CPA Build-A-Deck III: Liliana Vess

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
We already have badlands, so Bloodstained mire seems like an auto-include.

4x Liliana Vess
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Hissing Miasma
3x Dark Ritual
1x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Fireball
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
2x Damnation
1x Dream Salvage
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer
4x Smallpox
4x Badlands
4x Hypnotic Specter
1x Vicious Hunger
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Will o' the Wisp

Creatures spells: 10
Non-Creature spells: 23
Land: 10

Total: 42
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
R

rokapoke

Guest
We need more creatures!

... so I'll expand our discard with a bit of "on-demand" discarding...
2x Blazing Specter ought to help.



4x Liliana Vess
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Hissing Miasma
3x Dark Ritual
1x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Fireball
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
2x Damnation
1x Dream Salvage
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer
4x Smallpox
4x Badlands
4x Hypnotic Specter
1x Vicious Hunger
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Will o' the Wisp
2x Nevinyrral's Disk
2x Blazing Specter

Creatures spells: 12
Non-Creature spells: 25
Land: 10

Total: 46
 

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
rokapoke said:
We need more creatures!
I'll add another shortfang and remove the hunger.


4x Liliana Vess
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Hissing Miasma
3x Dark Ritual
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Fireball
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
2x Damnation
1x Dream Salvage
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer
4x Smallpox
4x Badlands
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Will o' the Wisp
2x Nevinyrral's Disk
2x Blazing Specter

Creatures spells: 13
Non-Creature spells: 24
Land: 10

Total: 46
 
B

BigBlue

Guest
I think the Miasma should be replaced... W/ 2 damnation and 2 disks... I'd rather see a creature.

I'll add more duals...

4x Blood Crypt

4x Liliana Vess
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Hissing Miasma
3x Dark Ritual
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Fireball
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
2x Damnation
1x Dream Salvage
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer
4x Smallpox
4x Badlands
4x Blood Crypt
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Will o' the Wisp
2x Nevinyrral's Disk
2x Blazing Specter

Creatures spells: 13
Non-Creature spells: 24
Land: 14

Total: 51
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
To continue work on the mana base: with Cabal coffers Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth follows naturally. Just the one to start with, but if there are more nonbasics I'd add one or two more.

4x Liliana Vess
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Hissing Miasma
3x Dark Ritual
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Fireball
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
2x Damnation
1x Dream Salvage
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer
4x Smallpox
4x Badlands
4x Blood Crypt
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Will o' the Wisp
2x Nevinyrral's Disk
2x Blazing Specter

Creatures spells: 13
Non-Creature spells: 24
Land: 15

Total: 52[/QUOTE]
 

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
I'd like to add another creature and remove the Miasma.
Corrosive Mentor, wither and gives wither to all your black creatures


4x Liliana Vess
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
3x Dark Ritual
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Fireball
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
2x Damnation
1x Dream Salvage
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer
4x Smallpox
4x Badlands
4x Blood Crypt
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Will o' the Wisp
2x Nevinyrral's Disk
2x Blazing Specter
2x Corrosive Mentort

Creatures spells: 15
Non-Creature spells: 23
Land: 15

Total: 53
 
B

BigBlue

Guest
4x Tainted Peak - with all these swamps, they'll be more duals...

I think w/ the addition of all this mana... which is black... we should run a couple Drain Life

4x Liliana Vess
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
3x Dark Ritual
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Fireball
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
2x Damnation
1x Dream Salvage
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer
4x Smallpox
4x Badlands
4x Tainted Peak
4x Blood Crypt
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Will o' the Wisp
2x Nevinyrral's Disk
2x Blazing Specter
2x Corrosive Mentort

Creatures spells: 15
Non-Creature spells: 23
Land: 19

Total: 57
 
B

BigBlue

Guest
I'm adding 2 Drain Life. (I'd like to cut something, but I'll leave that to someone else) - also organizing everything.

4x Liliana Vess

2x Will o' the Wisp
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Blazing Specter
2x Corrosive Mentort
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer

2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Fireball
2x Damnation
4x Smallpox
2x Drain Life

2x Lightning Bolt
3x Dark Ritual
1x Dream Salvage

2x Nevinyrral's Disk

4x Badlands
4x Tainted Peak
4x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace

Creatures spells: 15
Non-Creature spells: 25
Land: 19

Total: 59
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
3x Liliana Vess

2x Will o' the Wisp
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Blazing Specter
2x Corrosive Mentort
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer

2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Fireball
2x Damnation
4x Smallpox
2x Drain Life

2x Lightning Bolt
4x Dark Ritual
1x Dream Salvage

2x Nevinyrral's Disk

4x Badlands
4x Tainted Peak
4x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained mire
1x Cabal coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace

Creatures spells: 15
Non-Creature spells: 25
Land: 19

Total: 59

There's not enough land in this deck. I've cut a Liliana for the 4th ritual. I don't agree with Tainted peak though: there's not that much red to begin with, and with Bloodstained mires + 8 duals that's more than enough red to support a lot of red. But the main thing is that it isn't a swamp, so it doesn't work with Cabal coffers.
 
