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By: CottonRhetoric, Cotton Rhetoric
Aug 05 2010 3:27am
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Lich's Mirror

We've all seen the combo deck that wins immediately after it casts a Lich's Mirror.  Today's article came from trying to find other ways to use the card.

For a long time, it didn't seem like there was any other function.  Once Lich's Mirror resets you, you're so grossly behind on board position that the life you just gained won't often matter.  Then I asked myself, what type of deck would be okay with not having a board position?  Is there such a deck?  If there was, it would have to:

  • function on very little mana
  • not need many permanents in play
  • not care about the opponent's permanents in play
  • get going very quickly

And what type of deck meets all of those requirements?

Remembering that I have avatars at my disposal, I came up with a couple.  The  key is that, although your stuff resets, your opponent's stuff doesn't.  So I made some decks that win half the game at a time.  Here's the first:

Deck 1 Creatureless Burn in Hermit Druid

  Lava Spike

If you've never seen a Hermit Druid burn deck, they're really quite scary.  Think about it.  The biggest two obstacles of regular burn decks are mana flood and running out of fuel.  Hermit Druid removes both of those.  When you're playing a Hermit Druid burn deck, you can get by with around only 3 to 6 lands in your whole deck, and well over 50 burn spells.  You can even run higher-CC spells than normal.

And unlike the 0-land-60-spell Dakkon Blackblade burn decks, Hermit Druid doesn't sacrifice one card per land drop.  Its hand size is 3 less than Dakkon's, but every land beyond the 3rd is profit.  And Hermit Druid also provides the possibility of accelerating your mana, for the times when you play a land from your hand the same turn as your avatar gives you one from your deck.  In a burn deck, free mana acceleration can be highly effective.

Rift Bolt    

So why Lich's Tomb in here?  Let's say I'm throwing Rift Bolts at my opponent's head, and he's pummeling me with creatures, and it's a close race the whole way, and then he kills me.  Even if I "only" got him down to 8 life before I died, a Lich's Mirror reset will make it very easy for me to finish those final 8 points.  At any rate, I can probably do it a whole lot quicker than he can deal me the 20 I'm now at — even if he does have a couple of creatures in play.  He's just three burn spells away from defeat.  And I have 7 cards.  Very few of which are land.  While I'm also getting a free land in play every turn.  Lich's Mirror may sound silly, but trust me, it's sick in here.

"Why not just remove the Lich's Mirrors and concentrate the deck more heavily on burn?"  Remember, this is the world of vanguard.  We absolutely cannot count on our opponent starting at 20 life.  Sometimes they'll start at 32 life.  Sometimes they'll gain several life every turn.  And okay usually they start at 20 exactly, but we can't guarantee it.  This would be the biggest argument against running a burn deck in vanguard, but with Lich's Mirror for those 32-life games and with Sulfuric Vortex for those Serra Angel avatars, we'll usually be fine.

Most of this deck is your standard burn spells, which is necessary when you have over 50 of them.  I just want to point out a few specific cards outside of the traditional fare.

        Acidic Soil
  • Acidic Soil.  I don't see this one get a lot of play.  I don't know why!  For the same cost as Char, you're dealing more on both sides.  It can't hit creatures the way Char can, but this particular deck doesn't need to.
  • Ankh of Mishra.  It will deal a whole lot more damage than our other 2-mana burn spells.  Especially when it comes down on the first turn, which with our avatar is frequently possible.  Even if some of that damage is pointed at us, it's still a good deal.  And when we only have 6 lands in our whole deck, the amount it can deal us is negligible anyway.
  • Final Fortune.  There are times when this is a game winner, times when it's a win-more, and times when it's a dud.  One thing is for sure though: we never want more than one in our hand.  Ever.  For all of these reasons, I'm running it in here as a 1-of.  (Quick aside: a hilarious, and surprisingly strong, 4-mana play is casting this and some burn.  And then on our "last" turn... tapping out for a Lich's Mirror!  This has actually won me multiple games.)
  • Ensnaring Bridge.  This is another card that's potentially very powerful but we never want to see in duplicates.  In a burn deck, every single draw is essential.  So this is in here, but as another 1-of.
  • Browbeat.  Few cards have been debated more than Browbeat.  I don't want to get too polemic here.  I just want to say that playtesting with 4x, 2x, and 0x of these in this particular deck made me feel like 2x was optimal.  You can certainly switch to 4x or 0x if you prefer though.
  • Shrapnel Blast.  A great card, and I wish I could fit more than 2x in here.  But not enough artifacts are in this build to risk it.  Black Vise can be a great sac target in certain games.  And we can afford to sacrifice an artifact land if it means going from 6 mana to 5.  But unless we already have a Lich's Mirror out, or if victory is imminent without one, I strongly discourage going from 5 lands to 4.  Lich's Mirror is that good in here.
  • Lightning Helix.  How can I run 4x of this card with only one white source of mana (a singleton Ancient Den in the deck?  Because our avatar will always give us that source.

