Crossed the finish line with a list that looks like this. I spent a lot of the beginning of the month figuring things out, but I like where it's turned out.
It's a basic midrange deck with some basic parts. Removal, Thoughtseizes, creatures, utility lands, etc. But building this thing to maximize all of its parts was a tough task. Some of the cards that may look out of place or deviate from the norm are there for a reason, either because of how they work with other aspects of the deck, or because of what Explorer looks like as a format.
Liliana dictates a lot of what you want your deck to look like, not necessarily the individual cards, but the overall mana curve and gameplan positioning that you're gearing your deck towards. I talked about this when she was spoiled, but she works best when you are simultaneously able to be aggressive but have the removal spells to keep her alive. You want your topdecks to be live when you're in Liliana mode, but you also want to protect her to get into Liliana mode. Bonecrusher Giant and Bloodtithe Harvester are great there, of course, but so is Evolved Sleeper, since you can just trade off with opposing attackers early.
You also want the game to be about small edges in card advantage, such that a -2 into +1 into -2 turns into a game winning plan, and at the same time you have a low enough curve to empty your hand and not get punished by her +1 ability. That's where the creature lands come in, since you have extra card advantage built into the deck, but they don't cost any mana to get into play. By the time you've cast Liliana, your threats are already on the battlefield, waiting for you to activate them. And you don't actually have to deal 20 damage with Hive of the Eye Tyrant or whatever, you just have to pressure their planeswalkers and eat a removal spell.
What ties everything together is Riveteers Charm. It simultaneously makes up for the things you are lacking when you build to maximize Liliana, and works best in a deck with the same cards that Liliana works best with. If we're gearing our deck to have all cheap stuff, then we lack late game power. Well, what's better in the late game than Ancestral Recall? R Charm also wants cheap stuff, so we're doing great there, and it helps protect your Liliana with its Soul Shatter mode. Oh yeah, also, what's Liliana not good against? Graveyard strategies, oh look, R Charm solves that too.
I'm pretty happy with the majority of this list, there are a few flex slots that I'm not certain about but are the things that I've been most happy with so far. Unleash the Inferno is a card that happens to answer a lot of the problematic stuff in the format. Fable of the Mirror Breaker is, as its name would indicate, very good in the mirror, so being able to gain card advantage off of one of those is excellent in a midrange mirror. Unleash is excellent in the rest of the format as well, with there being a lot of decks that have both creatures and artifacts and enchantments. Enigmatic Incarnation, Esika's Chariot, Witch's Oven and Oni-Cult Anvil, Wedding Announcement. All of that stuff is excellent in a straight Rakdos metagame, where they have trouble dealing with artifacts and enchantments, and Unleash can deal with it. I like the idea of being able to answer the things that Rakdos can't answer, since if Rakdos is the deck to beat, then those strategies will naturally become more successful. Unleash is versatile and powerful, and not too expensive.
Squee is a weird one in a list that doesn't play Fable or Graveyard Trespasser, but I've found it to do a lot of the things I'm looking for. First, it's another card that plays well with Liliana. You're not afraid to discard it, and it allows you to tick up a Liliana to make them discard a removal spell or counterspell they drew before casting it from the graveyard. Second, it turns out to be excellent in the Rakdos mirror, when you can set up an attack with it. The mirror seems to be a lot about pressuring planeswalkers, gaining card advantage off of your threats, pressuring life totals, and not running out of gas. Squee does all of those things, so I like it quite a bit, and it's a more aggressive and consistent threat than a lot of other cards for that slot. Whether a threat is what we want in that slot is up for debate, nevermind the fact that it's a three mana play in a deck that's already heavy on threes, but I think we can do worse.
I'm not sold at all on the sideboard selections, but The Eldest Reborn is the best choice I can find for a mirror hammer that has extra utility in control matchups. I've tried Workshop Warchief, but it's abysmal against The Wandering Emperor and anything else out of the blue/white decks. But, four big spells to bust up mirrors is something I like a lot, and Kolaghan's Command is useful there too. One thing I will say I'm fairly sold on is Culling Ritual, which is absolutely lights out in the matchups where you want it. It can take setup, but when you resolve it, it's unfairly powerful.
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Quick one today, but just wanted to get something down now that I feel that I've finally figured out how to build this thing. I recorded a video a little while ago and I'm editing it now, hopefully to be released this weekend. It features a list that was maybe one or two versions before the current one, but still had most of the same things going on. I hope you give it a look when I get it live, here's a link to the youtube channel. Thanks for reading.
