Welp, I loved the new card, Lich's Mastery from Dominaria, so much, that I wanted to find a way to break it. And I did. I'm sure someone else has found this combo too by now, but the deck revolves around two cards, Lich's Mastery and Immortal Coil. How it works is that with Lich's Mastery out, you can't lose the game, and you must exile cards you control or from your hand and graveyard whenever you lose life, until Lich's Mastery would be the last permanent you control and you must exile it to lose the game. With Immortal Coil in play, however, it forms a near perfect combo, since Immortal Coil prevents damage that would be dealt to you and therefor prevents the majority of your life loss. With the Coil by itself, you would lose the game once your graveyard is empty, so it's normally a difficult card to play around, but with Lich's Mastery on the field, it prevents you from losing the game if the graveyard is empty.
In short Lich's Mastery prevents you from losing the game by having you exile your cards, while Immortal Coil helps prevent the damage dealt to you that would force you to exile them, and in turn Lich's Mastery also prevents you from losing the game due to an empty graveyard. Excellent synergy that's almost a perfect win condition.
Now let's break down the deck I built around.
The problem with the combo is that it's a late game win. Which means to achieve it, you need to have control of the game up until that point, whether it's through board state or hand control. This can be difficult in MB, or any mono colored deck for that matter, so let's see what I pulled together.
EARLY GAME/CONTROL SPELLS:
For control, I wanted to focus on cards that forced discard, kills spells, and repeatable lifegain.
Thoughtseize is the staple control card in black, allowing us to hit any nonland card in our opponent's hand that we deem a threat.
Collective Brutality my personal favorite black control card, versatile in that it hits many early game creatures, helps us pick out more threats from the opponent's hand, and control life totals. Helps to manage your game the whole way through.
Pithing Needle this may be the most questionable mainboard card in the deck, but I have it here to combat certain threats to our board state, such as Liliana of the Veil or Jace, the Mind Sculptor among the many creatures that could possibly hurt our strategy with activated abilities. It's not perfect, but it does it's job well. And is easy to cast.
Erebos's Whip I like this card, a lot. Giving all your creatures lifelink can greatly enhance your survivability through midgame, and the ability to bring back one of your fatties from the graveyard is an added bonus.
Elixir of Immortality I've heard from a lot of people never to run pure lifegain, but this card is too lovely to pass up, and synergizes so well with the deck that I put it as a four-of.
MIDRANGE/CREATURES:
Now even if I pull off my combo, it won't necessarily win us the game, and it can be countered, which leads me to the real bread and butter of the deck, creatures. I based my creature selection around three ideas; survivability, utility, and power.
Gatekeeper of Malakir (Utility) While not an overwhelming creature to play, I like Gatekeeper because it can be cast in multiple modes and helps us manage the board while we work toward our main combo. First mode is a simple 2/2 bear that can get us hitting early if we're lucky. Second mode is a third turn creature kill, that while not targeted, can still serve as a nice management tool, and still hit as its own creature.
Geralf's Messenger (Survivability/Utility/Power) If Thoughtseize is the noncreature staple of black, Geralf's Messenger is the creature equivalent for MB. A true powerhouse for monoblack, this guy is the personification of what black is all about in a nice turn three play. He comes down and immediately shocks the opponent, then beats almost every kill spell to shock again and comes back even stronger. He's a real menace and has is essential to every single MB deck I build. As a bonus, he combos well with several other cards in this deck, to make him even more worthy.
Phylactery Lich (Survivability/Power) While not a very popular or much-used card, I think PL is an excellent card for this deck that fits well into the theme. He doesn't have many keyword abilities or utility, but being able to survive the brunt of popular kill spells in Modern is a strong advantage, and he combos well with other cards in this deck. On top of that, he's a hard hitter, beating face as early as T4 or shrugging off beefy Tarmogoyfs.
Disciple of Bolas (Utility) As little as I see this card used, it stands as one of my favorite black cards because it has such a good effect the moment it comes into play and synergizes well with so many cards. Unless it's countered, the moment it comes into play you have to potential for some life and card advantage, which can help prolong the game in just the right ways.
