The Shroud of Dusk (EDH / Commander)

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

This deck uses Stax and Taxes effects to slow down the rest of the table to our speed, instead of trying to compete with their ramp. The goal is not to completely lockdown the board - and, in-fact, we can't long term - but, instead lay down just enough speed bumps that we can whittle down everyone's life totals before their decks get properly online. Because of this, you should probably mulligan any opening hand that doesn't have at least one relevant Stax or Tax effect, or a Tutor to grab one. We then utilize Liesa, and other table-wide life loss effects to keep pressure on everyone while they're busy burning time dealing with our Stax and Tax effects; as well as Lifelink / Lifedrain / Lifegain effects to mitigate the impact to our own life total, and allowing us to keep Liesa on the field 100% of the game. From there, our goal is to finish the game as quickly as possible before the rest of the table can mount a defense, or set up a combo. The Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond / Blight-Priest / Vito combo can finish the game immediately. But, barring the combo, most of our creatures have large bodies with flying, and present a serious threat when life totals are low, giving us a secondary Midrange / Beatdown strategy.

A few very important deckbuilding restrictions are followed in order to better embody Liesa's lore:

• 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 (Praetors are considered Demons - a rose by any other name).
• 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.

This deck is built to be as strong and competitive as possible, while staying within those limitations. You can strengthen the deck by adhering to the rules more loosely (Sideboard), or weaken the deck with more flavorful alternatives (Maybeboard), to better suite your own personal preferences, playstyle, or playgroup.

Liesa <3