A deck that utilizes Liliana of the Veil as a way to deprive your opponent of cards while getting yourself ahead. You play cards that usually require more than one card to answer while simultaneously getting rid of their alternatives by Liliana's abilities and removal.
A few things: this is not a reanimator deck. It can ocasionally pull off T3 Liliana, discard Norn, T4 discard Rites and then flashback, which is backbreaking, but that is very rare. The point here is to win an attrition war. Unburial Rites is used as often to revive Hero of Bladehold, Sun Titan/Wurmcoil or even Blade Splicer. Each of those creatures forces removal, and Unburial Rites can make them have to waste as much as three removal spells on each of them (not considering the bodies some of them leave behind), which Liliana promptly denies.
There are lots of ways to make Liliana one-sided, from Skeletons to flashback spells to Sun Titan. Things like Nihil Spellbomb hurt, but not in a crippling way: first, because while you use your graveyard, this is not a graveyard deck in that you don't care about having a full graveyard (just getting advantage of whatever gets in it), second because they are running Spellbomb which will make their gameplan a bit more awkward.
It also performs pretty well against control. Many cards there are resilient to countermagic (Skeleton reassembles, Moan and Rite flashback and your threats are backed up by Rites) and removal (since you get value from almost any creature there) and if you get Liliana on they are in for a hard time. Inkmoth Nexus manages to be very annoying, but that is what the Curses from the board are for.
Aggro is a little more annoying but Reassembing Skeletons and Blade Splicer help you survive a lot until you get DoJ on. Flying creatures are annoying but there aren't many good flying weenies out there.
Curse of Death's Hold and Mirran Crusader are there for WRR and MBI. CoDH shuts down Nexus and kills most infect guys, while Mirran Crusader blocks all day long without suffering much.
I used to run Simulacrum there too, but ended up cutting it because as amazing as that sounds it wasn't contributing much. Sun Titan couldn't recur it, it wasn't a very meaningful threat, the card draw wasn't of much importance and even the package as a whole wasn't very worth it.
Something I'm not sure about is running swords. They are kinda cool with Moan of the Unhallowed and Reassembling Skeleton, but sometimes they just feel too expensive.
Would Sheoldred be good in this list? I think it could be better than Elesh Norn just because post-reanimation you can keep pitching cards with Liliana.
Against aggro, I would probably side out the discard and bring in another day and some black removal.
Against control, I would take out the days and bring in more discard/extractions maybe?
Does something like this have any chance of being viable? I've been seeing some similar lists online, but they mostly utilize Heartless Summoning . I've also never seen any of them do anything in any dailies or anything.
I'm just wondering if discard with despise, distress, liliana, followed by surgically extracting some of their better cards can debilitate my opponent. Then using rings and creature control on anything that makes it down will let me stay in the game long enough until I can start landing bombs and/or reanimating the bombs that I had discarded.
I know this is similar to Solar Flare, minus the benefits of the card drawing and counters that blue brings, but I sometimes feel that Flare is a bit too clunky even with all of that card draw. I'm hoping that simulacrum and bloodgift will help out in the card draw department, the stable mana base will make it more consistent (probably just consistently bad :), and the added number of bombs will help make it viable. I also think that a distress followed by an extracting can be pretty rough for some control decks.
So, honestly, is something like this really viable at all? Or has this been tried to death a million times already and I don't know it? Thanks.
Would Sheoldred be good in this list? I think it could be better than Elesh Norn just because post-reanimation you can keep pitching cards with Liliana.
IMO, in that particular list, Norn is better than Lili because of the following:
- Norn has an immediate impact on the board. Even if you don't just wipe out everything they have, their position becomes severely weakened and it can even save you from lethal. Sheoldred would have to wait until their upkeep and possibly other turns, giving them room to remove it fast.
- Norn can end the game right there. That list usually has lots of bodies in play at the same time, from Splicer and its tokens to Skeletons to Soldiers, so a general +2/+2 from Norn can mean GG on the spot. At this point, pitching cards to Liliana is not as important.
Going to be testing a variant list today. Moan of the Unhallowed goes out, +1 Doom Blade, +1 Hero, +1 Sword of Feast and Famine.
