Background

This deck is an updated adaptation of the SCG champion Lich's Mastery deck back in October. It's surprisingly quite competitive in BO1 Ranked on MTGA, seeing nearly 80% win rate out of 40-50 games so far. This version has some complex strategies and does take some practice to know when to use what for answers, but is very powerful once you get the hang of it. The strategy borrows from the now banned Turbo Fog Nexus of Fate Bant deck by using 8 fogs, and has been quite effective and the best of all Lich's Mastery iterations I've tested.

Strategy

As usual, drop Lich's Mastery mid-late game and get turns with Chance for Glory, then loop with The Mirari Conjecture and Nature's Spiral:

The key strategy here is to buy time with Root Snare, Pause for Reflection, Settle the Wreckage and Kaya's Wrath to pull off an infinite (or mega) turn combo with a big Banefire finish, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria mill lockdown, Axis of Mortality life swap, or -- to a lesser extent -- a Carnage Tyrant beat down.

Pulling Off Inifinite or Mega Turns

Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Chart a Course, and Mastermind's Acquisition are all used to fish for your win condition when Lich's Mastery in play:

• Two The Mirari Conjecture + One Chance for Glory + One Nature's Spiral will pull off an infinite combo (need 8 mana, or 6 with Teferi)
• You can also set up four extra turns is on Chapter III of The Mirari Conjecture, cast Chance for Glory, then play a second The Mirari Conjecture to get back your Chance for Glory, and recast Chance for Glory when your second The Mirari Conjecture gets to Chapter III... until you get a Nature's Spiral (to loop again) or a big Banefire (to finish). A flipped Primal Amulet // Primal Wellspring can also help duplicate your spells.
• If casting Banefire you will need to wait until you pull off a 2x mode with Mirari or Primal Amulet // Primal Wellspring.

Alternate Win Condition

Sometimes you do not have to wait for Mirari or Nature's Spiral to come together if you have a Mastermind's Acquisition and zero/negative life with Lich's Mastery:

• Mastermind's Acquisition for an Axis of Mortality in your sideboard and win with a life switch during your upkeep by waiting it out (make sure you have enough permanents to sacrifice for all the expected damage) one turn or cast a Chance for Glory.
• You can also ping yourself down with shock lands if you are positive life.

Sideboard

• With Mastermind's Acquisition, the sideboard is now an extension of your deck and consists of an arsenal of various solutions to answer any threat.
• You can also get Clear the Mind to prevent milling yourself. Just remember to cast Clear the Mind first before playing any combo cards like Chance for Glory and Nature's Spiral so you can Mirari them back. This goes for Mastermind's Acquisition as well -- make sure to cast it after you've reshuffled so you can search for stuff you need.

Gameplay Tips

• Generally speaking, as long as you can get a a few turns in a row with a Chapter III of The Mirari Conjecture, then you should be able to fish for your win conditions with all the card drawing engine available
• You can also double Nature's Spiral or Mastermind's Acquisition on Chapter III of Mirari.
• Gift of Paradise can also be used to draw 3 cards when Lich's Mastery is in play
• Arch of Orazca is to help you draw cards when you have lots of lands but no options out
• If you are late game, you can also cast Expansion/Explosion as an alternative to Banefire or use it to draw cards if you don't have the combo in your hand yet lots of mana
• You should generally let yourself get close to 0 life before dropping Lich's Mastery as well as wasting any fogs or board wipes, as this gives you a bit of a buffer time to setup your combo. Taking damage with an early Lich is going to cause you to lose cards, so save your Lich and fogs for when you are at lower life. However, be careful not to get dangerously low that you can get killed by a shock or two before you have Lich out.
• If you have Teferi out, remember you can pause the end step and cast Chance for Glory as an instant after you untap the two lands

Maybeboard

Feel free to test the following considerations. I am currently testing some variations of this deck with below. Newer revisions of this deck may incorporate some of these cards after enough playtesting:

• You can consider swapping a Chart a Course for a Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin
• Consider swapping any two board sweepers for Sky Tether to deal with Phoenix or Gate Colossus decks, there are a good amount of fogs
• Unmoored Ego could be swapped into your Sideboard if you go up against other combo or thematic decks (e.g., Gate Colossus), and especially against countermagic (try to hit Sinister Sabotage if they are Dimir, hit Wizard's Retort if mono blue)

Challenges

There are two decks to watch out for:

• Fast and heavy burn decks may force an early deployment of Lich's Mastery and any additional burns might eat away at your permanents sooner than you'd like. You can usually hold off long enough with fogs against Red Deck Wins weenies.
• As with any combo deck, countermagic is probably the hardest to deal with: try to draw their counters out and prep your combo cards so that you can get an mega turn drop when opponent is tapped out. One excellent strategy against counter decks... bide your time, then if you have all or most of the necessary combo pieces or can snag a few extra turns in, cast Chance for Glory right at the end of your turn when your opponent taps out for a spell or ability (make sure to put a Stop before you resolve their spell/ability).

Example Gameplay

Three BO1 games can be viewed here (take note how you intentionally take damage to extend your card drawing before you drop Lich's Mastery): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/405878153

• First game: Axis of Mortality victory
• Second game: Had all the winning cards in hand, but lost to an unforeseen perfectly timed Banefire; I decided to keep this game in here to show you what you might want to prepare for and not get overly cocky even if you have the winning combo in hand
• Third game: Banefire victory

Revision History

• 2019-03-03: Deck posted; brief summary guide written
• 2019-03-04: Axis of Mortality and Expansion/Explosion added to sideboard; Duress and Soul of the Rapids removed from sideboard; strategy guide fleshed out
• 2019-03-05: Added a Maybeboard for your personal preference considerations or potential future improvements of this deck; added a Challenges section to the strategy guide
• 2019-03-12: After more play testing, swapped Chart a Course into mainboard (much better than digging... I also tried Anticipate but realized in most cases we often have lots of sorcery-speed unused mana in the beginning); moved Discovery/Dispersal to maybeboard
• 2019-03-18: Mentions of Discovery/Disperal in the strategy guide replaced with Chart a Course; tactic added on how to play against counter decks
• 2019-04-04: Added demo Twitch video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/405878153