Given the Lich's high price and unimpressive
stats, he's basically an enchantment that's a
legal target for creature kill. Occasionally he
might swing on an empty board, and his 4 power
means he can trigger some of Temur's Ferocious
abilities (and he shares two colors with that
clan, so it's not too unreasonable) but really
all we're here for is the ability.
You have to pick a creature card at random, so
it's not easy to control what you're going to
get. but you exile whatever you do get, so if
you can keep this in play for long enough
without the game ending, you should eventually
get your best guy back. The fact that the
creature you get gains flying AND trample,
however, means that you really should be able to
win the game in a few activations of this,
unless you're really unlucky and had a lot of
Archers' Parapets die in the early game. You can
avoid that by simply not putting Walls in your
deck to begin with, but Walls would be quite
helpful in getting to 3GUB in the first place.
Kheru's ability looks like it should take a bit
of building around, but honestly, 2B isn't too
bad of a price to pay for a free Unearth guy.
I'd play this in Limited if I were already
Sultai, and in Casual decks all day if I had any
reasonable amount of ramp or color fixing.
So yesterday, I made an unfunny joke about Mad
Libs. Today, I'm going to refer to Shards of
Alara, which I realize was a long time ago; but
this card just invites comparison to Sedris the
Traitor King. I can't imagine anyone ever
complained that the creatures he unearths are
too easy to deal with, since he's often seen in
conjunction with things like Malfegor, Dragon
Tyrant, and Frost Titan. Still, now you have a
roughly equivalent card that also grants flying
and trample. At the risk of sounding harsh, if
you don't win the game with that, you're
probably not really trying. I understand that
not being legendary can sometimes be seen as a
disadvantage in the era of Commander, but still.
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
Kheru Lich Lord a big ole meh. For three colors
of mana and an additional three mana you get a
4/4 body with a random reanimation effect, the
good news is that it gives the creature
flying,trample, and haste all powerful abilities
the bad news is its random. The graveyard is
better used as a resource and this card reduces
that resource for a random effect. In standard
its pretty unplayable costs 6 and has no
immediate impact and even if it survives you
have to dump more mana into the ability. In
other competitive formats this card is also
quite a stinker with little to no chance to see
play. In casual and multiplayer this card is not
what I want to do with my graveyard based decks
and can really burn you if you do not get the
right creature for the job, there is a way to
minimize the random factor but its not worth
trying to build around. In limited its six mana
and a 4/4 with a somewhat relevant ability yet
still a pretty unattractive card. Overall a card
that just doesn’t seem quite good enough to
justify my playing it in most formats.
Today's card of the day is Kheru Lich Lord
which is a six mana Black, Green, and Blue 4/4
that for three mana at the beginning of your
upkeep can bring a random creature from your
graveyard into play with Flying, Trample, and
Haste then it gets exiled at the end step or
otherwise leaves play. This is a fun card
in Commander and can have a gimmick graveyard
controlling deck built around it in Casual, but
it is far too slow and easily disrupted to
manage for other formats.
In Limited this has value for throwing random
evasive targets into play, so splashing it into
a Sealed deck can be worthwhile if two of the
colors are strong anyway. In Booster this
is a playable first pick, though the lock on
colors and situational or potentially very weak
effect allows other cards to take priority.
This is surely a big, splashy creature with a
lot of potential. Sultai is great at filling
it's graveyard, and you could potentially get
some big nasty creatures back for some
devastating swings.
That said, I can't help but see some problems
here. First off, you have to have the six mana
in three colors. While that's not too big a
problem, reanimator cards usually gain their
advantage by "cheating" in bigger cards by
paying less for them to come from the graveyard.
But in the Lich Lord's case, you have to pay six
mana, then wait until your next upkeep and pay
three more before you get any advantage other
than a basic 4/4 creature. While that creature
gains some useful abilities, it's only a one
turn deal, then you have to wait a turn to do it
again. Plus, the word "random" is a real
drawback. Your deck probably needs some small
creatures to help you in the early game. There's
just as good a chance to pull out one of them
for your three mana.
Bottom line: instead of paying 6 mana once and
three every upkeep to hopefully get a big fatty,
why not just pay six mana once and get something
like Sagu Mauler (in Standard) or Simic Sky
Swallower (in Modern) that's going to be there
every turn for no additional investment and is
much harder to get rid of?
In limited, of course, it's another story. Any
way to get a 4/4 creature and reuse stuff from
your graveyard is quite useful.
