Liesa, Forgotten Archangel (Budget EDH, Combo)

Commander / EDH Budget Infinite Combo Reanimator Sacrifice WB (Orzhov)

CrystalQuarry

Creature (29)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Body Launderer
• 1x Burning-Rune Demon
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Cathar Commando
• 1x Demon's Disciple
• 1x Fell Stinger
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Hoarding Broodlord
• 1x Illuminor Szeras
• 1x Inspiring Overseer
• 1x Kami of False Hope
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Leonin Relic-Warder
• 1x Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 1x Morbid Opportunist
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Priest of Ancient Lore
• 1x Remorseful Cleric
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Scorn-Blade Berserker
• 1x Sister Hospitaller
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Twilight Shepherd
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Woe Strider
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Tocasia's Welcome
• 1x Tortured Existence

Land (35)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Brightclimb Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Castle Ardenvale
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1x High Market
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 7x Plains
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scoured Barrens
• 1x Seraph Sanctuary
• 1x Shineshadow Snarl
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 7x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Temple of Silence

Instant (11)

• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Deadly Dispute
• 1x Despark
• 1x Ephemerate
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Saw in Half
• 1x Undying Evil
• 1x Vanishing Verse

Commander (1)

Artifact (13)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Deathrender
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Liquimetal Torque
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Soul-Guide Lantern
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Final Parting
• 1x Footsteps of the Goryo
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Tragic Arrogance
• 1x Unearth

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This is a budget EDH deck for Liesa, Forgotten Archangel. The budget restrictions are that no single card in the deck can be more than $5 for a NM English copy of some printing of the card. As a result of this restriction a lot of obvious non-budget upgrades and more powerful/useful spells are omitted from the deck. Examples include cards such as Scrubland, Pitiless Plunderer, Phyrexian Altar, Demonic Tutor and so on. Instead in the list you will see less efficient cards cards that produce similar effects to stay within the budget restriction.

The win condition for the deck is to assemble one of a variety of different infinite combos that result in the table being drained out. The components of the win condition are:

Drain Enabler Show

• The drain enablers are Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat. Their entire purpose is to gradually ping opponents to death from each creature that dies.

Sacrifice Outlet Show

• The sacrifice outlets are Viscera Seer, Woe Strider, and Ashnod's Altar. Being able to sacrifice a creature at instant speed is essential to enabling a variety of recursion engines the deck runs and will trigger the drain enablers each time. The abilities for sacrificing a creature (e.g. Scry 1 or add {C}{C}) are just icing on the cake but not necessary to the combos.

Recursion Engine Show

There are numerous recursion engines in the deck that can make you loop a handful of creatures over and over again repeatedly getting enter the battlefield and death triggers. A description of each engine and the proper sequencing of actions to end the game is included.

(Karmic Guide OR Sister Hospitaller) + Body Launderer

This engine relies on the ETB trigger from Karmic Guide or Sister Hospitaller and the dies trigger of Body Launderer to infinitely bring each other back from the graveyard. In the following description you can replace Karmic Guide with Sister Hospitaller and the sequence of actions will be the same.

Pre-requisites!

1. At least 1 Drain Enabler.
2. At least 1 Sacrifice Outlet.
3. Karmic Guide and Body Launderer in play OR Karmic Guide in graveyard and Body Launderer in play OR either Karmic Guide or Body Launderer in hand and the other in the graveyard and mana to cast the one in your hand.

The proper sequencing to drain the table without losing to a bunch of Connive triggers drawing out your library from Body Launderer is as follows:

1. Sacrifice Karmic Guide to a sacrifice outlet.
2. Trigger Connive and one of your Drain Enablers.
3. Order the triggers such that Connive goes on the stack first and the drain trigger second. This way the drain trigger will resolve first.
4. Pass priority on the drain trigger and wait for it to resolve. Be aware that your opponents will now have a chance to interact with your boardstate. If they do interact, you can always proceed to the next step without waiting for the drain trigger to resolve. If the interaction removes Karmic Guide from your graveyard, then the combo is stopped.
5. Once the drain trigger has resolved and with the Connive trigger still on the stack, sacrifice Body Launderer.
6. Put the death trigger from Body Launderer to return a non-rouge creature to play targeting Karmic Guide, and then put your Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack. This is to have the drain trigger resolve first.
7. Pass priority and wake for the drain trigger to resolve, then resolve the death trigger from Body Launderer returning Karmic Guide to play.
8. When Karmic Guide enters the battlefield use the trigger to return Body Launderer to play.

