Phylactery

[dandan]

From a number of ideas in the Arclich thread

Phylactery
BBB
Enchantment
~This~ cannot be destroyed by non-White spells or effects.
Sacrifice a wizard. If you do ~this~ gains
{B} Reveal an Black Instant or Sorcery in your hand: Put a copy of that spell on the stack. If there is an X in the casting cost, X is 2.

The idea is simple, you transform a puny Wizard into a Lich. This Wizard is immune to any form of removal but the Phylactery is not. The Lich is weak physically and will not do the work of a foot soldier but can cast powerful Magic. I made it Black magic partly to avoid Time Walk nonsense and partly to avoid wimpy White spells (since when did Liches cast Healing Salve or Holy Light?)

Note that Blue can bounce this just fine.

Note that as worded (I'm sure it could be tidied up, but I hope the intent is clear), you can make a Phylactery first and cast your Wizards later.

The X is 2 because 4 mana makes a 2 point Drain Life. What sort of wimpy Lich would cast stuff at X=0. I think it is worthwhile to have this clause so that stuff like Drain Life, Skeletal Scrying, Death Cloud, etc have some bite.

Latest version
Phylactery
3
Artifact
Imprint -- When Phylactery comes into play, you may remove a Wizard you control from the game.
2B : You may play an activated ability of the imprinted card without paying any costs for it.

'mana costs' changed to 'costs' for obvious reasons

[Ephraim]

It doesn't seem as though you're transforming the wizard into a Lich. It seems as though you're transforming the wizard into an instant or sorcery. Furthermore, I have to protest that this feels like it was derived from my suggestion for Nev (2BB to cast any spell from your hand) that I have now take back and turned into a card of my own.

[Jacques]

Barring Ephraim's suggestions for a bit, the flavor isn't exactly clear.  At least not to me.  I didn't understand that the wizard was turning into a lich, and I wasn't sure if the card gained the ability permanently.  Maybe if you could pay some cost to imprint a creature you control and then, so long as the imprinted creature was a wizard, you coud use the card's ability.  That is assuming that using a block specific mechanic would be ok.

[Matt]

Phylactery

Artifact
Imprint -- When Phylactery comes into play, you may remove a Wizard you control from the game.
: You may play an activated ability of the imprinted card without paying any mana costs for it.

That would be cool. You should probably still have to pay other costs, like sacrificing a creature. Are there any abilities that would be too strong with this? Something like "4UU: take another turn" or something.

[Jacques]

One problem might be Supreme Inquisitor.  You imprint that and the card reads "3: tear up your opponent's deck".  More accurately though, "3: Search target player’s library for up to five cards and remove them from the game. Then that player shuffles his or her library."  But whatever.  Others with notable effects:  Arcanis (draw three), Barrin (bounce a creature), Daring Apprentice or Ertai (counter target spell), Ovinomancer (turn a creature into a 0/1), Temporal Adept (bounce a permanent), and Uyo (fork).

You could also do stupid things by changing creature types, but that's just the Johnny in me talking.  Turning your Myojins into wizards and repeatedly getting stupid effects.  But like I said, just the Johnny in me.

After looking through the wizards with interesting abilities, I really really like this card.  There are so many awesome casual things that could be done, but so very few things that would be good in any "real" format.  I guess the real question is are there enough wizards in our set to make this decent in block.  So are there?

[dandan]

I like Matt's idea here as the power of the Lich is related to the power of the Wizard. As far as problems with Wizards, remember that they have to be cast first, stay alive and then the Phylactery has to hang around too. Seeing as this is 2 cards before you do anything at all and Isochron Sceptre is cheaper and also has some pretty strong tricks (Abeyance, Orim's Chant or Fire/Ice anyone?) but has not proven to be abusive, I think we don't need to worry about a more expensive and more frail version.

