Rather than having a 0/+1: Make a 2/2 zombie, I would have rather seen her at 4 starting loyalty with -2: Make two 2/2 zombies. I think Chandra, Flamecaller is probably one of the most well designed planeswalkers we've seen in a long time. Unlike most planeswalkers that just grind for value over time, Chandra is VERY explosive with three very live abilities right out of the gate. She may not be able to stall out a board all day like Elspeth, Sun's Champion can, but Chandra can swing for 12 by the time Elspeth can swing for 3. As much as I'd love a Sorin, Lord of Innistrad / Elspeth, Knight-Errant for mono black, I'd be more excited to see something more explosive.
Wow, I misread the ultimate initially too. This goes from meh to very testable for me now that reading is fundamental.
Getting her up to the ultimate shouldn't be too difficult on its own. The Weakness ability should always have a target, and even if it's not killing something, it's affecting combat math.
No, I will not be paying the echo cost of my Deranged Hermit.
Fuels graveyard for Recurring Nightmare shenanigans. In fact, her -2 is basically the second coming of Recurring Nightmare (except not really, lol).
Pause. Lol just kidding. She's ehh.
I think I am as disappointed as everyone else, this card is probably fine and maybe even better than most of us are expecting but its not what I am looking for unfortunately. Going to have to wait for another two blocks before we get a Black Planeswalker again. Maybe Conspiracy 2 will have another pushed planeswalker...
Killing a creature as a +1 ability is big game. She can really set the green player back by killing their early game mana dorks then forcing them to quickly deal with a high loyalty walker. She seems really powerful even if her -2 is weak by planeswalker standards.
Her ultimate is ok. It's like a zombie hunt deck except you don't have to discard a card to generate the zombies. It's still not amazing. She's ok overall. The +1 should be a duress or doom blade. The -2 should be the other one and the -7 should be something more useful. If the game goes on long enough to have that ability worth it you're doing something wrong or playing a 2 headed dragon type game. Maybe in edh she will be an ok commander but outside of that not all that great. But it's our only mono black planeswalker in standard. Unless you're playing the flip liliana which I feel is mediocre at best
Her ultimate is ok. It's like a zombie hunt deck except you don't have to discard a card to generate the zombies. It's still not amazing. She's ok overall. The +1 should be a duress or doom blade. The -2 should be the other one and the -7 should be something more useful. If the game goes on long enough to have that ability worth it you're doing something wrong or playing a 2 headed dragon type game. Maybe in edh she will be an ok commander but outside of that not all that great. But it's our only mono black planeswalker in standard. Unless you're playing the flip liliana which I feel is mediocre at best
I am not mad/sad dogging about this card but I was expecting a higher CMC with some token producing action, maybe like a Black Gideon-esque style card but no biggie. Will be interesting to see if she works out in other formats. Her +1 does kill a fair bit of stuff in Cube and if you get her down on curve on the play she could do some damage and perhaps work towards her ultimate. I wouldn't be able to tell you what LotV's ultimate even as I don't check these out too much but I reckon the end game is getting to Last Hope's ultimate. Quite nice artwork too.
Keen to see people's impression's of this when they start testing though!
I think this card is quite good given CMC, but as people have been saying, the 3 drop suite in black is pretty stacked. This would have been a much easier include if the -2 had just been a -1. The ability to play on curve and kill early drops, or the ability to topdeck and double minus would have been really good flexibility. As is, still seems fine, and will test, but not entirely sure if she will end up staying.
It's a 3 mana walker that has a +1 that goes a long way towards protecting itself. That alone makes it worth testing, at it has a relevant minus ability two that gets you card advantage. Given black's firmly mediocre planeswalkers after the first two, this seems like an easy test.
Man, the more I consider her, the more I like her. I originally considered her -2 a Raise Dead, but it's more than that isn't it? It's a sneaky way to draw a creature off the top of your library, that also happens to fuel Delve shenanigans or other graveyard effects. I'm very interested to test this card.
