Panda's Planeswalker overview, and brief deckbuilding tips

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ Tips & Guides
21

Trust me on this man, I would love to have a Black deck that has that really gels together and is a treat to play but the tools we’ve been handed aren’t much.

My Black deck is an attrition focused grinder deck built around Corrupt and removal until I have enough of a card advantage to flip the board with few choice minions. I wouldn’t even call the deck bad, I cleared the story mode and do well enough on Quick Match with it but we both know that doesn’t mean much. Especially as other colours have way more consistant and easier win conditions.

But I admit you sort of sold me on Blightcaster so I’ll give it another spin.

So pretty much this, unfortunately.

22

I feel like I don’t have the right cards to play Lilliana yet, but her removal with Malakir Cullblade seems pretty on point.

23

So I played with Blightcaster today and I’ll admit it’s better than I thought. I still wouldn’t go as far as to call it obscene but the card has certainly pulled it’s weight so far. I still maintain the position that the effect is often pretty negligible unless you manage to stack a lot of support cards together, I honestly think the debuff should be either permanent or also trigger on your opponents supports to make this card really do work.

24

Black is not incapable of combos, as I keep reiterating.

It is a solid deck and fun to play. It is not necessarily lacking good cards.

The problem is there isn’t a reason to need black’s strengths and combos.

Very rarely do you need to clear the board, if you can simply dominate it in the first place.

Black is very mana inefficient and lets be honest, the AI is not very good. If we’re playing against a real person, I’m sure black would be one of the more painful ones to play against.

But we’re not, we’re playing against a computer who will constantly summon weenies to die to your 4/4 iroas’s wall of death. So in this meta, black is unnecessary and - the worst part is, it is slow. Really the only game right now is how fast you can farm pvp wins. And black is not idea for that because it doesn’t leave the gate swinging.

That said black does have some fun cards, and I occasionally bring out my Liliana when I want to have some fun. But when I just want to dominate the AI, Gideon/Chandra aggro just stomps the floor with them.

25

Well no, its 6 mana for -2/-2, give your creature +2/+0 or something, ya know… The control junk. Just slab a bunch of stuff together and all. Also yeah but if we based everything off of Mizzium then every card that isn’t harbinger of tides is trash.

I dunno, Black has a special place in my heart just from the sheer removal. I came into the game expecting mass destruction, and a 3 tile “sweep the opponent’s board” was up my alley.

Prevent them from casting creatures is as easy as using her first skill, since they don’t even have a chance to hit the board. Which, yeah “if you get a fatty, otherwise meh” is good and all until you realize a lot of decks don’t run card draw. A lot of decks rely on certain synergies to function. Removing cards from that can shatter a strategy easily. For just 6 team-up, which is accomplishable in 2 turns or 3 turns with even sub-standard matches, removes half or more of your opponent’s cards for a small cost you can control. Also memory serving, she is the only character who can thin her own hand and the opponents, preventing hand clogs.

To answer to the whole rare or better, I think I have maybe one or two rare cards in my deck: the 6/6 flying card draw machine, and aegis. Outside of that, the rest are commons, and fit into other decks. One is the red/black dog, the other is the blue/black skabb. Past that its all blightcaster, some supports, and reave soul. I don’t even need the two, but they fit the general idea. I mean it cleared the heroics at like level 30, and does pretty darn well against every deck I’ve fought so far (I think I have a 10 win streak or something)

26

now that i saw the whole card list i think i regret so badly to decided to level up and do story mode with Liliana

i bought 2 fat packs, a couple single packs with crystal and runes, didnt get good black cards and now i feel that if i dont spend money on getting my deck on track again ill be stuck with a level 47 useless planeswalker/deck

27

Well, I feel level 47 might be bit of an overkill regardless of your Planeswalker choice, but I doubt things are as bleak as you might think, depending on how many Story Mode objectives you still have available there’s a great chance for you to pick up more tools.

If you want we could try to brainstorm a deck for you, there’s quite a few deck builders on these forums that might be able to help. Just post the Uncommons and above you have available for Liliana and we’ll go from there.

28

The problem is I’m not even measuring Liliana to Jace…I don’t even play Jace anymore.

In an extended game sure, and versus storyline, I use Jace and Liliana way more than chandra/gideon.

But I ranked Jace way lower now - because in pvp it doesn’t matter, you don’t need him.

Only when the opponent has like 3x your HP and massive card advantage/broken PW abilities do you need to bring out that level of control.

