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Karlov-The Big Daddy of Lifegain

Commander / EDH WB (Orzhov)

HvyDrtySoul

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Lands (36)

Payoff (7)

Protection (4)

Lifegain (17)

Removal (9)

Ramp (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: Karlov of the Ghost Council

Card Draw (10)

Value/Recursion (8)

Add CK (3)

Maybeboard

Lifegain (11)

Considering (8)

Lands (10)

Payoff (6)

Value (10)

Card Draw (3)

Removal (3)

Intro

This is a deck I love playing and so I figured I'd write up a little bit about it as a primer for it. Ultimately, this is a lifegain deck in the two best colors for it, so there's not a ton of tricky things going on here. However, there are definitely some interesting options that come up and has some more interesting play to it than just gain a million life and sit there doing nothing. I also want to note that this is obviously not the full money version of the deck you can make as there are plenty of $20+ cards that are powerful and would make the deck better, but I unfortunately have limited resources. So while I've been slowly building up this deck, there's definitely more cards to consider or add if you have access to them. So with that said let's jump into big daddy Karlov and his lifegaining shenanigans.

So it may seem obvious enough, but we want to gain some life, but we want to gain life in small doses repeatedly rather than all at once. Basically triggering Karlov a lot is ultimately a big win condition and also opens up our deck to play with removal always on board. While we do want life to play with and pay into other things, our repeated triggers usually gain us a decent amount of life and ultimately I'd rather gain one life ten times than twenty life one time. If you are interested in seeing what absurd life total you can get to, then I would recommend Licia, Sanguine Tribune or even Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim as those commanders are more interested in that type of style. Plus, the many triggers are slightly more innocent looking then the massive single lifegain that happens, but the 20/20 Karlov probably makes it hard to seem harmless.

One of the reasons I love this deck is sometimes it can play like an aggro deck with certain hands where you're trying to kill people with a massive Karlov on turn 4 and sometimes you're playing a slower controlly game where you're just holding mana up to exile problematic creatures that pop up. As part of that slower, controlling game, instants and activated abilities are super nice as a way to hold up mana to use Karlov's ability and if not then sink it into something else. So things like Greed, Dawn of Hope, even Scholar of Athreos all provide us with that flexibility so mana simply isn't wasted.

tl:dr Many, small lifegain better the few, big lifegain. Can play the role of aggro or control depending on the hand. Activated abilities are great in this deck.

Figured I'd mention some key cards here that are super important for the deck, and luckily none are super expensive but most cards in this deck can be swapped for others if ultra budget is a goal of yours. These are also the cards that might be targets for tutoring if you're running some sort of tutor package. To be honest, the card I consider to be the strongest and most important card in the deck is Vizkopa Guildmage and would be the card I want to see every game. It seems like a nice card generally, but there's two key things that make it great here. First, with Karlov out and with a few counters, we can just win with the guildmage since it can give Karlov lifelink to gain a bunch of life and the ability to weaponize that lifegain. If we have a Spirit Link on Karlov, the guildmage and six mana, we can make each opponent lose life equal to twice Karlov's power and that's even if he gets chumpblocked. A lesser known fact is that you can activate the guildmage's ability multiple times which causes it to stack. So if you activate it twice and then gain 2 life, it will trigger twice causing each opponent to lose 4 life. It's a card that opponents will let live the first time, but will quickly learn their lesson and should be kill on sight.

Aetherflux Reservoir is another key card in this deck and I don't think it needs much explanation. It is a little unfortunate that it's first line of text actually makes it one of the better lifegain sources in our deck, but it paints such a target on our back (and fortunately will generally win us a game) that we can't really abuse it as a lifegain trigger. Generally I would hold it in hand until you have enough life and can threaten the next person to target you or if you're that desperate to try gaining some life you could drop it early and pray for no removal. Also combos with citadel and top, but I'll cover that more in a later section.

Other than that, there's not too many individual cards that are insane. The deck is able to have a decent density of cards that can do similar things so it is actually fairly resilient in that sense. Rarely are there bad draws and many cards will work in certain situations.

