(Liesa, Shroud of Dusk | Art by Slawomir Maniak)

Nothing is Certain in Life, Except...

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Recross the Paths, the series that gives commanders a typal twist. For this installment, I decided to pick a personal favorite of mine: Liesa, Shroud of Dusk.

In fact, while I know it can be obnoxious to play against, I have a strong bond with this card, as it was at the helm of the first deck I've built and bought on my own.

Before that, I used to either buy precons or rely on proxies to play with my friends. This changed when the first Commander Legends set dropped and I fell in love with this card.

I immediately started brewing, went to my local game shop and picked up all the singles I needed. It was my go-to choice for quite a few years, before being overshadowed by another general I might talk about in the future.

Yet, the build I present today has very little to do with my original list for this commander. In fact, today Liesa, Shroud of Dusk is going to become a Vampire general.

More in detail, this Vampires deck will focus on kindred creatures with lifelink, thus matching the criteria I consider necessary for building a deck with this commander and with this creature type.

One one hand, Liesa, Shroud of Dusk basically forces you to build a life-gain deck, so that you're able to break parity on her smothering taxing effect.

On the other hand, Vampires are an extremely popular and well-represented creature type, which also means it is pretty difficult to shake things up. Hence, focusing on one of their peculiar gimmicks might help us make something new out of a heavily explored archetype.

Stage One: The Deck

Part One: Vampiric Extortion

The main plan for our deck is to actively maintain our life total as high as possible at any given moment. This pairs very well with our commander's triggered ability, that will keep on chipping away at our opponent's' life points while we easily mitigate the damage it deals to us.

In this regard, creatures such as Blood Artist, Cruel Celebrant and Vengeful Bloodwitch all contribute to our gameplan of passively withering our opponents' life totals while keeping ours healthy.

Moreover, they pair particularly well with Marauding Blight-Priest, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Epicure of Blood, which will all deal additional damage to our oppenents whenever we gain life.

All of the lifegain pairs well with cards such as Elenda's Hierophant, which will keep on growing and will finally reward us with additional lifelinking bodies once it dies. Additionally, Veinwitch Coven is able to buyback creatures for as cheap as one mana.

Similarly, Rodolf Duskbringer will reanimate those same creatures, functioning both as a value engine bringing back smaller bodies and as a payoff for more impactful turns.

The lifegain-matters buildaround doesn't stop us from playing straight-up powerful Vampires. Legion Lieutenant and Bloodline Keeper both do an awesome job at pumping our squad, with the first one being as cheap as it gets, while the second pairs the additional stat bonus with a token-producing ability.

On another note, Indulgent Aristocrat and Cordial Vampire both care about our creatures dying (as many other cards in our deck do), but in two separate-but-synergistic ways. The former wants to sacrifice bodies to pump all the remaining ones and the latter simply awaits for a creature to die to give each Vampire a +1/+1 counter.

Last but not least, Crossway Troublemakers combines the best of both worlds. Its static ability makes sure we keep on riding the lifegain train, while the triggered ability is an excellent payoff for our dying creatures.

Part Two: Gain and Drain

It's important to make sure our lifegain isn't simply allowing us to play our commander without suffering too much; for this reason, we have quite a few ways to take advantage of our ever-increasing life points. Case of the Uneaten Feast, Cleric Class and Legion's Landing can all come down immediately and, with some work, they can be powerful late game engines.

The first can simply stay on our board for as long as we need it, making sure we gain life each turn, even if it's already been solved. Whenever we need it, we can sacrifice it and bring back multiple creatures from our graveyard, perhaps to recover from a board wipe.

Similarly, Cleric Class can count on two abilities that are useful at every point in the game, while the last one is more of a late-game option to get back on track if we ever get set back.

Lastly, Legion's Landing doesn't work as well as in 1-versus-1 environments, but it is an early and cheap lifelinking body that can transform into a reliable, although slow, token-creating machine.

Next, we have the first 3 out of 5 Sorin planeswalkers included in this list. First, Sorin of House Markov needs a bit of work to transform but, once it does, it becomes an extremely menacing weapon that could deal a lot of damage to our opponent.

