Spirit Link MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 19 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost1
RarityUncommon
TypeEnchantment — Aura
Abilities Enchant

Key Takeaways

  1. Spirit Link shines in its ability to transform any creature’s damage into a source of sustained life gain.
  2. Its enchantment utility is restricted by creature availability and specific mana needs, affecting deck compatibility.
  3. While versatile, its mana cost may delay impact in fast-paced games, suggesting consideration of alternatives.

Text of card

For every point of damage target creature does, you gain 1 life.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Spirit Link offers an ongoing source of life gain, effectively mitigating the damage your opponents deal. This can prolong your stay in the game, tilt combat exchanges in your favor, and indirectly lead to a card advantage as your opponents may have to expend more resources to overcome the life disparity.

Resource Acceleration: Although Spirit Link itself does not directly provide mana or accelerate resources, the ability to stay at a higher life total can buy you the time you need to deploy other resource acceleration measures or heavy-hitting threats without the pressure of impending defeat.

Instant Speed: While Spirit Link is an enchantment that’s played at sorcery speed, the life-gain effect it grants functions at instant speed. This means any damage dealt by the enchanted creature, even during the opponent’s turn or in response to instant-speed spells, will result in immediate life gain, providing surprise defensive capabilities and potential combat trickery.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Spirit Link offers the potential for significant life gain, it necessitates the presence of a creature on the battlefield to be effective. If you’re forced to discard with no creatures in play, it becomes a dead draw, reducing your hand size without immediate benefit.

Specific Mana Cost: The card requires white mana to cast, which can sometimes be restrictive. Decks that don’t have a strong white mana base or that are multicolored may find it challenging to satisfy the mana requirement when needed the most, thus hampering its versatility across various deck types.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Although not extremely expensive, Spirit Link’s mana cost can be considered high for its effect. In faster-paced games or against decks that aim to win quickly, the mana invested in Spirit Link might not yield a return quickly enough. There are other cards with lower mana costs that can provide similar or even better lifegain efficiency.


Reasons to Include Spirit Link in Your Collection

Versatility: Spirit Link isn’t just a life-gain enchantment; it can be attached to any creature, yours or your opponents. This dual functionality allows you to either boost your survivability or turn an opponent’s threat into a source of endurance for you.

Combo Potential: This card has synergies with effects that trigger upon gaining life or whenever damage is dealt. It can be particularly powerful in decks that focus on lifelink strategies or have creatures with ‘Whenever you gain life’ triggers to chain various beneficial effects.

Meta-Relevance: Against fast-paced aggro decks, Spirit Link can be a game-changer by offering much-needed lifegain. It’s also a tactical tool for disruption in matchups where you’re facing creatures with hefty power, helping to stabilize the board and keep your life total healthy while you set up your winning plays.


How to beat

Spirit Link is a classic aura from Magic: The Gathering that turns any creature into a source of life for its controller. Unlike the modern lifelink mechanic, Spirit Link’s ability can stack with lifelink or be used on an opponent’s creature to gain life when it deals damage. This poses an interesting challenge on the battlefield, requiring a multi-faceted strategy to overcome the life disparity it can create.

To effectively counteract Spirit Link, it’s important to focus on solutions that don’t involve combat damage, or to simply remove the creature it’s enchanting from play. Enchantment removal spells, such as Disenchant or Naturalize, can directly target and eliminate Spirit Link, resolving the immediate issue. Board wipes like Wrath of God or Damnation can also be effective, as they address the enchanted creature and any other threats simultaneously.

Utilizing indirect damage through spells or abilities that reduce life total without dealing damage, such as Blood Artist or Poison counters, can bypass the life-gain from Spirit Link. It’s crucial to adapt to the aura’s persistent life-gain effect with either swift removal or alternative win conditions that circumvent the traditional combat damage route.


BurnMana Recommendations

Understanding the dynamics of MTG cards like Spirit Link can radically transform your gameplay, offering you the chance to evolve your strategy even further. This enchantment is more than a simple life-gain mechanism; it’s an adaptable tool that can turn the tide of battle to your favor. We encourage MTG players to delve deeper into such cards that offer layered benefits, from life-gain to forced resource management by your adversaries. In your quest to refine your deck and gameplay, consider the depth such cards add to your arsenal. Ready for more insights that could shape your next victorious match? Join us to unlock new strategies and card synergies for a triumph-filled MTG journey.


Cards like Spirit Link

Within the vast assortment of life-gaining enchantments in Magic: The Gathering, Spirit Link stands out with its unique capability to tether not just to creatures you control but to any creature on the battlefield. This feature paves the way for strategic applications, whether bolstering your own life total when your creatures deal damage or mitigating the impact of an opponent’s powerful attacker by gaining life equal to the damage it deals.