After this step you will be back to original position at the start of step 1 except you will have resolved two drain triggers and you will still have a Connive trigger on the stack from when Karmic Guide was sacrificed. You can now proceed to repeat these steps gradually adding more and more Connive triggers to the stack from each loop, but never letting any of them resolve. Your opponents will be drained out with arbitrarily many Connive triggers on the stack.

Karmic Guide + Reveillark

This engine is almost identical to the one with Body Launderer, but we get the added benefit of being able to return an extra creature from the graveyard with Reveillark if needed and we don't have to deal with Connive triggers.

Pre-requisites!

1. At least 1 Drain Enabler.
2. At least 1 Sacrifice Outlet.
3. Karmic Guide and Reveillark in play OR Karmic Guide in graveyard and Reveillark in play OR either Karmic Guide or Reveillark in hand and the other in the graveyard and 5 mana to cast the one in your hand.

The steps are very similar to the previous engine:

1. Sacrifice Karmic Guide to a sacrifice outlet.
2. Put a Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack.
3. Pass priority on the trigger and wait for it to resolve. Be aware that your opponents will now have a chance to interact with your boardstate. If they do interact, you can always proceed to the next step without waiting for the drain trigger to resolve. If the interaction removes Karmic Guide from your graveyard, then the combo is stopped.
4. Once the drain trigger has resolved sacrifice Reveillark.
5. Put the LTB trigger from Reveillark onto the stack targeting Karmic Guide, and put the Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack after it. This way the drain trigger resolves first.
6. Pass priority and wait for the triggers to resolve, returning Karmic Guide to play.
7. When Karmic Guide enters the battlefield use the trigger to return Reveillark to play.

Now we're back to step 1 of the process, but have resolved two drain triggers. Rinse and repeat until opponents are drained.

Deathrender + Twilight Shepherd + Any other creature

Deathrender is a very silly card that allows you to effectively machine gun out every creature from your hand into play with a sacrifice outlet, gaining any ETB or LTB triggers along the way.

Twilight Shepherd is the creature that allows you to continue abusing Deathrender ad infinitum, since the ETB trigger on it will return to your hand all your permanents that went to the graveyard from play this turn.

Thus, with any drain enabler and a sacrifice outlet, you just keep sacrificing your creatures and returning them to your hand with Twilight Shepherd.

Pre-requisites!

1. At least 1 Drain Enabler.
2. At least 1 Sacrifice Outlet.
3. Deathrender equipped to any creature (even the Drain Enabler works here if it's Blood Artist which counts itself dying to trigger).
4. Twilight Shepherd in hand.

The proper sequencing to perform the combo is as follows:

1. Sacrifice equipped creature.
2. Put Deathrender trigger onto the stack, then put Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack above it.
3. Resolve triggers and put Twilight Shepherd into play with Deathrender attached.
4. Put Twilight Shepherd ETB trigger onto the stack and resolve it, returning the sacrificed creature to hand.
5. Sacrifice Twilight Shepherd.
6. Put Twilight Shepherd Persist trigger onto the stack, then put Deathrender trigger onto the stack, then put Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack.
7. Resolve triggers and put the original creature from your hand into play with Deathrender attached, then put Twilight Shepherd into play.
8. Put Twilight Shepherd ETB trigger onto the stack. In response to this trigger sacrifice Twilight Shepherd again. This time Twilight Shepherd will go to the graveyard and stay there for the moment (i.e. it doesn't Persist again). Put a Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack and resolve it.
9. Resolve Twilight Shepherd ETB trigger and return Twilight Shepherd to your hand.

At this point you have returned to step 1 of the process but have gotten a handful of Drain Enabler triggers. Rinse and repeat until opponents are drained out.

Leonin Relic-Warder + Animate Dead

This is a simple infinite death engine that only requires casting Animate Dead on Leonin Relic-Warder.

Pre-requisites!

1. At least 1 Drain Enabler.
2. Leonin Relic-Warder in the graveyard.
3. Animate Dead in hand, or able to cast it from the graveyard (e.g. with Lurrus of the Dream-Den.

