Lifelink in MTG: how it works, with rulings

Lifelink is one of Magic’s simplest keywords, and it still causes arguments at the table: does it trigger, can you respond, what happens with double strike or when your life is already at 1? Here’s the rule and the cases that come up most.

The rule

702.15b Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller, or its owner if it has no controller, to gain that much life (in addition to any other results that damage causes).

So when Vampire Nighthawk deals 2 damage, its controller gains 2 life. That’s all there is to the basic rule. The details are in how and when.

It isn’t a trigger

Lifelink is a static ability (rule 702.15a). The life gain is part of the damage itself, not a separate event afterwards:

• Nobody can respond between the damage and the life gain.
• It doesn’t use the stack, so it can’t be countered like a triggered ability.

That’s the difference from older cards like Spirit Link, which says “Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, you gain that much life.” That’s a triggered ability: it goes on the stack, and players can respond to it.

Gaining life in the same moment matters

Because the life comes in with the damage, lifelink can keep you alive in a race. All combat damage is dealt at once (rule 510.2), and players only lose for being at 0 life when state-based actions are checked afterwards.

Say you’re at 3 life. An opponent’s 5/5 hits you while your 4/4 lifelinker is unblocked and hits them. You take 5 and gain 4 at the same time: 3 − 5 + 4 = 2. You survive.

With Spirit Link instead, you’d be at −2 before the trigger resolves and lose the game.

Any damage, anywhere

Lifelink isn’t only for combat:

• Noncombat damage counts. If a creature with lifelink deals damage with an ability, you gain that much life. Equipment like Basilisk Collar hands out lifelink to whatever it’s attached to.
• Any target counts. Damage to creatures, players, planeswalkers and battles all gains you life.
• Any zone. Lifelink works no matter which zone the source deals damage from (rule 702.15d).

The life you gain is the damage actually dealt, not the creature’s power:

• If the damage is prevented, nothing is dealt and you gain nothing.
• If the damage is increased, you gain more. Fiery Emancipation triples damage from your sources, so a lifelinker that would deal 3 deals 9 and you gain 9.
• A blocked creature with no trample deals all its combat damage to the blocker, even if the blocker only has 1 toughness. A 5/5 lifelinker blocked by a 1/1 still gains you 5.

Double strike and multiple lifelinkers

Double strike deals combat damage twice, once in the first-strike damage step and once in the regular one. Lifelink applies both times, so you gain life twice. Our turn phases guide shows where those steps sit in combat.

Two instances of lifelink on the same creature do nothing extra (rule 702.15f). You don’t gain double.

Several lifelink sources dealing damage at once create a separate life gain event for each source (rule 702.15e). That matters for cards that trigger on life gain:

• Ajani's Pridemate gets a +1/+1 counter for each lifelink source that dealt damage, not one for the whole combat.
• Archangel of Thune has lifelink itself and puts a +1/+1 counter on each of your creatures every time you gain life. Swing with three lifelinkers and it triggers three times.

Lifelink with infect, and cards that stop life gain

Infect: damage from a source with infect gives players poison counters instead of making them lose life. It’s still damage, though, so lifelink still gains you that much life (rule 120.3f). More on that in our poison counters guide.

“You can’t gain life” effects: Sulfuric Vortex says players gain no life. Your lifelinker still deals its damage, but the life gain part does nothing.

What isn’t lifelink

Plenty of cards gain life without being lifelink:

• Lightning Helix deals 3 damage and gains you 3, but the gain comes from the spell’s text, not from lifelink, and doesn’t depend on how much damage was dealt.
• Soul Warden gains life on a trigger whenever another creature enters.
• Exquisite Blood gains you life when opponents lose life. Life loss isn’t damage, so that’s a trigger too.

Lifelink in Commander

Lifelink is great at a 40-life table, but it has one limit people forget: gaining life doesn’t undo commander damage. If a commander has dealt you 18 combat damage, you’re still 3 away from losing to it no matter how much life you gain. See the commander damage rules for the full rule, and the starting life guide for life totals in other formats.

Tracking lifelink at the table

Lifelink swings are hard to follow on paper: the attacker’s life goes up while the defender’s goes down, sometimes several times in one combat.

Lotus logs every life change in the game’s History, so you can check what happened after a messy combat. When the game ends, the shared recap shows a graph of each player’s life.