I think we jam four of these in Explorer.
She has her limitations, for sure. Clearly she's pretty bad against stuff like Witch's Oven, but there are a bunch of token decks out there where she's not going to be good. Also, the plus 1 ability can get you into trouble against stuff like Phoenix and Parhelion, but whatever. She's still the queen.
What do we need to build around her? Not a lot, really. In fact, stuff like The Raven Man are kind of a trap with Lili, because they don't protect her well and are bad topdecks. You gear your deck to keep the board clear and get everyone down to zero resources, then topdeck stuff. This is kind of the whole strategy of black midrange anyways, but she pushes that to the max. Your weak topdecks are going to turn into blanks when Liliana is on the board and in cruise control, since a Fatal Push with no creatures just gets binned to her +1, but you definitely need that effect. The cards in the format that I think are going to work well with Liliana are Bonecrusher, Murderous Rider, maybe even Blacklance Paragon, removal spells that you can just cast proactively if you draw them and your opponent doesn't have any creatures. Cut to Ribbons is a neat one as well. Other planeswalkers fit this description too, but they're not going to be your early plays.
Liliana works well with Kroxa, of course, but any escape or graveyard cards get a little bit of a boost from her. I've found Polukranos to be really good in Explorer at the moment, and there's stuff like Tenacious Underdog and a new card that are good too. Not necessarily that it's a great value play to put a Kroxa in your graveyard, just that you've gotta discard something, so it might as well be that. It's nice that she "enables" your graveyard synergies but is a threat in and of herself so if they have the graveyard hate you just win with Lili.
I think you're also just going to want to keep your mana costs down. A pretty common thing in Modern is when your hand is just two copies of Bloodbraid Elf or whatever and you want to tick up your Lili, but you can't. If you can empty your hand quick, then the +1 has no drawback for you.
I guess the only other thing is to make sure you have some plans on what to bring in for matchups where she's not good. In Modern, I'll board out Liliana in a lot of matchups, like basically and deck with Inkmoth Nexus or Mutavault or Noble Hierarch. She's not great against Thalia, either. And of course, Dredge and whatever. If you can figure out what cards are good in the matchups where she is bad, say, Lava Coil, then you'll make sideboarding a lot easier for yourself.
This is the card I'm actually most excited for. It works excellently with Liliana, being a one mana card that empties your hand quickly but is also a fantastic late game topdeck. It plays defense halfway well against aggro decks. It also just gets on the board quick so that you have something on board and can't get blown out by planeswalkers. It kind of does fills the role that Knight of the Ebon Legion does but you get blown out by removal less often because its activations cost less, and it gives you more material advantages so removal spells are too late once you've put your mana into it.
Unlike stuff like Warden of the First Tree (which I like a lot and might play if given the chance), drawing cards is a great way to close out a game, instead of just getting big. If you hit with a big Warden and they rip a Fatal Push, they're right back in the game, but if you've drawn two cards with Sleeper before they find the Push, they might be buried. And it's not like attacking for four or five is nothing, the game will end quickly either through attacking or through the card advantage.
This is going to require some more black mana sources early, like Blooming Marsh, so maybe we go right up to four Overgrown Tombs and four Blood Crypts. I'll talk more about that later.
I think there might be spots where this is an improvement over Chandra, but the -2 removal ability just pales in comparison to Chandra's -3 so badly. However, I don't think that that's what Jaya is supposed to do, be a removal spell plus a free card every turn. She's supposed to protect herself with the Monk token, then use her -1 five times and be five copies of Preordain basically. If you can make that work, then that's great, because the -1 will be great in late game situations where you're just looking for gas, and if you're setting your deck up to be ahead or even on board in the midgame to facilitate Liliana, then that works for Jaya, too. Again, that's a lot easier said than done. But if you have her in play for one turn and then she gets hit by Murderous Rider, that's usually going to be better than Chandra would have been, so if you expect that to be the case most of the time, then she might be a good choice. Just not sure that that's the format we're living in.
If you're ever playing a list that's got a more aggressive slant, then a Squee or two might not be the worst idea. Haste creatures are excellent against Planeswalkers, which is a lot of what the format is about, and it gives you material every turn, so that's great too. Plus, it's got some graveyard synergy, which is a welcome addition in the Liliana decks. The damage piles up fast, and it's going to be hard to effectively remove. Worth a shot, but I'm not really loving playing 2 toughness creatures for 3 in the Bonecrusher Giant format.
This card has reach and trample, and the ability is 7G: Return from your graveyard to play and exile it if it would die, and it costs 1 less to activate for each land type you control. So for us, it's usually going to be 4G, so that makes it a little like a Seasoned Pyromancer. 4/3 reach trample for 3 are great stats for a card that can be a little bit recursive. You're not sad to pitch it to Liliana, it hits really hard for a three mana card, and it also protects you against flying creatures with Curious Obsession. I like what's going on here, but the three drop slot is just so crowded, and we're trying to trim our mana costs down.
There's a lot going on here, and I don't think that we're going to really be able to grasp everything until we try it. It's got really good size for its cost, and can get you value immediately, even if they have removal for it. It's got a slight graveyard synergy thing going on, but can get around graveyard hate by just being a four mana 5/4. It's got a slight build-around aspect, but can also just do its thing without a ton of help. Five power creatures are a sweet spot in Explorer, since they can attack down a Teferi or a Sorin after they +1, but four toughness is not great against Chandra. Soul of Windgrace seems like the type of card that is going to look really good in the games where it works, but won't get to work very often because the format is a little too hostile for it. For what it's worth, the reason why Evolved Sleeper is good even though it costs a lot of mana to maximize is because it's cheap to start with, Soul of Windgrace is a mana sink that already costs a lot of mana.
This card intrigues me because flying and haste are so good against Chandra and other planeswalkers. The fact that you can just spend two mana and pick off a Chandra, or you can spend 10 mana and win the game, all of that looks great. Probably going to be a lot better in Standard, but two mana to pick off a low loyalty planeswalker and leave behind a flying body is a great split card to put on Thundermaw Hellkite.
I can't really figure out if I like this or not. I think it might end up being a little too narrow, but we're always in the market for cheap removal. Strangle and Bloodchief's Thirst look a little better in my eyes for Fatal Pushes 5 through whatever, but this could do some work.
I wouldn't say that we really missed having these in Arena, but it's another good option. You don't really want to draw two painlands, and you don't want them in decks where you don't have many colorless mana in your costs. Like, say, you're taking one damage for sure if you're casting a Bloodtithe Harvester on two, but not if you're casting a Scavenging Ooze, so lots of RB or BRG costs will end up costing you. I like the idea of playing more turn one black sources, but if the cost is dealing damage to yourself each turn, then it really puts a damper on some of the cheap black cards we're trying to facilitate, like Thoughtseize and Evolved Sleeper.
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I'm going on vacation starting in about twenty minutes from when this will go live, so I'm doing a spoiler season post a little early, and then I'll be back just in time for the set to go live on Arena. I'm really stoked about Liliana, obviously, but the whole set looks great, and I also just love playing Jund mirrors, so I hope more people are incentivized to play Liliana decks going forward. Thanks for reading.
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