Pattern Recognition #82 - Vess

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

6 September 2018

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Good day everyone! So after a tight string of annoyances in my life - starting with a stomach flu and escalating from there, I find myself in something of a rush to write this article in a crash run.

Regardless! I'm berryjon, TappedOut.net's resident Old Fogey, purveyor of opinions contrite and contrary! Because I don't care about being right, I care about generating discussion and mutual understanding. Or maybe I'm just saying that because my Crystal Ball has failed me and I'm working on a Seer's Lantern.

So! Lilana Vess! Unlike my three previous efforts to break down a Planeswalker, I actually enjoyed doing this because I look at her and see success! I know, that's just weird after being so pessimistic about one-trick-pony Chandra, Boringly mediocre (in most cases) Gideon, and just-please-stop Jace.

Last week, I talked about how she was an excellent and well developed character. More so that pretty much every other 'Face Walker put together, with Nissa taking much of that and Teferi looked at them all from far above with more history than all of them put together - literally and narratively.

But what about her cards? For the most part, they're actually pretty good with a couple of deliberately designed duds. So, let's start, shall we?

As I mentioned last time, Liliana currently has 9 versions of her, with FIVE being printed since Eldritch Moon (including that set) to have been printed in the past two years. However, she has also had cards occasionally show up since Lorwyn, mostly in core sets. This recent focus on her was to help set up her role in the plans of Nicol Bolas, and why she would join the Gatewatch to help oppose him. Then to help explain why she would agree to aid Bolas at the end of Dominaria.

Enough history! CARDS!

As part of the initial cycle, Liliana Vess was not given a title like nearly other Planeswalker since. And at the same time, she demonstrated the same degree of what would later become a very conservative design and easy to understand abilities that corresponded nearly one-to-one with existing cards in that colour representing that they were at their conception, a second player entering the game on your side. In effect, she would cast Funeral Charm in the first mode, an Imperial Seal where she takes the two life loss, and, alas, Rise of the Dark Realms wouldn't hit paper properly until Core 2014, concurrently with the printing of Liliana of the Dark Realms.

This is the version of her also Printed in M10 and M11 at Mythic Rare status.

Vess's initial version represented a nice swath of abilities to give her something to encourage the players who got this new card type to play with. However, unlike many other 'Walkers, this self same variety did not endear her to the players who wanted more focused 'walkers, those who had abilities that synergized with the other abilities on the same 'Walker.

Wizards listened, and with M13 (and reprinted in M14), Liliana of the Dark Realms. This version of Liliana went straight for the metaphorical throat, and reminded a lot of players that when it wants to, can keep up with when it wants to accelerate. Pulling a Swamp from your deck directly is not something Black does normally, but does have a small and not really noticeable-unless-you're-looking synergy where the power and toughness are equal to the number of Swamps you have - Korlash, Heir to Blackblade and Nightmare for my to best examples. The second ability turns your Swamps into creature killers, or a Sorcery speed buff to your killing strike. Finally, her Ultimate ability permanently quadruples your supply of . Say, to cast Bond of Agony, or even more game endingly - Drain Life.

Or just to be able to pay for any card in your deck forever.

This revision of Liliana is extremely focused, and only works with a certain deck type, one that Black isn't really known for, so she tends to get overlooked with versions of her that adhere to the more common associations has. Which is probably why the next few look so damned similar, variations on a theme as they are.

Next came Liliana of the Veil, her first real and proper introduction to the plot in any meaningful manner. A sharp, concise and well-deserved powerhouse of a card. As the cheapest version of Liliana, she can meaningfully lock down players of of cards in hand, or creatures in play, then if she's built up enough, she can utterly destroy a player that has gotten too big for Lili to tolerate any more, and force them to sacrifice more than half their cards in play.

She's tightly designed, cheap enough to get into play in a meaningful time frame, and her effects don't really diminish with time.

Liliana, Defiant Necromancer  ^Flip, the flipside of Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip was printed in Magic Origins as the last gasp to try and make the Core Sets viable and interesting again. And to do that, she was part of the Gatewatch cycle to show their origins.

Uhhhh.... Wizards, did you forget that Liliana was a GODWALKER when she sparked? She wasn't a Nu'Walker. She was godlike! And a post-Mending Liliana wasn't what is pictured on her card. :sigh: Card, yeah. So, this version of Lilana isn't all that good honestly. She flirts with discard, then moves on to graveyard recursion and is all and all quite mediocre in design and capacity to affect the game. I mean, it's not like Rosewater deliberately made Jace to be the bestest Planeswalker in the set, denying anyone else the chance to shine on their own accord.

Seriously. Fuck Jace. You're so bad you ruin my enjoyment of other things.