The only problem is that is not very Black (the main reason I suggested an Enchantment rather than an Artifact). Making it an Enchantment also means that Black's traditional enemies are best at fighting it (Enchantment destruction) whereas Red is the bane of Artifacts. Also Artifacts are more prone to destruction than Enchantments and it shouldn't be too easy to get at a lich's Phylactery. The magical nature of an Enchantment also emphasises the Phylactery is more about a permanent spell than a little box.

[dandan]

Bump and start the clock. I added a Black mana to Matt's idea to make this artifact 'blacker'.

[Anusien]

This is not a combo with Supreme Inquisitor, unless you meant to say, 2B : You may play an activated ability of the imprinted card without paying any costs for it.   All the cool abilities you want to play are mostly nonmana costs.

[Matt]

That reminds me, it should also let you avoid tap costs, or else this is way too limited. :shock:

[BurningIce]

I really liked the white spells only destroying clause... I think that really fits in with the flavor of a paladin destroying the lich's phylactory with his holy sword.

[Marco]

Is this going to be associated with Nevinyrral, Archlich in any way? Or are we going to have two phylacteries (sp?)

[dandan]

OK, I've taken out 'mana' from 'mana costs'.

This is more a generic lich maker rather than than a Lich Lord-maker. Whether or not Nevinyrral is amused by competition is another matter.

I liked the White clause but the card is already as 'busy' as it should be. I'd rather not have another Ice Cauldron!!

[Matt]

Well now it's MUCH more powerful, because you don't have to pay sacrifice costs. Can we say "without paying mana and tapping costs"? I have no idea if that makes Patron Wizard's ability usable or not.

[Jacques]

Patron Wizard is tap a wizard: force spike.  Imprinting him would be pretty bad all things considered.

[Matt]

I just meant that the phrase "tap cost" may or may not include abilities with costs like that of Patron Wizard. I don't really want to say "Abilties with in their cost may be played as though they didn't have in their cost," which 100% works rules-wise but is logn and incredibly ugly.

[BurningIce]

Remove Arcanis, the Omnipotent for the game.  Phylactery reads:
2B: Draw 3 cards.

Remove Coffin Queen from the game.
Phylactery reads: 2B: Animate target creature.

I don't know... without the tapping, this seems rather good.

[Matt]

So...you got an Arcanis into play, and that wasn't enough for you?

The reason you need to take the off is that  if you imprint say a Kris Mage, you don't have to pay the but you still need to pay the - except there is no Kris Mage in play to tap, and therefore you cannot pay all the costs of its ability. Unless we address the cost thing, this will be utterly useless with like 50% or more of all Wizards.

The problem is that the only clean way to do it is to ignore all costs whatsoever, which is dangerous.

[Jacob Orlove]

Since it removes in-play Wizards, I'm not really worried. If you really want to prevent abuse, make the phylactery tap to use the ability (in addition to the 2B).

[Matt]

But then, what's the point of even using it? Unleashing the power of a wizard is kind of the point. I guess I'm on the "free ability" side now.

[dandan]

It is powerful but a Patron Wizard Lich SHOULD be powerful. Think about it -

Cast Patron Wizard - have 1 (or more) Force Spike (uncounterable) ready. Instead you can attack for 2 if needs be.

Cast Patron Wizard and Phylactery - nothing

Cast Patron Wizard and Phylactery and have 2B ready - For 2B you can counter any spell that turn. For 4BB you are immune to non-Instant spells (your turn and theirs) assuming of course that you successfully managed to keep a creature alive and then keep an artifact in play before you even get a chance to activate it.

Phylactery Patron Wizard is a 2 card combo that doesn't directly win you the game and requires you to have UUU and B available and 5UUUB if you fancy using it in one turn. Compare to Sceptre+Abeyance/Chant/Ice.

Basically if you can't do sick things with a virtually indestructible undead wizard, there isn't much point.

[Matt]

OKay, but now check to be sure that this truly worse than ScepChant and doesnt turn into, say, IllusionsDonate.

[BurningIce]

So...you got an Arcanis into play, and that wasn't enough for you?