Here's the list.  Casual and customizable, as always!

Avatar: Hermit Druid

Land (6):
1 Mountain
4 Great Furnace
1 Ancient Den

Permanents (12):
2 Black Vise
4 Ankh of Mishra
2 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Lich's Mirror

Spells (42):
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning
3 Shock
4 Rift Bolt
1 Final Fortune
4 Incinerate
4 Lightning Helix
2 Shrapnel Blast
2 Volcanic Hammer
2 Acidic Soil
2 Browbeat
2 Flamebreak
4 Flame Javelin
Rift Bolt Ankh of Mishra

Next up, a completely different approach to Lich's Mirror:

Deck 2 Necropotence

This is such a cool av.  I get really happy whenever I find a new way to use it.

The basic idea is this.  Your avatar tries to kill you.  Lich's Mirror resets you when it does.  Your board is wiped clean, but your avatar's counters aren't.  You could easily be drawing 7 or 8 cards at the end of that turn.  In addition to the 7 you drew from the Mirror itself.  To restate that, after you "die," you will have 14 cards in your hand.

    Soul Spike

So what do you do with these 14 cards?  I can think of a few things....

  • Soul Spike.  I'm sure some of the 14 are expendable.  For 0 mana, you can turn them into huge life swings.  You often have enough to do this twice at the same time!  This can be enough to win the game outright, if the pre-Lich stuff went alright.  But in case it didn't...
  • Reanimation.  Even if you do exile four cards to multiple Soul Spikes, you will still have to discard at the end of that turn.  Why not discard a gigantic creature?  With Urza's Saga and the three Master's Editions available online, reanimation spells are more affordable than ever, both in terms of CMC and money.  Exhume, Animate Dead, and Dance of the Dead are all 2 mana and less than a ticket.  Even the three mana, one-ticket Necromancy is within Dark Ritual range.
  • Wisdom.  Not in combination with the above, obviously.  But you could take the opposite direction and drop a Reliquary Tower to keep as many of those 14 cards as possible.  What to do next is up to you.  Accelerating into multiple Spiraling Embers comes to mind.
  • Seismic Assault.  Again, this is not in combination with any of the above archetypes.  But if you have a deck with a lot of land (consider a Manabond / manland build), this could be a brutal followup to Lich's Mirror.

My deck today will be a combination of the first two bullets.  Soul Spikes and reanimation.  (Don't misunderstand — I know you can't animate the spells you pitch to Soul Spike, since they're exiled.  I'm saying we're alt-casting Soul Spike and, as a separate event, discarding and reanimating other cards.  The Necro av gives you enough cards to do that.)

Exhume    

So the basic plan is this.  Early game: stall with Duress and Paralyze type cards.  Discard some of our large creatures due to excessive Necropotence draws.  Exhume them into play.  Beat about our opponent.  As our life total dwindles, get out a Lich's Mirror, ritualing into it if necessary.

Pretty soon, we'll die, and get the Lich's Mirror reset.  There's a moment of panic, when we see our empty board versus our opponent's full board, but relax.  Play a land.  If necessary, cast another Duress or Paralyze from your new hand of 7.  Soul Spike if it's there.  At the end of the turn, draw a whole bunch more cards from your avatar.  Discard more fatties.  Drop another Soul Spike.  Then play a second land and get a fattie into play.  Finish the opponent off.

It sounds unreliable, but remember that our avatar draws us a ton of cards.  It's actually pretty consistent.  On an average game, we draw more than half of our deck — even before Lich's Mirror shuffles it all back up.  Now sometimes all 4 Lich's Mirrors will be on the bottom 15 cards of our deck and we'll never see one.  But (1) that's quite rare and (2) we can still win without 'em.  So don't worry about it.

There's the question of which reanimation targets to use.  In the day of Mythics, it's hard not to find a good choice.  A lot of huge creatures are even pretty budget-friendly, so you don't need to dip into Progenitus or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.  Anything from Magister Sphinx to Novablast Wurm to Hellkite Overlord can be yours for less than a ticket each.  (Just take my advice: don't cast your Animate Dead on a Hellcarver Demon.  He won't stick around very long!)

As for what reanimation spells to use: I already listed several above, and go with what you like.  Just stay low-cc, for that post-Lich's Mirror scramble.  Even with rituals going around, it's hard to rely on a 4-cmc Zombify in a timely manner.  For that same reason, I ended up cutting Living End after some playtesting.  Suspending it pre-Mirror worked great, but I never wanted to draw it afterwards.  Not worth the risk.

Here's the list.  I strongly recommend running several solo practice matches before taking it to an opponent.

