Duel Decks: Garruk vs Liliana

What is interesting is that this looks like a viable deck to play with. Ok it's not at FNM or constructed level but it's good enough for a 'pick up and play' deck. (Any pre-constructed deck with 2 x Rancor is good enough to pick up and play)

Looking through it, it actually has some interesting card choices - Overrun, Rancor and Treetop Village are good cards and Harmonize offers card draw in green - a rare thing. Indrik Stomphowler I actually run in EDH.

Not my favorite version of Garruk but certainly the most balanced one printed I feel.

At first glance this actually looks like a fun duel deck to play - not just scavenge for the rares...

This feels like the weaker deck in the first half of a game but gets stronger with Corrupt and Mutilate available and LIly to tutor them up. Bad moon is a nice solid card if you know you aren't facing another black deck.

It's pretty solid and I suspect is capable of some nasty reversal wins.

Yes I think so

The duel decks now naturally have a larger card pool to draw from in order to create the decks so that may account for a little of it. I think also they have learned a bit more about who they are targeting duel decks at and what cards to include in order to get people interested. For example the Kiora/Elspeth deck coming up will be brought both by new people wanting a good card pool and a few games and also people who simply want the planeswalkers for the relatively short time they will be in standard AND people who will buy them for EDH use at a later stage.

The older duel decks - pre planeswalkers even - were attractive but not necessarily to all of those groups.

I think Innistrad was planned for some time - they knew they were going to do a gothic horror block at some stage - but Liliana became the poster child for it and Garruck made a very useful nemesis for her. Then of course the homegrown heroes of Avacyn and Gristlebrand could take over.

Well deathgreter is one I like. 1 mana to set up some lifegain as the game goes through isn't a bad thing. Combos well with fleshbag marauder (essentially being used as a kill spell by sacrificing itself as it comes in). Not awe inspiring but solid enough cards.

Urborg Syphon-mage is a nice little outlet that turns every discarded card into a combined shock/lifegain and is a good way of getting rid of excess lands late game (unless you are going all in for corrupt - which is another strong uncommon)

Snuff out - in a deck that has lifegain - is quite valuable and can be cast as a 'trap card' when you are tapped out and your opponent thinks it's ok to try to enchant or pump something up, thus getting you a 2 for 1.

However for me the all stars of the deck are:

Mutilate - an excellent variable strength sweeper that - as long as you don't miss your land drops - should always keep up with the power of the creatures out no matter what stage of the game you choose to cast it.

Skeletal Vampire - ok it's costly and it's abilities are costly but in decks like this is could be a game winner by itself. Regeneration makes it hard to remove and if you've got the mana to cast it you've got the mana to keep it.

Liliana Vess - I've said before that the original, whilst not the most powerful, is still the best for me.

Drudge Skeletons - You might be surprised to see this in my all stars but in this deck, which gets stronger the later the game it goes into, a regenerateable blocker (and a really cheap regenerate cost at that) is very useful indeed.

Well it is late - that was Liliana's, which actually had a lot more synergy than I'd first thought due to the lifegain when I started looking at it.

Will have a look at Garruk's tomorrow unless you beat me to it

I'm inclined to agree with you. Out of all the duel decks we've looked at thus far this would be the pairing that I would most like to play with.

Yes, "Green Smash" is very much the theme here but it isn't unthinking. I get upset sometimes when people say aggro decks are for people who aren't smart enough to play control. There is a lot of consideration to be made when going 'all in' on an attack, not least thinking about what your opponent is playing and what mana they have open.

(On a side note my new favorite black card is Darkness - a black 'fog' effect - who knew?)

No, still more to come - Garruk Apex Predator is the current incarnation where he seems to have given himself completely over to being feral. A conclusion beckons.

(And hopefully Lilly's next version along with it...)

Not sure if she's got him yet - would need to check the canon - but I know she's working her way through her 'benefactors'.

Hopefully either the end of Garruk or the precursor to a 'healed' Garruk. Personally I'd like to leave him as he is and have Lily kill him (but that might be because I want Nissa to take over as the main planeswalker in green...

She'd b***h slap him into next week.

Well he's a big lummox and Nissa is a proud elf. She'd kick him in his 'druidic satchel'

Actually Nissa was meant to get a B/G version at some point. Everything was pointing towards that but she suddenly turned away from that and Wizards have taken her down the 'Worldwaker' route - which is nice but I kind of liked the proud elf who believed in the superiority of her people and would use any means to make things right - rather than the proud elf who has had her eyes opened to the world around her and has her opinions being challenged by what she has learned in order to grow stronger and become the hero that he plane needs her to be.

Nice but I like bi*chy Nissa better...

Maybe just a bit.

Now that's a storyline I'd like to see. However I should point out 2 things - firstly there is a coming Magic release is going to set up a major move in the story of the original 5 planeswalkers. We might get to know a bit more of their origins before the 'core' / story blocks move them on again.

Secondly I've taken this slightly off topic with this so perhaps when we know a bit more about the incoming 'origins' we can set up a thread for it.

So much inappropriate material that I'd want to say about Nissa and Lilly but won't because you'd ban me...

Will do - as soon as I find a little bit more out about it - perhaps early next week.

Heh.. I'll write you something, perhaps a small piece of fan fiction on that particular topic