mtg lifegain commander deck Best Red White Legends staple cards- July 2026 • MTG DECKS How to Build a Lifegain

Trading away bad cards for fresh ones gives you a significant advantage, but this has a huge benefit over your average wheel: You choose which cards to keep and which to ditch

This one uses Golgari cards from Return to Ravnica

Beyond that I'd focus on picking up powerful staples, like Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, and Diabolic Intent swapping in for weaker tutors, and Cyclonic Rift for that sweet one-sided wipe

You can also run it fairly, as a commander that provides both a mana advantage and card advantage since it effectively copies your instants and sorceries and gives you a discount

A lot of balance and care goes into choosing the cost of a card, more than I can express here, but looking for similar effects on existing Magic cards can give you an idea of a fair costfor example, a ramp spell that puts two lands into play ought to cost 4 mana, per Explosive Vegetation