The steps to follow for this loop are quite simple:

1. Cast Animate Dead targeting Leonin Relic-Warder.
2. When Leonin Relic-Warder enters the battlefield have the trigger from it target Animate Dead.
3. When Animate Dead is exiled, Leonin Relic-Warder must be sacrificed.
4. Put the LTB trigger from Leonin Relic-Warder onto the stack, then put the Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack. This way the Drain Enabler trigger resolves first.
5. Resolve triggers which causes Animate Dead to return and allowing you to target a new creature in a graveyard. Target Leonin Relic-Warder in your graveyard to continue the loop, or target any other creature to stop the loop.

Rinse and repeat these steps until opponents are drained.

Sun Titan + Animate Dead + Karmic Guide

This is an interesting infinite death engine that exploits the interaction between Animate Dead and Karmic Guide.

Pre-requisites!

1. At least 1 Drain Enabler.
2. At least 1 Sacrifice Outlet.
3. A number of possible permutations of Sun Titan, Karmic Guide and Animate Dead in play, your hand, and/or your graveyard. For example, Karmic Guide in hand and the other two pieces in the graveyard will allow it to work, as would Sun Titan in hand and the other two in the graveyard, or Animate Dead in hand and the other two in the graveyard.

The essential interactions of this combo are the following:

1. Sun Titan can return Animate Dead to play on ETB or attack.
2. Animate Dead can return Karmic Guide to play, although the moment it hits play, the "Protection from Black" text on Karmic Guide becomes relevant. This causes Animate Dead to fall off and Karmic Guide to be sent right back to graveyard, but not before putting her ETB trigger onto the stack.
3. The ETB trigger on Karmic Guide can return Sun Titan to play.

Here's an example sequences of actions assuming Animate Dead is in hand and other two pieces are in the graveyard:

1. Cast Animate Dead targeting Karmic Guide.
2. When Karmic Guide ETBs and dies automatically you'll get her ETB trigger, which should target returning Sun Titan and a death trigger for your Drain Enabler.
3. Allow the death trigger to resolve first, then return Sun Titan to play, which upon ETB should target Animate Dead in the graveyard.
4. In response to the ETB trigger on Sun Titan, sacrifice it to your Sacrifice Outlet and get a Drain Enabler trigger upon death.
5. Resolve the Drain Enabler trigger.
6. Allow the ETB trigger of Sun Titan to resolve, returning Animate Dead to play, which should target Karmic Guide.

At this point we're back to the beginning of the loop. Rinse and repeat these steps until opponents are drained.

Besides the handful of cards central to winning the game the rest of the deck is designed to be flexible to respond to various situations and generate significant value off of the abilities on Liesa, Forgotten Archangel.

Instants

Instants are essential to interacting with opponents and preventing wins or removing key threats from play. The suite of instants in this deck serve at least one of three purposes:

Removal Show

• Path to Exile is just simple cheap commander or problem creature removal.

• Vanishing Verse is one of the best Orzhov removal spells ever printed and a clean answer to most of the format's boogeymen.

• Despark is situationally better (and worse) than Vanishing Verse and another welcome piece of removal for just WB.

• Moving up to 3 mana removal spells we need to start being able to remove or destroy just about anything which Generous Gift and to a lesser extent Mortify are capable of. Anguished Unmaking would be great to slot in here, but it is sadly no longer budget.

Protection Show

• Malakir Rebirth  , Undying Evil, and Ephemerate are all capable of being used defensively as a form of protection for Liesa, Forgotten Archangel to keep her in play. The same cards may also be used offensively to abuse ETB/LTB/death triggers on many of the creatures to obtain a lot of value such as with Burning-Rune Demon.

Value Show

This category technically has subcategories within it such as card advantage and ramp, which is what the other instants are capable of.

• Dark Ritual is just a great way to turbo out an early Liesa, Forgotten Archangel or to give the burst of extra mana to help recast many of the creatures which should be returning to your hand repeatedly in the mid and late game.

• Deadly Dispute is fantastic value in a deck more than happy to sacrifice a creature to immediately benefit off a triggered ability or to simply get Liesa's trigger to return the sacrificed creature to hand. Getting two cards and a treasure token on top for only 2 mana is excellent value. In a pinch, it can even be used to protect a key combo piece like Karmic Guide from opponents' removal.

