OCC: Lichlord Leech

by Puschkin on 12 August 2016

Main Deck (62 cards)

Sideboard (0 cards)

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Deck Description

So, this is an long overdue entry for the Obscure Card Challange
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/obscure-card-challenge-occ/

I was asked to do a deck around Lich, a card that is around since Alpha but has never been reprinted, so most people are unaware of it. It is wordy and needs lots of rules lawyering to make it worthwhile. I decided to make an oldschool deck for this oldschool card which means real duallands and such, but no Power 9. It's not really meant to be built.

So, main combo is Lich and Illusions/Delusions to draw massive amounts of cards. Solitary Confinement keeps you alive. You kill your opponent with Mirror Universe. See "How to Play" section because there are many, MANY combos and synergies here. And I bet, for some of my readers, many of these themes and ways to play this are alien to them.

Lich was requested by use Stormtide.

How to Play

****MAIN*****
LICH & ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR/DELUSIONS OF MEDIOCRITY
With Lich out, every time you would gain life, you draw a card instead. So these draw you 10 respectively 20 cards ... which is also why you run 4 Mox Diamond. Be careful and count your library before casting a delusions/illusions, don't deck yourself accidentally!

LICH & MIRROR UNIVERSE
After you cast Lich, your life will be zero. So, switching your life total with the opponent will kill him.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
This is your main way to stay alive. You need to drop it after you cast Lich. Lich will also keep you alive besides having zero life, however, when you get damage with Lich out, you have to sacrifice permanents instead. So it's a good idea to drop Confinement FIRST.
However, don't drop Confinement without having a card drawing combo in hand or on the table because then you won't draw cards anymore.

***** SECONDARY COMBOS AND ENGINES *****

NECROPOTENCE & ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR/DELUSIONS OF MEDIOCRITY
This is the old "Trix" combo. Necropotence is restricted to one copy (luckily, otherwise we wouldn't really need Lich). Use it to fill your hand and complete combos. I won't go into details here because in order to play Necropotence right it'll need it's own compendium.
Note: If you happen to have Necropotence as well as Lich, you can't use Necro anymore since you can't spent life you don't have.

DIABOLIC INTENT & ACADEMY RECTOR
The "Sexy Rector" combo that puts your combo together in one fell swoop. You will usually go for Confinement/Illusions with the Rector and for Lich with the Tutor, but of course that depends on board situation and your mana situation.
The Rector is also a good blocker and deterrant!

DIABOLIC INTENT & ABYSSAL GATEKEEPER
Get your stuff and defend yourself at the same time.

DONATE & ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR
The kill method of "Trix". Illusions has a cumulative upkeep and it will cost you 20 life when it leaves, so the life it gives is essentially "borrowed". However, if you donate the Illusions to your opponent, he will have to pay for it :) This is an alternative kill. It's slower than Mirror, though, since most opponents will be able to pay the upkeep for a while.

CULLING THE WEAK, PHYREXIAN TOWER
More ways to sac your critters to get their leaves-play-effect. Both Tower nd Culling give you a mana boost which you might need the turn you draw 10/20 cards or to get the Lich into play in the first place (quadruple black isn't that easy to come by).

***** SINGLE CARD CHOICES *****

TURN ASIDE
One disenchant on Lich and you are instantly dead! This is the cheapest way to assure that doesn't happen. Aside from Force of Will, that is, but with just 9 other blue cards (of which I need at least one for the combo) I fear I won't have a card to pitch for FoW when I need it the most.

SERRAS SANCTUM
This is for the time after you drew half of your deck. You need to be able to get stuff into play quickly, especially the Confinement, and this helps with that.

Deck Tags

  • Combo
  • OCC
  • Oldschool
  • Casual

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

6
Likes

This deck has been viewed 2,106 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

9103500

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Not Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Not Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for OCC: Lichlord Leech

See, it's decks like this that make me wish I had gotten into magic the first time I was introduced to it. I would've gotten started just before the unholy Urza Block kicked off, and would've had a much greater selection of the legacy greats (though it wouldn't include much of this list, but they'd be easier to get vs now). I really wish I could build this and play it because it's just beautiful.

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Posted 18 November 2016 at 02:23

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Well, I started in late 1994. I had Mirror Universe and traded it away ... having started then isn't foolproof :P

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Posted 18 November 2016 at 07:58

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True enough, but you get a feel for what is and isn't really good. Plus the introduction of rarity symbols really helped get the message home. My unfortunate self got really into yugioh because that's what everyone else played, and now I regret getting into it when I had the chance to start playing magic.

