Undying Evil

Instant

Target creature gains undying until end of turn. (When it dies, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (51)

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!

nbarry223 on Temporary graveyard return?

5 months ago

Alright, knowing what you are trying to do, I would go with some of the cards that just bring it back when it dies (the non-replacement effect ones). Things like Undying Evil / Feign Death / Undying Malice / Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip.

As wallisface said, there's probably better things to use these cards on, but that's my impression of cards that work for what you are trying to do. You could also look at populate cards to duplicate your tokens, I guess.

psionictemplar on My bad legacy idea

7 months ago

I know you are just messing around with this, but here's some suggestions anyways. Dark Ritual, Undying Evil, fetches.

wallisface on Greatness, at any cost

7 months ago

On Spoils of the Vault, some interesting math for you here: “the probability of losing at least 5 life is 64.7%, the probability of losing at least 8 life is 48.6%, and the probability of losing at least 11 life is 35.7%. So Spoils of the Vault is a little risky, but perfect for people who like to live dangerously.” - so I guess you have good odds with spoils, though 1/3 games when you use it it’s going to get into dangerous territory.

The big problem with Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots is that your opponent will only ever allow you to equip it if they’re stupid, reckless, or have no interaction in hand. Every spell that could kill your demon is instant speed, and will just destroy your demon in response to the equip. I would instead suggest stuff like Undying Evil and Feign Death instead, which let you respond to your opponent. They won’t give you haste, but haste doesn’t matter much to a creature in the graveyard.

Optimator on You break it you buy it.

7 months ago

Plague Wind - Attrition - Gift of Doom - Darksteel Plate - Hammer of Nazahn - Kaldra Compleat - Shield of Kaldra - Kaya's Ghostform - Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip - Armor of Shadows - Boon of Erebos - Feign Death - Supernatural Stamina - Undying Evil - Undying Malice -

I know you're not trying to go for board-wipe-tribal but here are lots of other ways to save your commander. I know you know about a lot of these.

You should seriously consider Blasphemous Act; it's one of the best wraths period.

RoyaleWithCheese on Ulf ulf, the duel

7 months ago

Phule451 thanks for the suggestions!

Yeah, I think I have too many creatures, but I don't know if I have decent cards to exchange for. All the cards you suggested I don't have atm. I would like to put a little more draw too perhaps. I would list my maybeboard but there are a lot of cards haha.

I thought about using some equipments like Strata Scythe and Nightmare Lash but I opted for the added protection like Undying Evil and Kaya's Ghostform.

Also, I don't have too many +1/+1 counters on golgari, might be lacking on the deck aswell.

But, it's just a first draft and I intend to playtest the deck tomorrow.

Again, thanks for the comment!

Ero-sennin on Marchesa's Grave Affair

9 months ago

Azeworai, I'm surprised I've not seen Unfulfilled Desires before! Definitely a great way to get the cards you need, although from my games so far I've always seemed to have a decent way to draw cards so I'm not sure I need another atm, I can always test tho!

I did consider cards that give instant protection to a creature like Slip Out the Back and Undying Evil, the latter also being a way to get a creature to infinite combo for a turn, but I just really wasn't sure whether it would be worth it since I could just run a counterspell in its place. I can see its use for if I want to sac a creature a turn earlier or if I don't have a way of getting dethrone triggers, but I'm not 100% sure if it's worth taking up a slot in the deck for that. Definitely will have to test it to see how it goes.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Legendxp on Tivit, seller of secrets

10 months ago

Hey, I'm glad someone else saw the potential of this guy. I'm making a deck with him as well.

I went a slightly different route with using the following cards as psuedo blink spells;

1x Abnormal Endurance

1x Demonic Gifts

1x Fake Your Own Death

1x Feign Death

1x Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip

1x Return to Action

1x Supernatural Stamina

1x Undying Evil

1x Undying Malice

It helps that they can also be used to surprise an enemy during combat to get one of their creatures killed. The rest of my deck is basically stuff that gets stronger based on the number of artifacts I control.