[Standard] Lich's Glorious Combo

[Mister.Ri]

Lich's Glorious Combo

Taking Turns Combo without Nexus Fate. What?!

This deck uses Chance for Glory with Lich's Mastery instead. Once Lich's Mastery is in play, our deck really shines and it is hard to lose from there. We just need to control the board and reach the late game. With boardwipes, spot removal and life gain, hopefully we get there. And Lich's Mastery normally bring us to the late game as we 'cannot' lose the game. The new surveil mechanic lets us put more cards in graveyard or hand just in case we need to exile cards with Lich's Mastery and filters to dig for cards. Good synergy there.

With the power of Mirari's Conjecture, we can return Chance for Glory to hand to cast it again. Then if we can return Fight from Fire on the second trigger, we can have lethal on the following turn when you can copy Fight from Fire. Otherwise, just grind it out for value till the late game.

In the sideboard we get 1-off bullets to get with Mastermind's Acquisition. Against control we can board in our hand disruptions and take out our removals. Against aggro we can board in Deafoning Clarion and also Lyra Dawnbringer when opponent will most probably take out all their removals.

Such a fun deck when it goes off. Give this 5-color deck a try!

[Finnish Flash]

I like the combo, but I think you could build the deck around  Chance for Glory's other ability giving your creatures indestructable. 

If you have a strong Boros shell you could just use Cleansing Nova as your combo. Plenty of kills to be gotten that way. Response/Resurgence would also complement this.

As the deck is now it's a bit slow.
Against control it will likely lose the first game.
Any damage before turn 4 is also a problem. You have a roughly 50% chance of having one of the board wipes by turn 4. With no blockers it's all coming trough every time they manage to attack.

How about Thran's Temporal Gateway in a Boros variant with lifelinkers. The opponent will be too busy to worry about the Gateway.

[Mister.Ri]

Thank you for your feedback. Much appreciated. Boros creatures sounds good, but it will not be what this deck is about.

Aim of this is deck to get Lich's Mastery out, so that we can play Chance for Glory. The fun part is recurring Chance for Glory with The Mirari Conjecture. Again and again. And then copying Chance for Glory. This is because at 3cc, Chance for Glory is cheap for taking extra turns compared to normal blue extra turns cards. Any Recollect effects to get Chance of Glory Back will be great. Of course, deck will not work without Lich's Mastery as this is actually the key card, hence the deck name.

Yes, this deck does not have much game against fast aggro nor can it beat counterspells against control in game 1. I am still kind of trying to work on it. =)

[Anotheruser]

This looks awesome - I've been looking at Lich's mastery for a while, but Approach of the Second Sun kind of stymied it. Combining it with Chance for Glory is very interesting. I am also wondering if Thran, Temporal Gateway may be useful to get it out at instant speed, but that might be trying to cram in too much.

[Finnish Flash]

I like the combo and I see what you are trying to do with it. I just think it's a bit slow.

You only use Green for Gift of Paradise and it's nice for the life gain and color fixing, but I can't see any other green cards. 

Maybe replace those and include 3-4 Chromatic Lantern's for speed up and color fixing. Alternatively Powerstone Chards, but then you'll need your white and red colors from elsewhere. You are not going to cast your Chance for Glory before turn 6-7 anyway, so by that time you should have your mana fixing in place.

You could then do a pure Dimir variant using slightly clunkier black board wipes. You could use Phyrexian Scriptures or Ritual of Soot instead of the white ones. The deck does not have any creatures, which is fine, and results in a lot of useless cards for the opponent at least in the first game. To get most advantage of Phyrexian Scriptures, it might be good to include some hexproof or indestructable creatures. Nightveil Predator or Slippery Scoundrel could work. The first one can block Ghalta once and the second can sacrifice itself blocking a Steel Leaf Champion. These creatures are not perfect, but could serve as an alternative wincon later due to their evasiveness when you take all those additional turns. Nightveil Predator obviously the better one as it combos with both board wipes.

Being more in blue would enable counterspells. You could have a couple of Devious Cover-Ups to return some of the combo pieces back to the deck and have Unexplained Disappearances and Sinister Sabotages for some surveilling. If you go the surveil route. Thoughtbound Phantasm would not be a bad creature to include despite not having indestructable or hexproof.

[interfector]

With many deck playing Discovery // Dispersal it's very easy to die with a Lich's Master out...

[eyeprofet]

I've also been playing with Lich's Mastery in Standard since Dominaria released. Definitely lose a great synergizing win-con when Approach of the Second Sun rotates out. I've been testing with Divine Visitation and Banefire instead, and I definitely prefer Banefire over Fight with Fire against a blue deck.

Just as you are running Cleansing Nova and Discovery // Dispersal mainboard, so will others in those colors. You definitely need a plan for those cards, whether it's to not drop Lich's Mastery if you see warning signs, or try to protect yourself with counter magic.

[Mister.Ri]

Wow. Thank you for your comments.

@Finnish Flash Your thoughts were exactly the same as mine! I find the green a bit unnecessary and the white 'splash' is a bit heavy with double white for boardwipes. And yes you are right I am thinking of Phyrexian Scriptures and Ritual of Soot instead. I am definitely going to try the Dimir route with red splash and remove green and white totally so will up the number of chromatic lantern instead. Will like to playtest tonight (cockatrice).

@interfector and @eyeprofet you are correct. last night I actually lost one game with Dispersal that was too funny. I initially thought that River's Rebuke and Cleansing Nova were the only cards that could remove Lich's Mastery, but forgot about Discovery // Dispersal. Will definitely keep that in mind.

In playtest, midrange and (non-blue) grindy decks are good matchups. Counterspells are hard and fast aggro too. Lost too many games to these decks. Really fun when I do go off, most opponents normally concede before I get to the wincon.

@eyeprofet how is your build like with Divine Visitation and how is your testing been so far?