The Flight of Dusk

This deck is a love letter to Liesa; using game mechanics to evoke her personality, techniques, history, and lore.

"We must know our enemies if we are to defeat our enemies" -- Liesa, Shroud of Dusk

Strategy

This deck has a mid-range strategy that utilizes a high density of Staxx, Taxes, and Lifegain effects to control the board in the early game, and then cast Liesa and other large Fliers to pressure our opponents life totals in the mid-game - eventually securing the win with life loss effects and good ol' beatdown before anyone can stabilize. Don't make the mistake of assuming our staxx/tax effects are meant to lock the game down - eventually, people will find answers to them. No, instead, think of them like anti-ramp, or road bumps that slow down the rest of the table to our more battlecruiser speed. In fact, the nature of Liesa means that everyone's life totals will trend down, so I find that she can actually facilitates faster games.

We want to start by slowing down the early game until we hit five mana, and then start casting Liesa and other table-wide life loss effects to keep pressure on everyone as they burn time, life, and resources trying to deal with our staxx/tax pieces. As this happens, everyone else's life totals should be getting nice and softened up, while we've been putting down, and swinging with, Liesa and other large flying bodies. We'll also be taking advantage of the various Lifelink / Lifedrain / Lifegain effects to mitigate the impact to our own life total as we cast spells and use Liesa's unique commander tax to keep her on the field almost indefinitely. If done well, before too long, life totals should be relatively low, and simply Liesa's existence on the board should limit how many spells our opponents can reasonably resolve without dying. From here we clean up by turning sideways, and hopefully winning. The Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond / Blight-Priest / Vito combo is also included, but mostly because they all individually work nicely in the deck regardless. All the same, always keep an eye out for that "oops I win" opportunity, especially when you have tutors in hand.

You should mulligan any hands that don't have one or more stax/tax effects that are relevant against at least two opposing commanders - or a Tutor to find some that are. So think carefully about what your opponents are going to try and abuse with their commanders, and then target pieces that will limit their effectiveness in those areas. Also remember that Liesa will always cost exactly five mana. This means that once you can play her, you can keep playing her for the rest of the game. Remind people of, and utilize this enough, and eventually they'll be reluctant to even bother wasting their removal on her unless they plan to go off. This isn't even a bad play on your part, because Liesa is an extremely effective body for only the five mana she always costs. If she's in your command zone, ask yourself if any of the cards in your hand are actually better value than her - you might be surprised how rarely that's the case.

Flavor

Gameplay isn't the only important part of this deck, though. Liesa is a fascinating character, who has unique motivations and methods for an Angel, and a compelling story arc because of that. I wanted this deck to feel like it had those same motivations and methods which make Liesa so interesting. As such, I've imposed a few very important deckbuilding restrictions in order to achieve that feel:

• All Creatures must be either Angels (of her flight); Gods, Demons, and Innistrad Monsters (with which she consorts); or Humans (that she is sworn to protect).
• Non-Cleric Humans or Monsters are kept to an absolute minimum, only being used when their mechanics strongly compliment the deck's playstyle and feel, and restricting monsters to only those found on Innistrad.
• Whenever possible, cards (or artworks!) which evoke religious or Innistrad themes are preferred over other alternatives. For example: we use Wrath of God and Damnation instead of better board wipe options.

Elesh Norn is the only exception to the above rules, because I love her and wanted an excuse to play her. She also feels a lot like a Demon in spirit, and I think Liesa might indeed see some value in learning from, and making deals with Elesh Norn. Otherwise, this deck is built to be as strong and competitive as possible without deviating from those limitations. I've utilized the sideboard as a second maybeboard to separate them into two categories: You can strengthen the deck by adhering to the above rules more loosely (Sideboard), or weaken the deck with more flavorful alternatives (Maybeboard) - whatever better suites your own personal preferences, playstyle, playgroup, or phantasy.

Liesa <3