Phylactery Lich was the first card of M11 to peek my interest. Packing a huge 5/5 body, this card comes with two small drawbacks. First of all you can't efficiently play it without having an artifact in play. The second drawback is "double" vulnerability. While his indestructibility makes Phylactery Lich immune versus the simple removal spells, your opponents will usually target the artifacts with phylactery counters on it. Killing the lich, ehh... zombie in the process.

There are certain matchups where Phylactery Lich shines though. Against straight forward aggro strategies and monored this guy is a real monster.

The artifacts I would use when playing Phylactery Lich are
- Everflowing Chalice, because it also allows a turn 4 Mind Sludge.
- Basilisk Collar, hmm you play monored? Ok, good game.
- After sideboarding, imagine dropping a Dragon's Claw and following it up with a Lich. It will be pretty hard losing that game.
- Sword of Vengeance, the big drawback here is that both of these cards have the same mana cost, forcing you to delay playing your Phylactery Lich by a turn.

 Here's a sample decklist

I opted to play a mere ten artifacts alongside three copies of Sign in Blood. with little threats, this deck focuses in disrupting your opponent's strategy while applying pressure with collar-ed Bloodghasts and Phylactery Liches. the occasional Turn 4 Mind Sludge is awesome if you can pull it off.

In the late game Sword of Vengeance really shines when you can pair it up with recurring Bloodghasts or topdecked creatures.

After sideboarding I would hate to be the mono red player sitting across the table. With the Dragon's Claws coming in, a turn 3 lich can be devastating.

Another great M11 card that I think deserves a little spotlight is Dark Tutelage.

This card is a mixture of Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Arena. while you are getting the same amount of extra cards, the card is a little worse compared to both of his predecessors. It doesn't come down on turn 2 like Dark Confidant and it makes you build your decks with a lower curve where decks including Phyrexian Arena could easily play seven mana bombs like (Debtor's Knell).

But let's move on to the good stuff shall we? What I love about the card is the card advantage it brings. You still get to "cheat" extra cards into your hand if you reveal land card. The number one frustration I had when playing against Dark Confidants was having the opponent flip land after land into Chrome Mox or Engineered Explosives. Cheats! I would definately consider running Everflowing Chalice to get that same effect on my opponents.

The "other" good thing about Dark Tutelage is that it doesn't die to creature removal. This is great because you could play it in creatureless control decks.

Here's a sample decklist of a deck with Dark Tutelage As you can see I've kept the converted mana cost low to reduce the damage we take from Dark Tutelage. To regain some lost life I've added the Kalastria Highborns. They have a lot of synergy with Bloodghast who, as we all know, loves to wear a Basilisk Collar. Vampire Nighthawk really doesn't need an introducing when it comes to life swing and Consuming Vapors ends the curve at four mana.
Drawing a lot of extra cards with virtually no drawback will win you many games. That's the raw power of this deck, well apart from the solid vampire shell of course.

The most important reason why I play this deck is that I feel the need to scout the environment. the Inquisition of Kozilek and Duress will give me the information on what I'm up against in the new open format. The other reason why I'm playing the deck is that it's cheap and still has a lot of playback against the top decks.

I'm currently playing and improving this build. If you have any suggestions or the desire to challenge me for a few games, You can find me on MTGO with the screen name "Rayjinn".

 Suicide Black