Unveiling a new Planeswalker

Hello everybody! As we roll into day 3 of Innistrad previews, we have lots of really cool cards to talk about (expecially since I wasn't able to post anything yesterday!). So let's not waste time saying hi and jump straight to the good stuff!

So this guy seems pretty unassuming, but this is one of my sleeper picks for best cards in the set! Well, maybe not #1 best, but absolutely top 10 material! Why? Let me put it this way: start trading for your Puresteel Paladins NOW! The major problem with the Puresteel Paladin deck as it is right now is that without it's namesake card, the deck doesn't actually do anything... However, with this guy in play as well, you have an insane card draw engine! Germ tokens are 0/0s, which are small enough to allow you to draw cards off Mentor of the Meek. If you have never seen the Puresteel Paladin deck in action, it's actually quite crazy, and frankly it dominates! Granting them another enabler is huge, and I expect that to be one of the decks out of the gate (although there's not any new interesting equipment yet...). A major loss to the deck is obviously Stoneforge Mystic, so maybe splashing Blue for Ponder wouldn't be a bad idea...

Now this is a subtly exciting card! It's basically a Journey to Nowhere with a kicker for W: put a 1/3 into play. Along the same strand of Skinrender, in the right decks, you will see this guy all over the place. In fact, Fiend Hunter plays quite nicely with Mentor of the Meek! Exile their creature, get a 1/3 yourself, AND draw a card! Take me down to value town! If I had to build a Puresteel Paladin deck right now, here is what it would look like:

4x Puresteel Paladin
4x Mentor of the Meek
1x Fiend Hunter
1x Leonin Relic-Warder
4x Leonin Arbitor
4x Memnite
4x Glint Hawk

4x Mortar Pod
4x Flayer Husk
4x Sword of War and Peace

2x Dispatch

2x Mox Opal
4x Ghost Quarter
4x Inkmoth Nexus
14x Plains

If you actually read the decklist, you will see a cool combo hidden in the deck. Go back read it again... Did you find it? It combines a land and a creature....

If you answered Ghost Quarter + Leonin Arbitor, you just won 50 points for Gryffindor! This is a cool little combo that has been on my mind for a couple days now, and I feel this is the deck to abuse it! If you aren't familiar with the combo, or can't figure it out for yourself, here's how it works: Ghost Quarter is a Strip Mine reprint, except they get a basic land. Using Leonin Arbitor, you can prevent them from being able to search their library, so you can ultimately play Strip Mine in standard! I feel like this is the best deck to play that combo because here is our deck's curve:

0 - 6
1 - 10
2 - 13
3 - 9
4+ - 0

In the same way that White Weenie decks of old played Armageddon to slow down the opponent while they brought some beats, so too can this deck land-lock the opponent (or at least set them many turns back) before crashing in for tons of damage with a SoWaP equipped dude.

Now that's what I call a morbid demon! When I said that I would be watching Morbid to see if there were any good creatures to add to my Birthing Pod deck, this is beyond what I had in mind! One thing I think is cool about this guy is that he is not Legendary and that he can't hit demons (although it is not a may-ability). So it would be very easy to take complete control of the game by having 2 Reapers out. Destroy one of their creatures with a Doom Blade, EOT kill 2 more! Because it's not a may-ability, you may be required to kill your own guys, but because it's non-demons only, having 2 in play isn't a liability to having them kill eachother. As of right now, I'm thinking of a BUG-Pod deck using cards like: Reaper from the Abyss, Frost Titan, Acidic Slime, Skinrender, Phyrexian Metamorph, Birds of Paradise, Bloodgift Demon, Sheolred Whispering One and more. i don't want to throw up a decklist yet, because Birthing Pod.dec is an archetype that changes dramatically as each new card is released.

This is another addition to the Werewolf tribe, which I have been putting a lot of thought into recently. Werewolves seem to be more of a casual tribe as opposed to a constructed one, simply because of the inconsistancy of what you will be playing with. An essential card to the deck of course is Moonmist:

We don't care about the fog part, but the Transform part is quite attractive. Another card that seems to be tech in keeping your Werewolves as Werewolves is Silence. Just cast Silence on your opponent's upkeep and continue beating down. The White splash shouldn't even be a problem thanks to these awesome enemy-colored dual lands! Another major concern though is that you need to ensure the Human side of your army is able to still be as threatening as your Werewolf side. This is abviously where Mayor of Avabruk comes into play. Another idea is to have a black splash and use enough hand disruption spells (like Mind Rot) such that your opponent is forced to play off the top of their deck and won't be able to stop the Werewolves from beating down. One other important note on Werewolves: if you cast 2 Werewolves in 1 turn, you will turn all your Werewolves back into Humans!

