{"id":6225,"date":"2016-08-02T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T14:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/?p=6225"},"modified":"2016-08-02T06:00:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T13:00:36","slug":"setting-a-life-total","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/2016\/08\/setting-a-life-total\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting A Life Total"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><p><img  style='float:left'  class='lems-mtg-cardimg' src='http:\/\/gatherer.wizards.com\/Handlers\/Image.ashx?size=small&type=card&name=Providence'><\/p>Welcome back to the Rules Tip Blog! Today we&#8217;ll be covering effects that set a life total to a specific number. Right now in Standard we&#8217;ve got a few cards that do this, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-content\/plugins\/lems-mtg-helper\/lems-mtg-helper-cardfinder.php?find=Tree+of+Perdition&width=223&height=310\" class=\"jTip\" name=\"\">Tree of Perdition<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-content\/plugins\/lems-mtg-helper\/lems-mtg-helper-cardfinder.php?find=Providence&width=223&height=310\" class=\"jTip\" name=\"\">Providence<\/a>. When a life total is set to a specific number, most people are just going to change their dice, or scribble out the old number and write in a new one- but technically, the player gains or loses however much life they need to GET to that point. If an effect says you can&#8217;t gain life, Providence isn&#8217;t going to do anything. Something that replaces lifegain with something else will hit it too; for example, if you were at 13 life and cast a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-content\/plugins\/lems-mtg-helper\/lems-mtg-helper-cardfinder.php?find=Providence&width=223&height=310\" class=\"jTip\" name=\"\">Providence<\/a> while your opponent controlled <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-content\/plugins\/lems-mtg-helper\/lems-mtg-helper-cardfinder.php?find=Tainted+Remedy&width=223&height=310\" class=\"jTip\" name=\"\">Tainted Remedy<\/a>, instead of GAINING 13 life (the amount Providence will try to make you gain to get you to 26), you&#8217;d LOSE 13 life, which is a bit fatal here. On the flip side, a successful Perdition would trigger things like <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-content\/plugins\/lems-mtg-helper\/lems-mtg-helper-cardfinder.php?find=Defiant+Bloodlord&width=223&height=310\" class=\"jTip\" name=\"\">Defiant Bloodlord<\/a>! Likewise, setting a life total to a lower number causes life loss, so Tree of Perdition can be a nasty combo with <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-content\/plugins\/lems-mtg-helper\/lems-mtg-helper-cardfinder.php?find=Wound+Reflection&width=223&height=310\" class=\"jTip\" name=\"\">Wound Reflection<\/a>. Finally, if your opponent can&#8217;t lose life for whatever reason, like because of a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-content\/plugins\/lems-mtg-helper\/lems-mtg-helper-cardfinder.php?find=Platinum+Emperion&width=223&height=310\" class=\"jTip\" name=\"\">Platinum Emperion<\/a>, an effect that tries to set their life total to a lower number just&#8230; doesn&#8217;t!<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back to the Rules Tip Blog! Today we&#8217;ll be covering effects that set a life total to a specific number. Right now in Standard we&#8217;ve got a few cards that do this, such as and . When a life total is set to a specific number, most people are just going to change their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[148,108,29,32,169,15,8],"tags":[1330,1324],"language":[1196],"class_list":["post-6225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abilities","category-activatedabilities","category-casting-playing-a-spell-ability","category-effects","category-one-shoteffects","category-resolving-spells-and-abilities","category-triggeredabilities","tag-providence","tag-tree-of-perdition","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6226,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions\/6226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6225"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=6225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}