Honestly if this section could just be a shrine to Contemplation and the criminal fact it doesn't even appear on Karlov's EDHRrec page then I would do so. But this card represents the epitome of the kind of lifegain you want for Karlov. Repeatable, small amounts that can be triggered multiple times a turn. This is the same mold that the soul sisters (Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant) also famously fill in this deck. Sun Droplet can get us up to four triggers in a round of the table, but at it's worst, it's acting as a deterrent from our opponents directing damage at us. Sunscorch Regent and Righteous Cause are at the top end of what we'll pay to gain life, but these are powerful effects again that can get us a lot of life and important to note that righteous cause triggers on all attacks.

There's also the inclusion of a few auras to give Karlov lifelink or pseudo-lifelink in this deck which honestly could be considered some of the weaker forms of lifegain in the deck. I think it's just my inner voltron player though that loves swinging with a massive Karlov and gaining a bunch of life. It does give us the ability to get to some of those absurd life totals and it also synergizes well the Vizkopa Guildmage and can get us above threshold for Aetherflux Reservoir which are some of our top finishers. However, if swinging is not your jam, then it is a suite of cards that could be removed though Spirit Loop is one of the better ones since it can stack with lifelink since it's technically not lifegain (it's a triggered ability) and has some recursion built in.

Finally, some of the more fringe cards that could be cut here are some of the more situational lifegain cards. If you drop some of the auras, then Underworld Coinsmith becomes much worse and as it is, it is a card that I've considered cutting due to a fairly low density of enchantments. Tablet of the Guilds is another card I've considered cutting as there are a decent density of artifacts in the deck which don't trigger it. Righteous cause is also a bit slow and gets much worse if you have a bunch of spellslinger decks or just generally non-combat decks in your meta.

Nothing too exciting to say here. A fairly straightforward suite of card draw spells. I will note that cards like Arguel's Blood Fast  , Greed, etc and Dawn of Hope have special value in this deck as it once again allows us to do something with our mana that we want to hold up to activate Karlov in case something drops. However, if nothing needs to be exiled, then these cards let us draw cards instead.
So the ramp package is fairly light compared to other decks where around ten pieces of ramp is recommended. However, with this deck, there's two things that make certain pieces of ramp a little less desirable than normal. First off, this deck nearly always has early plays and a pretty smooth mana curve, so there's often times when there are plays I want to be making at 1-mana, 2-mana, 3-mana, etc. This deck also tends to be fairly color intensive, as many of our cards don't have a lot of generic mana costs involved. So cards like Mind Stone wouldn't be terrible, but can lead to surprisingly clunky mana sometimes despite being a two color deck. Pristine Talisman is only in here due to its synergy, but honestly even with that, it can sometimes not be ideal. There is a consideration for some pieces of ramp that are not here such as Wayfarer's Bauble and Arcane Signet that do provide access to colors and for fairly low investment. Also if you want to play a slower, more value game, then more ramp would definitely not be a terrible idea.

As for removal, I'm running about two board wipes, but strongly considering Cleansing Nova as a third plus it has some modality to it. As for spot removal, you generally want flexible removal rather than too much only creature removal since Karlov can provide key removal when needed. If you have it, Mortify could probably be swapped for an Anguished Unmaking or even added in addition to mortify if you're wanting to up the removal package. Other than that, not too much to say here.

For lands there's not a ton to comment on here either. Similar to ramp, being able to flexibly make colored mana is real important to the deck, so I wouldn't run a ton of colorless utility lands. Flavorfully, Orzhova, the Church of Deals is a great card, but terrible otherwise. I really wanted it to work, but I'm pretty sure I never activated its ability once. But some utility lands do have extra value since it gives you something to do when holding up mana if needed. That does mean there is even more value to utility lands that produce colored mana, such as Castle Locthwain, Castle Ardenvale, Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker, etc. Other than that, untapped dual lands are still good. Scrubland is good, fetches are still good, shocks are still good, painlands are good, etc. All this to the surprise of no one.

Here's just some general notes on the insane combo potential of this deck. These are not combos that I am running, but part of that has to simply do with the monetary cost of parts of some of these combos. What's nice is that this deck can run these combos with all/most of the parts having value/synergy in the deck as individual pieces so they're not just dead cards in your hand when not in the combo.

