Liliana, Heretical Healer - [Hacky Sac]
Introduction
Since Liliana, Heretical Healer
was first spoiled, this has been one of my favorite and most powerful commander decks. While this deck was originally meant to be fun and cheap, it has proven to be much stronger than I thought and become infamous at my local gaming store. As I have upgraded it over time, the price of my deck has risen from its original estimate of $100 to around $200, still cheap for a tuned commander deck.
Strategy
Much like mono-red aggro, this deck has a rather straightforward design, albeit easier to interrupt. Using various self-sacrifice and destruction cards this deck supports the commander and then forms a powerful reanimation engine once the commander has used its "-8" ability. Due to the large amount of destruction present in this deck combined with Liliana's discard ability, the strategy can be simplified into three sections:
Getting to Liliana's Ultimate Ability
Since the central strategy is using the commander to win, a lot of focus must be on support. Typically you want to play Liliana, as well as a creature (such as Blood Pet or Fume Spitter) that can sacrifice itself so the commander can flip as quickly as possible. When doing mulligans, make sure that you have at least three mana available to play Liliana and have at least one of the creatures necessary for flipping, prioritization flipping cards. Once Liliana has been flipped, the next goal is to get the loyalty counters necessary so that the "-8" ability can be used. Until you are able to do so, use the "+2" ability every turn, destroy troublesome creatures, play more creatures to defend Liliana, and hold back from attacking with your creatures.
After Using The Ultimate
Now that the emblem has been put into play, it is time to take a more aggressive stance and work towards winning the game. You can now sacrifice creatures each turn before the end step and have them re-enter so as to gain their sacrifice or enter the battlefield benefits for free. As you can gain control of your opponents' creatures as well from this emblem it is ideal to try and destroy them first. Use board clears such as Damnation or Mutilate to clear creatures all at once or use sacrifice effects such as Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos combined with a sacrifice outlet to preemptively destroy opponents' creatures. Once you are set up to be protected from your opponents' creatures, use card draw and tutor effects such as Sidisi, Undead Vizier or Harvester of Souls to progress your own strategies. While in this well-protected position, it is now easiest to defeat opponents with life loss through sacrifice effects, which as a bonus, gain you more life, thereby getting out of range of burn based deaths. Use cards such as Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble to deal life loss this way and combine it with sacrifice outlets such as Viscera Seer and Spawning Pit to make use out of creatures that cannot sacrifice themselves.
Back-Up Plans
As the deck focuses so heavily around the commander, as well as the graveyard, a lot can go wrong and ruin or interrupt the deck's main strategy. Typical problems include: low mana-cost creatures with flying or unblockable, graveyard interruption or exile, and planeswalker interruption or destruction. While the creatures are easy to deal with as the deck has plenty of removal, the other effects present a much greater problem. Black does not have many options to deal with enchantments or artifacts that may interrupt this deck, and so the best option for getting rid of them is Ratchet Bomb. Unfortunately, black also does not have any way to return non-creature cards from the graveyard to the hand so that they may be used again, so tech cards must be used with great care. If all else fails and the primarily strategy is lost then the next best possible ways of winning are: combining Revel in Riches with a board clear, using the combat damage from Bonehoard or Nighthowler, using the life loss from Exsanguinate combined with mana accelerators such as Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Crypt Ghast, or creating a large board through Rise of the Dark Realms or Liliana Vess's "-8" ability.
Notes
Thank you for taking a look at my deck. The maybe-board contains some possible tech options for this deck. If you have any suggestions or questions about this deck be sure to comment. Thank you.
