This deck is about making your opponent run out of juice as quickly as possible! You should be approaching your first few turns trying to make them discard using Raven's Crime and Wrench Mind. Getting out your enchantments are a great way to stay in total control of the game, Waste Not opens opportunities to make big plays and gives you little zombie defenders to survive early! Shrieking Affliction will be your main source of damage, it's not required to win but it does make winning 100x easier when it's not destroyed, this is one of your primary win conditions, stack them for fast damage!
Once you've started withering down your opponents hand, you could use Drown in Sorrow as an early board wipe to control more aggressive decks and Mutilate for reliable board wipes against aggro decks in the later game, these wipes also work against indestructible, so that's pretty neat. You know whats hard for aggro decks to come back from? Having no cards in hand and no creatures on the field. You could also make use of Bile Blight and Go for the Throat as earlier forms of removal if turn 4 board wipes aren't working out. Hero's Downfall is a last resort, but generally you should be saving this for the big scary planeswalkers. Read the Bones gives you great deck control and helps you draw into ideal enchantments and removal, for 3 mana it's great value in this deck, I've tried replacing it with things like Despise but the card is so great that I rely on it heavily to keep me flowing even when my hand starts getting low. Empty the Pits is in this deck strictly as a late-game win condition if your enchantments aren't cutting it, summon a huge army and swing to win in 1 - 2 turns!
Liliana Vess has won me countless games alone in this deck, which is why we have 3 of her! Opponent is not playing cards to avoid damage from Shrieking Affliction? +1 her to force a discard! Opponent is continuously summoning new creatures to try and get aggressive? -2 for removal or -2 for Empty the Pits or another Liliana Vess! Finally, Liliana's -8, you just finished removing countless creatures from their deck, I'm sure you know where this is going. It's hard for a player to attack a planeswalker when their board gets wiped and they are relying on draw purely to play something that you already have an answer for.
You might be thinking this looks like a weird mix of 8rack and control, & it's a little bit of both but I promise you this: I have played this deck many times and it performs GREAT as a control deck and is dominant against most aggro decks.
Making changes to your sideboard before a match is not required for the deck to perform well, however; it will give you an extra edge if you know what deck you're playing against! Here are my recommendations:
Q: Why don't you run Thoughtseize or The Rack? //// A: I want this deck to primarily focus on control and budget. Both of those cards are great if you can afford them but the current build for the deck can function properly without them.
Q: Why don't you run any creatures? //// A: I know there are many great discard based creatures, but this deck doesn't require them. At most you'll be taking a bit of early damage until eventually you force the discard and remove their board. After that you should be in complete control of the game using Read the Bones to draw into your win conditions and key cards needed for any situations you find yourself in!
Q: I fear for the well-being of my win conditions being destroyed, how can I stop this? //// A: This is what Empty the Pits is for! It's a great additional win condition that gives you creatures to swing with. Play Empty the Pits late and delve your graveyard to summon your huge zombie army!
Q: The card Smallpox is a great, why not throw some in here? //// A: I totally agree, it is a great card, but it doesn't quite match what were going for in this deck. We have plenty of removal already and no land goes to waste in this deck, whether you play a late land for additional Mutilate damage or you revive your Raven's Crime from the graveyard, land is important to us and I personally feel we have enough removal that we don't need to play a higher risk card like Smallpox.
Q: Why do you run 24 lands? //// A: Drawing additional lands is not a terrible thing in this deck, you could hold onto them and discard them to reactivate Raven's Crime to keep a consistent discard rate going during the game. Additionally, you want to be 100% sure you get enough lands for Drown in Sorrow/Mutilate and Liliana Vess! (Swamps also increase your mutilate damage, more swamps = more damage).
Thanks for reading and have fun!
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