People have been building Megrim decks for
years. Most of them sucked. Why? Because Megrim
on its own does nothing. You have to play it and
then make your opponent discard cards. And once
your opponent is out of cards, it really does
nothing. Will making it one mana cheaper make it
better? Well, the good news is that a lot of
discard spells-- Mind Rot, Blightning, Stupor--
cost three mana. Liliana's Caress can come down
a turn earlier, meaning your opponent has one
fewer turn to play out his hand before he'll be
punished for holding cards. Decks of this nature
can now curve out-- The Rack or Bloodchief
Ascension turn one, Liliana's Caress turn two,
Mind Rot turn three, etc. It's also not fighting
with a slot on the mana curve with Temple Bell,
the new Howling Mine. Sure, the old Howling Mine
wasn't fighting with Megrim, but the Mine gives
your opponent extra cards when you're not ready
to make him discard them, but he's ready to play
them for fun and profit. Temple Bell can be
activated immediately before you're ready to
cast a Blightning, ensuring that Liliana gets to
make her Caress felt.
There's a multiplayer deck archetype that has
been around for a very long time, and still
makes the rounds of playgroups every now and
then. It involves cards like Howling Mine (or
nowadays, perhaps, Temple Bell) with the idea of
making opponents draw more cards than they can
use, and often also includes things that punish
opponents for having to discard. It seems like
Liliana's Caress was made, metaphorically and
perhaps literally, for that type of deck. In
one-on-one it's a little hit and miss, but group
games give you the chance to combine it with
other staples of that style of play - and the
more players there are, the more chance that
someone will have to discard for some other
reason if you don't happen to have Unnerve or
Liliana's Specter!
Magic The Gathering Card of The Day: Liliana's
Caress
Welcome back readers today's card of the day is
the in most cases strictly better Megrim costed
at 1B. In standard this card has seen a bit of
play so far in B/R discard decks and with cards
such as Blighting in color it will take
time to see but this is a promising concept and
definitely competitive factoring in the cheaper
mana cost of the key piece. In extended and
eternal any deck that utilizes Megrim may make
the switch to this card to fuel discard decks
and Memory Jar combos. In casual and multiplayer
this is Megrim 5-8 for a dedicated multiplayer
discard deck this card is the bee's knees as it
gets around damage prevention a must have for
black discard based decks. In limited it would
be hard to draft enough support I would stay
away unless you can construct a great black
discard deck. Overall Megrim is one of my
favorite Magic cards and its good to see
Wizard's upping the power of older cards.
Today's card of the day is Liliana's
Caress which is a two mana enchantment that
causes an opponent to lose two life whenever
they discard a card. Previously the core
sets from seventh and up had Megrim which was
three mana and caused damage instead.
While there are some benefits to damage instead
of loss of life the difficulty in avoiding loss
of life generally outweighs the opportunity for
increasing damage and the lower mana cost leaves
this as the better choice most of the time.
For a discard deck you will likely want a
playset, but that style belongs more to a casual
format than a serious constructed setting.
Another factor that weakens discard is when the
opponent doesn't have many cards in hand which
effectively limits the damage or loss of life
they can suffer in a single turn. Sign in
Blood is another useful card in 2011 that can be
used to help build your hand or offensively to
have your opponent lose life both from the
initial card and from discard effects later.
For Limited there are six other cards that
involve discarding: Duress, Liliana Vess,
Liliana's Specter, Mind Rot, Fauna Shaman, and
Obstinate Baloth. The latter two are Green
rares that you would be unlikely to play against
and the Baloth even benefits from being
discarded. Duress, the Specter, and Mind
Rot are at least common and in color which
provides the potential for some options, but
having them in your Sealed pool or seeing them
in Booster is a matter of luck. If you can
get Caress out before playing one of the other
Black cards above you get two damage out of it.
That is barely worth the two mana cost and card
slot when a two mana creature can potentially do
that and more or at least trade cards with an
opponent. If you have three or more
discard effects available then running this
becomes more appealing while having Liliana
herself makes running it a given.
If you do have Liliana Vess the game changes as
you want to play multiple copies of Liliana's
Caress whenever possible. Her second
ability can search out a copy if needed and her
first ability will help keep her alive and cause
the opponent to lose life to the Caress.
The cards discarded will add to the graveyard to
fuel her final ability making for a fairly
elegant design by Wizards of the Coast.
In Multiplayer a discard deck just doesn't have
the design to really threaten multiple opponents
or hold up well against several threats, so the
card or the style of deck rarely does as well
here.
