Over the last month, a plague has been spreading across StarCity’s site. It is insidious and subtle, but it is there. There has been support for prissy little white mages and their filthy lifegain tricks! This plague must be stopped here and now.
Andrew Healy admits to being the white mage spreading this plague (although I suspect he would call himself a prophet, spreading goodness and truth. Ptaaa! Liar!). Mr. Healy doesn’t even have the decency to keep such a horrible truth hidden away.
Mr. Healy makes a number of points in his articles that are twisted perversions of truth:
- In his December 24 lobby for lifegain (I would hope the esteemed editor would NOT link to this article. It is best to keep this perversion from further exposing the populace) (Sorry, chief – The Ferrett, not quite as anti-white as Anthony), Mr. Healy tries to suggest that lifegain is just as valid a play as blocking with creatures.
- You suggest lifegain is valid because in a weak moment, a player looks at the next few cards in their library? What relevance does this have? If you had more life, you would have lived to get to that next card? Please. What card does that player eventually flip over with disdain, wishing that card had come up earlier? No, not lifegain – but a business spell. A spell that can actually do something to someone else.
- Your next statement for lifegain was:”There are more ways of causing damage in the game than there are ways of gaining life.” Well, thank Wizards R&D for that! How boring would this game be if it was even easier than it already is to gain life! Games would never end!
- You describe the combo player as the true evil, pointing at him and screaming”get him, get him!” Typical, cowardly, white mage reaction. The only player that you can’t deal with is the combo player – so you have to rely on the blue mage to counter the combo. This leads you to try to convince everyone that it is the combo player that is truly evil. Your attempts to deflect attention from you don’t fool us white mage… They don’t fool us at all.
“I appreciate life points as a valuable resource unto themselves; am I supposed to ask more from them besides more time? Of course I can understand the utility of using excess health to fuel a Hatred without digging into my original health total. But I am not going to refuse an increase in my health total, simply because I have no use for it other than it’s intrinsic value.”
Suggesting lifegain is as valid as blocking with creatures is like suggesting stealing $1000.00 is the same as working for $1000.00. While the attacking player”worked” to deal five points of damage to you, you stole this from him with your filthy lifegain.
Mr. Healy, I am not against all white mages. I too have played the colour of lifegain… But I chose not to use such lame, vile spells. You have already described how white has so much else to offer. Why constantly revert to Congregate, Alabaster Potion, Reverse Damage (vile curses on this card!), and the hundreds of other white lifegain possibilities. White has some of the most remarkable creatures in Magic, some of the most spectacular enchantments, and yet too many white mages are lured into playing lame lifegain decks that simply sit there, building life totals so high that they can be heard describing their life total as”28 to the power of 245.”
Over the Christmas holidays, I played in a multiplayer Magic game against a truly prissy white mage. He played a creatureless deck, hiding behind circles of protection and huge lifegain. The win condition for his deck was to mill his opponents out of cards, as his deck was almost a hundred cards. That’s right, his win condition, much like most other white mages, was to win by boring everyone else to death. With only three of us in the game, my other opponent and I came to an unspoken understanding, and opted to focus our threats on the filthy white mage. Each turn, every burn spell assaulted the white mage; every creature, no matter how small attacked; every enchantment removal spell was used against the filthy white mage.
We finally managed to defeat the white mage with our crushing assault, but over an hour and a half had passed by and we had done approximately 350 points of damage to the cur. Yes, I know, he wasn’t a very talented white mage if he couldn’t handle 350 points of damage. When games turn this way, I am sickened by the perversion white visits on Magic.
Excessive lifegain is worse than combo decks. At least when the combo hits, you know it and it is over. Combo games are measured in minutes; games against lifegain mages are measured with calendars.
This is why this perversion must be stamped out.
I don’t expect to be able to convince Mr. Healy of the truth of what I am saying; he is a white mage who would simply absorb my blows, then tap mana to gain life double the amount of damage I have dealt to him. I issue this as a warning to others, who are tempted. White lifegain is evil and will only send your casual games into extended bouts of dullness. You have all been warned!
Bruce Richard, mage with no colour preference whatsoever.
[email protected]
P.S.: Mr. Healy also rants about white’s lousy creatures, or more appropriately, that white doesn’t have any decent fatties. Every casual player knows the value of a 4/4 flyer that doesn’t tap to attack. Look that up and tell me that white doesn’t have any good fatties. Oh, you might also want to check out the Serra Avatar. At least your filthy lifegain would have a purpose then.