The standard lifegain deck goal is to pump the heck out of one creature, whether that's Bloodthirsty Aerialist, Loxodon Lifechanter, or similar cards. This deck mostly keeps to that generic goal (22 cards in the deck can lead to life gain), but it also provides some additional tooling by the inclusion of The Ozolith, which helps your creature pump survive control, and includes some token creation through Dreadhorde Invasion.
Custom categories are provided to get a better overview of what each of the parts of the deck are - feel free to check them out!
Playtest 1 result:
Hand: 3x Plains, Castle Locthwain, Mazemind Tome, Gideon Blackblade, Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord
Thoughts: Not super amazing (no curve out on turn 1, no Swamp for Sorin cast later), but not bad at all. Mazemind is really helpful to have in a starting hand, and we have all of the requisite lands to cast Gideon.
Turn 1: Play Plains
Turn 2: Draw Swamp, play Swamp, Mazemind Tome, scry 1 with Mazemind Tome. Result: Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose. Excellent; Vito is a strong card when we start lifegaining a lot. Leave on top of deck.
Turn 3: Draw Vito, play Plains, Gideon Blackblade. He can't attack yet because of summoning sickness, and there are no other creatures to use his +1 on yet (unfortunately). Scry 1 with Mazemind Tome. Top is Vampire of the Dire Moon, which can be effective in warding off attackers and getting lifegain procs. However, since it's turn 3, we have better cards we can get. Put on bottom of deck.
Turn 4: Draw The Ozolith. Play Castle Locthwain, Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord. Use Sorin's +1 on anything of your choice, and attack with Gideon, who now has lifelink, giving you a total of +5 life on this turn. Scry 1 with Mazemind Tome, revealing a plains. We're good on mana right now, so put on bottom of deck.
Turn 5: Draw Ajani, Strength of the Pride. Nice, we can start pumping counters really hard. Play Plains, The Ozolith, Ajani, Strength of the Pride. Use Ajani's -2 to put out an Ajani's Pridemate token. Use Sorin's +1 to deal 1 damage to something, giving you +1 life and the Pridemate a +1/+1. Use Mazemind's final scry to get +4 life and another Pridemate +1/+1. Mazemind reveals Godless Shrine, but since we're good on mana, send it to the bottom of the deck. Now that you finally have a creature, use Gideon's +1 on the Pridemate, and attack for +4 life. You now have 34 life, and the Pridemate is a 5/5.
(I could go on, but this obviously a very good hand.)
Playtest 2 result:
Hand: 3x Plains, Godless Shrine, Castle Locthwain, Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Thoughts: This is a bad hand. We do have Ajani, which is nice, but we have 5 lands. This is just on the verge of a mulligan - we do have Locthwain for card draw though, so I'll stick with it.
Turn 1: Play Godless Shrine and don't pay 2 life.
Turn 2: Draw Mazemind Tome. Thank god, this probably saved this hand. Play Plains, Mazemind Tome. Scry 1 to reveal a Plains. We're fine on mana, so send it to the bottom.
Turn 3: Draw another Mazemind Tome. We're a bit starved on creatures, unfortunately. Play Castle Locthwain, and draw a card with Mazemind Tome. Draw Vampire of the Dire Moon. Unfortunately, Locthwain is tapped, but it's good to have a creature for next turn.
Turn 4: Draw Plains, play Plains. Here you have the choice of playing Heliod, Sun-Crowned
+
Vampire of the Dire Moon
or Ajani, Strength of the Pride if your opponent somehow doesn't have any creature threats at this point.
Overall, not awful - you have the ability to get a pump card out with Ajani, and you have lots of card draw. However, it didn't ramp up nearly as fast as playtest 1. This is probably the point at which you get run over by an Ugin deck or controlled into the ground.
