Sheer Ludicrous Amounts of Life Gain

Commander / EDH Competitive Infinite Combo Lifegain WUB (Esper)

khaos2639

Land (31)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arcane Sanctum
• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Celestial Colonnade
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Kor Haven
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 2x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Shambling Vent
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Watery Grave

Card Draw (6)

• 1x Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip
• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top

Life Steal (2)

• 1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• 1x Vizkopa Guildmage

Utility (13)

• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Dimir Charm
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Manifold Key
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Ramp (9)

• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Tantalite
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Sol Ring

Spends Life Gain (8)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Angelic Accord
• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Crested Sunmare
• 1x Luminarch Ascension
• 1x Serra Ascendant

Win Con (6)

• 1x Archangel of Thune
• 1x Cliffhaven Vampire
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Sanguine Bond
• 1x Test of Endurance

Commander (1)

Removal (12)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Darksteel Mutation
• 1x Fumigate
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Karlov of the Ghost Council
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Terminus
• 1x Utter End

Protection (7)

• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Karmic Justice
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Norn's Annex
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Riot Control
• 1x The Wanderer

Life Gain (5)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1x Rhox Faithmender
• 1x Soul Warden
• 1x Venser's Journal

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Sheer Ludicrous Amounts of Life Gain; Or, how I learned to stop worrying about my opponent's happiness and love Esper.

The whole goal of this little exercise is to build a semi-competitive (Read: Good but not good enough to make me take out a second mortgage) EDH deck that spams liberal usage of lifegain.... and then spends that lifegain for fun and profit.

Exquisite Blood makes a starring role filling out two different infinite combos:

Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond
Exquisite Blood + Cliffhaven Vampire

Personally, I'm more fond of the combo using Cliffhaven Vampire because as a flyer, he's usually able to also do the damage that starts the chain.

If anyone else has any comments, thoughts, suggestions, or wants to share their favorite bad joke, post a comment.

How to make this deck more budget-friendly

I've tried very hard to make this a semi-competitive deck. Personally, I've got bills to pay, and don't feel like eating Ramen 3 meals a day just so I can play a more streamlined deck.

That having been said, I'm sure there's people that would prefer to see their deck even cheaper. For me, these simple substitutions make the deck slightly slower, but for significantly less cost:

Remove Cryptic Command ; Replace with Mystic Confluence
Remove Vampiric Tutor ; Replace with Diabolic Tutor
Remove Marsh Flats ; Replace with Tainted Field
Remove Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth ; Replace with Swamp (Honestly, it only helps a little)
Remove Ancient Tomb ; Replace with Mage-Ring Network
Remove Polluted Delta ; Replace with Bad River
Remove Flooded Strand ; Replace with Flood Plain
Remove Sensei's Divining Top ; Replace with Ponder


Those couple of simple changes will knock off $186.00, which is over a third of the cost of the deck for only a very marginal improvement in performance.

Top Ranked	Achieved #4 position overall 6 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.21
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Emblem Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Emblem Ob Nixilis Reignited, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Horse 5/5 W, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Commander Decks, EDH, Interesting Commander Decks, Edh, References, Compare to.... , Good EDH Decks, Cool Decks, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, EDH