I started building it as an all-star Deck: just put all the Black staples in: TS&Inquisition, Lilis, Bobs, Push.
Then I started filling the curve, not going too high to limit Bob's trigger together with TS
Pack Rat entered the battlefield pretty quick as a good way to justify main deck silver bombs, and to actually have some win con (yes, I'm very light on cons.)
I win the game by attacking their hand and board in the early game, then taking over with card advantage, to either whittle them down with Liliana, or create an overwhelming army of Rats. Ensnaring Bridge is my most secret tech. There are some decks that just can't handle it G1, and I can recover from the worst beatdown, to stick a Lili, make 10+ Rats, ult lili to sac the Bridge (yup, only maindeck way) and swing.
I can also hold back 2/3 cards to be able to attack with 2 Rats and threaten to pump 1x-3x if opp blocks unfavorably, or force the opponent to trade/chump vs lethal rats.
I don't like Gatekeeper of Malakir because Lili is just SO much better, and triple black on T3 can be a problem sometimes.
I don't like Phyrexian Obliterator in this build, as it is essentially a faster pack of Pack Rats that's even worse in bad matchups. I take 4 from Bob which really hurts sometimes, no Urborg can be troublesome (and without GQ we're just super dead vs Tron)
I'm considering Collective Brutality to have any sort of game against Burn.
Also thinking about going 3/4 Urborg and adding Mutavault for Pack Rat synergy
There are some matchups that I can almost not win of course. 8Rack, Burn, Dredge are the horror.
But then I also get great MUs vs combo, fair creature decks and some control types...
What do you think?
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Thanks for posting. This thread has been dead for a while and it's good that you are playing some off the wall cards.
I'll start out by saying you have a lot of *good* cards but I'm not sure how they will line up in the greater modern format. That said, I'm sure your local meta looks different from the meta of a GP or something but I have some notes, assuming your local meta looks at least somewhat similar to that larger meta and I have just some notes in general.
I'll start more general: Bridge is an extremely powerful card, and you're right, it shuts down a lot of decks, many of which don't run Bridge answers in the main board. That being said, I think it hurts you way too much for it to be viable in your deck. I suppose it's a fine tutor target in some match ups but you really don't have any way to punch through your own bridge besides both Liliana ults. But you can't be expecting to ult either planeswalker just because you have a bridge. Maybe you can in a few match ups, and maybe that's good enough for the card to be a 1-of. I'm not sure but I don't like how high variance it is.
Continuing with your tutor targets, what are Relic, Needle, and Bile Blight doing in your main deck? I get that you can tutor them but remember, you only have 1 tutor. I've played a lot of Infernal Tutor in B Midrange like this and trust me, you don't want such narrow cards even as 1-ofs. Now if half your meta is Dredge, keep the Relic, that makes sense. But I'm guessing your meta is not that skewed.
By the way, I've stopped playing Infernal Tutor in my decks because my meta has shifted to a lot of counterspells: UWx, U Moon, Spirits are 3 of the top decks in my meta and Infernal Tutor just gives them two chances to counter one spells. So it's just a meta thing right now, otherwise I think it's a good 1-of card in any Liliana deck.
I will note that I'm a big fan of 1 Tutor, 1 Damnation main and extra sweepers in the side like what you have. This is the type of card I want as a 1-of in my Tutor decks: something that you'd happily play mainboard, but may be too narrow to play 2+ copies. Along the same lines, I like Bojuka Bog as your tutor target over Relic since worst case Bog is still a land.
8 one-cmc targeted discard is a lot. I think you may want to scale this back to about 6. that way you have fewer dead draws in the late game. I think Collective Brutality is great in these slots like you said.
Vampire nighthawk is a pretty poor card. What's the best case scenario here? You gain 2 life every turn? You kill one creature with the death touch? It ends up just being a body or a removal spell that your opponent agrees to attack into. Look at your other 3 drops: they're all planeswalkers. That tells me that your deck wants to slam a value engine on turn 3 and start grinding, not play a blocker. If you really want life link / death touch there's Gifted Aetherborn this card aligns much better with your deck.
Looking at the current modern meta, Pack Rat, your primary threat, is super slow. You have a lot of disruption but I don't know if it's going to carry you long enough for pack rat to become relevant. Keep in mind that you need a lot of turns and a lot of mana to make the rats work. I'm not sure if there's a direct replacement for the rats. What you need is a way to quickly close out the game like Phyrexian Obliterator, but he isn't going to be great in your current build because without other ways to pressure your opponent's life total he's just a 5/5. Obliterator is better as the top end of an aggro deck than the finisher of a control deck. I think playing a few Pack Rats is fine but I would also diversify your threats if you find another good card for that. Maybe something like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet could work for you. This works much better alongside all of your removal.
Mutavaults could help with your clock, and I would play 4 of these and 4 Urborg, maybe cut back on the Strip Mine effects.
