Lichdom

[Malhavoc]

Lichdom - BBBB
Enchantment

If Lichdom leaves play, remove your hand from the game.
Whenever you would draw a card, lose 1 life and draw a card instead.
Whenever you would lose life, lose that much life and draw that many cards instead.

Death and life - forever intertwined


Current version:
Lichdom - BBBB
Enchantment

If Lichdom leaves play, you lose the game.
If you would be dealt damage, draw that many cards instead.
Whenever you draw a card, lose 1 life.

Death and life - forever intertwined




This one is tricky - since a single event can't get replaced more than once (take chains of mephistopheles as example) this card does not go into an infinite loop.

In short, what the card does is this: whenever you would draw a card or take damage, you do both instead: sure, you draw cards when you are attacked, but you also lighting bolt yourself just doing a simple brainstorm. The card would surely be broken anyway if it wasn't for the the leave-play ability, which makes the whole plan deadly vulnerable to both removals and bounce.

[andrewpate]

I like the idea, but Lich cards are normally characterized by making you immune to life loss and creating some other way of killing you.  Lich, Nefarious Lich, and Lich's Tomb all follow this pattern.  So I'd suggest just changing the name to some other method of black-flavored transcendence.

[Godder]

That idea is actually pretty spiffy. I like its interaction with Drain Life effects in particular, which gain the added functionality of drawing cards if you target yourself. Some other name maybe more appropriate, as mentioned by Andrew, but this is a very interesting card.

[chrissss]

I like the card a lot. its not a broken conbo card, yet is has a lot of potential in the right deck.

[Malhavoc]

I like the card a lot. its not a broken conbo card, yet is has a lot of potential in the right deck.

Well, I fear it could be abused in some sort of Pitch Long: Grim Tutor becomes Demonic + Ancestral. Maybe changing the second line of text so that you draw only when you get damaged, and not when you just lose life, could be a way to tone it done a bit.

If you really fear krosan grip or wipe away, you could just run some stifle in order to counter the leave-play ability, but that would be balanced, cause I don't see stifle being so much useful in such deck otherwise.

As for the name, any other idea?

[Godder]

Good call, mana burning to draw cards probably isn't something to encourage, so damage might be more appropriate.

[Anusien]

You can probably simplify it by making the replacement effects triggered effects instead now.

[Malhavoc]

You can probably simplify it by making the replacement effects triggered effects instead now.

I don't think it works, if we change it this way:

When you draw a card, lose 1 life.
When you are dealt damage, draw that many cards.

If you suffer X damages, you draw X cards, and that makes you lose additional X life. Not exactly what was meant to be.

[Anusien]

You're right, I misunderstood the way the rule (419.6a) works.  It has to keep the kludgy wording.

Incidentally, I really like this; I find it very interesting and flavorful.

[OfficeShredder]

Maybe I'm not reading the rules right, but the card seems to deal you double damage, since if you're dealt damage, you lose that much life and draw that many cards, but the card drawing is replaced by a second replacement effect that makes you lose life and draw cards again.

In fact, reading the example in 419.9b, I'm fairly certain this would happen

[Godder]

Minor wording issue - 'Whenever' indicates a triggered ability, so it should be replaced by 'If' to make it a replacement effect instead.

[Malhavoc]

Minor wording issue - 'Whenever' indicates a triggered ability, so it should be replaced by 'If' to make it a replacement effect instead.

That's right. Fixed.

I'm still wondering if this card is too much powerful or not.. maybe I could change the first ability to:

If Lichdoom leaves play, lose the game.

This would also make the name more appropriate with the card; otherwise we probably need to choose a different name.

[OfficeShredder]

That still doesn't answer my concern, unless it was intended to be a built in feature of the card that everything deals double damage

[Malhavoc]

That still doesn't answer my concern, unless it was intended to be a built in feature of the card that everything deals double damage

Ah, now I get what you say! I'm not totally sure if it would work that way or not, the issue is if a card can replace the same event more than once, even if the replacement is another.. for example Chains of Mephistopheles does not replace a draw twice, even if its replacement effect makes you draw, but that could be just because that's the SAME replacement effect.. any judge can answer this?

In any case, the text can be fixed this way:

If Lichdom leaves play, remove your hand from the game. [or lose the game?]
Whenever you draw a card, lose 1 life.
If you would be dealt damage, draw that many cards instead.

[OfficeShredder]

That seems to solve the problem... the wording is also a lot cleaner now I think.

[Darkenslight]

see, that still doesn't quite work as is.  It work like this:

1) Take, say, 3 damage from a Bolt
2) draw 3 cards instead
3) lose 3 life anyway.

Would it not perhaps work better with a small addition to the loss of life effect, like:

outside the draw step and Lichdom's effect.

Or would that be too powerful?

[Malhavoc]

see, that still doesn't quite work as is.  It work like this:

1) Take, say, 3 damage from a Bolt
2) draw 3 cards instead
3) lose 3 life anyway.

No, it works as intended

If Lichdom leaves play, remove your hand from the game.
Whenever you draw a card, lose 1 life.
If you would be dealt damage, draw that many cards instead.

The third line is a replacement effect. That means lighting bolt won't deal you three damages, but instead makes you draw 3 (ancestral recall!!); that will trigger the second line, however, making you lose 3 life.

This card seems however pretty powerful, I'll change the fist line in "if leaves play, lose the game", which is also more in flavor with Lich enchantments.

[OfficeShredder]

Darkensight, the point of the card is that whenever you take damage, you also draw cards, and whenever you draw cards, you also lose life.  So it works as intended.

[Malhavoc]

Some days have passed without a reply Let's put a 24 hour clock.

[Harlequin]

I think changing the order of the 2nd and 3rd abilites will make MUCH more sense to someone reading the card.  Its functionally Idential, but it seems that the replacement leads into the trigger... so why not list it in that order on the card?

If Lichdom leaves play, you lose the game.
Whenever you draw a card, lose 1 life.
If you would be dealt damage, draw that many cards instead.

To:

If Lichdom leaves play, you lose the game.
If you would be dealt damage, draw that many cards instead.
Whenever you draw a card, lose 1 life.

[Malhavoc]

Seems fair.

24 hour clock.

[Godder]

Closed and added.