There are very few things that I can guarantee will instantly make you a better Magic player. One is writing, which is one of the big reasons you're reading this now. Another is playing with players much better than you. Who here remembers going to their first tournament and asking, "Why do you do everything in the end step?" Then there are some psychological changes you can make, like owning your mistakes and such. Today though, I'd like to focus on another: teaching new players the game, and to be more specific, teaching new players why lifegain is the most universally derided mechanic in all of Magic.

There are different levels of understanding. The continuum runs something like this:

"I understand the broad strokes of this concept."

"I can implement or apply this concept."

"I can teach the broad strokes of this concept to someone else."

"I can teach someone else to implement or apply this concept."

If you've ever been involved in tutoring, or had to explain something in a group study session, you'll know what I'm talking about. You know that eating mud is a bad idea. But how do you explain that to a three-year-old? They like mud. It's warm and fun to squish. They can't fathom things like pathogens, and they've never cleaned anything.

Lifegain is like mud. When you play with it, you get instant satisfaction. I was at three, I played Stream of Life, and now I'm at ten. How can that not be good? New players are like toddlers--hopefully cleaner and with better communication skills and less prone to temper tantrums, but still like kids. They take nothing for granted. They tend to have a hard time grasping the rules of the game (I distinctly remember loving Drudge Skeletons because it came out of your graveyard whenever you wanted for only a single Black mana), let alone abstract ideas like card advantage. They tend to not consider the long-term. How do you explain why Nourish is the worst card in their deck?

I remember a while back, when I wrote my first article, a forum poster made a snippy little dig. "I have a new theory; its called life theory," the poster quipped, "and it explains every phenomenon in magic. Whoever is closer to getting their opponent to zero life is winning." Take the sarcasm out of that sentence and you have an excellent model to explain why lifegain is bad. Almost anyone can understand it, and a lot of us apply it already, especially when the game is drawing to a close. Interpret every action you take as lifegain. Let's go through a game, and think only in terms of life. No card nonsense, no tempo. Just life. And let's see if Sacred Nectar seems good by the end of it.

Ted Knutson rolls 2.
Grant Babcock rolls 12.

Grant: "I'll play."
Ted: "Okay."

Ted and Grant draw seven, and keep.

Grant: "Mountain, Raging Goblin. Swing for 1."
Ted: "Ouch. Nineteen."
Grant: "Go."
Ted: "Island, go."

Grant: "Mountain. Hit you for 1."
Ted: "Eighteen."
Grant: "Hearth Kami. Go."
Ted: "Plains. Go."

Grant: "Mountain. Attack for three."
Ted: "Fifteen."
Grant: "Go."
Ted: "Island. Go."

Grant: "Slow draw?"
Ted: "It's an example game. I'm not allowed to do anything until next turn."

Grant: "Mountain. Attack for three."
Ted: "Twelve. Is that all?"
Grant: "Play Hill Giant. You can go."
Ted: "Plains. Wrath of God."

Grant: "Jeez, Ted. What are you doing playing lifegain cards?
Ted: "Um, Wrath is definitely not a lifegain card."
Grant: "What are you talking about. You just gained three hundred life. God, you're awful."
Ted: "What?"
Grant: "Hello? Six power times fifty remaining attack steps?"
Ted: "Whatever. Go."

Grant: "Mountain."
Ted: "What, no Lava Axe?"
Grant: "Go."
Ted: "Plains. Go."

Grant: "I must trust in the heart of the cards."
Ted: "You're weird."
Grant: "So it must seem to those uninitiated in the art of the topdeck. Play Slith Firewalker, swing."
Ted: "I take one. Eleven."
Grant: "Go."
Ted: "Reciprocate the Slith on your end step."
Grant: "I swear, Knutson, if you keep playing lifegain cards I'm going to use The Ferrett for my next example duel."
Ted: "Huh?"
Grant: "You just gained one thousand one hundred seventy-five life. Teddy Cardgame? More like Lifey Lifegain. Gosh!"
Ted: "Can I go now?"
Grant: "Sure, Life L. McLiferberg."

Ted: "Plains, Yosei."
Grant: "He's big."
Ted: "Yes he is. Go."
Grant: "Bird Maiden. Go."

Ted: "What the!? Bird Maiden?"
Grant: "Example game, remember?"
Ted: "Oh, right."

Ted: "Hit you with Yosei."
Grant: "Fifteen. Unlike some of us, I don't feel the need to go gaining life for no reason."
Ted: "Go."
Grant: "Swing with Bird Maiden."
Ted: "Ten."
Grant: "Hidetsugu's Second Rite."
Ted: "Hinder that to the bottom."
Grant: "Sure, just trade a card for ten life. You don't suck, or anything."
Ted: "Are you quite done?"
Grant: "Go."

