Dark Ascension spoilers are now in full swing, and there are quite a few cards that people are very excited about. Chalice of Life doesn't seem to be among them. Although it takes some work to get it transformed, Chalice of Death seems to be a very powerful win condition—and one that's not easily dealt with by many decks. In addition, having enough life-gain in your deck to make it work makes you inherently resilient to aggressive strategies. Chalice of Life seems to be a very strong card in the right deck, so I set out to make that deck. Here's what I came up with:

"W/U Chalice"

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Trinket Mage

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Gideon Jura

• Spells (30)
• 4 Chalice of Life
• 2 Dissipate
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Whitesun's Passage
• 4 Ponder
• 4 Timely Reinforcements
• 4 Oblivion Ring
• 4 Elixir of Immortality

• Lands (24)
• 12 Island
• 8 Plains
• 4 Glacial Fortress

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Flashfreeze
• 4 Gut Shot
• 4 Peace Strider
• 3 Divine Offering

Buy This Deck

The Life Gain

Chalice of Life is the main win condition of the deck. Once you've gained life up to 30, you can transform it and start killing your opponent 5 life at a time. Your opponent will only have four turns to deal 30 damage to you, and that's if you don't draw any further life-gain.

Elixir of Immortality is a fairly efficient way to gain life. Just two of these will get you to your goal of 30—provided your opponent doesn't interfere. The most important facet of this card is that it can be searched up by Trinket Mage, effectively letting you play eight copies. As an added bonus, it shuffles back into your library, so you'll never run out no matter how long the game goes.

Although Timely Reinforcements seems like an odd card in a life-gain deck, the sad fact is that most opponents won't let you simply sit back and gain life up to 30. Most of the time, you're going to be attacked. As soon as that happens, Timely Reinforcements becomes very good, accelerating your game plan and giving you chump blockers to help defend your life total.

Whitesun's Passage is another cheap and easy way to gain 5 life. It can also be cast at instant speed, letting you leave 2 mana open for a Mana Leak without sacrificing anything. With so many ways to gain 5 or more life, making it to 30 should be a breeze.

The Support

Mana Leak and Dissipate are the best counterspells in the format right now. They hold back your opponent's game plan, and they can also protect your Chalice from removal, making sure it stays on the board long enough to kill your opponent.

Ponder is an excellent tool to help you find your win condition, and the fact that it only costs 1 mana means that you can cast it without sacrificing your ability to play more life-gain. It also gives you something else to do on turn one if you don't have Elixir of Immortality.

Oblivion Ring is among the most powerful and versatile removal spells available. It gets rid of any opposing creature or planeswalker that might threaten your life total—or another Oblivion Ring should your opponent exile your Chalice.

Gideon Jura completely protects you from creatures, often for several turns. He can also serve as an alternate win condition in a pinch, and he can sacrifice a bit of loyalty to kill off a creature that's too dangerous to let live.

The Sideboard

Flashfreeze is always a great upgrade to Mana Leak against Green and Red decks, and it continues to do its job excellently.

Although paying life for a spell may seem strange when your entire goal is to get to 30 life, Gut Shot will usually prevent far more life loss than it causes. Killing a Delver of Secrets before it transforms will usually save you at least 3 damage, and getting rid of an attacking Snapcaster Mage or Phantasmal Bear effectively costs you nothing but a card.

Peace Strider is an excellent sideboard card against decks with small ground creatures. Besides gaining you life when it enters the battlefield, it can also hold off an opposing creature or two indefinitely—or at least until your opponent uses a removal spell on it.

Divine Offering removes dangerous artifacts such as Sword of War and Peace while also gaining you more life. That little bit of extra value matters much more here than it might in other decks.

Playtesting

W/U Delver – Game 1

I lost the roll and kept a hand of Plains, three Glacial Fortress, Ponder, Whitesun's Passage, and Timely Reinforcements. My opponent started off strong with a Seachrome Coast and a Delver of Secrets, and I drew a Chalice of Life. I played a Glacial Fortress and passed the turn. My opponent whiffed on the upkeep trigger and attacked for 1. He then played an Island and passed the turn.

I drew a Ponder and cast it, drawing a Trinket Mage and putting an Oblivion Ring and a Plains on top. I then played another Glacial Fortress and passed the turn. My opponent's Delver of Secrets failed to transform again, and he attacked for 1. He then played an Island, cast Merfolk Looter, and passed the turn. I drew the Oblivion Ring, played my Plains, and cast Timely Reinforcements, going up to 24 and making three Soldiers. I passed the turn.

My opponent's Delver of Secrets finally transformed thanks to a Vapor Snag, and my opponent hit me in the air for 3. He then activated Merfolk Looter, discarding an Island, and played Moorland Haunt. He passed the turn. I drew a Plains, played a Glacial Fortress, and cast Ponder. I drew another Oblivion Ring, putting Gideon Jura and Trinket Mage on top. I then cast the Oblivion Ring, exiling Delver of Secrets. I attacked with my three Soldier tokens and passed the turn. My opponent cast Ponder, choosing to shuffle, then activated Merfolk Looter, discarding another Vapor Snag. He passed the turn.

I drew Gideon Jura, played my Plains, and attacked with my three tokens again. My opponent cast Snapcaster Mage, flashing back a Vapor Snag to remove one of the tokens and drop me to 20. He chose not to block and dropped to 15. I cast Trinket Mage, searching up Elixir of Immortality, then passed the turn. My opponent activated Merfolk Looter, discarding an Island, then cast Phantasmal Image copying Snapcaster Mage. He flashed back a Ponder, choosing to keep the 3 cards, then cast Phantasmal Bear and passed the turn.