• Saw in Half is a card that recently became budget and so I wanted to test it out in this deck. The best targets for it are things like Hoarding Broodlord and Burning-Rune Demon. As long as Liesa, Forgotten Archangel is in play, sacrificing pretty much anything to this spell is okay as we'll get it back plus get the two token copies it provides.

Sorceries

This category is quite similar to instants in terms of function. However, there is an additional category here which helps the deck achieve consistency and be able to respond to a variety of situations. This additional category is tutors.

Tutors Show

• Diabolic Tutor is pretty much just budget Demonic Tutor and is intended to find pieces of the win condition or anything else that's needed depending on the boardstate you find yourself faced with.

• Final Parting is also a budget tutor but given how much graveyard synergy there is in the deck it effectively acts as two tutors for only {3}{B}{B}. You can immediately assemble most of the of the Recursion Engines described at the start of this primer with Final Parting.

Removal Show

• Living Death is effectively a board wipe with significant upside thanks to the replacement effect of Liesa, Forgotten Archangel exiling opponent's creatures if they would go to the graveyard. Thanks to recent reprints Living Death finally dropped below $5 and is replacing Damn, which is also very good and slightly more mana efficient but requires a lot more mana and time to rebuild afterwards. With Living Death you can sacrifice your entire boardstate except Liesa, Forgotten Archangel to a sacrifice outlet (so opponent's creatures will still be exiled when it resolves) in response to the spell and then reap the massive benefits of everything returning. In general with Liesa, Forgotten Archangel in play, your graveyard should almost always be much more juicy than opponents' graveyards making Living Death much more back breaking than just a wrath.

• Merciless Eviction is very much outclassed by the recently printed Farewell, but sadly Farewell is no longer budget by the restrictions used for building this deck, so Merciless Eviction gets to stay as a budget means of mass Exile.

• Tragic Arrogance is a fantastic board wipe that gets around all sorts of problematic keywords like Indestructible, Hexproof, and Shroud.

Value Show

• Unearth isn't Reanimate which would be the preference for this card if it were budget, but it's still a very good reanimation affect that can pull back any Drain Enabler or Sacrifice Outlet from the yard for just a single {B} mana.

• Footsteps of the Goryo is another budget sorcery speed reanimation effect that isn't too mana intensive, but does require sacrificing the creature at the end of the turn. This is often not a big deal as long as Liesa, Forgotten Archangel is already in play and whatever we return will just come back to us on the subsequent turn's end step. Ultimately this form of recursion is not as black mana intensive or as telegraphed as Apprentice Necromancer which was the card this replaced.

Enchantments

This deck runs very few enchantments but the few it does run are quite useful:

Recursion Show

• Tortured Existence is a fantastic piece of recursion that allows you to exchange creatures in your hand for those in your graveyard. It's a great way to get back a key combo piece or even just get Liesa, Forgotten Archangel back and you don't want to pay a large commander tax on her.

• Phyrexian Reclamation is another way to recur key combo pieces or get back Liesa, Forgotten Archangel who is often a magnet for removal once opponents learn how powerful her static abilities really are.

• Animate Dead is a combo piece with Leonin Relic-Warder and an excellent way to get back any creature for extra ETB/LTB/death trigger value.

Card Advantage Show

• Tocasia's Welcome is a really cool card from BRO that can trigger off most of the creatures in the main deck or from tokens being generated off of something like Pawn of Ulamog. This card used to be Welcoming Vampire, but after ending up with too many creatures with Power 3+ it wasn't triggering all that often anymore. Tocasia's Welcome interacts with a greater proportion of the creature base and is a stickier permanent type (i.e. Enchantment vs. Creature).

With the exception of Tocasia's Welcome it is worth noting that all of the enchantments here could be retrieved from the graveyard with Lurrus of the Dream-Den should any of them find their way into the graveyard at some point.

Artifacts

Most of the artifacts in the deck are intended to function as simple mana rocks, but there are a handful of exceptions that serve other purposes as well.

Mana Rocks Show

Notably Sol Ring is not included in this list because of a house rule to ban it in my local meta despite being budget. It would be an obvious choice to include over pretty much any other mana rock in the deck.

• Arcane Signet is obligatory in pretty much any multicolor EDH deck since it makes all the colors and ETB untapped.