And finally, the Marquee planeswalker of the block! This planeswalker is SWEET! Let's just cut straight to the upper-right hand corner: 1BB, just 3 mana! This gal is coming down fast to really mess stuff up! She attack's player's hands and boards, so I can see her being a natural 3 or 4-of in a B/x control deck! Let's go ability by ability and explore each one:

+1: Each player discards a card

The important word in this ability is "each". That means you too, so we obviously need to find a way to neutralize this effect or make a positive out of it. The first obvious choice is to play Flashback cards. Unfortunately though, there's not a lot of great flashback cards yet, as they either suck (Travel Preparations) or they cost too much mana to flashback (all the rest of them). However, any time a flashback card is previewed, start thinking Liliana! Another way to make this negative a positive is by playing recursive creatures. Imagine discarding Bloodghast to Liliana and then recurring him for 0 mana to start some beats? All while attacking your opponent's hand? However, the only recursive creatures require either Metalcraft (Kuldotha Pheonix) or red burn spells (Chandra's Pheonix). I guess Chandra's Pheonix wouldn't be too bad if we wanted to make this a B/R aggro deck as opposed to a UB control deck. Imagine: T3 Liliana +1, discarding Chandra's Pheonix. T4 Chandra +1, recur Pheonix, +1 Liliana to discard Pheonix. That 3 card engine could seriously halt your opponent's advances because after untapping on turn 5, everything costs 0 mana to do, and you're still playing normal magic! Another thought is to use this as a Reanimator enabler. In a previous article, the card Zombify was specifically pointed out on the Mothership. Last time I remember doing that was with the card Glory Seeker in ROE, and the card got reprinted. In the same way, I think Zombify will be reprinted in INS. Turn 3 Liliana +1, discard Sheolred. Turn 4 Zombify GG. Another reason I think Zombify will be reprinted: Rise from the Grave was oddly left out of M12. I doubt they would want the reanimator deck to have 8 reanimation spells in standard.

-2: Target player sacrifices a creature

This is an amazing ability on a 3-drop planeswalker! It's useful in both aggro and control, and even combo! In the aggro decks, it will help recursively pave the way for your beatdown to get through. In control, it's free removal, which they will take any day, and in the Reanimator combo, it's a great way to help control hate cards like the aforementioned Fiend Hunter. It's worth noting that Liliana comes down with 3 loyalty, so you can immediatly drop it, edict, and then keep on going.

-6 Separate all permanents target player controls into 2 piles. That player sacrifices all permanents in a pile of his/her choice

This is INSANE! Curse of the Cabal on a planeswalker!?! This is not only the most powerful ability for Liliana, but also the most skill-intensive ability arguably among all planeswalkers printed. I was reading in the forums, someone posted "Just separate all lands and other permanents, then they have to decide between mana or board position" to which someone replied "but what if they sacrifice all lands, and then crush you on board?" I think an exercise for future posts may be board positions and how you would separate the 2 piles so they have no shining options... And on the other side of the table, if you see they are plussing their Liliana quickly, how do you prepare yourself for the inevitable? Stock lands and spells in your hand? Race it? This effect is simply a blowout in the control mirror as resources and mana is a VERY highly needed resource for things like counterspell wars and being able to back up your bomb. Imagine if you are playing the control mirror and you ultimate Liliana, forcing your oppoenent to sacrifice half their lands, then you cast Grave Titan with double Mana Leak backup? They probably can't do anything about it! Especially if they had some lands tapped, and you put the tapped lands in the more attractive pile to keep, effectively destroying their capability to respond when it counts most.

Overall, I feel like people aren't opening themselves up to the opportunities that Liliana presents. I absolutely can't wait to get myself a set! I haven't looked at any preorder prices yet, but I am going to say she's worth $11. SCG currently has her at 35, so I expect that will come down very quickly. Just look at the price of all the other planeswalkers, aside from Jace TMS, the next most expensive is Tezzeret at 27, Nicol Bolas at 20, and Gideon/Elspeth at 17. Those 5 can all win the game completely on their own when you get into topdeck mode, which Liliana can't do. The previous 5 planeswalkers are all viable win conditions for a deck to be completely built around, which Liliana can't. Liliana is a perfectly designed toolbox planeswalker. She doesn't provide any insane over the top assistance, but there are very noticable incremental advantages every time you use her, which I believe is perfect planeswalker design.

I have one random point I want ot get on the page before I sign off for today: There is going to be a 5 ability planeswalker in this set, and the name "Garruk Relentless" for 3G appears on the double faced token. I believe those 2 will be the same card. On the front side, a 2 ability planeswalker with a weak + ability like, add G to your mana pool, and then a - ability that reads "transform Garruk Relentless". Then the backside will be an overpowered green/BLACK Garruk Planeswalker. Maybe +1: creatures you control gain deathtouch and Trample until EOT and -3: destroy target creature, put a 3/3 zombie beat into play. And then finally an un untimate like -7: Destroy all creatures in play, then put a 3/3 Zombie Beast token into play for each creature destroyed in this mannor. Just guessing... Anyways, until next time, stay classy!