Also, Extort allowing us to spend leftover mana to trigger our lifegain effects is just sweet. Then, Sorin, Solemn Visitor isn't the flashiest card ever, but granting lifelink to all of our creatures on each of our turns could be a game-changer in certain scenarios.

Lastly, Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord is a sort of do-it-all, making sure we gain life each turn and bringing back our dead creatures as well.

One last synergy I wanted to add is actually a game-winning combo. It's the traditional pair of Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond. Usually I'm not a big fan of this kind of wincondition, as all my life I've played in combat-centric playgroups.

Nonetheless, I'm making an exception this time and I'm also setting the bar for possible future combo inclusions: I'll be willing to include game-ending interactions in my decks as long as every piece required is actually a positive synergy within the deck itself.

In this case, both Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond fit with the theme of the deck, and would put in a lot of work even without being on the battlefield at the same time.

Additionally, this combo line has just become even more on-theme, since Bloodthirsty Conqueror is the creature version of the first half of the combo and is a Vampire (on a sidenote, we have quite a few creature versions of Sanguine Bond, and many of them are Vampires present in this list).

In conclusion, I'm fine with this kind of game-ending pairs being present in my list because all of the cards involved are individually synergizing with the deck as a whole; as a counter-example, I have no intention to include Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation in my Dimir-colored decks, as long as I don't put them in a decklist that uses them outstide the obvious combo synergy.

Part Three: United by Blood

There are quite a few cards that really care about Vampires as a whole. Queen's Commission and Call to the Feast will both provide us with multiple Vampires with lifelink.

Similarly, Call the Bloodline will also give us several life-gaining bodies, at the cost of one card each; this effect can become very useful if we end up flooding or if we have one of our recursion pieces in play.

Given how much we care about going wide and swarming the board, Rally the Ranks and Shared Triumph are two key inclusions that can come down early and make sure we start swinging for significant damage as soon as possible. Then, to prevent us from possible board wipes, And They Shall Know No Fear is always ready to keep our creatures safe.

On the higher end of the mana curve we find some highly impactful spells. Olivia's Wrath is a board wipe that is most likely going to be one-sided, leaving our opponents open for our swings.

On the same note, Kindred Dominance will also likely leave other players shields-down, but it exchanges the creatures-in-play requirement for a higher mana cost. Lastly, Blood Tribute can deal massive damage and, if kicked, it can form part of the same combo lines mentioned before, taking out one player out of nowhere.

Part Four: The Complete Decklist

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Stage Two: The Data Room

We're onto the last part of this deck tech: the data room. Was this deck idea actually unique? Let's compare this list against both the average Liesa and the average Vampire deck to see what we gained (and lost) in the process.

Part One: The Average Liesa Deck

Liesa is the third most popular Orzhov commander, 91^st overall, with 9543 decks registered on EDHREC.

This commander isn't usually built as a Vampire general, as only 57 of the registered decks are actually labelled as such. So, let's see how popular Vampire lifegain-matters cards are in such an environment.

I have to say I was very surprised by the results shown in this graph. Only three cards see significant play, with Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose being the most popular at around 66% inclusion rate, followed by Marauding Blight-Priest at exactly 42%.

These two actually were on my radar as the most populars, since they are staples of every lifegain deck. Yet, I couldn't predict Indulging Patrician being played this much, but I guess 3 damage a turn can go a long way if we manage to consistently gain life.

In the next section of the graph we find several cards that are good but easily replaceable, such as Cliffhaven Vampire, but also some surprises. While I didn't anticipate Rodolf Duskbringer and Markov Purifier receiving this much attention, I also couldn't expect Blood Artist and Cruel Celebrant to be played in so few decks.

I've always considered them cornerstone of every aristocrat-ish deck and, while Liesa, Shroud of Dusk isn't explicitly pushing in that direction, cheap and reliable lifegain should be at least popular. Instead, players seem to have steered away from them, perhaps preferring other lifegaining methods.