Erebos, God of the Dead (Survivability/Power/Utility) Ah Erebos, I love you so much.... MARRY ME. cough This guy has it all, and fits perfectly in a deck with a focus on devotion. At full devotion, he serves as a meaty face-beater, and at any stage he gives us the card advantage we need to edge out the game in our favor. The life loss doesn't sit so well with our Lich's Mastery but since we're going to have that out late game anyway, odds are you won't have to worry about exiling a couple useless cards to refill our hand with stuff we need. His ability to nerf opponent healing is just the icing on the cake, making it that much harder for our opponent to overcome the sheer force of our strong creature attacks.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel (Utility/Power) I strongly feel like MB Devotion, wouldn't be Devotion without this guy involved, he's the bread and butter, daisy cutter of the deck, coming in mid to late game and hitting your opponent's life total hard and fast. Who cares about 2/4 PT when you can life drain for 7 with a Geralf's Messenger and Gatekeeper of Malakir on the board, or potentially more late game. Not only that, he combos perfectly with Lich's Mastery Giving us superior card advantage.
Gifted Aetherborn Basically a Vampire Nighthawk without flying that comes out a turn earlier, what's not to love?
THE BADLANDS:
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth You know, that one land that should be in every black deck ever. It literally fixes any mana you need for this deck. Playing without is just silly.
Darksteel Citadel This card is in this deck for one, and only one, very good reason. Playing a Phylactery Lich and putting its Phylactery counter on this puppy will ensure he never has to worry about a destroy spell EVER. Combo Gold
Bojuka Bog This is a card I like to mainboard, simply because it hits many different opponent strategies while being virtually unobtrusive to my own. It's a nice touch that can help curb a stalemate in a pinch against certain decks.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx Welcome to Devotionland! This card is simply here to make casting all your spells that much easier. Nothing too crazy or broken, but it fits, the deck, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth makes it easier to fit in your mana base.
Swamp Duh :)
COMBOS:
Immortal Coil + Lich's Mastery
The mainstay combo of the deck that you want to work toward. And they even fit together thematically, as if the Immortal Coil is our Phylactery ;)
Darksteel Citadel + Phylactery Lich
Some nice synergy between these two cards. Phylactery Lich becomes virtually, permanently indestructible. The only thing you have to worry about is exile or bounce. Both of which are limited in Modern.
Elixir of Immortality + Phylactery Lich
At first glance this seems bad, because by activating the Elixir, not only do you lose the Lich, but neither does the Lich get shuffled into the library. However, I think these two combo well, because you can use the Elixir of Immortality in response to a Path to Exile or Anguished Unmaking it's not perfect, but I prefer to send the Lich to the graveyard rather then exile, so I can shuffle it back in later with another Elixir if need be.
Elixir of Immortality + Lich's Mastery
If you crack the Elixir with the Mastery out, you get 5 life plus 5 cards, and on top of that, because it's shuffled back into the library, you can do it again later, especially when you're running 4 elixirs. Awesome card advantage.
Disciple of Bolas + Geralf's Messenger + Lich's Mastery
Disciple of Bolas is already good on her own, and even better when you use her to crack a Geralf's Messenger for his undying trigger. That's 3 Life, 3 Cards, a Shock, and a 4/3 and 2/1 body in one swoop. With the Mastery out, the combo gets even sweeter, and you net yourself an addition 3 cards from the lifegain for a total of 6. That's some value.
Elixir of Immortality + Immortal Coil + Lich's Mastery
You already know the main combo, but that combo also enables you to use your Elixir with reckless abandon. This isn't so much a combo as a pro to using the combo, because normally running the Elixir and Coil side-by-side would be disastrous.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel + Lich's Mastery
The Merchant already hits hard enough when you play him at the right time, but adding the Mastery to the equation increases his value even more, allowing you to draw cards for however much life you gain from his ETB. Super cool!
NOTES:
I haven't played this deck in a tournament yet, mostly because I don't have half the cards, for it, so if in the slim chance someone decides to roll with this jank, feel free to let me know how it goes :) Thanks for looking!