Ted: "Swing."
Grant: "Ten."
Ted: "Go."

Grant: "Bird Maiden's in there."
Ted: "Nine. I don't think you win this race."
Grant: "Go."

Ted: "White Dragon attacks."
Grant: "Five."
Ted: "Go."
Grant: "Go."
Ted: "What about the heart of the cards?"
Grant: "Silence."

Ted: "Swing with Yosei."
Grant: "Sacrifice Bird Maiden to gain five life."
Ted: "Um, you're blocking?"
Grant: "Yeah."
Ted: "Then why didn't you just say that?"
Grant: "That wouldn't be as good of an example of why lifegain is bad."
Ted: "Right. Go."

Grant: "Mountain. Go."
Ted: "Swing."
Grant: "You got me."

(camera fades to black)

So, what do we take from that? Well, pretty much any card you can think of, especially cards that remove opposing threats, can be described as a lifegain card. Most of them end up gaining you a lot more life than cards which actually say "Gain some life" on them. Healing Salve nets you three. Shocking a Phantom Warrior gains you a lot more. Heroes' Reunion gains seven life, and costs GW. Kami of False Hope gains you more, and can attack, and can override the opponent's combat tricks. Chump blocking with an Ember-Fist Zubera is better than casting Dosan's Oldest Chant. Most of this stuff is "obvious" to experienced players, but concepts that are "obvious" can often be the least well understood in terms of why they're true.

For instance, Euclidean Geometry has five axioms, the first four of which are nice and clean:

1.) It is possible to draw one and only one straight line from any point to any point.

2.) From each end of a finite straight line it is possible to produce it continuously in a straight line by an amount greater than any assigned length.

3.) It is possible to describe one and only one circle with any given center and radius.

4.) All right angles are equal to one another.

All these are nice and clean. Then, there's the fifth:

5.) Through a given point not on a given straight line, and not on that straight line produced, no more than one parallel straight line can be drawn.

It's rather ugly compared to the others, and for years people tried to prove the fifth by using the other four, without success. Then one day, someone decided to assume that a statement contradicting the fifth was true instead of the fifth, and from there produce a statement that was false given the other four, thus proving by process of elimination that the fifth was true. His new angle on the problem failed, so he invented non-Euclidean geometry. Just goes to show how helpful examining a system's most basic ideas can be.

While I'm talking about things totally unrelated to Magic, I'd like to tell you all how to live your lives. It's one of the Things You Get to Do When You're an Internet Writer™.

You should go to your Senior Prom. I know it's at least a year away for those of you who are still in high school, but I wanted to share while the subject is fresh in my mind. It's a unique experience, and it's a lot of fun. Ask someone and go. Ask someone you only consider a friend, if you don't have a steady girlfriend. Ladies, this applies to you to, but there are about three of you reading this article, so I don't feel to obliged to be gender neutral. You know someone. Math League, Band, Theater/Stage Crew, Church - they have girls, and there's a good chance you're involved in at least one of them. Maybe your playgroup has a lady or two.

The night itself is exactly what you make it. You don't need to get a limo if you don't want to. Much of the music will probably be crappy, but you don't have to dance to all of it, and you don't have to be Fred Astaire, or even have danced before. You aren't obliged to stay for more than half an hour if no one in your group is having fun. If you want to get smashed afterwards, that's your business--if you don't, no ones going to pour bourbon down your throat (StarCityGames.com does not advocate underage drinking. Just thought I'd take care of that one for you, Ted). Prom night is exactly what you turn it into.

I got my family's Jeep Liberty professionally cleaned and drove around one of my Magic buddies and our dates. We went out to dinner, went to the dance, and met up with another couple afterwards to shoot pool and get milkshakes. None of us ever felt like we were selling out to The Man or turning our lives into an episode of Laguna Beach (the show's namesake location just got hit by a mudslide if I'm not mistaken. Don't think I didn't laugh.). One of my other buddies wore a kilt, another had a suit made from various colors of duct tape, someone else had a black T-Shirt with the word "tuxedo" printed on it in white - although I'd recommend a tux if you don't absolutely hate dressing up. Have fun with it.

It's good to be writing again. I'm finally done with high school, and I have a relatively open summer of Magic playing (and hopefully writing) ahead of me until I go down to the University of Pittsburgh to become the newest round of fresh meat. Everything moves in cycles, right?

May your tribe increase,
Grant Babcock
Bobvader314 on the forums