The Life Cards Question: When Taking Damage Is the Right Play

New players defend every attack. Good players take the early ones. The reason is simple once you see it: a Life card taken goes to your hand, so an attack at 5 Life is the opponent spending a turn to give you a card. Defending it with a Counter costs you a card to prevent a draw. That trade only makes sense when the Life total itself is the resource under threat.

The thresholds

• 5 and 4 Life: take it. Unless the attack carries Banish or Double Attack, the Life card is a free draw and a possible Trigger.
• 3 Life: block if free, otherwise take it. A surviving Blocker is free; a Counter is not.
• 2 Life: defend the big hits, take the small ones. A single hit is survivable; two in one turn is not.
• 1 Life: defend everything you can. The next hit ends the game, so every card in hand is now a Life card.

At 5 Life the opponent is paying you to attack. Let them.

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The trap

The draw is a trap when the opponent is faster than you. Against an aggro leader that can deal three hits a turn by turn four, taking two early Life cards means you reach that turn at 3 Life instead of 5, and the third hit is the one that kills. Read the opponent's leader before you decide how generous to be with your Life. Against a control deck, take everything; against aggro, take one and start defending.

MugiPocket's Expert bot follows the same thresholds: it buys a Life card when its hand is thin and its Life is safe, and it stops buying the moment the opponent's board can threaten lethal. That is the rhythm to copy.

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Card prices on each page as of 20 September 2026.