• Liquimetal Torque may only make colorless mana but the added ability to turn another permanent into an artifact can be surprisingly relevant and a great way to effectively 'Destroy target permanent' when faced with mass artifact destruction. It can even be a great political tool to get opponents to spend spot removal on something threatening.

• Mind Stone is another 2 CMC rock that enters untapped but can be cashed in to draw an extra card in a pinch or if flooded on Mana.

• Orzhov Signet makes both colors and ETBs untapped. Enough said.

• Talisman of Hierarchy also ETBs untapped and can make either color for 1 life or colorless for free.

• Thought Vessel can only make colorless but also ETBs untapped and allows you to keep all your cards in hand. Once Liesa, Forgotten Archangel is in play she will keep your hand filled almost all the time with the creatures constantly returning to hand, so having ways to avoid the hand size limit is very useful.

Land Ramp/Tutors Show

Due to the budget restriction of individual cards being under $5 a lot of the best ramp in Orzhov is cut off. That means no Land Tax, Smothering Tithe, Archaeomancer's Map, Archivist of Oghma, or other similar cards. Such cards would be excellent additions in a budgetless build. Instead we have to make do with:

• Wayfarer's Bauble is a simple and cheap method to ramp out a basic. It's great in your opening hand or as a very early game draw, but does become quite a bit worse the later in the game it turns up. In Orzhov though one can't be too picky about budget ramp options.

• Expedition Map is great to find any of the utility lands in the deck of which there are a lot. Good targets include Reliquary Tower to circumvent hand size limits, High Market as a sacrifice outlet, Seraph Sanctuary as a life gain source and potentially infinite lifegain with some of the Recursion Engines in the deck, or Bojuka Bog for graveyard hate.

• Thaumatic Compass   is a bit slow, but can keep the land drops coming for a while until eventually flipping into better Maze of Ith.

Utility Show

This category includes protection and graveyard hate utility pieces such as:

• Soul-Guide Lantern is fantastic asymmetric graveyard hate that can punish other graveyard decks without affecting the graveyard shenanigans this deck is running. If graveyards aren't heavily utilized in your meta then it can be cashed in for a new card very cheaply.

• Swiftfoot Boots is in the deck to provide protection for Liesa, Forgotten Archangel or other key combo creatures as needed. If it was budget, then Lightning Greaves would be an obvious upgrade for this card.

Combo Show

• Deathrender is one of the only combo artifacts in the deck and a central part of the Recursion Engine involving Twilight Shepherd. See the Recursion Engine description above for details on how the combo works.

• Ashnod's Altar is the other combo artifact that functions as a Sacrifice Outlet for many of the Recursion Engines described above. Thanks to being reprinted in BRO this card finally became budget (<$5) and is a natural fit in the deck. Phyrexian Altar would also be great, but is quite far from being budget. See the Recursion Engine description for details on combos involving a Sacrifice Outlet.

As with enchantments every artifact in the deck can be recast with Lurrus of the Dream-Den with the exceptions of Deathrender and Ashnod's Altar.

Lands

Being a budget deck the land base is a bit clunky and so a few ETB tapped lands are included that a budgetless deck could certainly avoid. More expensive obvious inclusions such as Scrubland, Godless Shrine, City of Brass, Mana Confluence, Phyrexian Tower, and a bunch of fetchlands would be great in a budgetless build.

Not all lands are noteworthy but the more interesting utility lands with various activated, triggered or static abilities are mentioned here:

Utility Show

• Reliquary Tower is the only other card besides Thought Vessel which can circumvent hand size restrictions. As mentioned in the artifact section this static ability is important because of how full your hand will typically be with Liesa, Forgotten Archangel constantly returning creatures to your hand.

• Bojuka Bog is simple graveyard hate that is difficult for an opponent to respond to since it is an ETB trigger.

• Seraph Sanctuary is a cute land that can generate infinite life if any of the combos involving Karmic Guide or Twilight Shepherd are assembled and you don't have a Drain Enabler yet.

• High Market is a budget sacrifice outlet on a land which can be a great way to protect a combo creature from Exile removal. It can also be used to enable LTB triggers like on Body Launderer or to set up for an ETB trigger by getting a creature into the graveyard for Animate Dead.

• Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire is a sneaky way to kill a creature that is quite hard to respond to since it is an activated ability and not a spell and is not telegraphed.

• Takenuma, Abandoned Mire is a way to churn through more cards of your deck and to return a combo piece or other creature to hand.

