Phylactery Lich

Creature — Zombie

Indestructible

As Phylactery Lich enters the battlefield, put a phylactery counter on an artifact you control.

When you control no permanents with phylactery counters on them, sacrifice Phylactery Lich.

Combos

• Darksteel Axe + Phylactery Lich

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

DreadKhan on Phylactery lich: a Rule 0 …

1 year ago

I had a lot of fun using Phylactery Lich in my Artifacts deck, there are some pretty good black Artifact synergies like Syndicate Trafficker and Cranial Plating (especially worn by Vault Skirge or another Lifelinker) that worked fine in casual play. I also used Throne of Empires, Crown of Empires, and Scepter of Empires, which felt like a fun thing to be doing on the side that involved artifacts. They are small for a Commander effect requiring 3 cards, but you can use untap effects to an extent. You can also throw in tutors, there are even Transmute cards for those MVs in Black. I felt like the deck had a nice Vorthos thing going on, the Lich was hiring the Trafficker to find the Empires pieces so it could take over the world kinda thing. I liked to use artifact lands to make my Phylactery, but it was a huge non-bo that Darksteel Citadel didn't make Black, and in mono-Black you lose access to the Indestructible duals, a bit unfortunate your Lich isn't in Grixis or something.

SilencedDax on Phylactery lich: a Rule 0 …

1 year ago

Hiiiiiii!!

I bring you the title's idea 'cause I talked with my playgroup to see if they would be fine with Phylactery Lich as a commander.

The advice I ask for is: What would you think it would be a great topic for this deck?

I have some ideas that I would like to shere with you:

• A lot of Black pips theme {B}{B}{B}{B}{B}{B}{B}{B}{B}{B}, try to find a cohesive deck between cards with a lot of them, at least {B}{B} and more, like Phyrexian Obliterator, Necropotence and so on... and then Gray Merchant of Asphodel

• Creature cards that have a special bond with an artifact, enchantment, creature or whatever to keep the Phylactery theme. This seems the most difficult to find!!!

• Cards that destroy everything except the Phylactery Lich and it's totem, to remark the flavour that it is no easy to kill.

• Some zombie synergies with our commander would be great, with out be a zombie deck, like Lord of the Undead or Call to the Grave.

• permanents that start as artifacts and then flip, thanks to ruusuv, like Treasure Map  ^Flip, Mirror of the Forebears, or Mirage Mirror

• I dont want a Lich theme deck aroud the 3 Lich enchantments, even though it'd be really flavorfull, it's not the kind of game I enjoy the most. But some lich cards 'd be great like Lich's Mirror, Lich's Tomb and some lich creatures. And some card that do what liches does, like Drain Life, or Consume Spirit.

• I try to avoid Exsanguinate and Torment of Hailfire 'cause I seen them many times, as well as any open enden black tutor.

What do you think? any other idea or card?

I'll do a public deck with this ideas and the ideas you give me so it could be a deck made by everyone!

Thank you!

All the ideas that we have share until now:

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/phylactery-lich-on-command/?cb=1676304818

TheVectornaut on Black Green (?)

3 years ago

It looks like your main goal is to stick a creature and then buff it as much as possible with +1/+1 counters. To improve the strength and consistency of the deck, I recommend cutting anything that isn't working towards that end (unless it's very efficient.) I'd identify those cards as Druid's Deliverance, Sundering Growth, Bountiful Harvest, Bump in the Night, Lair Delve, Blood Reckoning, Tablet of the Guilds, Primal Clay, Trestle Troll, and maybe Phylactery Lich (depending on how many artifacts you end up running in the end.) I'd also suggest swapping out Intimidation to stay modern legal, possibly with something like Bellowing Tanglewurm if you really really want the evasion. Your strongest cards that I'd want additional copies of are Abrupt Decay (budget permitting), Ring of Xathrid, Undying Evil, Slitherhead, and Death's Presence (assuming your meta is slow enough to run it.) It also looks like Tormented Soul is a critical piece that benefits the most from growing big, so having redundancy for it seems like a good idea. Changeling Outcast, Gingerbrute, and Silhana Ledgewalker could all be fine targets. For +1/+1 synergy, you have scavenge staples like Varolz, the Scar-Striped, Corpsejack Menace, and Lotleth Troll along with more general options like Polukranos, Unchained, Winding Constrictor, Hardened Scales, Hydra's Growth, Rishkar, Peema Renegade, Scavenging Ooze (which is particularly good in a sideboard), Drana, Liberator of Malakir, Hunger of the Howlpack, Forced Adaptation, and Llanowar Reborn. Finally, some cards I've had success with in graveyard-focused decks include Tragic Slip, Satyr Wayfinder, Grisly Salvage, Splinterfright, and Fauna Shaman. Let me know if you have any questions and good luck with your build!