I cast Whitesun's Passage at end of turn to go up to 25. I drew a Plains, played it, and cast Elixir of Immortality. I activated it, shuffling it and my graveyard into my library and gaining 5 more life. I cast Chalice of Life, then tapped it to gain 1 more life and transform it into Chalice of Death. I passed the turn. My opponent cast Vapor Snag on another one of my tokens at the end of my turn. He then dropped to 11 to cast Dismember on the Trinket Mage, and he cast another Vapor Snag on the last token. He attacked with everything to drop me to 22 and passed the turn.

I drew another Chalice of Life, and I tapped the first to drop my opponent to 6. I cast Gideon Jura, but my opponent countered it with Mana Leak. I passed the turn. My opponent activated Merfolk Looter, discarding Dismember, and attacked for 6 more damage. He ended his turn. I drew Timely Reinforcements and cast it to make 3 tokens. I tapped the Chalice to drop my opponent to 1, then exiled his Merfolk Looter with Oblivion Ring and passed the turn. My opponent drew his card and conceded.

Sideboarding:

−2 Dissipate

−4 Mana Leak

−2 Oblivion Ring

+4 Gut Shot

+4 Peace Strider

W/U Delver – Game 2

I kept a hand of two Islands, two Glacial Fortress, Chalice of Life, Elixir of Immortality, and Peace Strider. My opponent played a Seachrome Coast and cast Gitaxian Probe before passing the turn. I drew Ponder, played an Island, and cast Elixir of Immortality. I passed the turn. My opponent played an Island, cast Lord of the Unreal, and passed the turn. I drew another Elixir of Immortality and activated the first, going up to 25. I passed the turn.

My opponent cast Phantasmal Image copying Lord of the Unreal, then cast Phantasmal Bear. He attacked for 2 and passed the turn. I drew Timely Reinforcements and cast Chalice of Life and tapped it to gain 1. I then passed the turn. My opponent cast Ponder, choosing to shuffle, then played a Moorland Haunt and attacked me for 9, taking me down to 15. He passed the turn. I drew Whitesun's Passage and cast Peace Strider, gaining 3. I tapped the Chalice to go up to 19 and passed the turn. My opponent attacked with just Phantasmal Bear, and I dropped back to 15. He passed the turn.

I drew Ponder and cast it, drawing a Trinket Mage and leaving two Timely Reinforcements on top. I then cast Timely Reinforcements, making three tokens and going up to 21. I ended my turn. My opponent cast Ponder, choosing to shuffle, then cast Snapcaster Mage and cast the Ponder again. He kept the three this time, and he cast another Lord of the Unreal. He attacked with the two Illusions, and I chumped each with a Soldier. He then played an Island and passed the turn. I drew Timely Reinforcements and cast Ponder, drawing a Plains and leaving Timely Reinforcements and Gideon Jura on top. I cast the Timely Reinforcements for three tokens, then cast Elixir of Immortality. I tapped the Chalice to gain 1 life and passed the turn.

My opponent played a Seachrome Coast, cast Phantasmal Bear, and attacked with everything. Peace Strider took out a Lord, and two tokens teamed up to kill another. A third token traded with Snapcaster Mage, and the last chump-blocked a Phantasmal Bear. I took 5 from Phantasmal Image, dropping to 18, and my opponent passed the turn. I drew and cast the third Timely Reinforcements, going up to 24, then activated Elixir of Immortality to gain another 5. Chalice of Life tapped to bring me up to 30 and transformed. I passed the turn. My opponent exiled a Lord of the Unreal from his graveyard at the end of my turn to make a Spirit token. On his turn, he played another Seachrome Coast and attacked with everything. Peace Strider traded with Phantasmal Image, two Soldier tokens blocked a Phantasmal Bear, and I took 4. After combat, the Bears dropped down to 2/2 with the death of Phantasmal Image, and the one I blocked died as well. My opponent passed the turn.

I drew Gut Shot and cast Trinket Mage to search up an Elixir of Immortality. I tapped the Chalice to make my opponent lose 5 life and passed the turn. My opponent made another Spirit token at the end of my turn and attacked with everything again. Trinket Mage traded with Phantasmal Bear, and the two tokens dropped me to 24. My opponent played another Moorland Haunt and passed the turn. During his end step, I cast Whitesun's Passage to gain 5 life. I drew an Island, played it, and cast Elixir of Immortality. I then dropped my opponent to 10 with Chalice of Death and passed the turn.

My opponent made two more Spirits at the end of my turn. On his turn, he played a Glacial Fortress and cast Delver of Secrets. He then attacked with all four Spirits and passed the turn. During his end step, I paid 2 life to Gut Shot Delver of Secrets, then activated Elixir of Immortality to gain life back up to 28. I drew Gut Shot, activated the Chalice to drop my opponent to 5, and passed the turn. My opponent made two more Spirits during my end step. He then drew a card for his turn and conceded.

This deck is extremely good against aggressive strategies, essentially negating an entire turn's work just by gaining some life. Aggro decks are also less likely to be able to deal with Chalice of Life. If you're expecting to play against a lot of fast creature decks like RDW and various forms of W/U aggro, this is definitely a deck you should consider. It's a lot of fun to play . . . and even more fun to see the look on your opponent's face when he realizes that you just beat him playing Whitesun's Passage in Standard.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, you can find me on the forums under Twinblaze, on Twitter under@Twinblaze2, or simply leave a comment below.