• Castle Ardenvale can generate chump blockers or fodder for Morbid Opportunist or the Drain Enablers and Sacrifice Outlets.

Creatures

The creatures are the most exciting part of this deck since they drive the combos and there are so many to choose from that have high synergy with Liesa, Forgotten Archangel. All of the combo creatures (Drain Enablers, Sacrifice Outlets, and Recursion Engines) were described at the start of this description, so the rest of the creatures are described below by their various functions.

Card Advantage Show

A key part of any EDH deck are card draw engines and given the ability of Liesa, Forgotten Archangel to return any creatures you control that die to your hand, you can get repeated death/ETB/LTB triggers to grind out value from these creatures:

• Inspiring Overseer is a great little creature that draws a card and gains a life on ETB that can also serve as a flying chump blocker. You should never be upset about this dying as you can just get it right back and draw more cards from casting it again.

• Priest of Ancient Lore is essentially just another Inspiring Overseer, but it doesn't fly.

• Morbid Opportunist may only be able to trigger once it each turn, but importantly can trigger from ANY creature dying which includes tokens and opponents' creatures. You should be aware though that if Liesa, Forgotten Archangel is in play then your opponents' creatures never die due to the replacement effect to exile them instead so you can only get the triggers from your own creatures. Having a sacrifice outlet or some of the creatures that can sacrifice themselves will allow you to get value on opponents' turns as well.

• Grim Haruspex is the most powerful card draw creature in the deck as it can trigger multiple times in a single turn, but only counts non-token creatures. If you have this, a Sacrifice Outlet and one of the Recursion Engines online, then you can draw as many cards from the deck as desired.

Recursion Support Show

Beyond the combo creatures driving the Recursion Engines there are a handful of other creatures whose sole purpose is to recur creatures to kick start a combo or to just reap ETB/LTB/death trigger value.

• Lurrus of the Dream-Den is one of the best recursion effects in the deck since it can also give you access to cards like Expedition Map, Mind Stone, and Animate Dead over and over again. There are over 20 different permanents CMC 2 or less in the deck besides lands that can be returned so you should almost always be able to take advantage of the ability.

• Sun Titan is more recursion on an ETB or attack trigger that is capable of returning the vast majority of permanents in the deck from the graveyard. I am currently experimenting with this over Priest of Fell Rites as I found Priest just often didn't do anything due to summoning sickness and the inability to be relevant the turn you play it, even if it is mana value 2 vs. 6 for Sun Titan.

Self-Sacrifice Show

This group of creatures are capable of destroying themselves either on ETB or due to an activated ability. It includes the two recursion creatures described in the previous section as well as these others:

• Burnished Hart is repeatable ramp with Liesa, Forgotten Archangel in play. Any games where you draw this in the early game can end up with you having all 16 basic lands from the deck in play.

• Cathar Commando is artifact and enchantment removal but even more importantly it has Flash. This means if you have Liesa, Forgotten Archangel in play and the mana available, then you can cast and sacrifice this creature EVERY turn, potentially reaping other death triggers each turn such as with Morbid Opportunist or Grim Haruspex.

• Kami of False Hope is a safety valve in the deck against aggro or token decks that may overwhelm the board with creatures. With Liesa, Forgotten Archangel you can endlessly fog the problem player or play politics with other players seeking protection.

• Remorseful Cleric is simple graveyard hate that is repeatable with Liesa, Forgotten Archangel.

• Demon's Disciple and Plaguecrafter force each player to sacrifice a creature on ETB. For any EDH decks that are light on creatures, these creatures will be maddening to face with Liesa, Forgotten Archangel returning them to hand every turn you cast them. In my own games I have personally seen these manage to lock out some opponents from playing any creatures at all, since they'll just die once my turn comes around again. In fact it's even worse than that for opponents since when they sacrifice their creature won't even die but will be exiled to the replacement effect Liesa also provides.

• Fell Stinger is yet another card to enable sacrificing a creature with the bonus effect of being able to draw a couple of cards too. It is worth noting that this creature can Exploit itself, so with Liesa, Forgotten Archangel on board you can recast this friendly scorpion each turn cycle for cards. It's a pretty good blocker too, thanks to Deathtouch.

