The 38 Best Lifelinkers in Magic Ranked

Last updated on July 16, 2024

Solitude | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

Evergreen keyword abilities are a key aspect of Magic design. These simple abilities appear in every MTG set and primarily affect combat. Vigilance, haste, flying, menace, and lifelink are a handful of examples. These keywords add rich texture to the combat phase and easily boost creatures that might be a little weak but don’t deserve another line or paragraph of text to boost their power.

Lifelink is an incredible evergreen keyword that radically changes combat math, especially when connected to a combat trick. But we’re interested in creatures with lifelink today to find the best creatures that’ll gain us some life while chipping away at our opponents.

Let’s gain some life!

What is a Lifelink Creature in MTG?

Dragonlord Dromoka | Illustration by Eric Deschamps

Lifelink creatures are simply creatures with the lifelink keyword. When a creature with lifelink deals damage, you gain that much life. You gain life at the same time as the damage dealt and there’s no trigger associated with the ability.

Lifelink has been an evergreen keyword and staple of Magic for quite some time. It plays well with aggressive decks since you can easily race an opponent when you gain 4-5 life each combat and accumulate value from cards like Heliod, Sun-Crowned that care about lifegain.

For this list, I’m only considering creatures that innately have or gain lifelink. I’m not including creatures like Najeela, the Blade-Blossom that give other creatures lifelink. This list is weighted toward Commander; many of these creatures are role-players that slot into broad archetypes but others can command entire strategies.

Honorable Mention: Griselbrand

I have to acknowledge Magic’s best lifelink creature: Griselbrand! Although one of the very best black creatures, this demon doesn’t top the list is because it’s banned in Commander, which I based my rankings on. Griselbrand might be the best creature to cheat into play thanks to its incredible card draw ability.

#38. Aragorn, Company Leader

Aragorn, Company Leader can gain or spread around quite a few abilities, including lifelink. The greatest weakness of this human ranger lies in triggering it. There are only so many ways to make The Ring tempt you in Commander and many cards that spread ability counters do so to non-human creatures. There’s potential here, but this diamond needs a lot of polishing to shine.

#37. Alseid of Life’s Bounty

Alseid of Life's Bounty won’t attack often but this kind of protective ability is vital in Commander since three players can remove your threats. Being an enchantment creature offers niche value for cards like Sythis, Harvest's Hand.

#36. Arvad the Cursed

Arvad the Cursed only works in decks with a critical mass of legendary creatures, but the anthem effect ends games quickly.

#35. Dragonlord Dromoka

Dragonlord Dromoka provides a powerful disruptive ability that can protect combo pieces and finishing moves on your turn. This elder dragon‘s biggest drawback? You can find this effect for far less mana on cards like Grand Abolisher, Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar, and Myrel, Shield of Argive.

#34. Vona, Butcher of Magan

Vona, Butcher of Magan trades life for death by killing opposing creatures. Lifelink helps recoup the life lost so you can use Vona multiple times.

#33. Bloodline Necromancer

Bloodline Necromancer is a prime example of a creature that gets a boost from lifelink, even though it has nothing to do with the other abilities. This black vampire wizard offers a powerful, though extremely restrictive reanimation effect a handful of decks will happily run.

#32. Arcus Acolyte

Arcus Acolyte has a lot of potential. I wouldn’t run this cleric in decks that don’t care about +1/+1 counters but the mana sink and potential buffs are valuable. It’s rather slow, but this Selesnya creature won’t fall off like other small 2-drops. 

#31. Cavalier of Night

Cavalier of Night provides casual sacrifice decks with a respectable top-end that turns random tokens or sacrifice fodder into a removal spell, plus it offers a reanimation effect later. It’s just a solid three-for-one.

#30. Kunoros, Hound of Athreos

Kunoros, Hound of Athreos is a great hatebear. This Orzhov creature is a 3-mana 3/3 with strong keywords and shuts down multiple busted strategies by keeping players honest.

#29. Gold-Forged Thopteryx

Gold-Forged Thopteryx can work with any UWx commander that cares about artifacts. While you could run this artifact creature just to protect your commander, it gets better with every additional legend.

#28. Firja, Judge of Valor

Firja, Judge of Valor provides a steady stream of card draw if you can cast multiple spells in a turn. Grindy decks benefit from this steady stream of card advantage, plus the incidental lifegain helps buy a few more turns for the card draw to overwhelm your opponents.