How I wish Hawks were in the format. They would be the perfect fit for the deck.
quick idea of deck i really like the lilianna but i cant afford 4 of those... but i can afford pretty much anything else! i found that smallpox was almost a liliana except i cant recure it with sun titan. i was strugulling to make a small pox deck for a while (like pretty much anybody...) and i came across your deck(OP). It's pretty much the same deck except with the underwhelming smallpox instead of lili... i latter found in testing that it was not that bad, it's like +1/-2 at the sametime. the sac land can really screw a player that keep a hand of 2 lands. and its 1 turn faster... its not perfect and i need to test more... i probably going to bring it in FNM in the 2 next week
Standard:GWRU 4C Collected Company Modern:GUWRB Bloom Titan Legacy:BUG SHARDLESS BUG
EDH : GR BORBORYGMOS ENRAGED GU PRIME SPEAKER ZEGENA UWR ZEDRUU THE GREATHEARTED UBR MISHRA ARTIFICER PRODIGY B SHEOLDRED WHISPERING ONE R ASHLING THE PILGRIM
Honestly, I don't like Smallpox because killing your own lands is a big problem in a deck that requires as much mana as this. Without Flagstones of Trokair it just isn't good enough. It also isn't repeatable, like Liliana's +1 is, which is huge.
I also found out that even in this deck Grave Titan is just much better than Sun Titan. Recurring the occasional Blade Splicer or Liliana just doesn't do as much as constantly spawning 2/2s that make them have to deal with it or die. It is also much scarier with an early Unburial Rites.
you can argue that a lilianna is SO much better than smallpox and i wont deny it to a .25 cent card... i'm not crazy. I simply want to point that the first 2 ability of liliana are on a single card. yes i know there is a draw back that's why you play more land (i will probably increase 1 land but i know that's not a flagstone) and the fact that you can't do it many time. But honestly, i can't count the time i see a lilliana being a Gatekeeper of Malakir getting a O-ring the next turn. Smallpox is the first 2 ability at the same time! and for BB only!
i might explore the idea of grave titan considering the number of doom blade that kill wurmcoil atm... and it seem better with rite also. and smallpox just need to sac a token instead of the whole wurmcoil...
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Kakwann, Lvl 39 Sorcerer
Currently Playing
Standard:GWRU 4C Collected Company Modern:GUWRB Bloom Titan Legacy:BUG SHARDLESS BUG
EDH : GR BORBORYGMOS ENRAGED GU PRIME SPEAKER ZEGENA UWR ZEDRUU THE GREATHEARTED UBR MISHRA ARTIFICER PRODIGY B SHEOLDRED WHISPERING ONE R ASHLING THE PILGRIM
A decklist of my own:
4x Isolated Chapel
8x Plains
12x Swamp
Creatures
4x Reassembling Skeleton
4x Blade Splicer
2x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2x Sun Titan
3x Hero of Bladehold
1x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Liliana of the Veil
1x Doom Blade
2x Go for the Throat
3x Moan of the Unhallowed
3x Unburial Rites
3x Day of Judgment
4x Sphere of the Suns
1x Day of Judgment
3x Curse of Death's Hold
4x Phyrexian Crusader
4x Mirran Crusader
3x Oblivion Ring
A few things: this is not a reanimator deck. It can ocasionally pull off T3 Liliana, discard Norn, T4 discard Rites and then flashback, which is backbreaking, but that is very rare. The point here is to win an attrition war. Unburial Rites is used as often to revive Hero of Bladehold, Sun Titan/Wurmcoil or even Blade Splicer. Each of those creatures forces removal, and Unburial Rites can make them have to waste as much as three removal spells on each of them (not considering the bodies some of them leave behind), which Liliana promptly denies.
There are lots of ways to make Liliana one-sided, from Skeletons to flashback spells to Sun Titan. Things like Nihil Spellbomb hurt, but not in a crippling way: first, because while you use your graveyard, this is not a graveyard deck in that you don't care about having a full graveyard (just getting advantage of whatever gets in it), second because they are running Spellbomb which will make their gameplan a bit more awkward.
It also performs pretty well against control. Many cards there are resilient to countermagic (Skeleton reassembles, Moan and Rite flashback and your threats are backed up by Rites) and removal (since you get value from almost any creature there) and if you get Liliana on they are in for a hard time. Inkmoth Nexus manages to be very annoying, but that is what the Curses from the board are for.
Aggro is a little more annoying but Reassembing Skeletons and Blade Splicer help you survive a lot until you get DoJ on. Flying creatures are annoying but there aren't many good flying weenies out there.
Curse of Death's Hold and Mirran Crusader are there for WRR and MBI. CoDH shuts down Nexus and kills most infect guys, while Mirran Crusader blocks all day long without suffering much.
