Liesa, Shroud of Dusk - Life Gain and Loss

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 2 years ago

Liesa, Shroud of Dusk

Liesa, Shroud of Dusk

Commander

Approximate Total Cost:

About the Deck

I've been playing and tweaking this deck fairly regularly since Liesa was released. This deck generally will win based on life loss taxes, mass life loss, and/or some life gain/life loss based combo but also has potential to just win based on commander damage. It would be possibly to skew this deck further towards life gain or hatebears/taxes but I think I've found a healthy balance that works well.

Liesa is a fairly resilient commander in that she avoids traditional commander tax, so once you have enough mana to play her you never have to worry about hoping you get land drops to replay her in the event of her likely death. However, her "life loss commander tax" can seriously add up, to the point that you may be unable to cast her if your life drops low enough. In my experience, Liesa will die a fair number of times throughout a game.

Due to the nature of Liesa's static ability and her life loss commander tax, you will likely lose a good amount of life to your own commander, but there are a number of life gain effects within the deck to hopefully offset this. The commander herself has built in lifegain and flying to make her harder to stop, which can go a long way towards helping you regain lost life. Various equipment pieces and auras can help work your way towards a commander damage kill while simultaneously increasing the life gain.

Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Sanguine Bond are all-stars in this deck. Besides enabling a few lethal combos, they can do a lot of work just chipping out significant chunks of people's life. One of those cards in combination with Children of Korlis in play is a massive deterrent for opponents who would want to hit you for a large non-lethal amount of life loss, as you can gain it right back and make them lose an equal amount of life. Cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Exsanguinate, and Debt to the Deathless become a bit scarier since after you gain a significant amount of life, someone else is going to lose even more. Every time Liesa hits an opponent you are gaining 5 life and then you can hit another opponent for 5 more (I generally don't hit the same opponent she damaged to concentrate on the commander damage route on one player, but there are certainly instances where it is fine to double up).

Tainted Remedy incidentally hurts a number of people's decks randomly and helps with some combos in this deck. Swords to Plowshares and Solitude suddenly become far stronger when this enchantment is in play. I rarely regret having this in play, it generally does something every game.

Black/White decks don't tend to be the quickest to build up a board state, so I have found it important to run some amount of hatebears, effects that bring opposing pieces into play tapped, and spell-per-turn limiters. It may seem counter-intuitive to run something like Rule of Law when your commander hurts people for playing a ton of spells, but this is just one more barrier in the way of spell slinger decks and in general you will not be playing a ton of spells per turn so you are likely not affected too badly by these effects. Depending on how your local playgroup is trending at various times, Rule of Law effects can be very useful.

In the past, I have gone a little more towards life loss taxing effects with things like Polluted Bonds and Painful Quandary but they tend to come down a little later that I'd like usually. These are certainly playable in the deck and I may experiment with them again but at the moment I have taken them out.

Notable Combos

There are a few notable combos within the deck that can make killing a player or the entire table a bit easier:

Beacon of Immortality + Vizkopa Guildmage: If you cast the Beacon of Immortality targeting yourself and activate the guildmage's second ability, this will likely kill the entire table if you have the highest life total.

Beacon of Immortality + Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Sanguine Bond: With either Vito or Sanguine Bond in play, you target yourself with Beacon of Immortality and kill one player with a lower life total than your own.

Axis of Mortality + Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Sanguine Bond: With either Vito or Sanguine Bond in play, during your upkeep if you have a low life total and exchange with a significantly higher life total you can potentially kill someone at the table depending on how much life you gain. A similar combo exists with Vizkopa Guildmage and Axis of Mortality but it hits everyone.

Axis of Mortality + Tainted Remedy: With these two cards in play simultaneously, if people have differing enough life totals you will be able to kill or seriously maim some of your opponents.

Beacon of Immortality + Tainted Remedy: With Tainted Remedy in play, you can target an opponent with Beacon of Immortality and kill them at instant speed.

Beacon of Immortality + Light of Promise: Depending on your life total, this can make a creature deal lethal combat damage. If the aura is on Liesa, you just need to be at 16 Life for a commander damage kill. If the aura is on another creature then that changes things but can still be lethal.

The above combos can all be enhanced by things like Tainted Sigil or Children of Korlis, which are other sources of life gain. For example, with Sanguine Bond + Tainted Sigil in play, target yourself with Beacon of Immortality to kill one player and then activate Tainted Sigil to kill another player.

Beacon of Immortality can be substituted in the above combos with cards like Exsanguinate or just a big enough lifelink creature depending on the board state as well.

Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood is a combo I have purposefully excluded from my deck. I used to see this a ton years ago and just got bored of seeing it. I would not begrudge others for running it but it is not for me.

Budget Versions

This deck could easily be built on a fairly low budget. While the deck list I have is a fairly tuned deck with some pricey cards involved, the core strategy of the deck does not rely on these cards. Most of the core combos and things that make the deck work are very cheap. When initially putting together a deck like this on a budget, the only somewhat pricey card that I would splurge on would be Exsanguinate. Any of the more expensive cards could be slowly added over time if you really want; they do obviously enhance the performance of the deck but are not absolutely necessary.
Last edited by Ruiner 7 months ago, edited 5 times in total.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

There haven't been a ton of cards released lately that really fit this deck, and it's already pretty refined at this point, but I made two real small changes:

Added Cards
+1 Deep Gnome Terramancer
+1 Teferi's Protection

Removed Cards
-1 Animate Dead
-1 Nullpriest of Oblivion


I'm losing out on some recursion but gaining some ramp and protection. I'm pretty sure this will be overall a positive change.

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BlackbirdPlaysMTG
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Post by BlackbirdPlaysMTG » 1 year ago

Just came here to say that this list looks very solid :) ! I like the combos you are playing as a means to end the game, as opposed to the goodstuff (things like Baneslayer Angel) that is in my list. I am curious, how does the deck perform in pods? Do you usually win through combat/general damage or combos?

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

LaHistorica wrote:
1 year ago
Just came here to say that this list looks very solid :) ! I like the combos you are playing as a means to end the game, as opposed to the goodstuff (things like Baneslayer Angel) that is in my list. I am curious, how does the deck perform in pods? Do you usually win through combat/general damage or combos?
Whenever I do win a game, it is usually a mix of general damage and combos. It really depends on what I happen to randomly draw.

Combo killing is definitely in later turns usually. There are games where sometimes the opponents who love to play a million cards a turn get punished really bad by various effects making it easier for me and/or the rest of the table to get rid of them. If I'm allowed to keep/grow a board state, opponents slowly just get ground down, like a game I had this past weekend where Liesa + Kambal was rapidly draining life totals while Vito allowed for big life swings.

Vedran
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Post by Vedran » 1 year ago

I'm curious whether anyone has tried out Luminarch Ascension? It's great early game, but it puts a huge target on one's back and its late game usefulness is very limited.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

Vedran wrote:
1 year ago
I'm curious whether anyone has tried out Luminarch Ascension? It's great early game, but it puts a huge target on one's back and its late game usefulness is very limited.
I've never run it in this particular deck but have it in a few others. It is a solid just generally good card that would do well here if you would choose to run it I'm sure.

Late game it can definitely be useful still. If you can still get it "online" within a round or two, you will have a lot of mana available at that stage of the game to pump out a bunch of tokens in my experience with other decks.

Really, if I wasn't already running it in multiple other decks I'd probably have it here too.

Vedran
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Post by Vedran » 1 year ago

I'm testing it out at the moment, since I see the potential behind the card that can provide a wide board. From my experience so far, it seems to me that Liesa decks can benefit off of cards that widen board presence either offensively or defensively - because decks that go really wide can mess her up and sometimes board wipes just aren't enough or available. Angelic Accord is solid in that aspect as well, but since I am trying to get my CMC as low as possible I'm really curious about Luminarch Ascension.


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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

ChocoDude wrote:
1 year ago
Have any of you tried out the new Tainted Remedy on a stick: Plague Drone? Thoughts? If you're running, TR then the drone seems like an auto-include.
I have a few cards I want to try out from recent sets and Plague Drone is certainly one of them I plan to find room for. Redundancy of effects is definitely something I'm a fan of.

I definitely need to revise/update this deck sometime soon.

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Post by ChocoDude » 1 year ago

I'd be curious to see your current list. Mine's changed some over the last many months. Have you ever thought of including Cabal Coffers in your deck? You've got Weathered Wayfarer in there that could hunt for it especially with Urborg on the board. It could be good for Exsanguinate and Debt to the Deathless?

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

ChocoDude wrote:
1 year ago
Have you ever thought of including Cabal Coffers in your deck? You've got Weathered Wayfarer in there that could hunt for it especially with Urborg on the board. It could be good for Exsanguinate and Debt to the Deathless?
I know it may not be a popular opinion but I'm not a huge fan of Cabal Coffers outside of monoblack decks. Having to rely on drawing/tutoring up another land (Urborg) just to make it work in a mana positive way reliably isn't a situation i am personally fond of. Maybe in a GB deck I'd consider it due to all of green's land shenanigans but I'm not a fan otherwise.

