Cactuar JoeSpent a couple hours this afternoon building a lifegain deck and learning that it's really hard to solo playtest a deck that relies heavily on what your opponents do @_@
Well, only time will tell whether I've built a deck or a pile of mistakes. In the meantime, I'm making cookies.
Molly@CactuarJoe I‘m curious. How is your lifegain deck dependent on what your opponents do? Heavy lifelink package? Modal spells that let the opponent give you life?
@DerMolly Oh, a couple ways. Essence Warden and Soul Warden, which get me life when *anybody* plays a creature, spelltax components like Authority of the Consuls and Ashes of the Abhorrent, and some removal spells like Pest Infestation that interact with my lifegain while depending on my opponent's board state.
Also I'm running Rhystic Tutor (I know I know) so there's that :P
@CactuarJoe I see. I‘d just assume that you get 2-3 life per turn and such cards live for about 3 rounds. Could be more, could be less, but goldfish testing is for getting a feeling for the play pattern and not to accurately simulate.
🤖Robot Enby Xero🤖@CactuarJoe so you're saying you
Played yourself? 
GrimDeck.comLifegain testing is weird. You end up sitting there with Aetherflux Reservoir and 80 life wondering if it actually works against a combo deck. The few times I've tried goldfish testing interactive decks, I just assign random 'what would an opponent do' moments and it still feels off.
@GrimDeck Yeah, I've been using some working assumptions (three other players who each play ~1 creature a turn) but a lot of it is still very murky.
@CactuarJoe Yeah, that's rough. Lifegain math gets weird fast when you're just making up what opponents might do. At some point you're just crossing your fingers and hoping the pod doesn't run you over before turn 5.