Liesa, Shroud of Dusk

Legendary Creature — Angel

Rather than pay {2} for each previous time you've cast this spell from the command zone this game, pay 2 life that many times.

Flying, lifelink

Whenever a player casts a spell, they lose 2 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (44)

thefiresoflurve on Teysa, Orzhov Scion

1 month ago

Hey there!

Any current issues you're looking to specifically fix?

If you can spare the lifegain, Martial Coup as a replacement to White Sun's Twilight might synergize better with your commander since the created creatures are white.

Darkest Hour combines with your commander and any sacrifice outlet to make infinite ETB/die effects, if you're interested in that (although I see you don't have a lot of sac outlets).

With your CMC being so low, I might consider cutting Liesa, Shroud of Dusk, since you're likely to be casting a lot.

thefiresoflurve on Black white Liesa, forgotten archangel

1 month ago

Hey, there!

Skyline Savior and Gate to the Citadel are Alchemy cards, and not legal in EDH, if you play with people who care.

As far as {WB} commanders go, Liesa, Shroud of Dusk would probably get you a lot of mileage, since demons and angels tend to be higher mana cost spells, meaning you're paying that 2 life fewer times than your opponents. Demons also have a lot of good ways to kill your own creatures in case you need to turn the effect off.

Tymna the Weaver might also be a decent commander since you'll have a lot of flying creatures and lifelink to sustain the card draw.

Hope that helps!

zAzen7977 on KAALIA'S CATACLYSM - Aggro/Stax [cEDH Primer]

2 months ago

Damn XinZhao, how have I missed Blast-Furnace Hellkite?! Excellent suggestion! I’m definitely swapping Chancellor of the Annex for it. You’re right, Chancellor can be overcome easier than Liesa, Shroud of Dusk. Liesa is especially painful against decks depending on life consumption like K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth.

BF Hellkite joins the category of “damage doublers” like Archfiend of Despair and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. Plus it encourages other players to attack each other.

XinZhao on KAALIA'S CATACLYSM - Aggro/Stax [cEDH Primer]

2 months ago

zAzen7977 I've been looking for good replacements for Chancellor of the Annex and Liesa, Shroud of Dusk I found one I think would be a super good addition, Blast-Furnace Hellkite has a pretty crazy effect that really adds pressure to the board and really turns your threats into outright unadulterated violence. I think Chancellor of the Annex is the choice here her effect is nice but I think most storm combos would be able to pay the extra mana as opposed to Liesa's effect which could just outright kill someone trying to combo off as well as whittle away opponents making it easier to close out a game.

zAzen7977 on KAALIA'S CATACLYSM - Aggro/Stax [cEDH Primer]

2 months ago

Great points XinZhao, I agree that the board state required to set up Bloodthirster is too complex to be consistent, I’d rather run something else.

Thanks for the suggestion Last_Laugh, I hadn’t seen Spirit Mantle before. I wouldn’t run it in this build, but it could be really handy in a more aggro-heavy deck.

I’m experimenting with the current decklist. As compared to the old list, I’m running more creature-based ramp (Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Dockside Extortionist, Professional Face-Breaker, Ancient Copper Dragon), more anti-storm stax (Chancellor of the Annex, Liesa, Shroud of Dusk), and every Rule of Law effect (making it easier to stick the RoL + Possibility Storm combo). I swapped Council's Judgment for Angel of the Ruins, and dropped Damn and Teferi's Protection for a couple extra lands to ensure consistent mana access. I’m going to test this version for a while and see how it goes.

Gleeock on People's Thoughts on Mommy Norn?

2 months ago

Punisher's with upside is not much for power creep, Cindervines is not exactly a powerhouse. Descent into Avernus is not too contentious. Liesa, Shroud of Dusk isn't overpowering the format. A little creativity on our groupslug/punishers is all I'm asking for. If you are looking for a "fair" way to punish storm-outs & solitaire play - tacking small advantage onto those "policing chip dmg" is a relatively lightly explored avenue. Roiling Vortex was a good attempt, except the "benefit" doesn't really put the caster ahead any & it still sits there until it eats removal on the player that it affects most. If a whole plethora of removal pieces can cantrip, I would think a few punishers could, at the very least, cantrip or have a more spicy benefit.

Stax with upside (as being disputed here) is much more contentious than cards that still allow options, just make you bleed a little for that decision.

CrystalQuarry on Liesa, Forgotten Archangel (Budget EDH, Combo)

3 months ago

Hey, thank you so much for commenting and taking the time to read through the deck description!

While this is intended to be a budget deck, I personally just really like foils and original printings of cards. The versions of each card listed in the deck here are what I actually have for it in paper.

Activated Sleeper is a card I have been looking at and considering adding to the deck, but it seems highly conditional given that it can only copy a creature that left the battlefield the same turn. I agree it can go infinite with Karmic Guide and Karmic Guide even helps set it up given that Echo would often force you to sacrifice it on your upkeep anyway. That said, I'm a bit worried about how effective the card is when you DON'T have access to Karmic Guide. I guess depending on the pod it could still be quite good at stealing an opponent's creature. I will have to test it a bit and see how it performs in practice.

