Last week I wrote a short article about havengul lich, today it's about Liliana of the dark realms. When I'm building decks I almost always build them around cards that I consider to be underrated or others would consider as trash, which really just means they are untested in the current meta.I have been building decks around Liliana of the dark realms for about a month or so, and I really don't understand why most people thinks she is "trash" and unplayable, I actually consider her to be one of the strongest planeswalkers in standard. She has a ton of abilities: +1: Search your library for a Swamp card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.-3: Target creature gets +X/+X or -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of Swamps you control.-6: You get an emblem with "Swamps you control have : Add BBBB to your mana pool.'"
This is how I read her abilities (if they are supported by the right cards).
+1: fixes mana problems and thins out your deck -3: Kill target creature -3: Target creature gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of Swamps you control.
-3 gain X life and draw X cards, where X is the number of Swamps you control.
-6: Liliana of the dark realms deals 4X damage to target player. That player discards 4X cards or target creature gets trample and +4X/+0 until end of turn
powerful right?
To make Liliana this powerful, she has to be in a heavy black centered deck, supported with cards that can keep her on the battlefield.
This is the shell of cards I figured would be good in a heavy black deck.
Victim of night: Probably the best spot removal card in standard since zombie decks has fallen out of favor.
Mutilate: Can potentially act as a one-sided wrath, plays around boros charm, and creatures cant regenerate.
Sign in blood: Draw two cards for two BB and life. Very good at finding cards when you need to get out of certain situations. And it's hilarious when you kill your opponent with it.
Underworld connection/ Staff of nin: very powerful card generators
Vampire Nighthawk: very solid 3 drop. almost always trades for a card. very good with lilianas -3 ability.
The first deck I came up
vampire control deck.
4 Dragonskull Summit
2 Isolated Chapel4 Godless Shrine10 Swamp4 Blood Crypt
2 Dreadbore1 Sever the Bloodline1 Tribute to Hunger4 Mutilate3 Victim of Night1 Devil's Play2 Rakdos's Return2 Olivia Voldaren2 Bloodline Keeper4 Vampire Nighthawk3 Liliana of the Dark Realms2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad3 Rakdos Keyrune3 Sign in Blood1 Increasing Ambition2 Staff of Nin
Sideboard1 Curse of Death's Hold3 Duress1 Staff of Nin1 Witchbane Orb2 Rolling Temblor1 Dead Weight1 Cremate2 Rakdos Charm3 Slaughter Games
Actually a decent deck and very good vs. aggro. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Bloodline Keeper are very powerful together, and if you ultimate Liliana of the Dark Realms you win the game by casting either Rakdos's return or Devil's play for lethal. The only problem I had with deck was that my creatures died when I cast mutilate and I really wanted mutilate to act as a one-sided wrath. So decided to splash green for Thragtusk, Wolf run and better sideboard options.
This is what I came up with:
4 Blood Crypt1 Godless Shrine4 Overgrown Tomb4 Woodland Cemetery2 Kessig Wolf Run2 Stomping Ground7 Svamps
4 Mutilate2 Victim of Night2 Abrupt Decay4 Farseek3 Sign in Blood1 Increasing Ambition
3 Liliana of the Dark Realms2 Garruk Relentless1 Underworld Connections4 Thragtusk2 Desecration Demon1 Disciple of Bolas4 Vampire Nighthawk1 Rakdos's Return1 Staff of Nin1 Unburial Rites
Sideboard1 Curse of Death's Hold3 Duress1 Acidic Slime1 Witchbane Orb2 Ground Seal1 Rakdos's Return2 Rolling Temblor2 Rakdos Charm2 Slaughter Games
Very Powerful deck. Thragtusk and Desecration Demon are just awesome in a deck with mutilate.
Disciple of Bolas: is a black Sphinx's Revelation. Disciple of Bolas is just insane with Thragtusk, Desecration Demon and Liliana of the dark realms +X/+X ability.Kessig Wolf Run: by the time you start activating it, you will have a ton of land in play because of Liliana of the dark +1 ability. Oh, did I mention how well Kessig Wolf Run works with Liliana's -6 ability!! :) Farseek: I really have mixed feelings about this card. It's amazing to cast a turn 3 wrath or a planeswalker, but you really don't want to draw more than one each game, and when you are in top draw mode, it's just an awful card.
Garruk Relentless: Once transformed, Garruk, the Veil-Cursed can take control of the game fairly quickly. It can tutor for creatures that can give you a ton of card advantage. Wolfs with deathtouch given +X/+X with Lillian -3 ability and trample +X/+0 with wolf run can easily deal lethal damage. I ended up cutting farseek and added Geralf's Messenger since it works well with Disciple of Bolas and mutilate. I also added some more spot removal to deal with haste creatures.
this is how the deck ended up.
I tested the deck over 4 games on MTGO and went 4-0Naya blitz 2-0Jund aggro 1-0 UWR with Aurelia, the Warleader 1-0
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