Vampiric Link

Lifelink as a keyword did not exist when this kind of effect first appeared; the Aura that grants it predates the word, and this is its black-mana recast, the life-drain trick white usually owns handed to the color that drains life as a matter of identity. It belongs to a design project that redrew the color pie's boundaries on purpose, asking which effects might have lived in a different color, and the answer here is plain: any damage the enchanted creature deals returns to you as life, not just combat damage. A pinger, a deathtouch fighter, a creature swinging into open air: all feed you their full output. That breadth is also the catch. As an Aura it pays the card-disadvantage tax every Aura pays, committing one card to one creature and following that creature to the graveyard if it dies. The single black pip keeps it cheap enough to bolt onto an evasive threat early, but the math only swings hard when the body underneath does real damage, so the effect leans entirely on its host rather than standing on its own. What it documents best is the experiment itself: lifegain rendered in black rather than white, a small reminder that the color pie is a set of choices, not a law of physics.