Skip to content
MTGCombos
MenuClose

Share your combos and save your decks.

Join for freeLog in
Magic The Gathering Combos
Search Cards & Combos:

Home     Submit A Combo     Deck Builder     Forums     Picture Guess     Help

You are not logged in [click to login] - [Join For Free!]  





Title: Let's get some input on this.
Date Posted: Sun Oct/28/12 at 4:04am

Kethiju
Posts: 225
Joined: 24-Jul-12

I post a combo a minute ago with Ali From Cairo and Lich with Near Death Experience. Ali says my life total won't go below 1 and prevent all other damage. Lich says my life total is 0. I'm not entirely sure how these cards will interact. I seriously doubt there has been this type of issue here before. This is quite the quandary.
Date Posted: Sun Oct/28/12 at 8:21am

scottymandingo
Posts: 845
Joined: 13-Jul-09

From what I understand of the rules, the game goes by what card is the newest on the battlefield... Could be wrong though.
Date Posted: Sun Oct/28/12 at 12:41pm

Invertedspank
Posts: 95
Joined: 03-Sep-10

Your life would be zero, since Lich is loss of life and not damage. The only interaction I'm seeing is that Ali will prevent further damage and you wouldn't have to destroy any of your permanents due to Lich's effect.
Date Posted: Sun Oct/28/12 at 2:17pm

knarf_the_dwarf
Posts: 1370
Joined: 30-Nov-11

10/4/2004: This effect does not prevent damage, it prevents the damage from turning into loss of life. So the full damage is dealt (and abilities that trigger on damage being dealt still trigger), but the full loss of life is not applied.

No, you still have to sacrifice permanents.
Date Posted: Mon Oct/29/12 at 2:23am

Kethiju
Posts: 225
Joined: 24-Jul-12

Nope. That is wrong. The damage is PREVENTED. Loss of life will still cause you to sacrifice permanents, but damage would be 0. I can even link to the card itself. Infact, I will. http://www.cardkingdom.com/catalog/item/15005 Ali From Cairo.
Date Posted: Mon Oct/29/12 at 6:44am

knarf_the_dwarf
Posts: 1370
Joined: 30-Nov-11

No, you are wrong.

The official text of Ali from Cairo is: Damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead.
It does not prevent damage. Thanks for linking to a catalog item, but I prefer more official sites with more information. Here you can find the official rulings on this card: http://magiccards.info/query?q=cairo&v=card&s=cname

  • 10/4/2004: This effect does not apply to effects which reduce your life without doing damage.
  • 10/4/2004: The ability works up until Ali enters the graveyard, so if he takes lethal damage or is destroyed at the same time you take damage, the ability helps you. If the damage occurs after it goes to the graveyard, however, it is not affected by the Ali which is no longer on the battlefield.
  • 10/4/2004: This effect does not prevent damage, it prevents the damage from turning into loss of life. So the full damage is dealt (and abilities that trigger on damage being dealt still trigger), but the full loss of life is not applied.
    • Same for Lich: http://magiccards.info/cedi/en/22.html

    ... Whenever you're dealt damage, sacrifice that many nontoken permanents. If you can't, you lose the game. ...
    10/4/2004: If you have multiple Lich cards on the battlefield, you must sacrifice a permanent for each damage done to you for each Lich. This is because the sacrifice is a triggered ability. But you only draw one card for each life gained regardless of how many Liches you have. This is because the draw is a replacement effect and not a triggered one. You lose if any one of the Liches leaves the battlefield.
    10/4/2004: If you take more than one damage at a time, sacrifice the permanents for that damage simultaneously. This allows you to sacrifice both a creature and any Aura that is on it all at once.

    The Combo of Ali and Lich does not work. Your suggestion to replace Lich by Platinum Emperion (cast at 1 life) in the combo thread is much more better.
    Lich and Emperion together make no sense, you still have to sacrifice permanents due to rulings (see Emperion rules...)
    1/1/2011: The ability doesn't prevent damage. Rather, it changes the results of that damage. For example, if a creature with lifelink deals damage to you, you won't lose any life, but its controller will still gain that much life. Similarly, if a creature you control with lifelink deals damage to another player, that player will lose life but you won't gain any life. Notably, if a creature with infect deals damage to you, you'll get that many poison counters.
    Date Posted: Mon Oct/29/12 at 6:49am

    Boyachi
    Posts: 1553
    Joined: 02-Nov-11

    @Kethiju

    Damage is not loss of life, damage causes loss of life. Ali and Worship both fall to Bump in the Night.

    To bolster this claim I have a line from Lich's errata:




    10/4/2004
    You can lose life and take damage, and thereby have a negative life total, while Lich is on the battlefield.

    Also Ali's errata:




    10/4/2004
    This effect does not apply to effects which reduce your life without doing damage.

    Basically regardless of the order they hit, you'll go to zero life. The big question is whether or not being damaged AFTER both are in play, would your life total go to 1? My problem with this is that it would be considered life gain, Ali would attempt to move you to one life, and Lich would counter this and make you draw cards instead. The great news of it possibly working this way is that each time you are dealt damage, you'd try to go back to 1 life, thus drawing more and more cards.

    Lastly, Gatherer is the final say on cards and what they do. The card may say it prevents damage, but Gatherer says it doesn't, so in a tourney, the damage is not going to be prevented. So Sayeth Gatherer's Errata.
    Date Posted: Mon Oct/29/12 at 3:01pm

    Kethiju
    Posts: 225
    Joined: 24-Jul-12

    Oh the good old days when the Golden Rule was still golden. I don't particularly care how the cards actually interact. Since it would be beyond easy to get rid of Lich, running it is suicidal. You can be a terrible M:TG player and still get rid of Lich if you can read.