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All of today's decks gain massive amounts of life.  Of course, they do other things too.  Let's just get to the lists.

Deck 1 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge

Haakon is a massively fun and surprisingly versatile avatar.  Its specialty is obviously getting extra mileage out of moribund creatures, which today's deck has plenty of.

Gaining Life

The problem with Goldenglow Moth is it usually just turns into a sorcery costing one W that says "gain 6 or 7 life."  Which isn't terrible.  But by recurring it with this avatar, it's now a sorcery costing WW that says "gain 12 or 13 life."  Which is a better deal.  (And when you combine it with one of the below tricks, it gets to be an ever better deal — but let's keep that on the back burner for now.)

Martyr of Sands is of course another creature whose benefits with recursion should be obvious.  Before even playing it that second time, you could already have gained a solid 12 to 15 from it.  In this type of deck, the Moth and the Martyr are both great in any stage of the game.

Exile and Chastise and the like are ordinarily good cards for lifegain, but with an avatar like Haakon, we'll want creature versions of those.  Centaur Safeguard is surprisingly good in here.  Remember that, when you recur him, he can take out two different enemy creatures, gaining you life all the while.

Using Life

There wouldn't be a point to gaining this much life if we didn't have a use for it.  This deck has two goals.  One, flip a Rune-Tail:

And two, pump up its creatures with a Cradle of Vitality.  I feel these cards' virtues are a bit obvious, so I won't bore you with much explication, but I would like to point to the usefulness of a 15/15 flying Galepowder Mage.

Why Galepowder Mage?  This segues nicely into:

Tricks

Why limit ourselves to casting each creature twice?  If we were to, say, exile a zombie knight and then return it to play, it would cease to be a zombie knight.  Meaning it could then go to the graveyard again and be zombified again.  With a single Galepowder Mage, you can cast and use a single Martyr of Sands every turn.  Which makes you hard to kill.

Galepowder Mage isn't the only card that can do that.  You can also use a Whitemane Lion to reset your creature's status to non-zombie.  Or Momentary Blink.  Or even champion it to a Changeling Hero.  (Note, though, that as a changeling, and therefore as a zombie knight, your Hero will never get to see the graveyard or therefore get recurred.)

A late addition to the deck, but a surprisingly effective one, given how easily (and repeatedly) we can recur our creatures, is Dead-Iron Sledge.  Remember, we can cast a Goldenglow Moth on the first turn.  With a Sledge equipped, it can kill an Akroma.  And gain you 4 life.  And then come back the next turn to wear the Sledge a second time.  And a third and a fourth time, if you use one of the above recursion tricks.

Here's the list.  It's of course designed for casual play and is highly customizable.  (Oh and this is rare for me, but this particular deck also happens to be extended legal!)

Avatar: Haakon Lands (23): 17 Plains 6 Islands Creatures (24) 4 Martyr of Sands 4 Goldenglow Moth 3 Whitemane Lion 1 Stonecloaker 3 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant 2 Centaur Safeguard 2 Galepowder Mage 3 Changeling Hero 2 Purity

Noncreatures (13): 3 Dead-Iron Sledge 2 Azorius Signet 4 Momentary Blink 2 Terashi's Grasp 2 Cradle of Vitality

Deck 2 Loxodon Hierarch

It got cut off for spatial reasons, but this avatar's starting life is actually 32.

This deck gains life towards different ends, and also uses different means to get there.  And also has different tricks.  Let's go through it one at a time.

Gaining Life

First of all, our avatar starts us at 32 life.  Which is already a bit of help.

We're also using Wall of Hope, Souls of the Faultless, Aven Riftwatcher, and Faith's Fetters to gain life.

These cards don't skyrocket us quite as high as the previous deck is capable of, but also, we don't need them to.  This deck doesn't need to flip any Rune-Tails.  This deck just wants to get out one of these guys in the double digits:

Using Life

By the time we cast him (or his suspend resolves), he's usually around a 14/14.  But even when he's "only" an 8/8, it's still quite a bargain.  (Not to mention that, every time he connects with the opponent, his p/t doubles.)

If you're wary about relying on a single guy to win the game for you, remember that we're using the Loxodon avatar.  It is easier than normal to protect that single guy.

And in case of cards like Path to Exile or anything with a "can't be regenerated" clause, we're also running Rebuff the Wicked.

Tricks

I'll put my favorite trick first, which is Magus of the Disk.  Remember: our avatar lets us regenerate stuff.  Including the Magus himself.  So while his trigger is on the stack, sacrifice your Wall of Hope to regenerate the Magus.  (And if you have a Roiling Horror out, sacrifice a land to regenerate it, too.)  When the "destroy everything" ability resolves, you'll be left with your Magus still on the board, ready to use a second time.  And if you don't understand the strength of reusing a Nevinyrral's Disk, you have never seen a Nevinyrral's Disk before.

