Lich

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Lich
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Wizard
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Allies
Illustrator(s)	Harald Lieske
Card text
+6 Cards +2 Actions Skip a turn. When you trash this, discard it and gain a cheaper card from the trash.

Lich is an Action-Wizard card from Allies. It provides huge non-terminal draw, but at a steep price: every Lich you play makes you lose one of your future turns. If you get sick of having that in your deck, too bad—it also can't be permanently trashed!

It is part of a split pile that it shares with the other Wizards: Student, Conjurer, and Sorcerer.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• Skipping a turn means that the next time you would take a turn, you don't; nothing happens for that turn: no "start of turn" abilities, no phases. Play continues with the player to your left as usual.
• You can skip an extra turn, like one from Voyage.
• Skipped turns still count for the tiebreaker however they would have if taken.
• If you play multiple Liches you will skip multiple turns.
• When you trash Lich, you put it from the trash into your discard pile, which does not trigger abilities that care about gaining cards; then you gain a card costing less than Lich from the trash, which does trigger such abilities.
• Gaining a cheaper card is mandatory if possible.

Other rules clarifications

• When you skip an extra turn (e.g. Voyage), you're also skipping its Clean-up phase. This means you'll discard the Voyage from play during the Clean-up of the next turn that happens (either yours or another player's).
• It also means if you play Lich and Outpost in the same turn, you draw 3 cards during Clean-up, skip the Outpost turn, and then you keep that 3-card hand for your next turn.[1]
• If you'll take multiple extra turns at the same time (e.g. one from Voyage and one from Island Folk), you can choose what order they happen in. The first turn you take will be the one that gets skipped by Lich. [2]
• Some extra turn cards care about the number of turns you've taken; Lich skipping a turn will not count towards that number. So if on your regular turn, you play Lich and 2 Voyages, Lich skips one of the Voyages and you get the other Voyage turn.
• However, Lich cannot skip a turn that never happens. So if on an Island Folk turn, you play Lich and Voyage, Lich will not skip that Voyage turn, because Voyage won't let you 3 turns in a row. [3]
• Cards that check what you did on a previous turn (like Smugglers) will check the turn that you actually played. So if you skip a turn with Lich, and the next player plays a Smugglers, it doesn't check the skipped turn, and instead checks the last turn you played (which will usually be the same turn that you played Lich). [4]
• Similarly, cards that check the owner of the previous turn (e.g. Voyage) will check the last turn that was actually played. So if all the other players have skipped their turns with Lich, your Voyage will fail.
• If on the same turn, you play Lich and a Duration that says "until your next turn..." (e.g. Monkey or Highwayman), that Duration's effect will last until the next turn you take (i.e. it extends past your skipped turn).
• A trashed Lich gains a card cheaper than it, and not a card that costs up to . This may matter if cards have changed cost (e.g. due to Family of Inventors).
• If you trash multiple cards at once, you put them all into the trash, then resolve on-trash effects. So if you use Sentinel to trash a Lich and a Sycophant, the Lich can gain the Sycophant.
• If you Possess a player and make them trash a Lich, you can choose to either put the Lich in their discard pile, or set it aside, to put in their discard pile at the end of the turn. Either way, you will still gain a cheaper card from the trash.
• When you trash this from the Supply (with Lurker), you still discard the Lich (into your own discard pile) and gain a cheaper card from the trash. Discarding the Lich this way doesn't count as gaining it.

Strategy

Lich is one of a small number of cards (including Treasurer and Shaman) that lets you re-gain Magic Lamp for more wishes.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+6 Cards +2 Actions Skip a turn. When you trash this, discard it and gain a cheaper card from the trash.	Allies	March 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Zielenzuiger			+6 Kaarten +2 Acties Sla 1 beurt over. Als je deze kaart vernietigt, leg hem dan af en pak een goedkopere kaart uit de stapel "vernietigde kaarten".	(2022)
German	Lich			+6 Karten +2 Aktionen Setze einen Zug aus. Wenn du diese Karte entsorgst, lege sie ab und nimm eine billigere Karte aus dem Müll.

Trivia

Official card art.

Lich is the first card that can gain Shelters other than Necropolis or Curses from the trash.

Preview

And Lich comes back when you try to trash it, like a Fortress only not to your hand. Also Lich can uh skip your turn? Well maybe you aren't getting another turn anyway.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Allies Preview 4: Recursion

Secret History

Lich started out as a way to get all these upgrading split pile cards. It was played to gain cards from the trash, then that moved to a when-trash ability, and the top got "draw your deck, skip your next turn." Would you believe, that was overpowered. But someone has to try these things, and it might as well be me. The bottom was also broken, it put Lich into your hand when trashed and you could go nuts with various trash-for-benefit cards. The scaled back beast still looks scary.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Allies

Further development comments

For me, "here is inspiration for a card" absolutely does not carry with it "copy the inspiration as much as possible." "Reverse Tactician" has zero obligation to have +Buy. I wouldn't necessarily even start with +Buy and then work from there. I'd start wherever. Lich's inspiration was "be a Lich." This does happen to line it up with reverse Tactician.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

There were Duration card versions, and I don't mean with some other ability, just for the "skip a turn." My best guess without digging through old posts is that it changed simply due to, if it's a Duration, when do you discard it, and how well do people do at not having to ask and getting that right. If it's not a Duration card, you just discard it the turn you played it, only Duration cards give you any thinking to do there.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Wording

"Skip a turn" means exactly what everyone will know it means despite having fun questions, and there's a rulebook. "Skip your next turn, but this is cumulative somehow okay" was not as good of a wording.

As always cards try to avoid making players look in the rulebook, which they tend to absolutely never want to do.

Many people were consulted on the card wordings, in addition to how fun and balanced they were; this is the result. If I'd had better wordings for any cards they'd have them; if any card didn't seem worth the wording it would get, it didn't make it out.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2022