#27. Nullpriest of Oblivion

We can pretend Nullpriest of Oblivion is a 6-mana play since we’ll rarely cast it without paying the kicker cost unless we want an evasive creature for ninjas or something. And this black creature is a pretty good 6-drop; it’s Phyrexian Delver with fewer drawbacks and more keywords.

#26. Gravebreaker Lamia

You typically want tutors to be as cheap as possible, but Gravebreaker Lamia makes up for its cost with a hefty body and enchantment synergies. Entomb on a stick has never looked so good.

#25. Valkyrie Harbinger

Valkyrie Harbinger packs an impressive punch. Creating Angel tokens as a reward for lifegain is hardly unique, but lifelink makes this white creature a payofff and enabler in lifegain decks. It has impressive offensive and defensive potential. 

#24. Danitha, New Benalia’s Light

Danitha, New Benalia's Light only works in a narrow subset of decks but does so much work in them! This knight‘s triple keywords let it carry the auras and equipment it cares about well and offers a solid source of card advantage for Voltron-style strategies.

#23. Celestine, the Living Saint

To get the most of Celestine, the Living Saint, you need more lifegain than its innate lifelink provides. But the reward is quite powerful, especially if you start adding some sacrifice synergies to consistently rebuy valuable creatures like Loran of the Third Path and Skyclave Apparition.

#22. Arwen, Mortal Queen

Arwen, Mortal Queen provides a neat pocket of value. An indestructible creature has plenty of utility, especially when it shares that indestructibility while spreading +1/+1 counters about.

#21. Dennick, Pious Apprentice

Dennick, Pious Apprentice does a lot of work. The front side disrupts all manner of graveyard-based strategies. When those decks inevitably remove it, Dennick gets a second life in Dennick, Pious Apparition, which goes from stopping graveyard strategies to profiting off them with a stream of Clue tokens.

#20. Intrepid Adversary

Intrepid Adversary provides a mana sink and a power boost to aggressive creature decks. Flexibility makes this human scout tick. 2 mana for a 3/1 lifelink is a reasonable early play for aggressive decks and the ETB trigger lets this scale with the game. 

#19. Kroxa and Kunoros

Kroxa and Kunoros helps your creatures escape the graveyard. You need a hefty self-mill theme since five cards is a lot, but it’s achievable. I’d recommend pairing this big Mardu dog with cards like Mesmeric Orb and Faithless Looting variants to fill the yard.

#18. Verrak, Warped Sengir

Verrak, Warped Sengir seems incredibly busted but I never see anybody play it. The most basic synergy is with fetch lands since you can get honest land ramp in Orzhov, but there are plenty of other abilities worth doubling, like Vona, Butcher of Magan and Priest of Fell Rites.

#17. Drogskol Reaver

Drogskol Reaver is among the strongest lifegain payoffs because this spirit draws so many cards. Lifelink makes this a self-enabling engine that draws two cards when it hits thanks to double strike.

#16. Nethroi, Apex of Death

There seems to be a correlation between lifelink and reanimation, huh? Nethroi, Apex of Death plays as a combo deck using creatures with negative power, like Scourge of the Skyclaves, to reanimate an unreasonable number of creatures.

#15. Aragorn, King of Gondor

Drawing cards is one of the strongest game actions you can take in Magic, so becoming the monarch offers lots of value. Aragorn, King of Gondor pairs this card advantage with a bunch of pressure by preventing your opponents from blocking, and even steals the crown back easily.

#14. Angel of Invention

Angel of Invention works best in flicker decks to repeatedly trigger fabricate, but any creature- or token-based deck interested in an anthem can leverage this card.

#13. Yarok, the Desecrated

Yarok, the Desecrated is just Panharmonicon in the command zone, but supercharged since it doubles landfall abilities as well. It’s your quintessential value-train Sultai commander that works in the 99 too.

#12. Felidar Sovereign

This might be the most contentious card on the list, or at least the one I’ve seen the most players complain about. See, Felidar Sovereign can just win Commander games without any lifegain needed. You’ll probably need some, as you’re unlikely to reach turn 6 or 7 without taking any damage, but it’s ridiculously easy to turn this cat beast into an alternate win condition.

#11. Elenda, the Dusk Rose

Elenda, the Dusk Rose helms many an aristocrat deck but any list interested in sacrificing creatures can leverage this powerful token producer. It has intriguing overlap with Blood Artist effects to build a lifegain strategy that hinges on sacrifice and token effects.

