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Author Topic: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck  (Read 4630 times)

Philippe Saner

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[Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« on: May 07, 2016, 12:22:50 am »
Liliana: The Deck

A deck designed to be as Liliana as possible. Filled to the brim with cards named after Liliana, featuring Liliana in their art, and talking about or quoting Liliana in their flavour text.

Feedback would be appreciated, but please do keep the theme in mind.

018246

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Re: Liliana: The Deck - Comments
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2016, 01:30:19 am »
is this playable?

Philippe Saner

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2016, 01:57:41 am »
Of course!

Why wouldn't it be?

It's actually a fairly powerful deck, especially by theme deck standards. Some of its Dark Ritual fueled openings are absolutely brutal, and even without the ritual it can get a lot of value out of making the opponent discard.

G. Moto

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2016, 06:31:42 am »
   I see the theme that you're going with this deck. I believe personally that if you focused more on 2/2 black zombie production, heavier discard (with cards such as mind rot), and more graveyard play and creature recursion then this will be a stronger deck build. Also keep in mind that Liliana is a NECROMANCER. If you're not playing with a lot of zombies or just flat out dead things then you're kinda missing out.

Philippe Saner

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #4 on: May 07, 2016, 07:50:58 am »
I can't imagine why I'd play Mind Rot when I have Hymn To Tourach available.

A bit more necromancy would be nice. Griselbrand is in-theme for Liliana and a top-class reanimator target. But I don't want to pull focus away from the deck's primary route to victory. And I'm not sure if there's room in a deck for a proper reanimator subtheme. It's better to do one thing well than two things badly, after all.

Similar story with the army of zombies plan. Anything I do to make the deck better at creature aggro is likely to make the deck worse at hand destruction.

I'm not deliberately eschewing zombies. I've got Liliana's Reaver and Waste Not, after all. But I deliberately chose not to go the zombie tribal route here, because I'm pretty sure that a Liliana Zombie deck would be a lot like every other Zombie deck except worse. Not an appealing possibility, if you ask me.

G. Moto

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #5 on: May 07, 2016, 05:46:23 pm »
    Fair enough on your choices, at least this way you definitely know what you want/don't want to play. Have you considered slate street ruffian, black cat triumph of cruelty? These are good cards that can help in a pinch or have a big impact as far as control over your opponent's hand. My only thing is that your focus is to discard their hand, but what if they are playing a madness deck which triggers WHEN you make them discard? Or if they're playing a hellbent deck that requires and Empty hand or a B/G  graveyard themed deck? The deck can definitely run the control side well, just keep in mind that there are multiple ways to play around not having a hand. For those instances you should build your sideboard around. Just some helpful advice, I play black all the time so I know that TAKING from the wrong person can open up opportunities for them later.

Philippe Saner

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #6 on: May 08, 2016, 02:03:14 am »
True.

Might be a good idea to address that in the sideboard. Maybe a Griselbrand or two, some Entombs, and some reanimation spells would give me more game against decks that don't mind discarding.

WWolfe

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #7 on: May 08, 2016, 06:49:55 am »
Nice themed deck! Kudos on the thought put into this!
This space for rent.

G. Moto

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #8 on: May 08, 2016, 06:54:15 am »
   You could add agent of erebos. He's black, he's a zombie, and he clears out ENTIRE graveyards. All you would have to do is play skeletal grimace while he's on the field and you've just eliminated a graveyard player's main deck engine.
     Also here's another way to play: if you do use 2/2 black zombie tokens and then add corpse trader to the deck, you can sac your zombie tokens to force your opponent to discard SPECIFIC cards that YOU choose. This will completely eliminate your opponent's game plans, you'll get rid of their major threats early and still keep to your theme.
     Here's an example, you just forced your opponent to discard Geralf's masterpiece and you know its going to hit the board next turn. Trust me, this card will be a nightmare for you to play against If you play vile rebirth then you can get rid of that card, get a free creature, then sac the creature to your corpse trader. This will eliminate graveyard threats, produce a functional board state AND give you use out of your creatures. Or you can focus on the life drain aspect and add cards such as mental agony. This will give you that black burn damage and it goes well with liliana's caress.

Philippe Saner

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #9 on: May 08, 2016, 08:08:45 am »
Not too keen on selective discard in a deck like this. I'm aiming to take every card, so why pay extra to be choosy?

And again, I think adding cards which don't contribute to the primary plan is a dubious idea. Agent of Erebos might be good against graveyard decks, but against other decks I need that slot for cards that synergize with the rest of engine.

Might be worth explaining my approach a bit here. As I see it, cards like Skeletal Grimace and Agent of Erebos aren't exactly on-theme. They don't mention Liliana or depict her in their art or anything like that. They're necromantic, true, but that's kind of a tenuous tie. I'm not sure if Liliana's ever even been to Theros.

Nice themed deck! Kudos on the thought put into this!

Thanks!

There's more of the same in that folder, if you're interested.

G. Moto

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2016, 08:11:20 am »
   Ok so if the deck is SOLELY Liliana themed cards then will this deck be primarily innistrad based? Also the core sets and the origins cards would probably serve you best then since they have the most tie into that character.

Philippe Saner

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #11 on: May 08, 2016, 08:20:08 am »
I'm willing to put in a few non-Liliana cards, like Waste Not and Hymn To Tourach. But they've gotta be really strong.

And yeah, most of the deck comes from the core sets. Of the 38 nonbasic cards, 26 are from the core.

G. Moto

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #12 on: May 08, 2016, 09:04:20 am »
   That's fine, that's similar to how I built my Jace illusions deck. Here's an idea (not sure if you tried it yet), but if you look at the gatherer card search engine under advanced and add Liliana to the flavor text variable then it'll pull up some nice flavor choices for your deck.

Philippe Saner

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #13 on: May 08, 2016, 09:14:42 am »
Thanks for the tip. I've been relying on the mtgsalvation page for Liliana. It has a list of in-game references.

I'll give Gatherer a try, see if mtgsalvation missed anything.

G. Moto

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Re: [Casual] Liliana: The Deck
« Reply #14 on: May 08, 2016, 05:32:32 pm »
    The gatherer is basically the game's entire card archive. If there's ANYTHING missing you're sure to find it there.