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Liliana Vess

Legendary Planeswalker — Liliana

+1: Target player discards a card.
−2: Search your library for a card, then shuffle and put that card on top.
−8: Put all creature cards from all graveyards onto the battlefield under your control.

CMC
5
Mana cost
{3}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
mythic
Set
Magic 2010
Price
$5.96
EDHREC rank
#4637
Buy on TCGplayer
Liliana Vess card art
Liliana Vess tutors any card to the top of your library the turn she lands, then threatens an ultimate that takes over graveyards — that's a five-mana investment that generates immediate, table-visible pressure. She slots cleanly into black-heavy Commander lists, but Liliana, Heretical Healer outpaces her in dedicated Liliana tribal builds, and Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign decks prize the tutor specifically for stacking odd-mana-cost cards on top.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Liliana, Heretical Healer

60.4% of decks · synergy 0.57

Liliana, Heretical Healer builds run Liliana Vess as one of the strongest tutor pieces in the 99 — she finds whatever engine piece is missing, and her ultimate synergizes directly with the reanimation and sacrifice loops those decks run.

02
Carth the Lion

Carth the Lion

45.1% of decks · synergy 0.44

Carth the Lion adds a loyalty counter to every planeswalker on entry and whenever one activates, which means Liliana Vess ticks up faster and reaches her game-ending ultimate in two activations instead of three — a meaningful acceleration that makes her one of Carth's most efficient slots.

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 Vess is a reliable tutor on a planeswalker body — five mana is steep but acceptable in a 40-life, slower format, and her minus-two provides repeatable hand disruption that scales well against multiple opponents. In Legacy and Vintage, she doesn't compete: faster tutors like Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor cost half as much mana or less, and planeswalkers at five mana rarely survive to activate again. Modern and Pioneer are similarly hostile — planeswalkers need to impact the board immediately at that cost, and Liliana Vess's floor is too low when the format punishes tempo losses. Oathbreaker is her second-best home, where she can serve as the oathbreaker herself with a tutor as her signature spell, creating a consistent engine from the command zone.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Diabolic Tutor does the core job — putting any card into your hand for four mana — at well under a dollar, though it lacks Liliana Vess's repeatable activations and persistent board presence. If you want the planeswalker angle on a budget, Liliana, Death Wielder occupies a similar five-mana slot, though her impact is considerably weaker; the honest trade-off is that no cheap Liliana replicates Vess's combination of instant tutor access, ongoing hand disruption, and a reanimation ultimate on one card.

Price Context

Current price

$5.96 mid tier

At $5.96, Liliana Vess sits in the mid tier — affordable enough that budget is rarely the reason to skip her, but not so cheap that you're getting an obvious bargain. She has multiple printings keeping the price suppressed, so this is a stable floor rather than a card with room to drop further.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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