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Liliana's Endless Ranks of the Dead

Commander / EDH Mono-Black Reanimator Zombie

Vallaris


Maybeboard


If a deck isn't black, is it even a deck?

For some years now, I'd been collecting some of my best mono-black cards together, not all, but most. Some have found their way into other decks, but many stayed here.

Liliana is and always will be my favourite planeswalker so this is her deck. The first mono-colour deck that is compleat.

Some stories behind some of the cards Show

This deck is mostly typical zombie tribal and reanimation but with a lot of Liliana cards. Could stand to have more creatures but I've been picky about which ones go in this deck.

Maybeboard here is mostly stuff I don't have yet (any of the lands).

..........

WIP

No need to list every variant of Liliana here, that's easy enough to see in the deck list. Instead, what's listed here are cards that take advantage of her planeswalker abilities or help get her emblems faster.

Liliana only needs another non-token creature to die in order to flip her to her planeswalker side and this deck has plenty of sacrifice outlets to enable this to happen faster.

Diabolic Intent - sacrifice + tutor

Phyrexian Tower - land with sacrifice ability

Infernal Tribute - sacrifice any card in play to draw a card. Found this one in the bulk boxes at our old LGS, initially the art caught my eye. That said, it seems incredibly underrated in black, especially mono black, considering that this card has a hard time getting rid of pesky enchantments you got yourself into.

Pillar Tombs of Aku - this is to punish other players more but is yet another sacrifice outlet

Liliana of the Veil - not ideal to use on your own, but is an option. Likewise some of the other variants of Liliana enable this as well.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - Can sacrifice a creature at will, and draw a card

Scourge of Nel Toth - one of my favourites to flip Liliana. Discard him early, then bring him back early while also flipping her

Erebos, Bleak-Hearted - Can sacrifice a creature to reduce the power/toughness of another

Ghoulcaller Gisa - sacrifice a creature for zombie tokens based on power

God-Eternal Bontu - ETB, sacrifice creatures and draw cards

Murderous Rider - ideally this would be used on something an opponent controls, but if needed, it can be used to flip Liliana

Plague Belcher - two -1/-1 counters on a creature you control, this can sometimes transform Liliana

Soulless One - highly circumstantial, he can be cast and if there are no Zombies anywhere on the field or in anyone's graveyard, he will die immediately. Obviously that is not an ideal use for him, but it exists so it bears mentioning.

The Chain Veil - Liliana's classic artifact. On the surface, this one seems like it might not be as good as Rings as Brighthearth below, but where the Chain Veil differs is being able to use two different loyalty abilities. Chain Veil also only needs to be activated once per turn to effect all of your planeswalkers on the board.

Rings of Brighthearth - Great on it's own, killer when paired with The Chain Veil. Gives you the ability to double up on an activated non-mana ability, which includes Planeswalkers. 2 Mana is needed per activated ability.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - This guy really does it all for Liliana. Not only can he sacrifice a creature at will to get Heretical Healer flipped, but he can proliferate too.

Karn's Bastion - Proliferate

Not in deck yet / maybe

Settle the Score - I have a bunch of these, just have to find one when I remember lol

The Elderspell - Have one in another deck, cheap enough that it's worth getting another, again, when I remember.

Spread the Sickness - maybe on this one, it's removal with proliferate, but 5 CMC

Sword of Truth and Justice - if I had it, I'd put it in this deck, but I'm not going out of my way to obtain it nor is it very high on the wishlist

Liliana's Scrounger - can put a loyalty counter on a Liliana planeswalker specifically, not sure this one's worth it though.

There are two versions of Liliana missing from this deck. Used to have a few of Liliana Vess , one from Lorwyn, one with the other art. Both were lost and will be replaced eventually. Professor Onyx is rather new and haven't obtained her either; as much of a fan I am of Liliana, I'm patient when it comes to waiting for prices to be a bit more reasonable after a new set is released (and after we've had enough of packs from a particular set as well).

This deck has some big heavy costed spells like Rise of the Dark Realms and Finale of Eternity which are extremely fun to pull off. Extra mana also helps substantially with activating The Chain Veil and Rings of Brighthearth .

Cabal Coffers - adds one mana for every swamp. So happy this was in our box of MH2!

