I wrote a long defense to your simple three letter reply which is obviously lacking substance, but I decided to delete it since it's wasted effort. If you don't like Liliana, don't play it. I don't want to turn this thread into another Batterskull discussion. Liliana is good and I know this from actual GAMES instead of the theory crafting of this board.
One guy from our car pool was playing rock last saturday for GPT Amsterdam and split finals for byes and cash. He beat Reanimator who had Iona on white with Liliana and I heard it was awesome whole day.
This is my general thought. Before I had played with/against Lilliana, I was dismissive. She's good. Very good actually. The same argument was made against Batterskull. But when people actually played it in the real world and not in their head, it was proven to be very good.Originally Posted by bruizar
Tom? Is that you? I thought you were going to go work on DnD?
Liliana of the Veil
+
Jace, The Mind Sculptor
=
Hot sex?
Can I get a control deck running these two?
In terms of the storyline, yes. Also, there are multiple copies of Liliana in existence. As in, Liliana the person. I kid you not.
- Isn't Jace all emo for her or something?
Word.
I played her this weekend with an equal split of Liliana and JSM in Team America, and she was amazing. She was Thoughtseize'd out of my hand more times than Jace was throughout the day, and by good players.
And to echo a previous post, she's whatever you need at the time. I wanted her to land in all of my matchups, and sometimes for very different reasons. She'll be played. A lot.
- That's what he said.
Not that much. It's she who meets and befriends Jace and even fucks him, just to later betray and manipulate him into fighting Tezzeret, who had stolen the control of a mercantile organization from Nicol Bolas. The deal is that Liliana clears the way for Nicol Bolas to regain control of his organization in exchange of being freed from the demons she pacted with to stay young and powerful (she's currently more than 100 years old).
Meanwhile on another plane, the dragon Planeswalker is like "disregard Planeswalker bitches, acquire supreme power."
I don't think any of us are saying shes a bad card. I think she's a perfectly fine card, just not as a 4 off as you've advocated. Your point of her being "better" than Jace TMS is what makes us skeptical. Your points are solid and valid but saying liliana>> jace is just theatrical. They both do different things. Jace is a midrange/all around bomb which is good in practically most situations. Either by being blue to pitch to force or by bouncing/brainstorming/fatesealing ftw. He is a built in disruptive win condition as well. He actually kills players.
I don't think jace>>> liliana. They both do different things. What makes jace so played in legacy is because he is extremely flexible, thus he is played in midrange, control and even tempo decks because he just does everything. You are arguing liliana is similar, I agree, but not to the extent of omfg, 4-off in every deck with black.
Firstly, walkers are strong in mid-range control decks. The best decks in the long game are blue decks obviously, hence the number of blue decks in legacy. Jace can be slotted into most blue decks to give some late and game gas/flexibility. Plus, he pitches to force at worst against combo.
Liliana is double black, that's her first limitation. Decks like deadguy, team America that are built to support double black can easily play liliana and should play some number of her if they are lacking in the 3cc spot on the curve. She is decent against tribal/fast aggro as a cruel edict + fog. She is extremely strong against midrange big guys like the rock, new horizons etc as recurring removal.
Saying it's good against control/combo IMO is not right. It's not like natural order/jace tms which straight up win the game when they land against control. Liliana basically makes both people discard a card (which is symetrical) on an empty board the control player can then proceed to eot clique/snapcaster and kill liliana or just drop jace ftw. Drawing cards with brainstorm=/ each player discarding a card.
Against combo, as I've mentioned, t3 each player discard a card does nothing against a combo player as most combo players go off t3/t4 pre misstep. Post misstep, combo goes off t2/t3. Like I've said, you'll be lucky to activate her even once before dying.
You misinterpret the +1 ability. You can easily run 4 Liliana's because her +1 will allow you to get rid of extra Liliana's that you don't want. This means, running 4 to make sure that you land a Liliana in every game is closer to the optimal number, than running 1, since the card is good in every matchup due to its ability to switch roles so well.
Another point you don't seem to fully understand yet is the strength of the +1 ability. It is not symmetrical when you don't have cards in your hand, but more importantly, if you land Liliana against a control player with 5 cards in hand, he will never be able to assemble a 6 card hand anymore. If he plays a land, his handsize is reduced to 4 for the entire game. If he tries to counter something, he goes down to 3. It becomes increasingly difficult for a control player to control the game when his/her options become more limited each time he plays a card. Meanwhile, you are ramping to 6 and blow up half his board while he's in topdeck mode, grabbing spell snares and force of wills he can't use.
Even if he plays nothing, you force him to drop land since you use your ultimate to sack half his board. He will HAVE to play lands at some point, or he will simply not have any lands at all.
I have found Liliana to be stronger on the field than some scenarios that have been provided. I have been trying her as a 4 of in B/w (for stoneforge) and a 4 of in UB stifle/waste/smallpox (no pox) deck. Even looking to find a small spot for testing in Nic Fit. I do think that she will be a 1 or 2 of in some decks where she eats up an edict from the decklist and gives added versatility. I also think that 4 of her might be more correct than 3 of her in a lot of other situations.
I'm not convinced she's a four-of in most of the decks she'll weasel her way into. The only reason Jace was a 4 of in a lot of decks was because he's blue and a lot of those decks used him as one of their few win-cons. However, Liliana is obviously not a win-con. Note that I'm sure she'll be a 4 of in a few niche decks, but those will most certainly have synergy with her +1 in the form of other cards (loam comes to mind).