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Post by ChocoDude » 1 year ago

Understood and I sort of expected that answer. I don't like Cabal much outside of mono-black either, but with my Liesa ramp package I really haven't had any issues being short on mana even with Coffers in there. It's actually benefited me several times. I used to run Nykthos in there, but could never really get enough devotion to make it worthwhile.

Thoughts on Aura of Silence vs Heliod's Intervention? I recently put Aura in for Heliod's, as it seems more punishing. However, there's that second modal ability of H.I. that I could use with Tainted Remedy such that I'm leaning towards swapping the two again for H.I.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

ChocoDude wrote:
1 year ago
Thoughts on Aura of Silence vs Heliod's Intervention? I recently put Aura in for Heliod's, as it seems more punishing. However, there's that second modal ability of H.I. that I could use with Tainted Remedy such that I'm leaning towards swapping the two again for H.I.
Both are super playable and I would totally support running either or both. If you going to run just one, I'd pick Heliod's Intervention though. It is instant speed and can clear out a lot of problems, but also that second mode comes in super handy. Beyond combo potential, just gaining life to stay alive can be crucial in games where you've made yourself the enemy of the table as well

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Post by ChocoDude » 1 year ago

Yeah I switched out Aura of Silence right after asking you your thoughts as H.I. really fits the deck strategy more and is way more flexible. I really like Aura, but it doesn't fit this particular deck strategy as well.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

Made a few quick changes to this deck:

Added Cards
+1 Protection Racket
+1 Plague Drone

RemovedCards
-1 Rule of Law
-1 Sword of Fire and Ice

Both removed cards are great but I wanted to find some room to try new things. Sword of Fire and Ice is all around good, but it's main benefit in this deck is the card advantage which Protection Racket can potentially make up for. Plague Drone offers some Tainted Remedy redundancy, which should hopefully work out. Rule of Law is certainly useful, I'm sure I'll add it back in at some point.

Vedran
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Post by Vedran » 1 year ago

I'd like to hear more about your experiences with Rule of Law in a Liesa build. It seems counterintuitive to play a card that restricts the number of spells opponents can play thus making them lose 2 life, instead of 4, 6, etc. I was thinking about adding it to my build, but adding such card really seems off. It can slow them down and I'd say that's a semi-good addition if you play against combo decks often, but I don't know. Am I missing something?

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

Vedran wrote:
1 year ago
I'd like to hear more about your experiences with Rule of Law in a Liesa build. It seems counterintuitive to play a card that restricts the number of spells opponents can play thus making them lose 2 life, instead of 4, 6, etc. I was thinking about adding it to my build, but adding such card really seems off. It can slow them down and I'd say that's a semi-good addition if you play against combo decks often, but I don't know. Am I missing something?
Rule of Law can be super helpful in slowing the game down just enough to get you established. Dropping it on early turns, maybe before you can afford to drop Liesa (either due to mana or strategically) can be a lifesaver when you are staring down some faster decks. Even just slowing down decks that chain a number of ramp/mana rock spells can be useful. Sometimes slow playing it and making sure a spellslinger deck can't "go off" is going to be better than hitting them for a few more triggers of life loss.

It may feel like a bit of a counter intuitive addition, but people are still getting drained for the one spell they do play. Also, Liesa won't always be in play, sometimes you will be trying to slowly establish a board state for a combo of your own.

Being able to make your instant speed plays essentially uncounterable to a degree can also come in handy when there are some more controlling decks out there if you pick your moments.

I wouldn't say these sort of effects are vital, I actually just removed Rule of Law just to shake things up, but I'm sure I'll be adding it back at some point. I have rarely regretted actually using it though. The speed bump effect of stuff like this is all about just buying you some time.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 8 months ago

Made some changes to the deck with some recently released (and not recently released) cards:

Added Cards
+1 Mithril Coat
+1 Reprieve
+1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Removed Cards
-1 Sword of Light and Shadow
-1 Bastion Protector
-1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis

I like all of the cards I removed, but wanted to make room to try some new stuff so these seemed like the cards I should probably be removing at the moment to try them out. Pretty sure Mithril Coat will be overall a better defensive card for Liesa (or other legends) than Bastion Protector. Sheoldred is yet another annoyance for opponents and a source of life gain. Reprieve should be decent as a delaying tactic or potentially against a countering deck, an opportunity to try casting something of my own later by countering my own card.

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