Cabal Stronghold - the variant of Cabal Coffers from Dominaria, less powerful, but still good

Lake of the Dead - sacrifice a swamp for Early birthday gift from my lovely partner, this card will find its way into many decks, I adore this one! Easily my favourite land in all of MTG. Can provide a huge mana boost, but in a way that is so utterly black in flavour because it involves sacrificing a land both to bring out and to utilize.

Phyrexian Tower - sacrifice a creature for

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - the land ever mono-coloured deck wants

Castle Locthwain - helps with card draw

Karn's Bastion - not here for mana, but for proliferating all the Liliana planeswalkers

Witch's Cottage - counts as a swamp, enters tapped unless there are three or more swamps, etb creature from graveyard on top of library. I really hope Wizards releases more cards like this, I really like this cycle of lands for mono decks.

My mana rocks are a bit lacking in this deck. Part of this is because of mana boosts from other sources, part of is is just a lack of options for mono-coloured decks.

Sol Ring + Arcane Signet - the usuals.

Songs of the Damned - mana boost instant. Got it because it seemed cool, threw it in this deck and have liked it enough to keep it in. It's a decent card for a deck not running green that expects to have a lot of creatures in the graveyard.

Anything here is stuff I would include in this deck if I had it. Most of the cards here are just a bit high in price at the moment and would pick up if they had reprints.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - waiting for a reprint on this one

Field of the Dead - I regret trading these in lol. More so, I wish I'd bought one after it got banned from Standard after trading them in.

Crypt of Agadeem - have some of these on the way, one will go into this deck

Unholy Grotto - maybe, returns zombies from graveyard to top of the library

Jet Medallion - needs a reprint lol

Phyrexian Altar - maybe someday

Doubling Cube - also needs a reprint

Caged Sun - this one isn't too bad in price, but might have this one, between moving and being reunited with my old collection, it's taken a while to go through everything

It's a black deck, so removal is aplenty. That said, this is a deck that likes to play with it's food a bit.

Liliana of the Dark Realms - Her -3 ability, creature removal based on number of swamps controlled

Liliana, Untouched By Death - Her -2 ability, creature removal based on number of zombies controlled

Liliana, Waker of the Dead - Her -3 ability, creature removal based on number of cards in graveyard

Liliana of the Veil - Her -2 ability, target player sacrifices a creature

Liliana, Dreadhorde General - Both her -4 and -9 abilities, sacrifice 2 creatures, and then giga-sacrifice almost everything

Liliana, Death's Majesty - Her -7 ability, destroys all non-zombie creatures

Liliana, the Last Hope - Her +1 ability, potential removal, usually just weakens

Liliana, Dreadhorde General - Her -9 ability is the biggest baddest board wipe in the deck for everyone except you.

Nevinyrral's Disk - sometimes you just need to destroy everything, except planeswalkers and lands

Black Sun's Zenith - puts -1/-1 counters on all creatures

Damnation - destroys all creatures

Killing Wave - potential board wipe

semi-board wipe:

Liliana, Death's Majesty - Destroy all non-Zombie creatures. -7 ability

Finale of Eternity - targets three creatures with potential for bringing back all your creatures from the graveyard

Murderous Rider - target creature of planeswalker

Yawgmoth's Vile Offering - target creature of planeswalker

Blight - land destruction for 2 mana in black but the opponent has to use the land first. Use it wisely and on something good. Really love this card and find it quite underrated!

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - gives -1/-1 counters

Erebos, Bleak-Hearted - reduces power/toughness of creatures with potential for removal

Pillar Tombs of Aku - enchantment, forces every player to sacrifice a creature every upkeep otherwise lose life, another underrated card

Call to the Grave - another enchantment that forces players to sacrifice creatures, non-zombies though. There's a number of non-Zombies in this deck so it effects me too, but I have plenty of other ways to get them back. That said, this will be one of the first to be replaced with something else.

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90% Casual

Competitive

Date added 3 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

23 - 0 Mythic Rares

31 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

4 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.74
Tokens 1/1 B Token Creature Zombie Goblin, Bat 1/1 B, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Emblem Liliana, Waker of the Dead, Emblem Liliana, the Last Hope, On an Adventure, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B, Zombie Knight 2/2 B
Folders Vallaris EDH Decks
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