FounderX on Living Dead Girl

4 years ago

Hi there! +1, Zombies ftw!! As a Ghoulcaller Gisa player myself, I found that I was always short to make a lot of zombies because the creatures I sacrificed had too little power. I play The lord package, but to sacrifice the lords is of course a shame. You need beefy creatures to go wide. I implemented a few extra tools to beef up my zombies in total. A few suggestions;

Stoneforge Masterwork and/or Junkyo Bell, both cards have the effect of Coat of Arms, put it on a token, attack into one of your opponents then sacrifice it to Gisa.

Rotting Regisaur,Waning Wurm,Phylactery Lich,Soulless One,Vindictive Lich all zombies, high power, cheap cast, great fodder.

Phyrexian Reclamation is a must in this deck, there is nothing more fun then Gempalm Polluter three times in a row, you got plenty mana makers in your deck already to do that.

Non-zombie cards:

Ayara, First of Locthwain: Drain/Gain and card draw and more devotion for Gray Merchant of Asphodel. The 2/2 Zombie Tokens made by Gisa are black. Sacrificing a 10/10 token, will make 10 new zombies and 10 Ayara triggers.

Check out my deck 1-800-CALL-Ghoulcaller Gisa

shadow63 on How would you build Rakdos …

4 years ago

Artifact sac and recursion. I'd build it similarly to a daretti deck. And I'd finally have a home for Phylactery Lich

Tzefick on Velos, Traitor to Artifice

4 years ago

My last reply was made in a bit of a hurry, so I completely forgot to mention it's an interesting design and it would be cool with an artifact themed Commander. Like TypicalTimmy also points to, I like the functional part of himself creating a target for him to plant a phylactery into (the object the lich binds their soul to, to achieve immortality). It's a neat little packaged deal. In many fictional works, destroying the phylactery destroys the lich as it acts as the lich's actual mortal body (like seen on Phylactery Lich), so this is actually an even better lich - I like it.

If I were to suggest something for the lich style you want; I would still ditch the deathtouch + indestructible combo by removing the natural deathtouch, again just because it's a nasty combination that doesn't really take anything to achieve. I assume you still want the creature to be immortal so indestructible from having the phylactery cannot be the keyword to go.

From an interaction perspective I would not have the phylactery grant him hexproof too. That's just way too many defensive measures and a lack of interaction makes for an annoying/unpleasant experience. That's especially true for a Commander which can come back again and again.

I'm not sure what role you want the Construct to fulfill. Are you supposed to lean into it, make it big and use it as a giant beater? Are you supposed to just use it as an artifact for other purposes like sacrifice it or use it with Velos' ability? Is it somewhere in between? Right now I feel like you'll never want to make the Construct more than a 1/1 artifact you use to sacrifice or tap for the ability because of how costly it is for just a token. I wouldn't really do much to improve the quality of the token by granting it keywords but you could make the cost of making it bigger, less exhausting to pay.

A little flavorwise bewilderment; why is he a traitor to artifice? It looks like he creates artifacts and use them to keep himself alive while zapping others for life. He could be a traitor to whomever trained him or whatever organization he served.

Here's my take on your lich Show

Velos, Traitor to Artifice

Legendary Creature - Zombie Artificer

When you cast Velos, pay X life, where X is equal to or less than the amount of permanents you control. Create an X/X colorless Construct artifact creature token.

