Deathbringer Liege

Creature — Horror

Other white creatures you control get +1/+1.

Other black creatures you control get +1/+1.

Whenever you play a white spell, you may tap target creature.

Whenever you play a black spell, you may destroy target creature if it's tapped.

Discussion (49)

TheVectornaut on Blue/White Life and Defenders

3 months ago

I think a good place to start would be to evaluate what goals are the most important for your deck while making sure you don't have too many ideas that compete against each other. When I look at the deck now, I can see the general idea of a U/W control list that takes advantage of freeze and lifegain to prolong the fight until you can win. However, I see some major problems with the plan as it is now.

First, the deck lacks a clear win condition at the end of all the control. You'll either need to chip away over the course of a slow game with your smaller creatures or hope you have enough freeze effects to get your big guys in late-game. Control deck usually opt for some type of haymaker that can reliably close the game. Some like AEtherling and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are designed to protect themselves, some like Celestial Colonnade and Shark Typhoon place emphasis on evasion, some like Torrential Gearhulk and Snapcaster Mage give you as much value as possible, and some like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Teferi, Time Raveler deny your opponents of counterplay. There's a lot of overlap within those categories and not all of these cards will be played as a wincon, but having a clear plan to win is better than only playing to not lose. The closest cards you have are probably Serpent of Yawning Depths and Archipelagore. Sea monsters are certainly a fine casual deck but slotting them into something else can be awkward at best and ineffectual at worst.

The second problem I see is the missed potential of your chosen colors combined with your chosen tribe. Right now, you have very few ways to take advantage of the clerics in the deck. Clerics are intended to be W/B since you get access to powerful new tools like Orah, Skyclave Hierophant, Taborax, Hope's Demise, and Cleric of Life's Bond along with classics like Sin Collector, High Priest of Penance, and Skirsdag High Priest. The lifegain/drain synergy in clerics also benefits from orzhov colors to play threats like Angel of Destiny, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Marauding Blight-Priest, Speaker of the Heavens, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Twilight Prophet, Pious Evangel  ^Flip, Drana's Emissary, and Cruel Celebrant.

Incidentally, black also synergizes quite well with tapdown effects because of Assassinate cards like Royal Assassin, Deathbringer Liege, and Murderous Compulsion, although white does have its share of Vengeance with Sunblast Angel, Deadeye Harpooner, and Swift Response. Anyway, now that I'm on this tangent, it's worth mentioning that including strong freeze effects is important if you want to make such an underused mechanic work. I'm partial to Dungeon Geists and Icefall Regent as permanent taps, but there's also Guardian of Tazeem, Niblis of Frost, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Time of Ice, Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Frost Titan, and Hands of Binding. Alternatively you can use cheaper cards that can retap a creature each turn like Gideon's Lawkeeper, Blinding Souleater, Fatestitcher, Hidden Strings, and Minister of Impediments. The final category I'll mention are other cards that take advantage of tapping enemy creatures like Palliation Accord and Verity Circle, except I'd only ever recommend the latter.

In summary, I think you should decide whether you're more interested in clerics or in freeze since they don't synergize with each other that well. For clerics, switching to black and taking advantage of lifedrain and sacrifice is advisable. For freeze control, find ways to abuse tapping, implement a strong win condition, and generally include more card draw and countermagic. If you are dead set on combining these styles, I'd at least invest in some tribal support cards to give the clerics more impact than just weakly contributing to the party mechanic. Adaptive Automaton, Door of Destinies, Obelisk of Urd, and Coat of Arms are some popular options. Finally, if your budget doesn't allow you to purchase many new cards, prioritizing the acquisition of additional copies of your strongest but cheapest cards is a good way to upgrade. For this deck, I think those cards are Attended Healer, Cleric of Chill Depths, Hypnotic Sprite, Kor Celebrant, Luminarch Aspirant, Queen of Ice, Shepherd of Heroes, Skyclave Cleric  ^Flip, Concerted Defense, Dovin's Veto, Negate, Inscription of Insight, Staggering Insight, Trapped in the Tower, and maybe Silundi Vision  ^Flip. Good luck with your build and let me know if you have any questions!

