Lich's Mirror Deck Ideas

[Isabelle]

Hey all!

Was browsing some cards last night when I came across this thing Lich's Mirror. I am intrigued, and want to theory craft a deck whose goal is eternal life.

The thing that struck me as a way to get value out of this card is to blink it (and your board) when the trigger goes off so that you still have a board state after resetting everything else. To that end I think I want to run Sydri, Galvanic Genius as it is much easier to blink creatures than it is to blink artifacts.

Sydri is also in good colors for other shenanigans such as casting Fractured Identity on your own Mirror. Because your opponents do not own the tokens the copies will not shuffle into their decks on the death trigger effectively making them live forever. Is it a good way to win a game of commander? Probably not. Is it pretty funny? I think so.

Also rules question - how would the Mirror interact with Teferi's Protection? I'm inclined to say that the phased cards would not shuffle in because "they are treated as if they don't exist." I'm not entirely sure though.

Anyway, just wanted to see what other people thought about this card/idea - or if you have any other funny/fun interactions for it.

[DirkGently]

It's not a trigger, it's a replacement effect. It doesn't use the stack, it just replaces losing with something else. If lich's mirror isn't on the board when you lose, then you lose. If it is on the board, then the shuffle happens and you can't respond to it.

when an opponent creates a token, even from your card, they own the token (this wasn't always the case but it is now) You'd need to create it yourself, then donate it to them. If you do this, though, you can make infinite loops where, if they die to infect or commander damage (or having their deck exiled), they'll keep dying over and over, and no one can stop it, and the game is a draw.

of course teferi's protection doesn't really help since (1) it'd be tough to die while protection's effect is active anyway, and (2) if you do lose the game while mirror is phased out, you'll lose since mirror isn't in play.

So...yeah. Good luck trying to make it work as anything other than a silly meme with the infinite-death-draw-game strategy.

EDIT: maybe you could try stealing a bunch of things, so that when you come back to life you'd still have those things since you control them but you don't own them. But you could only use stuff like blatant thievery, not control magic, since the control magic would get shuffled in and you'd lose control of the creature.

[Isabelle]

Alright well blink plan out the window... and also token copies lmao

My other idea was to create an "infinite doomsday" situation where you only own 7 cards total - the rest are in exile - and you get the Lich's mirror out every turn. Of course this strategy gets worse the more opponents you have, as you need to be able to survive with no board-state and only 20 life until your next turn... and you can't really win cause you only have 7 cards and they are all dedicated to get Lich's Mirror on the battlefield every turn. Yea ok I think this is too much meme...

Thank you for filling me in on the rules before I spent money lmao.

EDIT: Response to the steal idea. That does seem like the best way to make this workable. Perhaps Aminatou, the Fateshifter enchantress with Aura Thief Enchanted Evening combo lmao. But at that point I feel like the mirror becomes win-more.

[darrenhabib]

I mean we already know that it's too many hoops to jump through to be any good, but I do love a complex puzzle and I've always wanted to make a deck based around Lich's Mirror, but never thought about how to actually accomplish it.

You really want mana sources left in play. I agree on "creatures are easier to blink". I think some way of making lands creatures might be the trick.

Flicker/blink cards include Ghostway and Eerie Interlude.

Ways to make lands creatures in Esper include Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper. You can also use Kormus Bell + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
You can use Awaken mechanic cards, but they tend to be expensive.

If you went into green you have Living Plane, Life // Death, Jolrael, Empress of Beasts, Natural Affinity, Nature's Revolt, Rude Awakening, Sylvan Awakening.

Also phasing is a way to protect elements of your board.
Shimmer, Taniwha.
Time and Tide, Teferi's Veil.

The "Parallax " cards are great as well Parallax Nexus, Parallax Tide, Parallax Wave.

You want to be "losing the game" on your own terms as well. Esper options include; Pact of Negation, Slaughter Pact, Demonic Pact, Lich's Mastery, Nefarious Lich, Transcendence,
Really good ones are the extra turn ones in red however with Final Fortune, Warrior's Oath, Last Chance.

I'd say Necropotence would be one way to keep losing the game.

Stunning Reversal is another lose draw 7 effect.

[Isabelle]

Thank you for the Feedback!

There is a lot more here than I would have expected. Was thinking the "Parallax" enchantments would be good - especially tide.

This deck originally started out as (a separate, also dumb, meme deck) an idea for a deck revolving around turning things into other things with stuff like StarField of Nyx and March of the Machines and of course, Sydri. I may pivot back in that direction as Mirror seems even less playable than I initially thought haha.

[Sinis]

I think the problem is that the 'juice' is only a draw 7 (and set your life to 20), and everything else is drawback. There are probably easier ways to draw 7 cards.

That said, the best use I know of for it is to break the symmetry of 'everyone loses' sorts of effects. If you Earthquake for 50, you don't lose, but everyone else will.

[tstorm823]

And here I was actually going to suggest Fractured Identity, to play with Crafty Cutpurse, and then spend 15 minutes arguing about token ownership because the rules were changed very, very slightly very recently in such a way that those interact the way you would want them to, where you'd get a Mirror that you don't own for each opponent.

[Dunharrow]

Unless you are running effects that will actively kill you, it seems weird to build around this card.... like, you can Ghostway your board before losing the game so that you have a board when you reset, but you will still be behind your opponents who just killed you.

[Sinis]

Unless you are running effects that will actively kill you, it seems weird to build around this card....

Even then, it's hard to retain the things you would have accrued by losing the game; like, if you're using it as an out for something like Demonic Pact you won't get to keep much from it.

[CTNC]

If you just want someone to be immortal from Lich's Mirror then you can play Zedruu The Greathearted and Donate it.

Something very important to note is Lich's Mirror says "all permanents" not "all nonland permanents" so if you die you lose all your lands. If you go the theft approach, I have to recommend Sen Triplets because they let you play lands from other players hands. (Oh, and I guess being the queens of theft helps too) There aren't many ways to get opponent's lands and the ones that let you either exchange control like Vedalken Plotter or are expensive "gain control of target permanent" effects like Agent of Treachery.

[Isabelle]

Unless you are running effects that will actively kill you, it seems weird to build around this card.... like, you can Ghostway your board before losing the game so that you have a board when you reset, but you will still be behind your opponents who just killed you.

Yeah the initial idea was to build a Lich's Mirror lock deck which aimed towards getting the mirror back on the battlefield every time you "died." Initially i thought you could blink it but as someone pointed out further up the thread it's a replacement effect - not a triggered ability, so if you blink it you'll just die. Another idea I had was to build a doomsday-esc deck which focused on getting the Mirror out of your deck and on to the battlefield the first turn possible after each death. This would probably involve exiling a large amount of your library with effects such as Selective Memory, or by dumping a large amount of our library into our graveyard and exiling it through various means such as Taigam, Sidisi's Hand. In the end it's too many hoops to jump through for a meme that might be funny once.

I do kinda want to build a "do-it-yourself Doomsday" deck with Taigam at the head. Probably not very good, but I really want an excuse to run Inverter of Truth and that's basically the only shell I can think of that would benefit from it's triggered ability.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Yeah, it always reminded me of Fog. What I mean is, in the early days of Magic, all Fog did was prolong the inevitable. You had to either get a fog machine (e.g., Dawnstrider, Spike Weaver, Constant Mists) or get a "fog plus" card like Tangle or a the selective fogs like Snag.

The problem is, it prolongs the inevitable, and resets your entire board state.