Life gain cards such as Lifelink share this enchantment’s fundamental principle of gaining life equal to the damage dealt, yet Lifelink can only enchant creatures you control, thus limiting its versatility compared to Spirit Link. Another peer in the category, Armadillo Cloak, goes a step beyond by granting the enchanted creature trample, but once again, it fails to offer Spirit Link’s flexibility of target choice. Lastly, Vampiric Link shares the same capability of enchanting any creature, yet it remains under the radar, often overshadowed by Spirit Link’s prevalence and recognition within the community.

Through examining Spirit Link alongside its counterparts, its distinct advantage in tactical diversity becomes evident. Its potential to shift the tides by being applicable to any creature positions it as a uniquely versatile card in player arsenals.

Lifelink - MTG Card versions
Armadillo Cloak - MTG Card versions
Vampiric Link - MTG Card versions
Lifelink - Magic 2010 (M10)
Armadillo Cloak - Invasion (INV)
Vampiric Link - Planar Chaos (PLC)

Cards similar to Spirit Link by color, type and mana cost

White Ward - MTG Card versions
Green Ward - MTG Card versions
Holy Strength - MTG Card versions
Lance - MTG Card versions
Consecrate Land - MTG Card versions
Animate Wall - MTG Card versions
Black Ward - MTG Card versions
Blue Ward - MTG Card versions
Holy Armor - MTG Card versions
Red Ward - MTG Card versions
Land Tax - MTG Card versions
Brainwash - MTG Card versions
Green Scarab - MTG Card versions
Blue Scarab - MTG Card versions
Armor of Faith - MTG Card versions
Kithkin Armor - MTG Card versions
Flickering Ward - MTG Card versions
Limited Resources - MTG Card versions
Mask of Law and Grace - MTG Card versions
Shield of Duty and Reason - MTG Card versions
White Ward - Revised Edition (3ED)
Green Ward - Foreign Black Border (FBB)
Holy Strength - 30th Anniversary Edition (30A)
Lance - Revised Edition (3ED)
Consecrate Land - Limited Edition Alpha (LEA)
Animate Wall - Classic Sixth Edition (6ED)
Black Ward - Limited Edition Beta (LEB)
Blue Ward - Fourth Edition Foreign Black Border (4BB)
Holy Armor - Fourth Edition Foreign Black Border (4BB)
Red Ward - Foreign Black Border (FBB)
Land Tax - Wilds of Eldraine: Enchanting Tales (WOT)
Brainwash - The Dark (DRK)
Green Scarab - Ice Age (ICE)
Blue Scarab - Ice Age (ICE)
Armor of Faith - Fifth Edition (5ED)
Kithkin Armor - Weatherlight (WTH)
Flickering Ward - Tempest (TMP)
Limited Resources - Exodus (EXO)
Mask of Law and Grace - Urza's Destiny (UDS)
Shield of Duty and Reason - Apocalypse (APC)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Spirit Link MTG card by a specific set like Legends and Fourth Edition Foreign Black Border, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Spirit Link and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Spirit Link Magic the Gathering card was released in 13 different sets between 1994-06-01 and 2023-01-13. Illustrated by 3 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
11994-06-01LegendsLEG 371993normalblackKaja Foglio
21995-04-01Fourth Edition Foreign Black Border4BB 511993normalblackKaja Foglio
31995-04-01Fourth Edition4ED 511993normalwhiteKaja Foglio
41995-08-01RenaissanceREN 201993normalblackKaja Foglio
51997-03-24Fifth Edition5ED 641997normalwhiteKaja Foglio
61998-08-12World Championship Decks 1998WC98 bh64sb1997normalgoldKaja Foglio
71999-04-21Classic Sixth Edition6ED 431997normalwhiteKaja Foglio
82001-04-11Seventh Edition7ED 471997normalwhiteDaren Bader
92001-04-11Seventh Edition7ED 47★1997normalblackDaren Bader
102003-07-28Eighth Edition8ED 472003normalwhiteKev Walker
112003-07-28Eighth Edition8ED 47★2003normalblackKev Walker
122005-07-29Ninth Edition9ED 472003normalwhiteKev Walker
132005-07-29Ninth Edition9ED 47★2003normalblackKev Walker
142005-08-22Salvat 2005PSAL G32003normalwhiteKev Walker
152005-08-22Salvat 2005PSAL C402003normalwhiteKev Walker
162007-07-13Tenth Edition10E 452003normalblackKev Walker
172007-07-13Tenth Edition10E 45★2003normalblackKev Walker
182023-01-13Dominaria RemasteredDMR 2741997normalblackKev Walker
192023-01-13Dominaria RemasteredDMR 292015normalblackKev Walker

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Spirit Link has restrictions

FormatLegality
OldschoolLegal
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
PaupercommanderLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
PauperLegal
PremodernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Spirit Link card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2022-12-08 The triggered ability triggers when the enchanted creature deals any damage, not only combat damage.
2022-12-08 Unlike the lifelink ability, the ability of Spirit Link is a triggered ability that goes on the stack and may be responded to. Notably, if the enchanted creature deals damage at the same time you’re dealt enough damage to reduce your life total to 0 or less, you’ll lose the game before you can gain any life.

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