DemonDragonJ on Commander Legends Spoilers

5 months ago

Have I yet mentioned Balefire Liege and Deathbringer Liege? I definitely believe that both of those cards could use reprints in this set.

gerheart on X/X Artifact Creatures

6 months ago

The whole reason I posted my deck on this site is for suggestions, so I really appreciate all of yours. I've never played against a land-control deck, and that sounds super annoying. This deck doesn't necessarily aggravate people because they have quite the fighting chance to retaliate or survive, so everybody I've used it against hasn't had a problem with it. I do like playing with the same cards over and over so you can become really familiar with them and figure out new ways to use them that you hadn't thought of before. My buddy has a white/black deck with Deathbringer Liege and pretty much every spell is white and black, so he can tap and destroy any creature immediately, and that kind of control is why I pulled a hard 180 to indestructible creatures.

DemonDragonJ on Mortify or Mythos of Nethroi?

10 months ago

In my black/white/green EDH deck, I have a copy of Mortify, which is obviously a very useful card, but I am considering replacing it with the soon-to-be-released Mythos of Nethroi, which is more versatile for the same mana cost. The only drawback that the mythos has is that it will not trigger the third ability of Deathbringer Liege, but that is a very minor drawback.

What does everyone else say about this? Should I replace Mortify with Mythos of Nethroi?

Mattio38 on Vampire Aristocrats

10 months ago

OUT:

• 1x Bloodlord of Vaasgoth
• 1x Patron of the Vein
• 1x Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
• 1x Dark Impostor
• 1x Kheru Bloodsucker
• 1x Deathbringer Liege
• 1x Stone Quarry

IN:

• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Mizzium Mortars
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain

DemonDragonJ on Castigate or Tidehollow Sculler?

11 months ago

Flooremoji, if Thoughtseize were not so expensive, I would defintiely consider it; Inquisition of Kozilek is more limited than is Castigate, and Castigate also triggers both abilities of Deathbringer Liege, which is obviously is a very good thing, so I prefer that card.

Agrothorn on Light and Shadow

11 months ago

Cool deck so far! I always wanted to build a fun B/W deck with life gain tricks.

This deck is made for Edge of the Divinity. I just did a playtest and had a 7/7 Mourning Thrull swining on turn 3 lol. I think you can consdier dropping Gift of Orzhova. Most of your creatures have flying or lifelink so it becomes redundant.

I think your deck may need some card draw. Phyrexian Arena should fit given you have so many ways to gain life. I'm mixed with Vizkopa Guildmage. Second ability is cool, but not sure how much damange it will translate to. Gets silly if you can activate it twice. What are your thoughts on Tidehollow Sculler?

Although I am a big fan of Vampire Nighthawk, I feel you will have more synergies with your other cards if you dropped it for a creature with both BW in mana cost.

Athreos, God of Passage is great, but a little expensive.

Maybe you can try to fit one of Abhorrent Overlord. Can be a crazy combo with Deathbringer Liege on the board!

Epicurus on Niv's Misfits

1 year ago

TolarianScientist, your concern is real. At the moment, I'm running 16 spells which deal with that concern:

• Basic Landcycling: Jhessian Zombies, Ancient Excavation, Migratory Route, Treacherous Terrain, Grave Upheaval and Sylvan Reclamation
• Mana Rocks: Chrome Mox, Lotus Bloom and Mox Tantalite
• Land Fetch: Frenzied Tilling, Deathsprout, Grisly Salvage and Exploding Borders
• The Lone Mana Dork: Leyline Prowler
• Also: Primal Amulet  ^Flip and Coiling Oracle

For a hot second, I also had Atzocan Seer on the list, but dropped it in favor of including more offense as a tradeoff for losing mana production (I removed it for Knight of New Alara).

The problem with mana dorks is that none of the best ones are color pairs. With any other 5-color commander, this decklist would look totally different.

I like your suggestion of borderposts. Right now, the Spells I'd most consider removing are Merfolk Skydiver, Rise of the Hobgoblins, Deathbringer Liege, Terminate and Dovin, Grand Arbiter. Of those spells, how many and which would you replace with borderposts of the same colors?

Sorry for the long response.