BUT I am having some success with the following list:
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
//Creature
2 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Dark Confidant
4 Pack Rat
//Instant
1 Bile Blight
2 Cast Down
4 Fatal Push
//Planeswalker
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Damnation
1 Infernal Tutor
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
//Land (24)
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Detection Tower
1 Field of Ruin
4 Ghost Quarter
15 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Crypt Incursion
1 Damnation
1 Damping Sphere
1 Deathmark
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Hex Parasite
2 Lost Legacy
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Surgical Extraction
I started building it as an all-star Deck: just put all the Black staples in: TS&Inquisition, Lilis, Bobs, Push.
Then I started filling the curve, not going too high to limit Bob's trigger together with TS
Pack Rat entered the battlefield pretty quick as a good way to justify main deck silver bombs, and to actually have some win con (yes, I'm very light on cons.)
I win the game by attacking their hand and board in the early game, then taking over with card advantage, to either whittle them down with Liliana, or create an overwhelming army of Rats.
Ensnaring Bridge is my most secret tech. There are some decks that just can't handle it G1, and I can recover from the worst beatdown, to stick a Lili, make 10+ Rats, ult lili to sac the Bridge (yup, only maindeck way) and swing.
I can also hold back 2/3 cards to be able to attack with 2 Rats and threaten to pump 1x-3x if opp blocks unfavorably, or force the opponent to trade/chump vs lethal rats.
I don't like Gatekeeper of Malakir because Lili is just SO much better, and triple black on T3 can be a problem sometimes.
I don't like Phyrexian Obliterator in this build, as it is essentially a faster pack of Pack Rats that's even worse in bad matchups. I take 4 from Bob which really hurts sometimes, no Urborg can be troublesome (and without GQ we're just super dead vs Tron)
I'm considering Collective Brutality to have any sort of game against Burn.
Also thinking about going 3/4 Urborg and adding Mutavault for Pack Rat synergy
There are some matchups that I can almost not win of course. 8Rack, Burn, Dredge are the horror.
But then I also get great MUs vs combo, fair creature decks and some control types...
What do you think?
I missed the Twitch merge. D'oh!
I'll start out by saying you have a lot of *good* cards but I'm not sure how they will line up in the greater modern format. That said, I'm sure your local meta looks different from the meta of a GP or something but I have some notes, assuming your local meta looks at least somewhat similar to that larger meta and I have just some notes in general.
I'll start more general: Bridge is an extremely powerful card, and you're right, it shuts down a lot of decks, many of which don't run Bridge answers in the main board. That being said, I think it hurts you way too much for it to be viable in your deck. I suppose it's a fine tutor target in some match ups but you really don't have any way to punch through your own bridge besides both Liliana ults. But you can't be expecting to ult either planeswalker just because you have a bridge. Maybe you can in a few match ups, and maybe that's good enough for the card to be a 1-of. I'm not sure but I don't like how high variance it is.
Continuing with your tutor targets, what are Relic, Needle, and Bile Blight doing in your main deck? I get that you can tutor them but remember, you only have 1 tutor. I've played a lot of Infernal Tutor in B Midrange like this and trust me, you don't want such narrow cards even as 1-ofs. Now if half your meta is Dredge, keep the Relic, that makes sense. But I'm guessing your meta is not that skewed.
By the way, I've stopped playing Infernal Tutor in my decks because my meta has shifted to a lot of counterspells: UWx, U Moon, Spirits are 3 of the top decks in my meta and Infernal Tutor just gives them two chances to counter one spells. So it's just a meta thing right now, otherwise I think it's a good 1-of card in any Liliana deck.
I will note that I'm a big fan of 1 Tutor, 1 Damnation main and extra sweepers in the side like what you have. This is the type of card I want as a 1-of in my Tutor decks: something that you'd happily play mainboard, but may be too narrow to play 2+ copies. Along the same lines, I like Bojuka Bog as your tutor target over Relic since worst case Bog is still a land.
8 one-cmc targeted discard is a lot. I think you may want to scale this back to about 6. that way you have fewer dead draws in the late game. I think Collective Brutality is great in these slots like you said.
Vampire nighthawk is a pretty poor card. What's the best case scenario here? You gain 2 life every turn? You kill one creature with the death touch? It ends up just being a body or a removal spell that your opponent agrees to attack into. Look at your other 3 drops: they're all planeswalkers. That tells me that your deck wants to slam a value engine on turn 3 and start grinding, not play a blocker. If you really want life link / death touch there's Gifted Aetherborn this card aligns much better with your deck.
Looking at the current modern meta, Pack Rat, your primary threat, is super slow. You have a lot of disruption but I don't know if it's going to carry you long enough for pack rat to become relevant. Keep in mind that you need a lot of turns and a lot of mana to make the rats work. I'm not sure if there's a direct replacement for the rats. What you need is a way to quickly close out the game like Phyrexian Obliterator, but he isn't going to be great in your current build because without other ways to pressure your opponent's life total he's just a 5/5. Obliterator is better as the top end of an aggro deck than the finisher of a control deck. I think playing a few Pack Rats is fine but I would also diversify your threats if you find another good card for that. Maybe something like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet could work for you. This works much better alongside all of your removal.
Mutavaults could help with your clock, and I would play 4 of these and 4 Urborg, maybe cut back on the Strip Mine effects.