• Illuminor Szeras is an interesting new creature that enables us to cash in any other creature for a good chunk of {B} mana. It's slightly more flexible than Soldevi Adnate is, since the sacrificed creature doesn't have to be black. This card is in a testing phase right now as I'm not sure if it will be a mainstay or not. It's temporarily replacing Gravelighter. This type of card does give more reason to run a budget tutor like Search for Glory.

• Scorn-Blade Berserker is a really nice new piece of self-sacrifice tech from March of the Machines. The ability to sacrifice itself and draw a card, or to grant this ability to any other creature we control with Backup is fantastic. It becomes a repeatable draw engine each turn cycle for only 2 mana, while also giving death triggers.

Other Show

The last few remaining creatures in the deck serve a few different purposes but are clustered together into this other category for brevity.

• Pawn of Ulamog is a fantastic creature that generates extra bodies for Morbid Opportunist or to just use as ramp for recasting other creatures repeatedly thanks to Liesa, Forgotten Archangel. This deck can be very hungry for mana, so turning a good chunk of the deaths into mana is excellent value.

• Ophiomancer serves a similar role as Pawn of Ulamog in that it reliably creates extra bodies to sacrifice for value. Since the snake tokens generated by Ophiomancer also have deathtouch it often discourages people from attacking into you as well. Also it is important to note that the trigger on Ophiomancer does check every upkeep, so you should never feel bad blocking with the snake as you will get another shortly afterwards. If you can get both this creature, Tocasia's Welcome and a sacrifice outlet online, it guarantees you an extra card literally every turn. Lastly, this card was not in prior iterations of the deck as it was not budget, but thanks to Jumpstart 2022 it is now under $5 for a NM copy, so the card can fit very naturally into the deck.

• Burning-Rune Demon is very good at helping to assemble combos or find answers in a pinch. Even though you have to let an opponent decide which card to give you, you can choose a pair of cards where the result won't matter in the end. Common choices I set up for opponents are pairs like, both Sacrifice Outlets, both Drain Enablers, or Karmic Guide and Body Launderer. Oftentimes getting one of these creatures in your graveyard is just as good as (sometimes even better than) your hand with how much recursion there is. You can also use it to play politics if a player is running away with game and needs to be taken down a peg. For example, you choose another player on the ropes to have the option on which card to give you and then you pick two cards from the deck like Swamp and Tragic Arrogance and they can give you the board wipe to clear the threats.

• Hoarding Broodlord is a new card I'm experimenting with to replace Mastermind's Acquistion (RIX) f. The goal is to cheat this creature into play by reanimating it or convoking it out, and then finding Saw in Half which should immediately be cast on targeting itself. This grants two more tutor effects which can be used to find combo pieces that you can also cheat out with the token copies. For example, you can cast Viscera Seer by Convoking one of the tokens if you need a sacrifice outlet to get one of the combo engines going.

I hope this description was useful to explain various card choices and their purposes for this budget deck. Liesa, Forgotten Archangel is a blast to play and her static ability is remarkably relevant against a lot of common EDH cards like Skullclamp. Give her a try and enjoy! Thanks for reading too if you made it this far!

Old/Removed Cards Show

• Cultist of the Absolute is an interesting card I am experimenting with, but not sure if it will be a mainstay in the deck or not. Buffing Liesa, Forgotten Archangel by +3/+3 turns her into a 3-turn clock rather than a 6-turn clock for lethal commander damage. The Ward - Pay 3 life to target her with removal is not inconsequential, but may not be a sufficiently strong form of protection. The forced sacrifice of a creature each upkeep isn't necessarily a bad thing as it can be a way to get repeated ETB/LTB/death trigger value on other creatures if a Sacrifice Outlet hasn't been found yet.

• Junji, the Midnight Sky removed due to no longer being budget (NM > $5).

Karmic Guide + Junji, the Midnight Sky

This engine is a bit easier than the previous one as it doesn't have extra Connive triggers from Body Launderer involved. In particular we want the second mode of the death trigger on Junji, the Midnight Sky to return our Karmic Guide.

Pre-requisites!

1. At least 1 Drain Enabler.
2. At least 1 Sacrifice Outlet.
3. Karmic Guide and Junji, the Midnight Sky in play OR Karmic Guide in graveyard and Junji, the Midnight Sky in play OR either Karmic Guide or Junji, the Midnight Sky in hand and the other in the graveyard and 5 mana to cast the one in your hand.

