The first black planeswalker is thoroughly evil and therefore thoroughly suited to the melee. Table. Her abilities can reach any player in your range to truly ruin their day (and make you smile). Also, Liliana can bring the card you need to the top of your library when you need it, always useful when you need a particular card now.
Liliana Vess costs five mana to cast (two of them black), and enters the battlefield with five loyalty counters. She has three abilities, and as with Ajani Goldmane and Jace Beleren her first and third abilities are connected, while the second is useful on its own.
The first ability adds a Loyalty counter and causes target player to discard a card. There are times when the best player to target will be yourself, but usually you can look left and right and see which of your four opponents in range would be the best to target with this ability. Removing cards before people get to use them is good. With Liliana as you will see, if this causes them to discard a creature card, so much the better.
Liliana Vess’ second ability is another black ability, the tutor. For the cost of two loyalty counters, you may search your library for the card of your choice and put that card on top of your library. Now you can be sure of drawing something useful! There there nothing wrong with casting Liliana Vess and using this ability for the first two turns, before switching to her +1 ability. Two cards of your choice can often mean the death of an opponent.
The third ability is huge for Grand Melee especially. For the cost of 8 loyalty counters, take all creature cards from all graveyards and put them onto the battlefield under your control. Including yourself, that’s five players’ graveyard you get to grab creatures from. This can easily add up to 20 or more creatures, for those of you looking to the achievements in the 2012 Grand Melee League. At most times this gives you a massive advantage that s worth taking the time to build up to.
To finish, Liliana Vess is a worth inclusion in almost any black deck at the grand melee table. Even if you only use her second ability you can set up some devastating combinations. Her first and third abilities combine into a devastating combination of their own, so Liliana Vess is a card that gives you powerful options.
Connections
Like Liliana? You may also like [Sarkhan the Mad], [Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker], or [Liliana of the Veil]
Don’t like Liliana? You may prefer [Ajani Goldmane], [Nissa Revane], or [Chandra, the Firebrand].