#10. Lurrus of the Dream-Den

Lurrus of the Dream-Den isn’t as broken in Commander as formats like Modern, but it still offers so much card advantage! Decks with Lurrus often exploit cheap artifacts like Lotus Petal and Mishra's Bauble for easy mana and card advantage. It also works with cards like Cathar Commando that sacrifice themselves to destroy permanents.

#9. Tymna the Weaver

In or out of the command zone, Tymna the Weaver is one of the strongest partner commanders. It doesn’t need Kraum, Ludevic's Opus to be terrifying. A couple of cheap creatures can draw way too many cards.

#8. Otharri, Suns’ Glory

Otharri, Suns' Glory provides incredible pressure. You can easily double up on the tokens with cards like Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Anointed Procession, then convert them into even more damage with Impact Tremors effects. Any deck interested in going wide can play this Boros phoenix to great effect, and lifelink means you can’t even race it!

#7. K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is one of the strongest mono-black commanders, one of the best mono-color commanders overall, and all-in-all one of the best lifegain commanders. It helms one of the strongest cEDH decks that’s capable of winning on turn 1, but fairer strategies reap incredible benefits from the immense mana advantage this creature generates.

#6. Alela, Artful Provocateur

Alela, Artful Provocateur works well in a multitude of artifact and enchantress decks. You only need to create two or three Faerie tokens for this faerie warlock to become formidable, and anything else is gravy.

#5. Archangel of Thune

Archangel of Thune is best known for being a combo piece alongside the likes of Spike Feeder and Shalai and Hallar, but this angel has plenty of fair applications. This synergizes well with lifegain decks, fits alongside +1/+1 counter commanders, and even works in generally aggressive strategies that want to buff a wide board.

#4. Serra Ascendant

Serra Ascendant is one of the best beat-down cards in Commander. Like Felidar Sovereign, this is templated in such a way you don’t need to do any work to get the benefits of an evasive 1-mana 6/6. Toss on a Sword of anything and your opponents are sweating.

#3. Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice

The best proliferate commander in the game, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice has long claimed the top spot on EDHREC’s top commanders list for good reason. Players love multicolor value piles and that neatly sums up this 4-color commander. It’s often seen as a superfriends commander for proliferation synergies because the combination of vigilance and flying defend them well.

#2. Atraxa, Grand Unifier

Atraxa only has two cards but they’re both bangers. Atraxa, Grand Unifier lacks the synergy of its predecessor but makes up for it with a wild amount of card advantage. It’s probably the best card to Natural Order into play and one of the best reanimation targets in the game. Even if they kill this Phyrexian angel you’ve refilled your hand, leaving your opponents with an up-mountain battle to handle.

#1. Solitude

Solitude is humbler than Atraxa but so, so versatile. Swords to Plowshares on a creature is just amazing, especially in the color with flicker effects. Handling threats for no mana can be critical in formats with so many powerful creatures running around. Any white deck would happily play Solitude in most formats.

Best Lifelink Payoffs

The best lifelink payoffs are the variety of lifegain synergies sprinkled throughout the game. A common reward for gaining life is tokens, as seen on cards like Valkyrie Harbinger and Griffin Aerie. Card draw and +1/+1 counters are other common rewards, as seen with Well of Lost Dreams and Heliod, Sun-Crowned, one of the best mono-white commanders.

Lifelink also works well with aggressive and Voltron strategies. Stacking auras, equipment, and counters on creatures like Serra Ascendant and Otharri, Suns' Glory lets you deal incredible amounts of damage without worrying about losing on the crackback. How do you race a player dealing 10 damage and gaining 10 life each combat?

Can Lifelink Save Me from Losing?

Since lifelink is calculated at the same time damage is dealt, it can save you. Let me present you with a situation:

You’re at 2 life and control Mesa Unicorn. Your opponent attacks with two 2/2s and you block one. Damage will be dealt; you’ll take 2 damage to 0 but gain 2 life from lifelink in the same instance, leaving you with 2 life once all is said and done.

Wrap Up

Archangel of Thune | Illustration by James Ryman

Lifelink might not be the flashiest or most iconic evergreen keyword, but it has a storied history in MTG and adds incidental value to creatures that might be too weak otherwise. It also opens the door to lots of synergy for lifegain decks and ways for aggressive strategies to counter their opponents with more than removal.

What’s your favorite lifelink creature? Do you run incidental lifegain in your EDH decks? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe and thanks for reading!