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Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer

Legendary Creature — Human Cleric // Legendary Planeswalker — Liliana

Lifelink
Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, exile Liliana, Heretical Healer, then return her to the battlefield transformed under her owner's control. If you do, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{1}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
mythic
Set
Commander Collection: Black
Price
$6.94
EDHREC rank
#4293
Buy on TCGplayer
Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer card art
Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer flips for free the moment any non-token creature you control dies — drop a Cadaver Imp, watch it trade, and you have a planeswalker in play before your opponent can respond. The floor is a 2/3 lifelinker for three mana; the ceiling is a recursive engine that reburies threats every turn, and that gap makes her one of the most efficient black three-drops in Commander.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Orah, Skyclave Hierophant

Orah, Skyclave Hierophant

19.5% of decks · synergy 0.18

Orah, Skyclave Hierophant triggers on every Cleric death, and Liliana, Heretical Healer flips on the same trigger — the two engines stack so that a single Cleric dying both returns another from the graveyard and puts a planeswalker into play simultaneously.

02

Tergrid, God of Fright

16.5% of decks · synergy 0.13

Tergrid, God of Fright rewards forced sacrifice and discard, and Liliana, Heretical Healer's minus ability hands both tools directly to Tergrid — opponents sacrifice a creature or discard, and Tergrid steals whatever they lose.

04
Braids, Arisen Nightmare

Braids, Arisen Nightmare

10.8% of decks · synergy 0.07

Braids, Arisen Nightmare asks you to sacrifice permanents on your upkeep and punishes opponents who don't match — Liliana, Heretical Healer provides the sacrifice fodder via her ultimate's Zombie army and flips back into play off the very deaths Braids generates.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

In Commander, Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer occupies the sweet spot between value piece and threat: she's cheap enough to deploy ahead of curve, resilient enough to flip in response to removal, and her -X ability lets any black deck rebuy its best creatures turn after turn. In Legacy and Vintage she sees fringe play in reanimator and Depths shells that want cheap black creatures with upside, though she rarely displaces more efficient options in those faster formats. Modern is where competitive interest fades — the three-mana slot is crowded, the flip condition requires setup, and she doesn't close games fast enough without support. Oathbreaker is her second-best home after Commander, since she can serve as the planeswalker half of the pair and her abilities map cleanly onto a signature spell like Reanimate or Entomb.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Tortured Existence does the graveyard-cycling work at one mana and a fraction of the cost, letting you swap creatures in and out of the bin indefinitely — it lacks the planeswalker upside of Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, but in decks that just want recursive graveyard access it's arguably more efficient. Whisper, Blood Liturgist fills a similar reanimation role at four mana for two sacrificed creatures, trading Liliana's free-flip condition and discard ability for a repeatable reanimate that doesn't require an external death trigger.

Price Context

Current price

$6.94 mid tier

At $6.94, Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer sits in the mid tier — expensive enough that budget builders feel it, cheap enough that it's a straightforward include for any black Commander deck that can use her. Demand stays steady because she slots into a wide range of black strategies rather than one narrow archetype, so the price is unlikely to crater without a reprint.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.