On the other side, Liliana, the Last Hope kicked off her resurgence in the game hard. Equally cheap as her next-to-previous incarnation, the Last Hope of Innistrad follows her story line strongly for the most part, killing individuals, recovering her preferred pawns, then sweeping in the largest zombie army ever to save the day!

I... like the card mechanically, but it is just so one-track in design. Kill things. Kill your library to get more things to kill, SUMMON ALL THE ZOMBIES. The end.

I mean, sure, it can work, but it was, to me at least, just another symptom of Wizards 'experimentation' and better story-card integration.

Let's move on. Last Hope was a nice awesome moment in the story, but as a card? Not as compelling.

Next, we get our fist twofer. As part of an experiment, Wizards started printing preconstructed Planeswalker-focused decks with a special version of the 'Walker in question with a less powerful version to help ease players into the concept.

Liliana, Death Wielder was in the first box, along with her chosen nemesis - Gideon, Martial Paragon. Not that they were actual enemies. Anyway, Death Wielder was designed to be a highlight for a deck designed around the heavy focus the set gave to -1/-1 counters, and it showed. The last ability, to return all your creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield is pretty much an afterthought. And another massive strike against his version of Liliana is the utterly ridiculous cost. All of this, was of course, designed deliberately by Wizards in order to encourage people to go and buy packs to get the real Liliana for the set.

Speaking of! Liliana, Death's Majesty! Now, this was before the rules change loosening up your ability to have multiple different versions of the Same 'walker in play, but once that was fixed, this one became the perfect compliment to Liliana, the Last Hope. One makes more and more Zombies, and can help recur creatures that the other can't, and then they synergize to MAKE EVEN MORE THAN ALL THE ZOMBIES!

By herself though, Death's Majesty's self-mill to make a Zombie has always turned me off, but then again, I'm completely adverse to self-milling as I've never really been comfortable with graveyard recursion as anything but the exception.

Don't blame me! I'm an Old Fogey, remember?

Her middle ability is nothing unique, given that one of the major concepts behind Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation wad doing exactly that thanks to Embalming and Eternalizing! :sigh: And her final ability it to simply wipe the board clean of all but the Zombies you have made and then swing for the win!

Now, we have the most recent two from the Core 2019 set. Liliana, the Necromancer and Liliana, Untouched By Death. I uh... can't remember which is the pre-con and the other in the set itself. So, alphabetical order!

The Necromancer is pretty simple on her own. Her basic ability is quite simple (so she's probably the Precon, in that she just directly reduces an opponent's life total by 2. Her second ability is so that it's pretty much in every set ever and her last is simply "KIll those two nice creatures, then resurrect them under your control - which is actually an interesting thing to interact with as it triggers Leaves the Battlefield on the opponent, then utilizes Enter the Battlefield on you! Possible decent combinations if you can prep them in time.

Untouched by Death however, is probably the one in the set proper as her first ability is fairly complex. Mill yourself for a zombie then steal some life from an enemy is a combination of abilities printed on previous versions of herself, and once again is pretty standard for , instead being two distinct things rather than just one. Her second is one 's more typical abilities as well, punishing a creature simply be having resources rather than using them. I mean, heck, Dark Realms Liliana did the exact same thing effectively but counted your Swamps, and not your Zombies! Then finally, in one of the very few cases were using an Ultimate ability of a walker being able to be fired off on the turn said 'Walker comes into play without any tricks, for a grant price of three (out of four!) Loyalty counters, you can... cast zombies from your graveyard.

Not impressive, really. Just useful.

Liliana Vess, I think, is still one of the better Planeswalkers in Magic, but that's mostly been coloured by her earlier incarnations. There, Wizards experimented with what she could do in Magic, all the while keeping to what could and has done. However, Vess, like all other Planeswalkers had had their focus narrowed down to one or two concepts - in her case it's Zombies with occasional flavour. Experimentation is the realm of new characters. So in the current state of the Design and Development, Liliana of the Dark Realms would never make it past the conception stage. Rather, that ability set would be given to a new mono-black 'Walker, which would then get scrapped or changed into a [[symbol:B 'Walker because Wizards will only allow one Mono-coloured 'Walker to be 'active' in the story at any one time. Bye Nissa! Hello Vivian!

I think there's plenty of room for Liliana to grow on her cards, but the narrow and fairly conservative approach to 'Walker design for the game means that she is going to be Liliana, Zombie Master for a long time to come.

Unless she's replaced outright after the Ravnica/Bolas block. That's always a possibility.

Now, in a return long awaited, PR's deck of the week!

Liliana Modern . Deck!

Liliana Modern.dec

Modern* berryjon

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Join me next week when I consider talking about something else. I just haven't had the capacity for thought that I needed this past week. Maybe a suggestion from one of you guys?

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!