Are Life Points really "unimportant" in the modern game?

[Mehmani]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/JWWrM.jpg[/img]

You are free to review this card for what it is, but this is intended to provoke discussion more than anything. If Life Points and LP gain decks are really useless, then would releasing a card that allows you to gain 5/16ths of your Life Points really be pointless? Would it even be fine to remove the discard cost, or even increase the LP gain to 3000?

[.Rai]

I'd like to compare YGO to MtG. In both games, pure life gain is considered a little useless. However, in MtG, life gain finds a use when attached to other things in order to basically provide you a larger cushion against aggro decks.

A fairly uncommon card, but effective one, in MtG is [url=http://magiccards.info/rtr/en/168.html]Heroes' Reunion[/url]. If you translate the 7/20 into the 8000 Life Points of YGO, you get 2800 Life Point gain. Considering the cost on Heroes' Reunion, a completely free card in YGO giving you 2500 Life Points would be fair. So, yes, you could potentially get rid of that discard and keep it at about 2500 Life Points.

Really, life gain becomes much more relevant when you staple it to something else. For instance, in MtG, [url=http://magiccards.info/ddh/en/23.html]Lightning Helix[/url] is removal + lifegain, which is why it's effective. One of the best cards of the current format is good because of its lifegain ([url=http://magiccards.info/m13/en/193.html]Thragtusk[/url] - because it basically undoes everything an aggro deck has managed).

[b]Just[/b] life gain will never be good really. But, stick it onto something else (even if it's a tiny bit subpar), then it becomes a ridiculously good bonus.

[Shinobi Phoenix]

Well, of course, the Life Gain has to be attached to a plan for victory or an effect.

It's not that Life Gain is useless, it's that they haven't really been doing any more decks as of late that use Life Points numbers or gaining as some part of the theme. Ironically, one of the top decks still currently (Agent Angels) was a Life Gain Deck due to Neo- Parshath, Saturn, and Mars. That changed with people's attitudes and Hyperion, then it was just another Summon and Blow-Up Stuff Deck.

Giving your opponent LP still has use in the Simochi/Reflcul Deck, in fact, your card fits perfectly in that Deck. I created cards to make a very aggressive Life Point Gain Deck that was half Agent-ish/half Reflcul. I really want art to finish that set's artwork so I can go to town with a proper proxy deck of it. It's from one of the sets I list in my Signature.


Speaking of... [url="http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gift_Card"]Gift Card[/url] (the real life card) gives the opponent 3000 LP for free (in a Reflcul Deck, this is BRUTAL even the card itself is a waste otherwise), so I don't think your card really needs to have that Discard cost unless you were going for a bigger number. Like 4000.

Or maybe something like "Discard 1 card; If your Life Points are less than 4000, your Life Points become 4000. Regardless, target player gains 2000 Life Points."

[Not-so-Radiant Arin]

It's not that life points are "unimportant", they are just not quite a necessity as much as they used to be. Life Points don't matter in the essence that if your opponent is the one that has 200 Life Points but a 3000 ATK Beater on the field that destroys all of your monsters when it attacks, and you are the one that has 8000 Life Points but only 1 card in your hand to defend yourself with, of course the player with more field advantage is going to have the upper hand, no matter how many Life Points they have. The exception is of course, Burn Decks, but this is easily counterable by a simple Android. Burn may be able to pull off 8000 Damage, but it's a bit of a stretch to be able to do 9000. Another thing is that the only things that cost Life Points nowadays are your Judgment and Warning plays, or if you run Agents, your Venus plays. But that should be about the only thing that costs Life Points in the game right now.

As for the actual card, I feel it would benefit much better if it were a Quick-Play, although I can see the use in Reverse Heal Decks as well, since it "targets" a player. The discard cost is fine, I believe, which doesn't make it horribly broken. There's not much to comment on, but a lot to discuss on.