Fun Fact Fridays: How to Dress the Vess

Planeswalkers are such a magnificent addition to magic as of Lorwyn. Thanks to man who first spoke the words "planeswalker card," Matt Cavotta, their are currently 48 cards with the Planeswalker card type. When M15 was released we were greeted with 4 brand new Planeswalker cards in; Garruk, Apex Predator, Nissa, Worldwaker, Ajani Steadfast, and Jace, the Living Guildpact. Though there were 2 planewalker cards that were reprints, one was a simple reprint with Chandra, Pyromaster and the other has a bit of a story behind why and how she got in the set. I am of course talking of the card Liliana Vess.

While it may seem as simple a reprint as Chandra was there is in fact a story that this version of the card holds. It was a dark and stormy night in Renton, Washington (not really, just have to set the mood. I am talking about the evil necromancer Liliana Vess), Magic R&D are sitting in The Pit playtesting for FFL (Future Future League) to see how a certain cursed necromancer would affect standard. After many games the were shocked to find what they had created, and they knew it must be stopped or all of standard would shatter and there would be the ever looming Necromancer Summer. So as fast as R&D could, they went to the card files and changed the ticking time bomb that was Liliana of the Veil, to a less powerful counterpart: Liliana Vess.

As you read in the above text, that R&D was testing Liliana of the Veil to be in M15, but had decided she was for too powerful for standard and changed the card to Liliana Vess. The real question is why Liliana Vess is in this set. Simply put, by the time R&D realized that Liliana of the Veil was not going to work it was too late for them to create a new Liliana and they understood that Liliana of the Dark Realms was not Liliana enough.

Thank you, and don't forget to brew.