The first is the well known Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond combo. With this combo the instant any opponent loses life or you gain life, then it goes off. Sanguine bond also has a bunch of substitutes such as Cliffhaven Vampire, the activated ability of Vizkopa Guildmage, etc.

The second is the newer combo of Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista . This combo involves giving the ballista has to have at least two +1/+1 counters (or some other way to gain life to kick it off), then you give the ballista lifelink from Heliod and continuously remove a counter, ping, gain life, add a counter, remove a counter, over and over. This combo also has some replaceable pieces here. Triskelion is a possible replacement for ballista. However, it's more expensive mana wise, but cheaper money wise. If you have some other way to give the ballista lifelink, then Archangel of Thune also works to give the ballista it's counters to then remove to add more counters.

The final combo is the Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top combo. You keep tapping top to put it on top then cast it with the citadel and gaining life with Aetherflux Reservoir. Technically you do draw a card each time, so you are limited by the number of cards in your deck, but it's not a crazy amount you need. If it's the beginning of your turn and you haven't cast anything yet, with everything out and you somehow being at 2 life, it would take 17 activations of the loop to have enough life to laser 3 opponents that are between 1 and 50 life, so you would need 17 cards in your library at this point. This is largely assuming one of the worst case scenarios, so it would likely take less than that.

Another set of cards that are not officially combos, but are powerful effects to add into this deck is Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and/or Crypt Ghast along with Exsanguinate, Debt to the Deathless, or Torment of Hailfire. These cards end games in this deck's colors, but are probably the most generic of wincons that could be added. However, they are powerful and must be considered. So if you have access to this suite of cards, it's a package that's definitely worth considering.

The first set of cards I should mention is Felidar Sovereign and Test of Endurance style of cards since they are pretty easy one card wincons in the deck. Quite frankly, I didn't include them because I find them to be boring cards and make you an easy archenemy even if they're dealt with. You also tend to want to pay the life that you gain, so you often don't have insane life totals. However, you're obviously free to include them as they are decent cards in a mid power level meta.

Since this deck doesn't care about massive triggers, but many triggers, there are definitely some lifegain cards that are traps for this deck. Cards like Rhox Faithmender or Beacon of Immortality I consider to be big trap cards and are in way too many decks. If you really want you could just run Angel of Vitality instead of rhox faithmender as it's cheaper and can also be more of a threat and most of your lifegain is going to gain you two life now instead of one life with either card anyways. But really I'd rather just have another real lifegain card instead. The only one to consider would be Alhammarret's Archive, but honestly more for the card draw than the lifegain.

Also unless on a super budget deck, I would avoid cards that only gain you life once a turn. Cards like Soulmender, Nyx-Fleece Ram, etc. The ones I would consider would be Drana's Emissary because it drains, Ajani's Presence because it's an enchantment, or Wall of Reverence because it theoretically could gain you a lot of life, but honestly even these I've tried some out and been unimpressed with.

Finally, I think there is the possibility the deck could do with one or two more payoffs and I would probably consider either Cliffhaven Vampire and/or Crested Sunmare. Sanguine Bond was cut for Marauding Blight-Priest due to decreased cost, but the resiliency of the enchantment does have some value depending on your exact meta.

Nothing crazy to update here. Some small shifts and upgrades happening. Path to Exile was swapped for Angelic Ascension because the flexibility seems worth an extra mana and I'd rather deal with the angel rather than ramp an opponent. May not be a good swap, but testing it out since the deck generally has pretty good creature control. Other than that upped it to 3 wipes with Cleansing Nova. Also trying out Kaya, though unfortunately have not been able to get much testing in obviously to see how she performs. Also put in some land swaps like Castle Locthwain and Mistveil Plains which have a small downside in tempo, which is relevant in a deck with many turn 1 plays, but we'll continue to test.

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Date added 4 years
Last updated 3 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

7 - 0 Mythic Rares

38 - 0 Rares

23 - 0 Uncommons

15 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.83
Tokens Angel 4/4 W, Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, City's Blessing, Elephant 3-3 G, Emblem Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Soldier 1/1 W w/ Lifelink, Spirit 1/1 WB, Treasure, Vampire 2/2 B
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