I think this is probably fantastic. Lot's of CA potential and a good, attainable ultimate on a 3 mana walker. She also protects herself while ticking up. I think this is likely an extremely strong cube card.
I think this is probably fantastic. Lot's of CA potential and a good, attainable ultimate on a 3 mana walker. She also protects herself while ticking up. I think this is likely an extremely strong cube card.
I'm also on that side.
This new walker seems fantastic. The +1 ability seems strong enough to kill a bunch of stuff or at least slow your opponent down. Those who are asking for a +1 Doom Blade variant don't know what they are saying. The card would absolutly busted that way, especially in Standard. It just can't be. Also, at the opposite of the majority, I think the -2 looks fine. Provide some sort of CA and also enable graveyard strategies for decks who need it. Pretty nice. Ultimate for it's part seems insane AND likely achievable.
Given how my black decks shape up from cube I mostly see B/x attrition, B/X reanimator, X/B control, X/B Aggro/Tempo in that order. She seems unlikely to spawn her own archetype so I will try and consider her in the those archetypes.
She seems like a pass compared to other black 3s in Aggro.
I really question the value of the -2 for more traditional creature light control decks but repeatable weakness on a 3 drop PW while building loyalty is amazing. It is ugly when they are playing geist or brimaz etc. Only time will tell if it is fast enough. The Ultimate is very good and achievable here.
Reaminator seems like it would like it but is not really very broken or fast for that deck so it would be a pass for me here unless I am playing some sort of slower reanimator control.
Attrition is a perfect home for this, mono-black value decks love every aspect of this card.
My biggest fear is this might still be the 3rd pick 3 mana Liliana in the deck that wants it the most (Attrition). So with my group regularly voicing concerns about he planeswalker content, and this not bringing new to the table I may pass for now.
The Ultimate is the thing I like best and look forward to people successfully making zombie mobs, which might get my group excited. And as I side not I would have been ok with a 4 drop Gideon knock off (Especially with anthem) but I really wanted a 6-8 drop nutzo Liliana with all abilities live on cast ( like new Chandra)
I like this Lili a lot. All my thoughts have already been articulated by others, but I will say that I think a removal ability for positive loyalty will prove to be big game.
Doom blade is only a 2 mana instant. Duress is only 1 mana. Not that over the top considering jace beleren's +2 allowing each player to draw a card. He's 1UU to play. Draw spells typically are 2-4 mana depending on how many cards you're drawing.
The more I think about it, the more I like this card. The + kills a lot of what it faces by T3, the - means you can grind out against other decks late game, and the ultimate is totally reasonable for a 3 mana walker to achieve. I think there is subconscious comparing her to OG CMC3 Liliana, which I was definitely guilty of first, but if we're not comparing her to one of the literal best PWs of all time she can definitely shine on her own. Her abilities don't absolutely wow in a vacuum, but there are times where the - is going to be insane/actual card advantage.
Plus, she costs three, and so far every PW other than Tibalt that has costed 3 or less has been at minimum solid in cube.
If anyone thinks this could or should have had Doom Blade or Murder as a +1, they have absolutely no idea what they're on about, and no idea how to cost PW abilities. Hell, you wouldn't get that on a four mana 'walker, and I very much doubt you'd get it on a five mana 'walker either.
I was also hoping for a strong 2BB or 3B Liliana, but I'm actually glad we didn't get something boring like discard and "make 2/2 zombies", that would have been to predictable.
I think she's fine. 3 mana walkers are easily underestimated, she protects her self and can kill with her +1, that's pretty good. The -2 is also not bad, as long as you're in a creature heavy deck, and the ultimate provides a good threat of activation. I'm just not sure what deck she wants to be in ...
I think it's okay. In unpowered cubes it can take the spot of a strong 3 mana planeswalker, but it's a far cry from LotV. If you don't have a LotV, then it's not a bad placeholder, or if your cube isn't designed to have such strong cards it can fit right in.