What I’m saying is Gideon (I don’t use Chandra anymore either) pulls off wins with fewer mana invested, fewer chances of drawing a dead hand, and less damage taken, and in fewer turns than any other pw, versus any pvp deck. Want to mention Nissa here for her great aggro deck abilities, but without the wall that Gideon gives, she doesn’t have sustaining power in pvp (i’m talking between matches here, I can go infinite matches in a row with Gideon just from natural health pot regen), and she takes too much damage. But I think she can win about as fast as Gideon does, Chandra can too but with greater control as well.

Auto vigilance is broken and he has more first strike creatures than anyone else. My favorite card isn’t even Iroas’s anymore, its Consul’s Lieutenant, who for 12 mana is a 5/4 first striker that buffs all your other creatures as they come in every turn. Put vigilance on him and you win the game as soon as he comes out. Gideon’s pw powers keep pumping his creatures too, everyone else doesn’t match up nearly well enough because they offer more options - but you don’t need options, just beat down.

So until people start playing pvp decks centered around control and creature destruction I really don’t need anything else, and that is why I ranked them worse.

Black’s Demonic Pact is the most powerful card in the game btw, in terms of single card domination, but I like the fact it is hard countered by green/red. Mizzium is a close second, and iroas/consul are 3rd. My favorite spell is exquisite flamecraft, because of its incredible efficiency and efficacy, but it isn’t necessarily the most “powerful”. It is never useless though, and you can’t go wrong spending 6 mana on it.

EDIT: guys I’m also not trying to bring anyone down for liking Liliana. I love playing liliana. She just doesn’t, in my very narrow scope of measuring pw efficacy, rank up as well as Gideon or Chandra. I maintain you can make a good (and fun!) deck with any pw, she just isn’t suited to my needs right now so I do not play her as much. If you like her playstyle more power to you - I’m sure with updates and new cards planeswalker balance will shift greatly.

29

flops on the floor

I just never agree with pointing out the bad parts of something when there are so many good points you overlooked.
Like does she suck? Maybe. Everyone on ladder plays Nissa so its really whatever, she does fine against green.

But people reading it are going to just completely bypass a perfectly good PW, and the meta is made by people willing to break the mold a bit.

30

People who complain about Iroas have never seen the Lieutenant, easily my favorite card, you are spot on my fellow Gideon playing brother.

Also pretty much anything that allows you to pump creatures in an alternate way that doesn’t drain your main resource = win and probably OP, hence Gideon’s abilities. He lets you turn any creature into an instant threat.

On the topic of favorite card AND alternate pump have you seen Relic Seeker? He combines both into one package and is extremely efficient and beefy to boot, he definitely was my favorite for a long time and is still top two probably tied with the Lieutenant.

31

I guess I could edit it a bit but remember these were my notes from playing it for like all of 3 days. I had only uncommons to go by and Liliana simply wasn’t a threat with just uncommons. Also her first ability doesn’t do anything until you level it, you get what I mean?

I think the main issue I have with Liliana is she doesn’t translate well from MtG (Nissa is another victim, though I am unfamiliar with her, is she new? I just remember Freyalise and Garruk). Black is all about using your own health, creatures, cards as a resource, winning on life drain and forcing sacrifices, + tutors.

First of all card draw and tutor is incredibly weak in this game. I think we’ve all played enough games to realize that (Discards are powerful, as demonic pact and Liliana’s first ability shows). Tutor doesn’t work well because it simply costs too much to be efficient most of the time, plus you aren’t guaranteed the card that you want. Also with just a 10 card deck, it loses a lot of its usefulness as well.

Also, black is all about asymmetric sacrifice, and while it -sort- of works, I haven’t seen that many mana efficient ways for her to sac to gain an upper hand in mana. Sure if you’re playing against decks that only have 19 mana+ creatures, but there aren’t that many of them.

So this is why I dislike her current incarnation. Not because she’s so bad here, but because she’s imo missing a lot of what made black fun in MtG.

Also aside from that one rare card with actual regenerate, her creatures don’t have the equivalent of regenerate. Can we get some undying up in here?

32

Hear hear on the undying.
Gimme my butcher of malakir.

33

Not really sure what you are even arguing anymore, I doubt anyone disagrees with the fact that Gideon is the best Planeswalker at farming fast wins in Quick Match. If that is how Planeswalkers are to be measured, as they should I suppose since it’s the only form of “PvP” we have, then that puts Gideon on top. I still think Jace has the strongest card pool by a nautical mile.

I don’t care how poorly or well finer aspects of the card game were translated here, discard and destroy are what Black means to people with but cursory knowledge of MtG and that’s well represented. My beef with Liliana is that she has the largest amount of cards that are way below the standard power/cost level set by other Planeswalker kits. It’s poor design that I cannot see the reasoning behind. I do not expect every Colour to be equal or even balanced, I just have no idea what they are going for with Liliana since even in the latest patch 2 out of her 3 new rares are awful. I enjoy playing with the mechanics that work with her, she’s my favourite Planeswalker for a reason, just have hard time figuring put why they release so much dead on arrival stuff for her like zombie synergy and the new traps.