Something I'm not sure about is running swords. They are kinda cool with Moan of the Unhallowed and Reassembling Skeleton, but sometimes they just feel too expensive.
Commander GU Edric Control
4 smallpox
3 beast within
2 black sun zenith
3 unburial rites
4 veridian emissary
3 solemn simulacrum
2 acidic slime
2 glissa, the traitor
2 wurmcoil engine
3 grave titan
2 garruk, primal hunter
4 isolated chapel
4 woodland cemetary
4 sunpetal grove
1 plans
5 swamp
5 forest
1 Sheoldred, the Whispering One
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Bloodgift Demon
1 Rune Scarred Demon
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
3 Solemn Somulacrum
16 Instants/Sorceries
3 Distress
3 Unburial Rites
2 Dismember
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Day of Judgment
3 Enchantments
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Gideon Jura
26 lands
3 Ghost Quarters
4 Isolated Chapel
7 Planes
12 Swamps
Against aggro, I would probably side out the discard and bring in another day and some black removal.
Against control, I would take out the days and bring in more discard/extractions maybe?
Does something like this have any chance of being viable? I've been seeing some similar lists online, but they mostly utilize Heartless Summoning . I've also never seen any of them do anything in any dailies or anything.
I'm just wondering if discard with despise, distress, liliana, followed by surgically extracting some of their better cards can debilitate my opponent. Then using rings and creature control on anything that makes it down will let me stay in the game long enough until I can start landing bombs and/or reanimating the bombs that I had discarded.
I know this is similar to Solar Flare, minus the benefits of the card drawing and counters that blue brings, but I sometimes feel that Flare is a bit too clunky even with all of that card draw. I'm hoping that simulacrum and bloodgift will help out in the card draw department, the stable mana base will make it more consistent (probably just consistently bad :), and the added number of bombs will help make it viable. I also think that a distress followed by an extracting can be pretty rough for some control decks.
So, honestly, is something like this really viable at all? Or has this been tried to death a million times already and I don't know it? Thanks.
- Norn has an immediate impact on the board. Even if you don't just wipe out everything they have, their position becomes severely weakened and it can even save you from lethal. Sheoldred would have to wait until their upkeep and possibly other turns, giving them room to remove it fast.
- Norn can end the game right there. That list usually has lots of bodies in play at the same time, from Splicer and its tokens to Skeletons to Soldiers, so a general +2/+2 from Norn can mean GG on the spot. At this point, pitching cards to Liliana is not as important.
Going to be testing a variant list today. Moan of the Unhallowed goes out, +1 Doom Blade, +1 Hero, +1 Sword of Feast and Famine.
How I wish Hawks were in the format. They would be the perfect fit for the deck.
4 Ressembling Skeleton
4 Blade Splicer
4 Archon of Justice
3 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Elesh Norn
2 Sheoldred
3 Unburial Rites
3 Day of Judgment
4 Smallpox
4 Sphere of the Suns
Land (25)
4 Isolated Chaptel
10 Plains
11 Swamp
1 Day
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Sun Titan
3 Dismember
3 Celestial Purge
3 Nihil Spellbomb
Standard: GWRU 4C Collected Company
Modern: GUWRB Bloom Titan
Legacy: BUG SHARDLESS BUG
EDH :
GR BORBORYGMOS ENRAGED
GU PRIME SPEAKER ZEGENA
UWR ZEDRUU THE GREATHEARTED
UBR MISHRA ARTIFICER PRODIGY
B SHEOLDRED WHISPERING ONE
R ASHLING THE PILGRIM
I also found out that even in this deck Grave Titan is just much better than Sun Titan. Recurring the occasional Blade Splicer or Liliana just doesn't do as much as constantly spawning 2/2s that make them have to deal with it or die. It is also much scarier with an early Unburial Rites.
i might explore the idea of grave titan considering the number of doom blade that kill wurmcoil atm... and it seem better with rite also. and smallpox just need to sac a token instead of the whole wurmcoil...
Standard: GWRU 4C Collected Company
Modern: GUWRB Bloom Titan
Legacy: BUG SHARDLESS BUG
EDH :
GR BORBORYGMOS ENRAGED
GU PRIME SPEAKER ZEGENA
UWR ZEDRUU THE GREATHEARTED
UBR MISHRA ARTIFICER PRODIGY
B SHEOLDRED WHISPERING ONE
R ASHLING THE PILGRIM
Commander GU Edric Control