[EDH] Black White Life drain: First Commander Deck

[Astrellen]

Hello! I have been playing mtg off and on for a while but just got into deck building and am very new to commander (have been playing modern until now). I have used a few precon decks for commander and wanted to try my hand at building one from scratch.

 I went with a life drain idea here but am worried about mana ramp and over all flow of it. I originally was going to use Elanda Dusk Rose for the Commander, but Liesa shroud of Dusk just fit better in the command position considering her avoidance of the commander tax.

If anyone would like to give me some advice on this that would be great!

https://deckstats.net/decks/211752/2671960-life-drain-b-w-elanda
 

[SeptemMTG]

Die you already play with Liesa as your commander? I build a deck with similar tactics but switched the commander to Elenda.
I played several times against a Liesa and it wasn´t really great fun, especially for opponents with no option to recover lifeloss in early rounds and locking them out on their own play.
Overall the balance is difficult to maintain between having fun and winning.

[ApothecaryGeist]

Welcome to Commander!


I agree that this deck lacks sufficient mana ramp.  You generally want to run at least 8 pieces of ramp.  With at least 6 of them having mana value 3 or less. 2 or less is ideal.  But three is acceptable for budgetary concerns.


Sol Ring is the poster-child for the format.  It is conspicuously missing from your decklist.


In white/black your best ramp options are mana rocks and rituals.


You don't have a lot of dual lands.  So I would recommend that your ramp provide the color fixing.  I would suggest Arcane Signet, Orzhov Signet, Talisman of Hierarchy, Marble Diamond, Charcoal Diamond, Fellwar Stone.


Once you get some color fixing mana rocks, you can then modify your land, swapping out Shimmering Grotto and Unknown Shores.  Filter lands like this are generally unnecessary in two-color decks.