34

Know what would be a great card?
Lilianna’s embrace.
Or Megrim, whichever.

35

Well they’re probably still feeling out the balance right now.

I mean every magic release has dead cards just for timmies to ooh ahh over and maybe thats what the rares represent.

I think she can do really well if they just lowered her mana costs by maybe 20%. Then you can actually get some combos going.

36

Decreasing the cost of some Black cards might just be the right solution. They could also add some relevant text to Lilianas cards, most of her big drops are just overcosted vanilla bodies like Revenant or ones with effects that aren’t that useful like Kothophed. Lilianas Caress in this game would own bones. It’s tricky. Her ability to discard is powerful but the price she’s paying for it in card quality is way too steep at the moment.

Just so I don’t sound too much like a broken record, have you guys got to play with the White card Knight of the White Orchid? 6/6 Defender with first strike, 16 Mana. That card alone counters pretty much everything a basic Quick Match Nissa deck has, the card is insane and I’m a bit surprised Iroas’s Champion is stealing all the thunder in the White talk. It’s honestly a bit disgusting how easy it is to farm runes with my low level Gideon since the chance to face an opponent 5 levels above you is much greater than with my Liliana.

37

It is a good card, mostly because it comes out with defender and first strike (not to mention setting up white cascades - almost pays for itself).

It is most certainly more useful than Iroas’s Champion.

However, it does usually take 1 more turn to come out than Consul’s Lieutenant, though they both provide vigilance on the same turn (since it takes one more turn to apply vigil to Lieutenant). Both of them are top picks in my white deck.

The reason he wasn’t mentioned in the original synopsis was

  1. He’s a rare, the synopsis is for uncommon decks mostly
  2. I didn’t have him yet
  3. Don’t want people to know my secret weapon

Though…tbh my white deck is

Consul’s Lieutenant
Iroas’s Champion
Knight of the White Orchid
Sentinel of the Eternal Watch
Archangel of Tithes
Patron of the Valiant

Who cares

Who cares

…lol…yea white is chock full of amazing right now.

Wow just got thopter network for Jace…nice. Time to try it out.

Verdict: Jace killed the opponent before I could get it out lol. But I could see a no creature Jace with only support/spells do very well with it.

38

My White deck looks exactly the same and I was about to post some complacent “great minds think alike”-style remark but with these kinds of cards it doesn’t take a master deckbuilder to slap this together. Though I did swap out Iroas’s Champ. for Kytheon Irregulars because my Gideon is on such a low level I want to just maximize his ability to grind without taking damage.

Another surprisingly good White card is Swift Reckoning. Combined with Suppression Bonds (another crazy card), Alchemist’s Vial or even that 5 mana Jailer it’s a pretty solid form of removal should you ever need that. I sure don’t since the biggest threat I face with Gideon in Quick Match is Conclave Naturalist but on higher level I could see Swift Reckoning do some serious work.

But at least even White has some trash cards like the Mythic Tragic Arrogance I unpacked the other day. 24 mana, choose 1 creature you control and 1 your opponent does, destroy the rest. Thought there was a bug in the colour display and it was a Black card.

39

I have swift reckoning and restraint in my deck, but I never use them because I could just play a creature instead lol.

40

Yeah not surprising I also have a similar white deck, my three core creatures are Ioras, lieutenant, and seeker, I don’t have the others. Instead I use knight of the pilgrims road because she’s a cheap creature I can get out quickly with decent stats per mana and Gideon can turn her into an instant threat coupled with seeker potentially buffing her every turn.

I do have the jailer with the thought of being an extra disable condition for reckoning when restraints are not up but I have NEVER used him for such and always move him down my list, the only times I’ve ever played him were on accident when I triggered cascades, will probably trade him for irregulars when I feel less lazy.

The last creature is the artifact flying goat thing that’s a 4/4 flyer for 11 simply because good stats and a flyer for the mana and I can turn him into a blocker and buff him easily.

Spells and supports as mentioned restraints and reckoning combo, then I have brawlers plate simply for more sources of buffs and berserker for removing enemy creatures makes pilgrim knight an easy 4/4 berserker drop for 6 mana if plate is out. And then I use enshrouding mist to help keep my core three alive if they’re in danger of being taken out before they get going, also it counters destroy mechanics as currently destroy works by dealing the creatures toughness in damage to them.