Standard Corner #3: Liliana of the Absurdly Good

The recent Standard environment has been completely rocked by the release of Innistrad and stores have been selling booster boxes like hot cakes. With the rise of Solar Flare as the latest premier control deck (an archetype taken from Paul Cheon's 2006 Nationals 1st place finish), many people have been asking; how powerful is Liliana of the Veil?

Obviously, this post won't be as sexually driven as Carlos Cabrera's Review of Liliana, so keep those hormones under control!

Liliana of the Veil is a very strong card and is demanding a very steep price tag of $50+ just to get your hands on a copy. Starting at $35, Liliana showed a lot of promise and finally gave black a reason to show up at the top tournament tables and FNMs alike. Over the past few days, the price has spiked as demand for the card has gone through the roof (including yours truly, who's still looking for 2 more). Why is Liliana so expensive? If you look at the statistics of opening a mythic rare in any booster pack, you have approximately a 1/8 chance and opening any particular mythic and a 1/15 chance of any particular mythic in Innistrad (15 mythics in the set), which means there is a 1/120 chance of opening a Liliana in any 1 booster pack. These odds are in no one's favor. Most stores I've went to recently have opened very few copies of the card, if any. Furthermore, demand is very high right now because of her prospects in Standard, Legacy, Modern, and even Vintage (yes Vintage!).

According to Aaron Forsythe, director of Magic R&D, the card was designed to be a complete powerhouse and a 'weapon' for the Standard format and Liliana definitely has impressed. The last time R&D talked about making a planeswalker specifically for the tournament tables was during the discussion of Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Curious, no? More on that later.

Switching gears, the deck that Liliana saw the most play was in the U/W/B Solar Flare strategy running Sun Titan, Mana Leak, and a new toy, Unburial Rites. The deck generates a lot of card advantage in late game and has small synergies to gain a strong foothold in the mid game. Solar Flare saw a single spot in the Top 8 of the Star City Games Standard Open Series at Indianapolis with an unimpressive 8th place. Why didn't the deck make it? The deck had a lot inconsistency with its mana base and sideboarding options. Furthermore, its removal package wasn't built with the proper numbers against a new and unknown field. With some tweaking, some say Solar Flare or strategies similar to it could hit the top tables as the most dominant and powerful deck. For the moment, that honor belongs to Mono Red.

Players are approaching the metagame with nothing but Liliana in mind. In the current Standard format, creatures must first pass the the Dismember test; does this creature have 6 or more toughness. The next test creatures must now pass, is; does it survive to Liliana. If the answer is no, then most of your bomb creatures are going to get sacrificed, including all star favorites like Consecrated Sphinx, Frost Titan, Inferno Titan, and the 5 praetors. For the moment, Sun Titan, Grave Titan, and Wurmcoil Engine seem to be the few contenders that survive both tests. (Sun Titan because you can recur a dude or recur Liliana herself, which protects your Sun Titan against opponent's Liliana's). Liliana is very similar to Jace, the Mind Sculptor in the aspect of creatures need to 'do something' before they are Unsummoned or Diabolic Edict-ed from the battlefield. For Standard, Solar Flare lists and other decks that are B/x will be playing 4x copies of Liliana, hands down. For Modern, I've been hearing talks of Death Cloud control decks running Liliana as a support card, among other B/x control/midrange decks, but nothing concrete as of now. Liliana is no Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but she will define the Standard metagame for the next two years and I wouldn't be surprised to see talks about banning the card later on.

What about Liliana in Legacy? Well, there were no copies of Lilly in the Top 16 of the Star City Games Legacy Open, but the potential is still there. Liliana is able to generate a lot of card advantage with her +1 ability if you control what you're discarding. It helps fuel reanimator decks, team america, b/u/g lists, dredge, and other decks that heavily rely on the graveyard and flashback effects. Lilly also is very strong in Standstill strategies and control mirror matchups. Unfortunately, these popular archetypes don't have room in their lists to incorporate Lilly right now. Liliana will probably start in sideboards and slowly make her way into main decks. With Mental Misstep finally out of the picture and Snapcaster Mage stealing all the spotlight, it might take some time for her to see play. Once the format starts settling down, Lilly might have a chance to shine.

So what's in store for the future price for Liliana? Right now, demand is high and supply is very low. As more packs are opened from sealed and draft over the next 6 months or so, we'll be able to see her stabilize at a more reasonable price. Her price spike is definitely more dependent on Standard than in any other format. We also saw Jace, the Mind Sculptor dominate Standard and see prices around $100-110; at the same time, he saw very light, if any play in the older formats. I think these price changes are a good reflection of player base and population of players in these format and reveals what power these populations have over card prices.

Personally, I liked Liliana from the start and I can't wait to start playing at FNM with her. She's a very powerful card and very well designed. She'll see tons of play on the tournament tables and in casual/kitchen table magic. Who knows, a foil might even be considered a relic one day.

Interested in more Magic content? Check out every series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

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