In the right half of the graph we can highlight two possible trends. On one hand we have a card such as Bloodthirsty Conqueror, which is only present in around 5% of decks but is definitely going to see more play in the future.

All in all, it is a staple in this kind of strategy and we've already talked about its combo potential. On the other hand, we have creatures such as Vraan, Executioner Thane and Vengeful Bloodwitch, both of which are redundant copies of the not-so-fan-favorites Blood Artist and Cruel Celebrant.

Thus, I'm not really expecting their popularity to increase, as people don't really seem to care about this kind of effect anymore.

Part Two: The Average Vampire Deck

The most popular Vampire commander, and by a big margin, is Edgar Markov, with 21650 registered decks on EDHREC. With so many lists, basically every Vampire creature is sure to find shelter in at least some of them. Instead, let's take a look at what kind of kindred support is usually played in these decks.

We can easily see how there is an extremely consolidated group of played cards.Cordial Vampire hits the homerun, surpassing the 86% inclusion rate mark, but it is closely followed by Legion Lieutenant, Sanctum Seeker and Indulgent Aristocrat, which all fit between 70 and 75%.

The only newer cards that managed to break into this higher portion of the graph are Voldaren Estate and Olivia's Wrath, two cards designed explicitly with Vampires in mind, with the latter resulting extremely powerful considering the go-wide theme of Edgar Markov decks.

Yet, Pact of the Serpent doesn't follow this trend, perhaps because it could also become dangerous to cast if your life total gets too low.

Generic creature-buffing effects don't make the cut, with Rally the Ranks only being present in 2% of the decks and Shared Triumph in 0,2% of them.

Personally, I'd expected a card as strong as And They Shall Know No Fear to be played in way more than 12,5% of the lists, but maybe it being tied to a Warhammer precon makes it harder for player to keep it in mind when building kindred decks.

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Takeaways From Today's Article

• Liesa, Shroud of Dusk is a commander that needs to be built carefully. As you add cards to the list, you're walking down the thin line between "funny interactions" and "obnoxious taxes" and it's difficult at time to keep your balance.At the end of the day, it's very important to speak clearly with your playgroup and explain what the deck aims to do, as many players might get scared at the sight of such a nuisance of a commander, especially in casual play. Nonetheless, even though I admit being partially biased in my judgement, I still think it is a very intriguing general, that'll always have an enormous target on its back but that also speeds the games up and avoids slumps.I also like how the lifegain theme is perfectly suggested-but-not-mandatory, as you'll benefit a lot from some extra life points but your whole deck doesn't have to revolve around this mechanic to function;
• Vampires have one of the deepest pools of creatures I've ever seen. Every single gimmick they've ever been connected to has enough dedicated cards for it to form a functional commander deck.While there are some clear staples of the archetype, it is hard for this strategy to feel stale, as every kind of player can find their own peculiar way to build these decks. Additionally, we can only expect more Vampires to be printed in the future and, with them, more support cards that can fit your specific niche.This allows for a decks to continuously evolve, but also gives players the freedom to prefer older cards to new ones and, generally speaking, allows them to have a lot of breathing room and freedom of choice when it comes to deckbuilding;
• The flipside of this aspect of Vampire decks is that, at times, it is hard to justify playing any commander other than Edgar Markov. It simply does so much: it creates creatures without needing to be on the battlefield, it can grow your board and it can do so as soon as it hits the board.Additionally, it matches all of the three coloros Vampires are present in, so you don't have to sacrifice anything in order to play it. With all of this in mind, I think it is important to drive away from the beaten path at times, but this doesn't mean denying the evidence.Edgar is the de facto Vampire commander, still, the sheer quantity of cards available with this creature type grants every player the possibility to build their own, special and unique commander deck.

That’s all from me for the moment. I hope you enjoyed this deck tech, but now it’s onto you: What do you think of it? Would you have changed anything? Or there’s something you particularly liked? Most importantly, do you believe this was a true innovation? Let me know in the comments below!

Also, if you're thinking of any kindred strategy and/or commander you'd like to see featured, just write it in the comments as well! I'll try my best to build a deck around them!