Arcanis is Legendary though.  While this isn't.  Just by itself, that makes it better, since your opponent can't play one to destroy yours.

[Shadow-Walker]

And playing what is essentially a 6 mana sorcery to kill your arcanis is harder than oxidize how?

[LordHomerCat]

Getting arcanis into play and keeping him there is nigh-impossible as is, and should have a heck of a reward (like, draw 3 cards).  Even if you do cast your 6 mana legend, and then your 4 mana artifact, while keeping the legend in play, I think you deserve to be able to draw 3 cards for 2B.  The chances that they can't deal with this card before it does something insane are pretty low, and if they can't deal with it, they almost certainly couldn't deal with Arcanis either, so it hardly makes much of a difference.  This seems fine to me, its soooo expensive to get it working, and also requires you to get some wizard into play and protect it, only to RFG it as soon as you can for some rather hefty card disadvantage (especially if they oxidize this before you use it).  With Patron Wizard, it lets you pay 2B to force spike... which is absolutely terrible, as force spike normally only costs 1.  The wizard lord is rather powerful with this, but hes terrible on his own, and thats a heck of difficult combo to pull off to get this + wizard lord going (he can't even protect himself like Arcanis, given you have 10 mana when you cast Arcanis, that is).  Its so much more powerful with like Kai than patron, as it then gives you a 2B counterspell, reusable infinitely.  I still think this shouldn't require you to pay any costs, unless someone can come up with some wizard that will break this in half if costs are free.

[Matt]

Ooh, this is nasty with Kai. Good find!

[dandan]

OKay, but now check to be sure that this truly worse than ScepChant and doesnt turn into, say, IllusionsDonate.

Broken Combo check

Number of cards = 2 = standard combo
Number of colours = 2 = suboptimal but possible
Mana requirements = UU, 3, 2B = likely to be over several turns - almost certainly turn 4 or later in any format where this combo might be considered = very slow for a combo
Effect of combo = Ability to pay 2B for a reusable counterspell. No effect on board state (your head continues to get pummelled by opponents creatures)
Effectiveness of individual combo elements - Kai has little to no effect if he needs to be preserved for lichdom, Phylactery is as much good as a chocolate teapot on its own (barring Affinity Lich decks)
Effective disruption - creature kill, artifact kill, player kill (slow combo), land kill, counterspells (Holy cows - this combo has bonus TOTAL IMMUNITY TO ENCHANTMENT KILL), decks able to play more than one spell a turn

This is a casual combo. It has oodles of flavour and makes powerful Wizards REALLY powerful. Note that not just any Wizard will do, you need a powerful Wizard and time and a leaning towards the dark side. Liches are the Vaders of Magic.

[dandan]

I'm taking the consensus that this plus Wizard might be powerful and as a combo it might win games as positive reasons to make this card. So far nobody has put forward any combo effect that is too strong for a 2 card combo.

Let's start the clock.

[Ephraim]

[card]Keeper of the Nine Gales[/card] and [card]Temporal Adept[/card] make me nervous with this because both of them can bounce lands. I am also very concerned about this card's interaction with [card]Supreme Inquisitor[/card]. Even if it does take two cards to execute, that kind of win-condition removal is very powerful.

[Godder]

Maybe, but you still have to have whatever creature in play, which makes these combos inherently unstable, since the creature can be killed while phylactery is on the stack. Additionally, you still have to pay your 2B per activation, so it takes time to get anywhere. Kai isn't the only counterspell wizard, so that may be a more promising path, or any of the card-drawing wizards, or even something like Doomed Necromancer or Coffin Queen.

[LordHomerCat]

The bounce shouldn't be a problem, as Capsize exists with buyback for only slightly more mana, and doesnt require wizards, or get affected by creature or artifact removal like this.  Kai and Arcanis seem like the strongest wizards (Doomed necro is a cleric), and even then, they are expensive, fragile 2 card combos which dont win the game.  This seems fine, and like it would be a cool casual card.