Help! How Do I Convince My Doctor Life is a Resource?
Dear Commander’s Herald,
How do I convince my doctor that life is just a resource? He insists that I should be exercising, eating healthy, and taking my prescription medications in some sort of life gain strategy. While I’m not opposed to life gain in principle, it’s not my preferred archetype. Why add to my life total without a payoff? No one likes a stalling strategy except stax-playing sickos.
Sure, if my life total gets low enough, I can see making a few big life gain moves. A Grey Merchant of Asphodel here, a triple by-pass there. But it’s certainly not something I want to be doing every turn. I should be dedicating most of my resources to advancing towards a Revel in Riches or Luck Bobblehead win. Of course, by that I mean spending all my time and money playing Magic, eating fast food, and hoping to win the lottery.
-Mono Black Player
Hello Mono Black Player,
Before I address your actual question, it needs to be asked: have you considered that your doctor may have identified a tempo problem in your game plan? We’ve all been there. You drop a turn two Bolas’s Citadel and start casting spell after spell, then before you know it, you’re under 10 life and no one’s even hit you. Then you die to the burn player’s Shock, which is pretty embarrassing. Getting scurvy in 2025 is the real-world equivalent of that.
Assuming that’s not the case, you need to demonstrate to your doctor that you can achieve your goals with a life total of one. They want you to spend your hard-earned money on Insulin instead of the anime-art confetti foil Nercropotence? Simply show them you don’t need both of your legs by spending a full week without walking. They want you on a diet? Show them how many good 2 mana spells outpace the life gain from sacrificing food tokens. That’s the kind of cold, hard logic no doctor can dispute.
A more challenging, but possibly more fruitful, solution would be to find a compromise. An Orzhov strategy where you balance out the twelve pack of Baja Blast you drink every day with a glass of water and one of those Flintstones Vitamins your grandma used to give you. It may be a hard change to make, but some find it to be a playstyle that’s more resilient to things like life drain or rickets.
The other option, and the one I’ve chosen for myself, is to simply ignore what your doctor has to say and quit going to your appointments. I took this in a Dimir direction, choosing to use my own superior intellect to find articles supporting my supposedly “unhealthy” habits are good actually. For instance, I found a very convincing medical journal from 1957 that claims smoking is healthy because it makes me cough up all the bacteria in my lungs. Consider yourself countered, Dr. Schryvers.
As a mono black player, you could take a similar approach by fully embracing edgy goth kid nihilism. When your loved ones ask why you’ve stopped taking your heart medication, simply tell them that there is no difference between a player at 40 life and a player at 1 life. That your body is just a tool you use to enact your will. A temporary shell to be sacrificed for value when its usefulness has passed. That should make them uncomfortable enough to stop confronting you about it.
Or just ask them to prescribe you a Platinum Angel.
Jake – Human Advisor