B

BigBlue

Guest
That makes sense Shabbaman, but what's the point of the coffers anyways? if we're counting on buku Black for Drain or Fireball, we should at least add 1 or 2 coffers... I'll swap out my 4 Tainted Peaks for 1 Coffer and 3 Swamps. (Blood Crypt + Badlands are also swamps) I think we should take something else out instead of Liliana. This deck isn't really expensive so 20-21 lands should suffice.

3x Liliana Vess

2x Will o' the Wisp
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Blazing Specter
2x Corrosive Mentort
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer

2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Fireball
2x Damnation
4x Smallpox
2x Drain Life

2x Lightning Bolt
4x Dark Ritual
1x Dream Salvage

2x Nevinyrral's Disk

4x Badlands
4x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained mire
2x Cabal Coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
3x Swamp

Creatures spells: 15
Non-Creature spells: 25
Land: 19

Total: 59

There's not enough land in this deck. I've cut a Liliana for the 4th ritual. I don't agree with Tainted peak though: there's not that much red to begin with, and with Bloodstained mires + 8 duals that's more than enough red to support a lot of red. But the main thing is that it isn't a swamp, so it doesn't work with Cabal coffers.[/QUOTE]
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
BigBlue said:
That makes sense Shabbaman, but what's the point of the coffers anyways? if we're counting on buku Black for Drain or Fireball, we should at least add 1 or 2 coffers...
You are right, the deck isn't mana intensive at all... which is, well, wrong. It's not a weenie rush deck, because Liliana is too expensive for that. I think it should've become a control deck. Perhaps this deckbuilding exercise should become more of a "deck building guidelines" game than a "add a card" game.

For instance, no matter how awesome lightning bolt is, what this deck really needs is pyroclasm (or, if we'd have a lot of Cabal coffers, Earthquake, which also saves our hippies) to deal with the opposing horde. The only blockers we have are the two willo's and the stinkweed pimp.

With our main card being a planewalker, we should've identified the cards that don't hurt our planeswalker, but does hurt our opponent. Cards like the Disk and Death cloud are very solid. Earthquake probably isn't ("all players hurts planeswalkers, right?).
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
See, I think we're going in a different direction with this set of deck building then. Before, we just added cards to the deck that we were probably familiar with and thought fit the colors. Here, we're actually discussing the deck and saying the direction it should go and what cards should be in or out, in which case (at least for me) it becomes more that person's (or people's) vision of the deck and they don't really need the others to add cards if they already have an idea for it.

Which is fine, but if that's the case, at least for this set of deck-building, I'll bow out and just watch you guys build the deck and if you intend to play them, take one for a spin if you guys want. I just like the previous deck-building where you see what deck forms from people just giving cards and trying to play with it.
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
Spiderman said:
See, I think we're going in a different direction with this set of deck building then. Before, we just added cards to the deck that we were probably familiar with and thought fit the colors. Here, we're actually discussing the deck and saying the direction it should go and what cards should be in or out, in which case (at least for me) it becomes more that person's (or people's) vision of the deck and they don't really need the others to add cards if they already have an idea for it.

Which is fine, but if that's the case, at least for this set of deck-building, I'll bow out and just watch you guys build the deck and if you intend to play them, take one for a spin if you guys want. I just like the previous deck-building where you see what deck forms from people just giving cards and trying to play with it.
It sounds a bit negative, but I see your point. I think it'd be boring to build decks with 4x and with guidelines. We'd just be building regular decks and giving critique on card choices and numbers. That can be nice, but if I'd want that I could just as well open a thread and start with a suggested decklist. That's not "build a deck". And it's pretty boring.

But I think I can propose a compromise: we build highlander decks so everyone can come up with a card that fits (and best of all: because it's highlander you get nicer (obscure) cards than "4x duress, 4x dark ritual, 4x hippie"). But instead of adding a card, you can add a ruleset: "I add 8 slots of discard". Something like that?
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I know it sounds negative - I couldn't really think of a way to say it better in a forum :) I mean, I prefer not to go with that way of deck-building, so all I was trying to do was say why I didn't want to participate :)

I think that's why we went the highlander route before - to get more cards in and have a variety :)

I can try the compromise although it's still setting a direction; I mean, if someone says 8 slots of discard, well, there's only so many (good) discard cards. But I'm willing to try it once :)
 

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Shabbaman said:
Earthquake probably isn't ("all players hurts planeswalkers, right?).
Not directly. A planeswalker is neither a creature nor a player.

I have no problem discussing the build and seeing the deck evolve. I'm just not sure that we should be able to just add 4x of a card.... propose a card by adding 1 and then if others feel it's needed add more.

I originally put in the Mentors so that blockers would deal -1/-1 counters, but without the 1/5 wall type creatures they may not be the best choice. i had the thought of using wither as a subtle control device along with the Miasma.
 
B

BigBlue

Guest
How about this...

One problem w/ these decks is they are built one after the other, so when you build the final deck, you know what the other decks are and can sort of prepare for them...