The steps are very similar to the previous engine:

1. Sacrifice Karmic Guide to a sacrifice outlet.
2. Put a Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack.
3. Pass priority on the trigger and wait for it to resolve. Be aware that your opponents will now have a chance to interact with your boardstate. If they do interact, you can always proceed to the next step without waiting for the drain trigger to resolve. If the interaction removes Karmic Guide from your graveyard, then the combo is stopped.
4. Once the drain trigger has resolved sacrifice Junji, the Midnight Sky.
5. Put the death trigger from Junji, the Midnight Sky to return a non-dragon creature from your graveyard to the battlefield onto the stack targeting Karmic Guide, and put the Drain Enabler trigger onto the stack after it. This way the drain trigger resolves first and you will net gain 2 life before paying the 2 life to bring back Karmic Guide back, keeping your life total at the original amount.
6. Pass priority and wait for the triggers to resolve, returning Karmic Guide to play.
7. When Karmic Guide enters the battlefield use the trigger to return Junji, the Midnight Sky to play.

Now we're back to step 1 of the process, but have resolved two drain triggers. Rinse and repeat until opponents are drained.

• Angel of the Ruins is pretty much always plainscycled whenever drawn to keep land drops going and can be reanimated later to permanently deal with problem artifacts and enchantments.

• Priest of Fell Rites also offers reanimation on an activated ability, but it costs life instead of mana. Between the lifelink on Liesa, Forgotten Archangel and incidental lifegain from cards like Seraph Sanctuary, Inspiring Overseer, and Priest of Ancient Lore and others, the 3 life should be easily affordable.

• Legion's Landing   doesn't really fit nicely into a category serving a specific purpose. The ability to produce 1/1 lifelink creatures token is useful if you just need chump blockers or fodder for Morbid Opportunist. It can also be a way to trigger Welcoming Vampire on an opponent's turn. That said, this is certainly a card which could be replaced with something better.

• Welcoming Vampire can be triggered by 12 different creatures in the main deck, many of which can be recurred over and over again. If you have a token generator in play like Pawn of Ulamog with a Sacrifice Outlet, you can get the triggers on opponents' turns too. Since the number of creatures interacting with Welcoming Vampire has been decreasing lately this card may be replaced with Tocasia's Welcome which hits a far larger portion of the creature base (20 creatures CMC 3 or less, not counting Welcoming Vampire) and is on a sticker card type as an Enchantment.

• Ghostly Prison is in the deck as a safety valve against token decks which may go too wide too fast for creatures like Plaguecrafter to manage. The only other ways to deal with a massive amount of tokens are the board wipe sorceries (see Removal in Sorceries section above).

• Damn is effectively Wrath of God or Damnation with upside in any Orzhov deck and an obvious choice for when the boardstate becomes too much to be dealt with by spot removal.

• Anguished Unmaking removed due to no longer being budget (not <$5).

• Silent Clearing is a nice ETB untapped dual that can be cashed in for a card in case of flooding or desperation. It was left off the list initially because the card didn't meet the budget requirement, but recently the card has come below $5 and is now viable to run in this build. If it becomes non-budget again it can be replaced with a basic land. 5/9/2023: became non-budget again. Removed for a basic.

• Body Count is a funny card that seems to have slipped under the radar of most players or is simply not very well known yet. In this deck, it is extremely abusable and capable of generating game winning value for a single {B} mana with the spectacle cost. If any of the myriad infinite death engines have been assembled, but perhaps no drain enabler is available, you can still perform the death loops as many times as desired until Body Count draws almost your entire deck. Casting it after a wrath or board wipe is also really amazing value for very little mana investment. Removed for Saw in Half.

• Apprentice Necromancer has a neat reanimation ability that will return anything with haste, but the reanimated creature must be sacrificed at the end of the turn. Doomed Necromancer would remove this sacrifice condition, but costs 1 more mana to cast. Ultimately though, the sacrifice condition is no big deal with Liesa, Forgotten Archangel and is often even desired to fuel all the ETB/LTB/death triggers. Removed for Footsteps of the Goryo.

Date added	1 year
Last updated	3 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 36 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.85
Tokens	Companion Zone, Copy Clone, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Elephant 3/3 G, Goat 0/1 W, Human 1/1 W, Morph 2/2 C, Snake 1/1 B, Treasure