Avatar: Necropotence

Land (23):
23 Swamp

Creatures (9):
2 Simian Spirit Guide
7 reanimation targets of choice

Noncreatures (28):
4 Dark Ritual
4 Paralyze
2 Duress
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Lich's Mirror
4 Soul Spike
Animate Dead Cabal Ritual

Last up:

Deck 3 Nekrataal

Alright, alright, I admit it.  I couldn't think of a third avatar to combine Lich's Mirror with.  (And I didn't feel like assembling my third deck idea, the above-mentioned Necropotence / Seismic Assault combination.)  So the third deck is going to just be completely unrelated to the article's theme.

Nekrataal.  You can use him to get free 1cc creatures, but that's boring to me.  I'm going to instead use him to enable multicolored creatures (an idea I've mentioned in the past but never actually built a deck around).  The idea here is, I can have a 4-color deck for the price of a 3-color deck (as long as one of those colors is black, and it only exists in creature form).  Any color combination is fine, but I eventually settled on the one with the highest concentration of my favorite gold cards, BRGW.  Which include:

Darkheart Sliver  Doran, the Siege Tower  Necrotic Sliver  Sprouting Thrinax

Noxious Hatchling  Madrush Cyclops  Nath of the Gilt-Leaf  Kulrath Knight

This color combination also enables the great gold "lord," Knight of New Alara.  He doesn't get the avatar's cost reduction, but he's well worth it anyway.

Knight of New Alara

The rest of the deck is filled with random gold cards, but a few tricks in particular are worth highlighting:

  • Supply/Demand: For the Demand half, most usually.  Notice the large number of singletons to choose from!
  • Psychotic Fury: Works on 24 different cards in the deck.
  • Glittering Wish: Aside from increasing our Knight of New Alara count up to (kind of) 7, it also lets us get some great situational cards that aren't worth maindecking.
  • Doran, the Siege Tower: He makes a couple of our guys 1 point stronger.  And a couple of guys 1 point weaker.  But don't forget he's also a 5/5 for 2 mana.  That's why he's in here.
  • Reborn Hope: Playtesting dropped this more and more until it was only a 1x.  But I don't think I could ever drop it to a 0x.
  • Pillar of the Paruns: There are 4 cards in the entire deck this CAN'T help us cast (2x BoP, 2x Psychotic Fury).
  • Llanowar Dead: With our avatar, this is 1-drop accel, not 2-drop.  Which could set us up for a second turn Voracious Hatchling (who now costs 3 mana, remember).

The list:

Avatar: Nekrataal

Land (22):
2 Jungle Shrine
4 Pillar of the Paruns
4 Plains
6 Mountain
6 Forest

Creatures (26):
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Llanowar Dead
1 Mourning Thrull
2 Grixis Grimblade
1 Darkheart Sliver
1 Acidic Sliver
1 Bloodied Ghost
1 Jund Sojourners
1 Doran, the Siege Tower
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Rendclaw Trow
1 Sprouting Thrinax
1 Stalker Hag
1 Voracious Hatchling
1 Noxious Hatchling
2 Madrush Cyclops
3 Knight of New Alara
1 Kulrath Knight
1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf

Noncreatures (12):
2 Psychotic Fury
3 Glittering Wish
1 Reborn Hope
2 Lightning Helix
1 Supply/Demand
1 Fiery Justice
1 Firespout
1 Savage Twister

Sideboard (15):
1
Assault/Battery
1 Fiery Justice
1 Firespout
1 Fusion Elemental
1 Hazezon Tamar
1 Horde of Notions
1 Hull Breach
1 Knight of New Alara
1 Kulrath Knight
1 Lightning Helix
1 Madrush Cyclops
1
Pure/Simple
1
Reborn Hope
1 (Sav
age Twister)
1
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper

Grixis Grimblade Glittering Wish

See you next time, and have fun with vanguard!

2 Comments

Lich's Mirror by Katastrophe at Thu, 08/05/2010 - 10:24
Katastrophe's picture

At first I thought "Oh boy! He's building around one of my pet cards!" I was so excited that I skipped right over the "Fun with Vanguard" part. Doh. I like the interaction with the Necropotence avatar, but I don't really want to build the deck.

What is the combo with LM that kills as soon as you cast it? I've only ever seen it paired with Channel.

from by CottonRhetoric at Thu, 08/05/2010 - 17:21
CottonRhetoric's picture

from http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ftl/6

"I want to use Puca's Mischief to give Lich's Mirror to my opponent, kill him somehow, and watch him gain 20 and draw seven cards. Since my opponent doesn't own Lich's Mirror, it stays in play. The key card I have in play, however, is Rain of Gore. Instead of gaining enough life to get to 20, my opponent will lose that much life. Thus, he or she loses the game again—or would, if Lich's Mirror weren't still in play. Instead, he or she shuffles up again, tries to gain enough life to get to 20 again, and loses even more life this time.

"Yes, that's right. I want to kill my opponent an infinite number of times. Ultimate defeat!"

It's actually a pretty great idea