There aren't too many ways to deal w/ Planeswalkers in Black or Red... You're only option is to overpower it via attack - I can't think of a "Destroy target Permanent" like Vindicate in Black or Red... Blue has Bounce to deal w/ them... But - other than that your only option is to power through w/ damage aimed at them rather than the player.

I say we scrap this deck and start over - with that in mind...

I prefer Highlander for the forum game build-a-decks, sure the decks don't get as tuned as they would otherwise... but that's sort of the point. It's Casual... If we want to allow mulitple multi-lands for mana fixing, that seems appropriate and would help all the decks. If we want, we could also allow 2 of rather than 1 of... that would seem a decent compromise.

And, Control is a good direction for Liliana imho. This deck wouldn't be "horrible", but I think it'd get schooled by the other deck.
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
Mooseman;272717 said:
Not directly. A planeswalker is neither a creature nor a player.
I'm no judge, and I know crap about planeswalkers. But I found this on wizards' site:

DEALING DAMAGE TO PLANESWALKERS

If a source you control would deal noncombat damage to an opponent, you may have that source deal that damage to a planeswalker that opponent controls instead. This is a redirection effect: you choose whether to redirect the damage as the redirection effect is applied, and it's subject to the normal rules for ordering replacement effects. The player affected by the damage chooses the order in which to apply such effects, but the controller of the source of the damage chooses whether the damage is redirected. Note that this redirection can't be applied to combat damage.


For example, although you can't target a planeswalker with Shock, you can target your opponent with Shock, and then as Shock resolves, choose to have Shock deal its 2 damage to one of your opponent's planeswalkers. If you do, two loyalty counters are removed from that planeswalker.


You can't choose to split the damage between a player and a planeswalker. In the Shock example above, you couldn't have Shock deal 1 damage to the player and 1 damage to the planeswalker.


If a source you control would deal damage to you, you can't have that source deal that damage to one of your planeswalkers instead.

In a Two-Headed Giant game, damage that would be dealt to a player can't be redirected to a planeswalker his or her teammate controls.
So if you play an Earthquake you could kill an opposing planeswalker, but keep your own unharmed. Right? Because in that case, Earthquake would be a solid choice. And since it still has only 59 cards, we can tweak it ;) I'm changing the mentorts for Earthquakes. Die Ajani, DIE!

3x Liliana Vess

2x Will o' the Wisp
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Blazing Specter
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer

2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Fireball
2x Damnation
4x Smallpox
2x Drain Life
2x Corrosive Mentort

2x Lightning Bolt
4x Dark Ritual
1x Dream Salvage

2x Nevinyrral's Disk

4x Badlands
4x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained mire
2x Cabal Coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
3x Swamp

Creatures spells: 13
Non-Creature spells: 27
Land: 19

Total: 59
 

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
There are only 58 cards listed, so I'll add the Liliana Vess back so there are 4 again.
Still need 1 more card.
Oh, I fixed the Earthquake link.


So if you play an Earthquake you could kill an opposing planeswalker, but keep your own unharmed. Right? Because in that case, Earthquake would be a solid choice. And since it still has only 59 cards, we can tweak it ;) I'm changing the mentorts for Earthquakes. Die Ajani, DIE!

4x Liliana Vess

2x Will o' the Wisp
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Blazing Specter
2x Nezumi Shortfang
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer

2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Fireball
2x Damnation
4x Smallpox
2x Drain Life
2x Earthquake

2x Lightning Bolt
4x Dark Ritual
1x Dream Salvage

2x Nevinyrral's Disk

4x Badlands
4x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained mire
2x Cabal Coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
3x Swamp

Creatures spells: 13
Non-Creature spells: 27
Land: 19

Total: 59
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
I'll change the shortfangs with another two wisps. The deck is low on creatures already, but flying regenerating blockers should be fine with Earthquake and Disk.

4x Liliana Vess

4x Will o' the Wisp
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Blazing Specter
1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Mindslicer

2x Duress
1x Death Cloud
1x Fireball
2x Damnation
4x Smallpox
2x Drain Life
2x Earthquake

2x Lightning Bolt
4x Dark Ritual
1x Dream Salvage

2x Nevinyrral's Disk

4x Badlands
4x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained mire
2x Cabal Coffers
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Rix Maadi, Dungeon palace
3x Swamp

Creatures spells: 13
Non-Creature spells: 27
Land: 19

Total: 59

Suggested changes for finishing the deck:

-More Earthquakes!
-Adding another land, or even two. Could be another coffers. The deck is low on land. What about Crucible of worlds? It'd be good with Smallpox.
-More Earthquakes!
-Changing the drain lifes to Consume spirit or (if lifegain is less important) Profane command
-More Earthquakes!
-More specters. Blazing specter is good because of its haste, but discard isn't random. I'm ok with it, but what about:
-More Earthquakes! Not really, but what about:
-Needle specter: I just found this with gatherer. Still random discard and no haste. But it has potential with:
-More Earthquakes! Not really, but what about:
-Jitte. It's not a casual card, but it should be in any deck with creatures. It'd be great with the flyers, and especially with Needle specter.
 
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