Won't be going in mine, though, since my 3cmc black non-creature spot is stacked. I would have loved a very strong 5 cost though... or any strong black 5 cost.
I'll probably run it over Dark Realms, but it's still pretty weak. Would've prefered them pushing this a little hard and bumping the numbers rather than trying to give us their (faulty) idea of an aggressive drop.
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I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
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With that said, that doesn't mean LtLH is bad. In fact, I think she's pretty close in terms of powerlevel to LHH. They don't fit in the same kind of decks, but they both deserve a spot at 540-630 IMO.
Our preliminary testing, using pre-constructed decklists, attests that so far.
I was totally in this boat as well, but now I'm actually relieved Liliana isn't just another 4-cmc token generating planeswalker.
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I'm not. I like this Liliana (quite a bit, actually), but I'm still in the market for that 4-5cc Elspeth/Gideon clone for black big time.
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Getting her up to the ultimate shouldn't be too difficult on its own. The Weakness ability should always have a target, and even if it's not killing something, it's affecting combat math.
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Pause. Lol just kidding. She's ehh.
I think I am as disappointed as everyone else, this card is probably fine and maybe even better than most of us are expecting but its not what I am looking for unfortunately. Going to have to wait for another two blocks before we get a Black Planeswalker again. Maybe Conspiracy 2 will have another pushed planeswalker...
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+1: Doom Blade would be pretty insane on a 3-drop considering Ob Nixilis Reignited is a 5-drop with -3: Murder.
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Keen to see people's impression's of this when they start testing though!
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I'm also on that side.
This new walker seems fantastic. The +1 ability seems strong enough to kill a bunch of stuff or at least slow your opponent down. Those who are asking for a +1 Doom Blade variant don't know what they are saying. The card would absolutly busted that way, especially in Standard. It just can't be. Also, at the opposite of the majority, I think the -2 looks fine. Provide some sort of CA and also enable graveyard strategies for decks who need it. Pretty nice. Ultimate for it's part seems insane AND likely achievable.
Good card overall I think.
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She seems like a pass compared to other black 3s in Aggro.
I really question the value of the -2 for more traditional creature light control decks but repeatable weakness on a 3 drop PW while building loyalty is amazing. It is ugly when they are playing geist or brimaz etc. Only time will tell if it is fast enough. The Ultimate is very good and achievable here.
Reaminator seems like it would like it but is not really very broken or fast for that deck so it would be a pass for me here unless I am playing some sort of slower reanimator control.
Attrition is a perfect home for this, mono-black value decks love every aspect of this card.
My biggest fear is this might still be the 3rd pick 3 mana Liliana in the deck that wants it the most (Attrition). So with my group regularly voicing concerns about he planeswalker content, and this not bringing new to the table I may pass for now.
The Ultimate is the thing I like best and look forward to people successfully making zombie mobs, which might get my group excited. And as I side not I would have been ok with a 4 drop Gideon knock off (Especially with anthem) but I really wanted a 6-8 drop nutzo Liliana with all abilities live on cast ( like new Chandra)
Plus, she costs three, and so far every PW other than Tibalt that has costed 3 or less has been at minimum solid in cube.
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I think she's fine. 3 mana walkers are easily underestimated, she protects her self and can kill with her +1, that's pretty good. The -2 is also not bad, as long as you're in a creature heavy deck, and the ultimate provides a good threat of activation. I'm just not sure what deck she wants to be in ...
Won't be going in mine, though, since my 3cmc black non-creature spot is stacked. I would have loved a very strong 5 cost though... or any strong black 5 cost.
I think she's great with all the terror dudes like Shriekmaw and Boneshredder, if people are still running that.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
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With that said, that doesn't mean LtLH is bad. In fact, I think she's pretty close in terms of powerlevel to LHH. They don't fit in the same kind of decks, but they both deserve a spot at 540-630 IMO.
Our preliminary testing, using pre-constructed decklists, attests that so far.
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