When Velos enters the battlefield, choose target artifact you control. Velos has indestructible as long as that artifact remains on the battlefield.

Tap two untapped artifacts you control: Draw a card, each opponent loses 1 life, you gain 1 life.

4/1

---

I feel like paying mana for the token is not particularly rewarding, so I would suggest to only have the life payment. I think the X/X token is to prefer over a flat payment and flat statline token. However as you said, there's the troubles in Commander that players will just pay an absurd amount of life for a really big creature and either use it to whack faces or abuse it with say Disciple of Bolas. There needs to be a limit put on it. I thought to put the limit equal to your permanent count as that makes a more natural hard-cap on how large you can make it at certain points in the game. This hard-cap makes it pretty lackluster later in the game after a board wipe, but that's just how the cookie crumbles. If you find a better limit feel free to use that instead.

As for the immortality and lich aspect I made the statline way better but also fixed. This means you can keep some of the smaller creatures from attacking you but larger ones shall not be afraid to attack into an indestructible deathtoucher. The higher power also means you can actually use him offensively, taking full advantage of his immortality. It opens you up for being attacked but that's the trade-off. As it was with a 1/1 indestructible deathtouch, there was no motivation whatsoever for ever having Velos on the offense.

I kept his toughness on 1 mainly for eternal formats, as I figure a 3 CMC 4/2+ indestructible with a 3+/3+ artifact companion would be a bit much for constructed. Since there's no hexproof you can still deal with Velos in those formats with any amount of -X/-X (Dismember or even Fume Spitter) or exile effects. But for Commander, the artifact companion is more cute as an early play and the 4/1 can be chump blocked or you can afford to take the hit in the face a total of 5 times before Commander damage becomes a problem. In addition he's a 3 CMC Commander, so you can afford (and actually want?) to cast him a few times during a match.

The activated ability is lowered to tapping 2 artifacts from 3, as most artifacts you want to cast for anything other than specifically tapping this way, would mostly be mana rocks or other artifacts with a better tap ability. Tapping 3 artifacts for a draw plus a lifeswing of 2 between you and each individual opponent, seems inefficient without relying on token artifact generators. If you happen to be able to make a ton of artifact tokens I think it's fair that you're rewarded with Velos, same as you are with Urza, Lord High Artificer.

abby315 on Abzan Artifacts

4 years ago

This is an interesting idea and I love how aggressive it can be! I do have a few suggestions:

I think Feasting Troll King is just not good enough. It's not aggressive, so it doesn't match with your Phylactery Lich or Herald of Anguish starts, and it also doesn't give you long-term value like Tireless Tracker or Karn. It's just kind of a big dude.

I feel strongly that, instead, Herald of Anguish is a great end-game beater since it comes with card "advantage" and other good effects, and can come down much earlier than the King or can be part of a double-spell turn 4 or 5.

I'd suggest cutting the Troll Kings and just running four Herald. That would make you an aggressive midrange deck with the ability to be flexible and remove early threats, more like modern Rock.

If you do so, I think you'll want more early artifact plays. You're especially lacking two-drops. I'd suggest cutting Weirding Wood - now, you'll be ramping with artifacts instead - and adding Scrapheap Scrounger or Stonecoil Serpent.

Finally, I'm not sure about Gods Willing and Anguished Unmaking. Pioneer is really aggressive; around 30% of the meta is RDW and White Weenies, and another big chunk is the Inverter combo. Neither of those cards are good in those matchups. I'd strongly recommend running mainboard Thoughtseize or, if you can't afford those, Duress. For the other two slots, I'd recommend a painless removal spell, like Fatal Push.

For the sideboard, I think you'll want some anti-ETB cards for Inverter and Gyruda decks, like Tocatli Honor Guard, and also some early sweepers for the aggro decks, like Cry of the Carnarium.

I hope this helps and good luck!!

5dollarMTG on 5dollarMTG

4 years ago

This week's new deck is $5 Darksteel Lich - a mono-black deck built around Phylactery Lich and indestructible artifacts.