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Posted 19 November 2016 at 21:29

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Rarity symbols wouldn't have helped. It's not that we didn't know - we had checklists from magazines back in the day. But since the mayority of players was clueless how to play effective, cards like Shivan Dragon and Mahamoti Djinn where the most sought after cards. In fact, most players that openend a Dualland in their Revised pack were pisses that they "just got a land" instead of a cool creature and traded it away on first opportunity.

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Posted 20 November 2016 at 13:02

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Lol not me. I kept everything. True enough the meta was vastly different back then too. Looking at pro level decks and how they ran is always an interesting thing because in a way, they are far more complex than anything run today. Nowadays if you pulled something like the djinn it would be a common, maybe uncommon if it was big enough. I would say shivan would fall into the uncommon/fringe rare spectrum, but after dragonlord atarka I know that isn't the case. It still packs a punch even today

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Posted 20 November 2016 at 17:01

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Yeah, decks were more complex because most cards weren't designed specifically to interact with each other, so you had to find your own synergies or *make* them. Today, all you need is to slap together a bunch of creatures that share a type and that boost each other. As long as you adhere to common things like mana curve, you'll have a strong deck.

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Posted 20 November 2016 at 21:26

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See that's just too easy to me. I have a deck that embodies that statement perfectly. It's literally nothing but birds and 3 copies of Door of Destinies. It's not anything insane, but DoD makes them get dangerous fast. I much prefer finding card synergy myself, so I tend to lean towards a lot of kitchen table decks because I can be more creative and have a lot of fun while playing. On the flip side to that though, I have a few pet decks that can hold their own in competitive play, like burn and my WU control. Hands down my go to deck though at the moment is my legacy golgari 8 rack. I had toyed with that deck type before but it never really clicked until Waste Not became a thing. After that I wanted to make my own version that didn't care about using the bridge-lock to keep my opponent pinned and instead used the opponent's deck against them. I'm still tweaking that deck and trying to find the right numbers for everything, but it packs a punch already. Deathrite Shaman brings the deck together so well that it's scary, and I can ususally power the deck up to almost lethal by turn 3 if i get one in hand to start. In fact, if I ever got it to the point where I considered it 'done', I'd like to take it vs this

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Posted 21 November 2016 at 01:18

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Against this? It's never been playtested, some of those numbers are certainly not ideal.

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Posted 21 November 2016 at 10:20

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That's fine really. In all honesty I rarely play test my decks because I can usually get the numbers pretty accurate from the get go, but my 8 rack I want to ensure is ready

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Posted 21 November 2016 at 17:21

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Hey old man :D
There's an upcomming trend to call decks oldschool when they have cards from unlimited to fallen empires.
If a deck have cards between ice age and scourge it's now "premodern"

If you have any premodern designs, just tag them with "premodern" and I will then link you in this link:
https://www.mtgvault.com/wickeddarkman/decks/premodern-format/

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Posted 21 January 2019 at 14:02

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All my decks will be Vintage. And after so many years here on Vault I know one thing for sure:
Tags are only for information purposes but nobody ever searches for them! A deck that doesn't get attention when it's new and thus up the "Active decks" category, it'll never get attention later on.

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Posted 14 October 2020 at 18:54

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Words of Worship would be awesome here. Next time you would draw a card, pay 1 and draw 5, anyone?

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Posted 21 January 2019 at 14:10

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As explained above with Necropotence, that doesn't work. With Lich out I have 0 life and therefore can't pay life anymore.

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Posted 27 February 2019 at 22:18

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1 mana, not one life. Probably should have been more clear about that.

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Posted 28 February 2019 at 03:21

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Ah ok, and its a replacement effect of drawing a card.
It doesn't work with Solitari Confinement, though. But it would be a good, consistent and safe way to drw lots of cards compared to Illusions/Delusions. Then again, I can donate those.
I guess I'll work a single Worship in so I have more choices when tutoring. Thx for the suggestion

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Posted 28 February 2019 at 07:00

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No problem.

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Posted 28 February 2019 at 22:33

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KOALA's go away!!!
Stop eating this man so I can talk to him...

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Posted 31 January 2019 at 16:55

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Wait a moment ... 31 of January? Why didn't get a notification? I just stumbled over this by accident!

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Posted 27 February 2019 at 22:17

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I' don't know :D
It seems like the place notifies you more, when you are more active!

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Posted 28 February 2019 at 18:35

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By now I think notifications have a kind of expiration date. They just won't be applied if I log in a few weeks later.

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Posted 14 October 2020 at 18:57

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My thoughts exactly.
I forgot them though, and wrote it a minute ago as well ;)

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Posted 14 October 2020 at 20:45

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