Kaya's Ghostform is a card I've considered as well but what concerns me with it is the Sorcery speed nature of it and that it is a bit more telegraphed what the intention is. That said, the ability to bring back the creature even if it gets targeted with something like Swords to Plowshares is very cool! In the pods I've played this deck and where people have gotten to learn more or less how it works, they tend to try and remove Liesa, Forgotten Archangel very quickly, so I've found cards like Undying Evil to be essential for keeping Liesa in play. I've found the instant speed to be extremely relevant in many situations as well. That said, Legion's Landing  ^Flip is a particularly weak card in the deck and I could definitely see cutting that for testing Kaya's Ghostform.

Thran Vigil is a cool new card that I must have missed in the BRO spoilers. However, this deck isn't really all in on persist type effects. Twilight Shepherd is pretty much the only card it would strongly interact with. I would say it's pretty rare for this deck to win through combat and as such the value of the +1/+1 counters in it (even an arbitrarily large number of them) is a bit questionable. If the deck has assembled one of the infinite death engines, then it should be winning outright without the need to even go to combat. I like the interaction with Tortured Existence but it's such a shame that it only works on your turn! If you could suddenly pump up Liesa on an opponent's turn after they've already declared attackers at you, then that would make it a lot better.

Profane Tutor is a great budget tutor, but having to wait two entire turns is a major detriment to how useful of a card it is, especially as a mid to late game draw. The decks I've seen take the biggest advantage of Profane Tutor are the ones that somehow exile and cast a copy from exile or copy it from graveyard and cast the copy immediately, rather than having to wait the two turns. Mid to late game I would much rather pay a little extra mana to guarantee getting a card immediately rather than having to wait. If you get Profane Tutor in the early game, then yes it's definitely better than Diabolic Tutor or Mastermind's Acquisition for the lower mana cost. If I had a means of cheating on the suspend part of the card in Orzhov then it would warrant an inclusion over one of the other tutors in my opinion.

Vile Entomber is another card I considered and even in an earlier iteration of the deck I ran for a while. The issue I often found with it was that it only grabbed ONE card to put to the graveyard. Burning-Rune Demon and Final Parting are in the deck because they find TWO cards. With Vile Entomber I could find Karmic Guide but not another card to combo with it. With Burning-Rune Demon I can find Karmic Guide and another card to combo with it and often times whichever piece the opponent gives me is irrelevant. Blinking or reanimating Burning-Rune Demon is also significantly more value and helps assemble combos much faster than Vile Entomber can.

Bolas's Citadel is extremely powerful, but it is at least right now (12/17/2022) more than $5 which is where the line in the sand has been drawn for whether or not a card can be added to the deck. That said, even if it was a bit cheaper Bolas's Citadel would require leaning much harder into a life gain theme. While life gain is another very popular and powerful strategy, I feel it is a bit orthogonal to the direction of this deck which is more heavily focused on creature ETB/LTB triggers and the graveyard.

I've been working on a Liesa, Shroud of Dusk deck which leans very heavily into life gain/life loss shenanigans and in that deck I do run stuff like Children of Korlis. That's not to say that Children of Korlis isn't a good card in Liesa, Forgotten Archangel, but I feel like you have to already be on the life gain game plan to get the most out of it.

Plumb the Forbidden is a great card, but you need sufficiently many throw away bodies and a sufficiently high life total to manage it. Without sufficient life gain or creature token generators it runs the risk of being a dead draw. Body Count can also be a completely dead draw at times, but it has a much higher ceiling in this deck specifically than Plumb the Forbidden does. Body Count can literally draw the entire deck for 1 black mana with a death engine assembled. Plumb the Forbidden could never draw more than the greatest number of creatures in play at one moment and I must have the life available to pay for it plus 2 mana. If the deck was more of an aristocrats style build spewing creature tokens left and right and running things like Soul Warden then Plumb the Forbidden would be a much more natural inclusion I feel.

Fanatical Devotion is a really cool sacrifice outlet that can do relevant things like protect Liesa which is very important. That said, thanks to BRO another arguably much better sacrifice outlet just became budget (<$5). And that's Ashnod's Altar. I will be adding this to the deck shortly as a third sacrifice outlet.

Thanks again for reading the long description and commenting!

DemonDragonJ on Should I Put Talisman of …

3 months ago

I very much wish to put Talisman of Hierarchy in my Liesa, Shroud of Dusk EDH deck, because I feel that that deck has a sufficient focus on gaining life to balance out the damage from that artifact, but I need to decide what card to remove to make room for it.

My most likely choice is Thran Dynamo, because, as awesome as that card is, it is expensive, and nearly every other mana-generating artifact in that deck has a secondary function; Gilded Lotus is more expensive than is the dynamo, but it generates colored mana.

What does everyone else say about this? Should I put Talisman of Hierarchy into my Liesa deck, and if I do, what card should I remove to make room for it?