INVINCIBILITY LOOPHOLE???

I could very well be wrong but to me it seems that since your life total wouldn't be decreasing Ali from Cairo's ability wouldn't trigger at all since the damage isn't reducing your life below 1, the Lich is keeping it at zero therefore no fun interaction would happen here, however Elderscale Wurm might have an interaction as it enters the battlefield, i'm far from sure tho

Last edited by imsully2 (2012-07-27 13:10:47)

From what I've seen, I think he's absolutely right that Ali only prevents damage if your life is 1 or greater. So, if it's 0 or negative and you take damage, he does nothing.

With the Elderscale, I'm not sure... It seems like even if it did end up setting life to 7, that it might not count for the card drawing since it's directly setting it and, technically, you aren't gaining 7 life.

This combo seems pretty convoluted to me, isn't it easier to use Phyrexian Unlife and Melira, Sylvok Outcast?

According to Gatherer, Ali from Cairo doesn't prevent the damage from occurring, it just reduces the life loss.  So you would still have to sacrifice the cards.  Also, Lich only alters your life total when it comes into play, and Ali's ability is a replacement effect, so correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't your life total become 1 if you took damage?  It would have no functional bearing on, well, anything, but if a Platinum Angel was in play and Lich were to be Disenchanted or something, you wouldn't have to worry about the Angel getting bounced afterward and having 0 life.

What you would need to combine with Lich to get the effect you desire would be something that prevents you from taking damage.  Something like, say, imprinting Safe Passage on a Panoptic Mirror would prevent damage dealt on your turn.  Cards like Empty City Ruse would prevent them from attacking you, and a simple Circle of Protection: Red would prevent most direct damage effects, and you could sideboard any other pertinent Circles in case of other decks if you need.

Honestly, I think Lich would work much better with white in general.  Something lie Healing Salve would become Ancestral Recall, and white has enough damage prevention in it to keep you from having to sacrifice anything.  Plus since you'd be running black as well, I'm sure you could come across some interesting ways to keep permanents in play so you can sacrifice them in case you can't prevent damage for one reason or another.

By the way, thanks for posting this...it kind of generated a deck idea...probably wouldn't be a good deck, but it would be fun to play in casual games...now to see if I can refine the idea...

*edit* Sorry, changed "damage dealt" to "life lost" because, well, the damage is still dealt.

Last edited by the_wizard_666 (2012-07-29 05:49:27)

I just realized something...if you have Lich and Ali from Cairo in play, and someone decides to, say, Disenchant the Lich, you could save yourself from dying if you play Boomerang followed by Shock (or cards with the same effect).  Since the Shock would resolve first, you would take two damage, triggering Ali's ability and putting your life total at 1 (although this would still cost you a couple permanents).  Then Boomerang resolves, sending Lich back to your hand.  Finally, the Disenchant resolves, but there's no valid target anymore.  What this does is both prevent you from dying as a state based effect when Lich leaves play (since you have a life total above zero) AND prevents Lich from killing you by going to the graveyard (because it went to your hand instead).  This would serve no real viable purpose in an actual match (it wouldn't be feasible to run Lich in a multicolor deck because of the colored mana requirement, unless you have a workaround), but if this scenario actually went off it would definitely be amusing!  Oh, and the spells would need to be played in that sequence...if you play Boomerang after Shock, it resolves before Shock, which would kill you as soon as Lich left play.  Just an amusing, albeit pointless, thought