Liliana Golgari

[Vicar in a tutu]

I've been pondering a possible BG build these past few days. It's not gonna be blue, so I'm aware that it's instantly positioned as a t2 or worse deck, but I can live with that. This deck takes advantage of the new legendary planeswalker rules that allow for you to control Liliana of the Veil and Liliana, The Last Hope at the same time. With the proliferation of czech pile / 4C control-decks, including baleful strix and snapcaster mage, I think Liliana, The Last Hope can be quite powerful. It's also very strong against elves, death & taxes, young pyromancer, unflipped delvers, noble hierarchs, etc. And the -2-ability can be excellent, bringing back creatures and helping to outgrind your opponents. Here is a preliminary draft:

Lands (23)

4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Swamp
2 Forest
4 Wasteland

Creatures (12)

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Grim Flayer

Spells (17)

4 Fatal Push
4 Thoughseize
3 Hymn To Tourach
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
4 Chrome Mox

Planewalkers (7)

4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Liliana, The Last Hope

The deck has 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Hymns to give it at least a fighting chance against combo, however the latter are very strong against the Pile-menace, too. In a world of Deathrite Shamans, it seems like madness not to play the full playset of Fatal Push. Sylvan Library is very strong and I would love to play 2 MD. Dark Confidant can give card advantage and I have grown to prefer Grim Flayer over Tarmogoyf, since it can provide some card quality (everything is needed to give some consistency to a deck that doesnt play Ponder and Brainstorm, even though I'm aware that Grim Flayer can never match the blue cantrips). The deck plays a large amount of good 2-drops and with the additional goal of ramping up to Liliana-mana quickly, I have included 4 Chrome Mox. I'm a bit on the fence about how good these are, but I like the idea of a turn 1 hymn, confidant, library or flayer. The high amount of planeswalkers mean flayer will (hopefully) quickly enable delirium. The deck has a bad combo match-up. Lands is also horrid, with no instant speed edict-effects maindeck.

I'd like some feedback from you guys. In particular, what do you think about Chrome Mox in a deck like this?

[Claymore]

*Liliana Rock

I would think that BUG would actually be good colors for this. Being able to buy back Snapcasters and Strix is a ton of value, and both Lilianas can out churn anything.

I don't think Chrome Mox is necessary, you're not pushing out Chalice so I think it would be a safe cut. You're also not doing anything broken or pushing out a crushing hatebear (like DnT's experimental Mox/Tomb builds), so Mox is just disadvantage for you unless you can get Bob to stick (unlikely). Being able to focus on T1 DRS or disruption (thoughtseize, Push) and T2 Decay/Library/Hymn/Bob is fine.

If you wanted a Mox, I'd go Mox Diamonds and get Life from the Loam in the deck.

As is:

-4 Mox
+1 Sylvan
+1 Decay
+2 Loam

[Fox]

When you have extra slots generated by only having two colors, it's going to be important to define how those colors can work together in novel ways to generate win %. Otherwise the deck can be reduced to playing generically good staple cards in a sub-optimal color configuration (see @Claymore's post). As submitted your deck is a worse version of Pox, specifically LoamPox - you have the same tools at your disposal but you've lost angles of interaction. The most polarizing effect is control via land destruction Sinkhole/Smallpox, and among the more powerful things you can do are exploiting keyword "dredge" and Sylvan Library (assuming 3 dredgers in yard you can put 3 cards in hand, pay no life, put nothing back, and you could do all of this through Chains & Leovold & Notion Thief at the same time if you really wanted to). I see what you're doing with Grim Flayer & Confidant to replicate that latter effect but it feels slower. I don't like 23 land + Chrome Mox as it throws away your action cards and you just die to topdecking land; Mox Diamond is a much better idea as @Claymore has also pointed out, but I'd personally go for Dark Ritual - I really like the idea of turn 0 Rit -> Last Hope -> +1, you have 4 turns before you lose the game, best of luck to you. The issue I see with the dude plan + Mox Diamond is that you almost certainly just lose to something as simple as opponent T1 DRS -> you go Land, Mox, Bob -> T2 eat discarded land, K-Comm -> you have a land in play, are behind on board, and you have 5 cards in hand and have pitched a land to Mox....in a deck with 7 Lilly....how are you ever winning? That's a single scenario, but it isn't that unreasonable to see the kinds of issues you'll run into like StP your dude, Revoke your Mox; the path the 3 mana seems a bit fragile, and you really do need to get to 3 mana.

If we're really wanting to go down the rabbit hole on B/G shenanigans, we can talk about the consistency of Entomb [without Grisel, something generally only seen in Zombardment and occasionally Pox] combined with green's Regrowth-bears - note how splaying out your library in the yard works really well with Liliana, the Last Hope [-2] targeting E. Witness. You are still going to die horrible deaths to combo even with discard +/- land destruction, but yard hate honestly isn't going to necessarily stop you with Sylvan's card selection/walkers on board/green answers to artifacts & enchantments.

