Pointed Discussion

He really excels in a Zombie theme deck. Anywhere else is just meh.

depends how you look at it, its mill powers are slow and unless you are really digging into milling, he is meh at it
as for a zombie, he still needs work, if you think about it, you will have 3 zombies by turn 4, maybe? so tapping out turn 4 to mill/drain will only be 3 at best and you are unable to play anyone else

but, late game, with some good zombies that stick around your drain could easily win, consider this, Deathbringer Thoctar, 1 zombie with a machine gun, Death Baron to give death touching, and the Unscythe, Killer of Kings to super charge token generation, unscythe needs to be on Throctor, then when he kills you get a buddy

all this has been no mana so far btw, now you can use Lich Lord, mill/drain at least 3, more depending on how many you kill with thoctar, and then you can swing with 8/8 thocar, 2/2 death baron and 3/3 lich lord

that is 16 damage total, nice for 4 mana spent over the whole turn, need one more to finish, well should be one more counter on thoctar, pew to the player for win

I would use the 2nd ability at end of opponets turn if I didn't have any other avenue for the mana or possibly in responce to someone distroying or otherwise removing him.

i'm using this in my nemesis of reason mirrorweave deck. it helps to make things to mirrorweave into the nemesis for a fatal mill, or it slowly cuts their life down depending on the situation. but it is easy to remove, i think if it was a 1/3 it would be a bit better.

Reasonable, but too easy to get rid of. Also takes a long while for his mill/drain effect to be very good. He's also pretty good for pumping out dudes for Gravespawn Sovereign

Really surprised I haven't seen anyone mention how AMAZING this works with necromancer's covenant and Unscythe; Equip Unscythe onto Lich Lord of Unx and you have a 5/5 that can potentially give you 2 zombies per turn (one for the mana cost and one for taking out a creature)...then play necromancer's convenant?

wouldn't be a bad combination in my opinion.

RESPECT dreat mill

I actually find this card very usefull in my black/blue mill deck. i combine him with the Dire Undercurrents enchantment. those creature tokens are blue/black creatures, so when u tap just 2 mana at the end, or during the opponents turn, they gotta discard a card from their hand and u get to draw a card. result being not only are u milling their deck, you are reducing whatever hand they might be able to play on you.

at the same time, you are pulling out more cards to be able to play on them. its especially funny when your opponent has drained his whole hand, and at the beginning of his turn u tap and pull out a token to make him discard whatever card he JUST drew out.

like was mentioned before, his milling ability is only really great when u use it at the end of the opponent's turn, but think about how great that is of a kicker when u do use it at the end of their turn. combine it with the Unscythe card, and dire undercurrents, its a great card IMO. is it as good at milling as nemesis of reason or drowner initiates? no. but he can provide the damage along with your milling as a backup plan in case your milling just isnt going fast enough. and he also can provide a last minute pinch blocker if you need one and u don't want lich lord to die.

It always seemed like such a bad card until I tried building a zombie deck which included him and stillmoon. I am finding that stillmoon"s evasion abilites, along with plenty of counter/draw allow me to stalmate a game until my opponent can be easily life-drained or even milled by using his second ability twice per turn. Amazingly, it is holding up very well even against Jund aggro.

Also, try Sage's Dousing along with Lich Lord to give you extra counter/draw.

Looks like an average to bad card for me.

I mean, at first it's a 2/2 for 3 mana, which by itself is bad (especially since it requires two colors).

Then, you could pay another 4 mana the turn you play him to mill for one, or maybe a bit more. Thats then 7 mana so far for a few cards to mill. Also, of those seven mana, three must be black and three must be blue, which is pretty harsh.

Or you can generate tokens. The first time you generate a token, it took you 5 mana (of which must be two blue and two black) and two turns, to get a 2/2 into play and a 1/1 token, which is bad as well.

So, for him to be actually good, you need tons of mana in exactly the right combination of blue and black (since he hates generic mana), and you need dozens of zombies in play. But if you have dozens of zombies in play, why don't you just attack with them for the win?

The guy is slow, vulnerable and needs tons of mana. He might look good for some, but to me he just looks clunky and overcosted.

This guy should not be in an aggro deck.. He would be more useful in a control deck..

He is the only creature card (aside from Fleshbag Marauder) I have on my black/blue zombie control deck..

I just wait for the right moment to cast him, countering spells with Essence Scatter, Negate and other counter spell cards most of the time, if I have 5 mana, I'd go for Mind Funeral, reserving 2 mana for countering spells then Haunting Echoes next turn, or play Lich Lord of Unx right away, reserving 2 mana for countering spells again. As the game progresses the game is in my control and I can finally produce tokens with Lich's, if I have 5 or more tokens its time for loose life and mill.

Just like blue, think before you act, and black, corruption.
- For me he is actually a 4.5 -

I'm thinking of using this with Thraximundar and Vampire Aristocrat but my deck's already full...

Use Mind Funeral to mill your opponent and stock his graveyard with creatures; then cast Necromancer's Covenant to make them all into Zombies; then use Lich-Lord's second ability to mill your opponent again, and burn some more. Repeat until you win.

Another great card to use with Cemetary Reaper! Not only are you milling his deck with the zombies you keep making, but any creature cards you mill will feed Cemetary Reaper's abilities, and then playing Lich Lord's second ability makes it even worse!

I will not deny it is mana intensive, but if you have enough Swamps and Mistvein Borderposts out, it's not hard to build up a small army of nasty zombies and mill your opponent. The Alara block and M10 each have enough tricks still in them to make anyone who plays with Rise of the Eldrazi scream and through fits at the table.