(I believe it was Inquest who once published the Nevinyrral's Disk / Animate Artifact / Regeneration combo.  In other words, to reuse that disk even a second time, they were willing to pay 4UGG and lose two cards that would themselves get destroyed to the disk.  This deck pays 0 mana, 1 card, and can repeat the trick any number of times it wants.)

Colfenor's Plans is another great card that nobody but me seems to like.  (In my life I've worked it into 4 different decks.)  Here's why it's good in here.

First, a deck this clunky doesn't really need to cast more than one spell a turn.

Second, this deck desperately needs more cards.  And lots of 'em.

Third, it has Magus of the Disk!  The danger of running a Colfenor's Plans is that you can get stuck with it after you're done using its cards.  Now you have an easy way to destroy it.

Fourth, it has the Loxodon avatar!  Which lets you sacrifice any permanent at any time!  It's not only a failsafe way to get rid of the Plans, but a free way to regenerate that Roiling Horror or the Magus.

A quick play tip for the Plans: Do not, unless it's necessary, play a land from your hand before casting the Plans.  That is because you can play a land from the cards the Plans reveals.

Here's the list.

Avatar: Loxodon Lands (24): 12 Plains 12 Swamp Creatures (16): 4 Wall of Hope 2 Aven Riftwatcher 2 Souls of the Faultless 4 Magus of the Disk 4 Roiling Horror

Noncreatures (20): 2 Rebuff the Wicked 4 Orzhov Signet 4 Last Gasp 2 Terashi's Grasp 4 Colfenor's Plans 4 Faith's Fetters

Deck 3 Orcish Squatters

Possibly the most fun one can have for only 0.40 tickets.

I've featured many Orcish Squatters decks in the past, and there are probably many more to come.  Today's deck is quite different from all of those, of course.

Or main plan is to get lots of mana, not only from the avatar itself, but from this card:

You can run the math if you don't believe me, but if you draw first and have a single Sakura-Tribe Elder, you can use this avatar to cast Mirari's Wake on your second turn.  Which then sets you up for 11 mana on your third turn.  (3 from your regular lands plus 1 from your Elder land plus 4 from your Wake plus 3 from your avatar.)

And for the games when you don't open with a Wake in your hand, or even with a Signet in your hand, you can still use this avatar to cast Explosive Vegetation.  On your second turn.

So what do you do with all of this mana?

1. Big Creatures

     

Notice I'm selecting only creatures that have White in them.  That is because of our next category:

2. Big Destruction

 

There's not much to say about Mass Calcify in this deck besides "it is a house" and "it will win you games."

As for Tornado, although it seems to be the jankiest of jank, it is in fact ridiculous in here.  Between all the mana you'll have and all the life you'll gain (I'll get to that in a minute), you can afford to use it many times.  Even if you "only" destroy three permanents with it, you're probably in fine shape.  (Just remember that, although you can only use it once per turn, there's no sorcery-speed restriction on it.  Which essentially lets you use it twice each turn, sort of.)

3. Big Lifegain

(See, this deck is topical to the article's theme.)  I just want to point out that, in this deck, you should never ever ever suspend Heroes Remembered.  Not even on your first turn.  This is because it will be a very short amount of time before you are able to just hardcast the thing.  Certainly much less than 10 turns.

 

4. Big Card Draw

 

Remember that, even if you don't get your Mirari's Wake out, this avatar lets you cast Harmonize on turn two.  And Recycle on turn three.  Either one of them will set you up to win the game in short order.

5. Big Cascade

This may be my favorite card in the deck.  Thanks to our avatar, we can get away with running very few low-CC cards, thus maximizing the potential of the cascade trigger.  Here's a list of every card in the deck costing 5 or less, ie the entire pool that the Wurm can possibly pull from.

• Mediocre: Sakura-Tribe Elder (4 cards)
• Good: Seal of Primordium, Serra's Blessing, Explosive Vegetation (5 cards)
• Great: Harmonize, Mirari's Wake, Tornado (10 cards)

Suffice it to say that, with this deck, I'm never upset to topdeck an Enlisted Wurm.

This deck is a blast.  Aside from its tremendous Timmy factor, it's also actually quite good.  I recommend it highly.  (It is still of course casual and customizable.)

Avatar: Orcish Squatters Lands (23): 12 Forest 11 Plains Creatures (14): 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Enlisted Wurm 1 Twilight Shepherd 2 Windbrisk Raptor 3 Vagrant Plowbeasts

Noncreatures (23): 2 Seal of Primordium 1 Serra's Blessing 4 Harmonize 2 Explosive Vegetation 4 Mirari's Wake 2 Tornado 2 Recycle 4 Mass Calcify 2 Heroes Remembered

See you next time, and have fun with vanguard!