Token producers are always nice, but that second
ability is the nuts. It's an unpreventable Lava
Axe-- or more-- to the head plus a mill effect.
Most players run out of life far sooner than
they run out of cards, but some decks do pack
life gain, and some do have ways to put cards
back in their library, so the fact that it
attacks both of the most-used win conditions at
once is kinda sweet. It's even relatively cheap,
although I'd figure it's not the kind of card
you want to drop as soon as you have the mana
for it-- especially in aggro.
Milling effects have never been to my taste, but
I know they have a lot of fans out there, and
I'm sure those fans are very happy to see the
powerful effects that have been printed
recently. The interesting thing about Lich Lord
of Unx is that he helps two different
strategies, meaning that he's not locked into a
milling deck, or alternatively that he gives you
a plan B. An interesting card sure to see casual
play.
-Balding
for just over 5 years
-Playing MTG for just over 10
Lich Lord of Unx
The token generation is inefficient compared to
others out there like Imperious Perfect and
Bitterblossom. If you play this early and not
make the tokens then it's just waste of a turn
playing this out. If you play this early and
make tokens you're wasting your early turns
making trash creatures. Playing this late just
doesn't have a huge effect on the board. The
mill effect is never going to be relevant as if
you have enough zombies to make it significant
you should win without this anyway.
In limited, the tokens are very relevant and the
secondary effect can easily kill the opponent.
Very powerful here.
In casual, someone is going to try and play this
with A LOT of zombies, and it's certainly
feasible if the opponent is also trying out
their own johhny combo.
In multiplayer, I don't see any difference than
in constructed. Too bad the second ability
targets a player.
Constructed:
Not as great a Oona. But for Block or when the
sets change in the fall this card could be a
breakout card. It is small for its size and it
does not fly, but start pumping out zombies each
turn and the loss of life and cards is a great
bonus.
Casual & Multiplayer:
Zombies always gets some crazy card to add to
their already strong army.
Limited:
This is another great threat that can turn the
game around or win it. There are so many great
cards in Alara Reborn.
Overall a good card.
Constructed: 3
Casual: 3
Multiplayer: 3
Limited: 4
Later
Miguel
Paul
Magic The Gathering COTD: Lich Lord of Unx
Welcome back today we have an interesting zombie
wizard, Lich Lord of Unx. 3 mana for a 2/2 is a
decent body luckily that’s not all you get for
your mana. The lord has the ability to tap
paying a blue and a black mana to get you a 1/1
blue black zombie wizard token. His secondary
ability feeds of the first one allowing you to
pay two blue and two black to have target player
lose X life and have you mill his library for X
where X is equal to the number of zombies you
control. Obviously a zombie hailing from Grixis,
Lich Lord can play to Unearth and zombie decks
strengths rewarding you for tribal emphasis and
swarming with creatures. This is also the
problem, although the lord creates his own
zombie tokens its in a slow and mana intensive
way that allows opponents to play around his big
ability. The tokens being 1/1 with no form of
evasion or extra abilities narrows there
usefulness outside of zombie or mill type decks.
In constructed this guy has to contend far
superior token generators and is reliant on a
specific subset of cards in this case zombies.
Realistically you will most likely never get
more then 4 zombies on your field at once, and
then paying four mana to mill for 4 and make a
player lose 4 life is not that explosive of a
play. Constructed is full of brutal creatures
and cutthroat strategies and Lich Lord of Unx is
not nearly cutthroat enough to make an impact in
Standard, let alone the other formats. Casual
and multiplayer games on the other hand do allow
this guy to shine; traditionally casual games
are less brutal and allow for some creative
strategies. Blue and black mages that use
zombies or milling strategies have a new tool to
experiment with, possibly resulting in a legion
of undead and constantly milling a player taking
life and still being able to swing with some
zombies! In limited being able to generate
tokens is a nice perk, this guy draws removal
away from other creatures you plan on playing
and this guy could slowly mill your opponent due
to limited’s smaller deck size. Tune in tomorrow
for a card I feel can help punish a particular
standard deck archetype as well as just being a
sick sick possibly format warping card. That
also happens to be a zombie wizard!