Putting aside the likelihood that "good stuff" at each cmc may just be better (if it's better, we're simply playing intentionally worse Shardless/Czech/Blade/Turbo-TNN), if we're looking for novel interactions which required such a heavy commitment to only, with the Lilly angle, I'd start my brewing with a list like this:

-Liliana, the Last Hope x4
-Liliana of the Veil x2 (sorry, the other one actually wins games)

-Sylvan Library x3
-Pernicious Deed x1 (I like this as a 2x, just don't know what the cut is)

-Eternal Witness x2

-Dark Ritual x4
-Thoughtseize x4
-Fatal Push x4
-Darkblast x1
-Life from the Loam x2
-Entomb x2
-Abrupt Decay x3
-Sinkhole x3
-Smallpox x2 (I can also get behind no Smallpox, +1 Sinkhole, +1 Deed)

-Ghost Quarter x1 (not budget at all but Tabernacle would compete for 23 land slot)
-Wasteland x4
-Bayou x4
-Forest x2
-Swamp x2
-Verdant Catacombs x4
-Bloodstained Mire x4
-Cabal Pit x1
-Flex slot, but definitely a colored-mana producer. Could see maybe a card like Leechridden Swamp as alternate wincon or access to white mana via Riftstone Portal or even Murmuring Bosk. Maybe best as a Dakmor Salvage.

(OP list says 23 land, only see 21)

SB choices could include cards like Courser of Kruphix (this is total BS with Sylvan, diverting value path from yard use), Dread of Night/Massacre, more edict effects (maybe even a Dystopia), more discard, Rev. Silence, Surgical/Leyline/Relic, perhaps a lifegain card (Scooze, Zuran Orb, Pulse of Murasa, Golgari Brownscale), Abyss/Nethervoid/Chains/Underworld Dreams always score Legends style points, Words of Wilding, and the list goes on. If Entomb is in the deck, even more options exist though that plays into yard hate.

The powerful interaction we've theoretically unlocked here is Last Hope on board, Library trigger, dredge 3 cards back to hand revealing 9 cards. Get back the E. Wit and go nuts; if you had a way to throw lands out of hand for value, then all the more power to you. I would guess that AggroLoam simply wins more games because of Chalice by itself, but this seems like a pretty fun Pox'y deck with more complex interactions and decision forks going on. You can't really go wrong by having DRS, and cuts could be made to accommodate his inclusion; but with Grixis as ~20% of the meta I'd rather parasitize their complete inability to deal with enchantments since Decay has largely been abandoned.

[morgan_coke]

Don't run Grim Flayer. Just run Tarmogoyf.

[Fox]

Don't run Grim Flayer. Just run Tarmogoyf.

So strictly worse Shardless? The problem with generically good cards is the optimal presentation already exists. How will this deck gain win % back which it lost by not being Shardless with these Tarmogoyves you propose?

[morgan_coke]

So strictly worse Shardless? The problem with generically good cards is the optimal presentation already exists. How will this deck gain win % back which it lost by not being Shardless with these Tarmogoyves you propose?

Well, not running suboptimal cards like Grim Flayer is a start. Flayer is flat out worse than Tarmogoyf, it's harder to cast, smaller, harder to get big, and then still smaller.

Don't be an idiot and run bad cards because you want to be "special"

[danyul]

Check out the BGu Rock list on this post:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles...extravaganza-7

[Fox]

Well, not running suboptimal cards like Grim Flayer is a start. Flayer is flat out worse than Tarmogoyf, it's harder to cast, smaller, harder to get big, and then still smaller.

Don't be an idiot and run bad cards because you want to be "special"

So following that logic, it doesn't stop at Goyf - you go all the way to Shardless. There is no room for creativity if we're running DRS/Decay/Goyf since we already know where that road ends. So you say run Goyf, but it's about the same as stopping by this thread and saying "stop what your doing and just play Shardless."

Do you have a formula for how DRS/Decay/Goyf on G/B only somehow has slots left over to form a new deck defined by more than being lower win % Shardless, or Jund, or even BUG Delver for that matter? Are we really going to run 4x Confidant with 4x Goyf, 7x Lilly, and 6 other 2-drops?

This is the developmental thread; the idea was clearly to find things and set up Confidant flips with Grim Flayer. I'll certainly agree with you @morgan_coke that Flayer (when/if played) likely needs a shell with better things to find without manipulation (like Jund sporadically using it to find P-Fire). Right now the OP's list is on the have Flayer + Confidant in play at the same time going off together plan, and it's a bit unrealistic. I think the question is more about if there is room to create a value engine that translates to win % that can only exist with complete or near-complete devotion to those colors.