I like it. I play him in my Archenemy deck.

I like how it can be two win conditions in one in the same small package. Could be very good in a control deck, like the instant speed pain.

great card use a lot and can win in 2 turns

Gatherites seem to be focused on milling. Don't forget you also get life loss in there too. Forget the milling- life loss is what I'm after, here.

Now, zombie tokens aren't produced as quickly and readily as Elves or Saprolings, or even Merfolk. So I can understand why people dislike him- your X value won't usually be high. I think an interesting casual pairing, though, would be with Shepherd of Rot. Gain an early lead in life by letting your foe lose a few to the Lich Lord, then keep firing your Shepherds until he's dead. In the meantime, the Lich holds off aggro a little with his token producing, and coupled with Death Baron, the tokens become all the more dissuasive, with Grave Pact making attacking an even worse idea.

Of course, that's my defence of the card. If you're familiar with my previous comments, vulnerability is not usually a valid point for me. Nor is the argument that a three mana 2/2 is inherently bad (That's on curve for blue and black, friends. Don't let green and white spoil you). I still would not use this card, even with my aforementioned casual pairings. Why? Because blue/black is not a great zombie colour. Options in black/green are much more profitable (Putrid Leech is a wrecking machine alongside the zombie tribal lords), or even black/white (though in this pairing, you'll be leaning on white mostly for some removal and control help). That's not to say this is a bad card. Its just that zombie tribal does not traditionally use blue, and blue support falls short of that found in green and white for our shambling, rotting friends. While I'm sure you could build a decent blue/black zombie deck, you'll find you would be better served in other colours. Value this card for its token production (though Cemetary Reaper may arguably be better, depending on who you ask), value it for its life loss function, but recognize that it's not in a useful colour pairing for a dedicated zombie deck.

Why bother milling and killing? seems kinda redundant to me...

Whenever I say the name "Unx" on this card, I think of the noise a rapper makes while beatboxing...

unx unx unx unx

I hate this card. No matter how hard I try to like it, it's just not very good. If the tap ability cost even one mana, it would be amazing, but as it is it's simply Timmy garbage. It's just WAY too slow.

Won't be that bad in a Wizard tribal either, which has both control and milling possibilities.
Although i'd still be primarily be interested in the life loss of the second ability, though.
Use with Patron Wizard or Azami for some fun.

Grave titan might speed this guy up but he costs 6 to play.

a zombie mill deck? Sure, why not.

Things are going to get pretty ridiculous when cards like Army of the Damned and Endless Ranks of the Dead come out in Innistrad.

Preview for the effects: http://mtgsalvation.com/innistrad-spoiler.html

Why the hell isn't he legendary!!??

And then there was Innistrad, take that DoctorKenneth, despite your valid point

I personally love this guy. He fills the opponents graveyard, giving you either reanimation targets or zombie fodder for Cemetery Reaper. Use Bloodchief Ascension with it and it deals double the damage.

My only problem with it is that it fills the 3 mana slot reserved for Blightning.

Combine with Undead Alchemist for absolute domination.
If your deck runs late enough to be able to use this guy's ability twice in one turn, he will stomp all the face.

This is *** hilarious with a Zombie Master and an Undead Alchemist.

Devestating synergy with Undead Alchemist. With this and Death Baron, I'm actually looking forward to Innistrad rotating out so I can make my zombie mill deck ridiculous.

Zombie Wizards, huh?

Not an especially great choice for a milling deck, and a poor leader for a Zombie deck. Generally, if you have enough Zombies that this guy's milling is winning you games, you can afford to just swing with them and avoid putting stuff into their graveyard. If you don't, he's milling 1 for 4 mana.

The definition of a winmore card if I've ever seen one, and one where the community rating truly baffles me.

@Jannissary

Well yeah it's a little expensive to be much use in a 60 card deck but that's not exactly where I'd be putting that. He's not a small scale guy so don't think of him in the context of such. EDH is where you'd pull this guy and that about counts for the community rating of this card, not to mention its flavorful...zombie wizard! ALAKA....BRAAAAAIINNNSSS!

A friend of mine once had a deck with this as the centerpiece.

The strategy was slivers, turn slivers to zombies, then drop this guy, and mill for 20+ every activation.

I did not like that deck very much at the time.
Looking back though, I realize how frail that combo is.

This guy is just begging to be an EDH general. If only he was legendary..

Use a Mind Funeral or Truamatize followed by Necromancer's Covenant for a bunch of Zombies then major milling with him.

Pretty sure this guy set up some sort of university in Innistrad, milling is all them zombies want to do nowadays.

The milling is secondary. This fella just found his way into my EDH.

Instant silliness! Just add Grave Betrayal!

Works best in a control heavy deck.
Of course you could just hold on to him until you've got enough zombies and mana to cast him and use the second ability right away. What I mean is that this is not what you want for your third turn.

In an EDH zombie tribal deck, this guy is a house. I haven't seen it mentioned here, but don't forget his first ability with Dire Undercurrents. Those Zombie Wizard tokens are blue and black, giving you a nice card draw and discard effect. He also has excellent synergy with Mindcrank: your opponent mills twice as many cards as the life he loses from the zombies.

The absolutely keystone of my Grimgrin, Corpse-born zombie mill EDH. Produces cheap tokens to be sacced, causes life loss and mills cards, and is both cheap and tribal. What more could you want from a card? 5/5