MTG Salvation

Varina, lich queen has me brewing up a new deck idea built around the cards like lich.

I never had a chance to play lich in it's original times, but did play with a casual 60 card deck built around nefarious lich and zombie infestation many many years ago.

Recently we also have been given lich's mastery. When I saw that card I tried to build a standard deck around it, but didn't have the consistency or tutors to guarentee a gameplan.

With three variations of the same card and a new on-theme lich commander in the colors of demonic tutor, enlightened tutor, and donate, the wheels in my head have been turning. I'm starting to construct a life-gain draw-death style of deck built around operating under lich style of effects, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to actually close out the game.

Any fun ideas? I can see easy ways to draw an entire deck with zombie infestation and enough lifegain junk, but there should be an easier route

Current ideas, not a checklist yet;


An interesting note about lich compared to mastery & nefarious is that it can be exiled or bounced and we won't die to that effect (although probably will from 0 life). The mastery and nefarious trigger when it leaves play. As a suicidal king-making play we can always donate nefarious or mastery when we are about to die, so when our permenat leaves play it takes that player out too. If we have lich's mastery out we can use lich or nefarious lich as donate ammo to try and kill someone with a random disenchant

I used to run Dakkon Blackblade as my cmdr, the point of the deck was to get Lich or its variants + Repay in Kind. Deck ran Academy Rector and Omniscience plus every broken card to make this happen.
White gave Lich protection/tutors, black the lich effects/tutors. Blue was counterspells.
It was a fun deck to play. Nobody got ticked off when they died ti Lich, because so many things can take it out and your dead dead.
I also ran life swap variants/hatred because well your gonna be at 0 anyhow. Axis of Mortality was in thete too.

What about Lich's Mirror?
also Immortal Coil

Sadly, the main problem with Lich-esque effects has always been removal. Artifact and Enchantment removal are rampant in commander, and you're going to get far more kills off of Donate than anything else.

That said, there's no harm in building a bad-but-funny deck. I would include Stifle and its ilk in order to counter the 'lose the game' Lich triggers. If you want to win by using the lich effect to its fullest, rather than just donating it, then you should probably run a very counterspell-heavy Dralnu deck so that you have a way to stop the enchantment destruction. Being two-color would also help a lot with the demanding color requirements of Lich cards.


Blind Obedience (and anything else with extort), Gonti's Machinations, and Bloodchief Ascension are all good, low-cost ways to gain a bunch of life while still being able to cast all the spells you draw that turn. I would include those over the two "illusions of X" spells. Extort cards are legal even if you're not running white, since the mana symbol is in the reminder text.

If you're set (heh, dead-set) on Varina, then you might want to throw in Aegis Angel and Indestructibility too.

Also missing Children of Korlis and/or Tainted Sigil

Sounds like you're inspired to make a suicide deck. I made a very effective one in person and have the decklist in my signature, with Selenia, Dark Angel at the helm... Check it out you will get some delicious ideas!

My friend Mike in the day had this casual deck, sadly a key card is banned in EDH.
Fastbond, Dark Heart of the Wood, Glacial Chasm, Hurricane for the kill.
Basically play your lands, tap them, sac them to Dark Heart to draw 3 cads and gain 3 life. Keep cycling through until you get your kill, then burn them out.
These days you can use Splendid Reclamation to get your lands back, or Crucible or whatnot. And use Walking Ballista I suppose.

Varina, lich queen has me brewing up a new deck idea built around the cards like lich.

That's awesome, I think you and I are definitely on the same page here. So I had an Ertai, the Corrupted UBW Deck back in the day, which used a few "interesting" combos and game enders to seal the game, so I feel like I could be some help.

Here's some ideas:

(1) Lich + Reverse the Sands
If you can get Urborg/Coffers, just drop Lich and 0 yourself and go for the YOLO Hail Mary play lol (if it works you'll get a MEGALUL, if Reverse the Sands gets countered, it'll be a hilariously epic fail but that's what this game is all about).

(2) Diabloic Intent + Academy Rector --> Omniscience + Rune-scarred Demon --> Cavern Harpy (draw your whole deck, play lich so you don't die, etc. Time Walk/Archaeomancer there's a million ways to win)

(3) Kaervek's Spite + Academy Rector --> Barren Glory
Another way to cheese your way to victory, just cast with Rector out at end of someone's turn... win, ez game. And I know it's generally taboo to have any Unglued or whatever... but this is the only time it's 100% acceptable to have The Cheese Stands Alone instead of Barren Glory, in fact you're a better person if you do!

I dig the donate route... Although I don't like the Illusion's of Grandeur. I'd also support cards like Propaganda/Ghostly Prison and Death Pits of Wrath/Pestilence. Also Darien, King of Kjeldor with Lich would be hilarious, not that it would be OP but something like that with No Mercy/Lich is hilarious

Those ideas sound fun!

The grandeur route (and all the small life gain junk) was ideally being used as a draw spell once a lich hits the table. 4cmc draw 20 seems good.

I will need to post my test list soon, but it is currently focused around zombie infestation using things like confessor and soul warden effects to fuel, or a big life gain swing for laboratory maniac.

What issues I'm working on currently are the speed of mana production to get this machine going, and fitting counter/protection in to the deck. All of the combo parts except for the lichs are fairly cheap mana-cost, but the high density of black in their cost does make this a challenge.

Varina is really sweet with this setup, but I do need to consider other things to do if zombie infestation becomes inaccessible.

I'm currently brainstorming a very similar idea.
My ideas for win cons regarding her were:
1) Any Lich + Zombie Infestation + Confessor = number of zombies equal to half the number of cards remaining in your deck. For infinite zombies add one of the old Eldrazi Titans.
2) Any Lich + Skirge Familiar / Mind Over Matter + Faith of the Devoted = drain the table for twice the number of cards remaining in your library. Infinite with Eldrazi again.
3) Go infinite with Mirror of Fate, Varina's activated ability and a time warp variant.

I would like to suggest three cards so that you don't die to Disenchant or Back to Nature:
Time Stop
Stunning Reversal
Sundial of the Infinite

Platinum Angel would also give you a defense, but it is slow and a huge target.