The argument that you should play 4 because you can discard extras is not a strong argument for running four for the sole reason that a card having the quality of being "discardable" is far from ideal, unless it has some form of interaction with the yard or being discarded.
The argument is that you want to see one every single game, because its good against all the 3 strategies in magic (control, aggro, combo). Increasing your liliana's to 4 helps you ensure that you see one every game and gives you a few extra tries should it meet a Force of Will, Maelstrom Pulse or swarm of creatures. I would not dump my additional Liliana's that quickly, since the card is too powerful to throw away even if you have 1 in your hand, but the possibility of doing so gives you little room to excuse yourself from running a full set of Liliana's,
This is quickly going to spiral into a topic that's covered by a sticky at the top of the page. So I will attempt to not digress.
I agree with you that she is powerful--this is pretty much undebatable. I also agree with you that you probably want to see one every single game, although this varies depending on the deck. The emphasis is on "one," though. While the card can dump extra copies as noted, it's far from being something like Brainstorm, in that each copy you draw you can absolutely use to further the game state and furnish yourself some form of advantage.
The fact is, if Liliana is active and unthreatened, all other copies in your deck are useless. Yes, you can discard your own extra copies to trade for one of their cards, but this is true for literally any other card in the game as well. You have to imagine that when optimizing your deck, you should ideally avoid times when cards are 100% useless like that. You're not even given a choice in deciding to discard a card that could potentially do something--you're literally bottlenecked into that decision.
Now, I realize that she won't always be unthreatened, so let's examine the times she might be in trouble. Of the three deck strategies (control/aggro/combo), the only type that can realistically threaten her are aggro strategies. Again: aggro is the only strategy that can conceivably destroy multiple Lilianas in a row, and aggro is only a third of the available strategies. So in my opinion, including 4 Lilianas would be a metagame decision that would be made if you're expecting lots of aggro strategies. The extra copies of the planeswalker could easily be something that offers more than a "discardable if already employed" quality.
A much more reasonable number, taking into account the entire metagame that you described (aggro control and combo), would be 1-3.
The only other planeswalker that sees major play in 1.5 is Jace, and for reasons I've already covered, is an exception to this. I imagine if other 'walkers find their way into 1.5 in the future that don't share similar qualities with Jace, what I'm saying here will likely apply to them as well. Planeswalkers are largely new to 1.5 after all. :)
Basically your argument is that liliana is good in all matchups but she simply is not. I fail to see how you think she is stronger than jace against control/combo. You say that liliana is not symetrical against control because you have no cards in hand. What if the opponent also has no cards in hand? What if he is dropping jace tms and fatesealing you/brainstorming into threats and casting them straight away? It is simply not that great.
Against combo, you seriously cant be serious that the +1 on turn 3 affects their plan much. In this situation I'd much rather have hymn/thoughtseize/more targeted discard which actually can screw a combo player sideways. Pitching a card they do not need does not affect combo at all. I would put liliana's powerlevel at around elspeth's.
She does a good job at controlling mid range aggro and so-so in other matchups. That's how I see her. By playing 4 copies you are really putting too much emphasis on aggro busting. I really cannot see in anyway how she is good against non-aggro strategies! Even against aggro, her cruel edict is a -2 and it takes two +1s to actually cruel edict another creature. It takes alot of effort to power her up again to nuke another creature.
What makes her the shitnutz in standard is cards like think twice or forbidden alchemy which breaks liliana's symmetry. If you are pitching cards to be flashbacked later, she is a perfectly strong engine. In legacy, if madness was still a good deck, playing a set of liliana's and pitching basking rootwallas, vengevines and the sort would be ideal. Otherwise, she is a cruel edict and a fog. Which by itself is already a pretty good deal for 3 mana.
She is not Jtms, which is played in pretty much anything blue that plans on reaching 4 mana. Jace is jace because he is a recurring unsummon against aggro, a counterspell digger against combo and a win condition+ recurring disruption against control. Jace is the definition of the Swiss army knife. I simply don't see that in liliana. Also Jace is blue, decks don't have to warp their manabase to play him, most decks are heavy blue so he fits right in. Also by being blue, he pitches to force which makes him useful against combo in a way.
Of course Jace is stronger overall and can be played in more different legacy decks than liliana.
I would not compare liliana to elspeth, becuase 3 mana with removal versus 4 mana that makes a jump blocker to protect her is a different league. Liliana is MUCH stronger than elspeth.
However ivanpei, you are underestimating lilianas impact versus combo and control. I tested her in TA and against aggro she only shines on a board with 0 or 1 creatures. Playing her as an edict/fog is a very desperate play.
Versus storm combo she is creature removal for xantid swarm/confidant with added value!. Of course she is not a turn 3 play if you have something better to disrupt, however if the game goes long and grindy and you play her, then the combo player is under pressure!
Versus control liliana is very good! Breaking the symmetry with flasbhack cards is not necessary. Just the built in advantage of playing a tempo oriented deck means often you either play your cards or don't need them anymore. The control player needs a lot of cards and is forced to deal liliana as soon as possible. If he doesn't he runs out of cards and permanents which results in loosing.
Ive made my points, I don't think she is a bad card. I really do think liliana is an excellent walker and one of the top 3 walkers at the moment (jace, liliana, elspeth). I'm just stating facts that prevent her from becoming a 4-off in any deck that can support double black. I believe she is easily a playable legacy card that has a chance at becoming a staple. However, when faced with statements like omg, liliana>> jace and compulsory 4 off, obviously I'm a bit skeptical.
She is definitely not a 4 of in Tier decks..
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