are running a countdown deck (play a card, wait X turns until effect happens).
The whole point of life gain is prolonging the game until you trigger a certain advantage or win condition.

wew

No need to your panties in a twist, none of that is useful at all, maybe you could list some of those "9000" cards that would combo like you said?
Thanks, I figured, I just have never seen a game like that played. Sounds fun actually.
Oh you're a dotafag, makes sense now.
Go back to your cesspit /v/irgin.

Two Headed Giant (2v2 with extra rules) and Emperor (3v3 with extra rules) are fun as hell formats.

Cards that say target can be redirected or used in uncommon ways. For example reanimator can use thoughtseize in an emergency to discard their own card. Also you can use something like misdirection to use their thoughtseize against them, it's an even trade but you get the advantage of making all the choices.

Also false cure is a card that specifically fits your previous question. There's a whole deck based around playing it and then playing cards that have an alternate cost of letting your opponent gain life.

WotC used to make cards in such a way to inspire choices, critical thinking, and interaction. If one sees a beneficial effect (such as life gain) that can target your opponent a critical mind might wonder why and upon doing some basic research find cards such as false cure, redirect, and transcendence.

This. The fact that it provoked a question in this young noob shows that it is a cool and well designed card. However, some questions should not be put to writing or honored with a polite answer.

Gaining life isn't super-awful-bad. Hell Soul Sisters is really good. The problem is, unless you are literally all in of life gain, ie Soul Sisters or some equivalent, it is literally do nothing to extend the game.

Lifegain, like mill, needs a few things to work right:

it needs to be in such retardedly-high amounts in a single go to be useful.

it needs to be repeatable, every single turn.

it needs to be an additional effect of something else.

Basically this.
/thread

combos with tainted remedy to make an opponent lose 8 life

More like this.

its so you can kill deaths shadows

and this is lifegains most effective use, lifegain has to be attached to better effects or else its worthless

1 drop 2/2 is fine, with lifelink its strong
bolt is strong, add white to it and its a helix, stroke of genius is good, add white and its rev which is better

if you had the option between 2 3X cmc spells where one gains you X life and the other draws X you would most likely take the draw spell
swagtusk would be good even if it didnt gain life, swords to plowshares is good because lifegain is worthless, approach of the second sun would be played even if it didnt gain life

I had so much fun playing a cleric deck with this as a wincon back when I played tons of kitchen table magic.

there's also celestial convergence