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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day
Daily Since November 2001!


Image from Wizards.com

Lich Lord of Unx
Alara Reborn

Reviewed May 13, 2009

Constructed: 2.00
Casual: 3.15
Limited: 3.50
Multiplayer: 2.80

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Lich Lord of Unx

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.

Constructed- 2
Casual- 4
Multiplayer- 4
Limited- 3.5

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Lich Lord of Unx

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.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 2/5
The Missing Linc

-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: 1.5/5
Casual:2.5/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 1.5/5
Miguel

Lich Lord of Unx

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!

Constructed- 1.0
Casual- 3.0
Limited- 2.0
Multiplayer- 3.0

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