The Hermit Witch Tips -- Liliana Campaign

[bionic ape]

I've written about this in a couple different places, so decided to just make a copy of one them to post for everyone.

The Hermit Witch is the hardest scenario of the lot. I've probably lost somewhere between 2/3s and 3/4s of my matches against him. It's not just you, lots of people are struggling to get through this one.

Here's a couple observations that might help.

He won't attack unless he has an advantage. If he attacks into you and your blocks look favorable he's either got a Giant Growth or one of his morbid creatures to activate. He's willing to make trades to actvate his morbid creatures but otherwise not.

You want to avoid blocking as much as possible. Take damage while you're trying to get board control. He doesn't have any direct damage so it's only trample you have to worry about and if his morbid creatures aren't activated then that's less of an issue.

He generally wont activate his Wolves except to protect them, so if they go unblocked they're usually only going to be doing 2 damage to you and you can take several hits from them with relative impunity.

Black Cat and Bone Splinters are the two most important cards as you want to get him topdecking as soon as possible. Up to a point you're going to want your Gravediggers to be pulling Cats out of the graveyard and and try to use your Cruel Revivals to get your Gravediggers back. Really you'll want to be sacrificing as many Cats as possible in the early game by whatever means available.

The whole idea behind this strategy is it that once you empty the Hermit's hand he has to rely on randomly drawing threats while you should be able to keep bringing threats back from the graveyard more or less reliably. Increasing your opponent's dependence on luck while decreasing your own increases the odds of emerging victorious.

Don't try to kill his Elk with Goblins as he'll sacrifice those Elk every time before the -1/-1 can hit.

Using Rise from the Grave on a Gravedigger is going to be your best option in the early game if the Gravedigger can pull another critter out of the grave with him. Later, activating a Worm or a Pig and pulling it out with Rise is very satisfying, but Nantuko Husk and Vengeful dead are high on the priority list too.

Trade Ravens with Orchard Spirits liberally if necessary, hopefully your GY recursion will win tht battle of attrition. Those Orchard Spirits are tough to deal with and you might need to use removal on them, but again, they don't do too much damage in one hit.

Nantuko Husk + Vengeful Dead = Win

This match-up depends almost entirely on the opening hands, more so than most. If you don't get early Bone Splinters it's very hard to win.

Altar's Reap is excellent. Card-draw is king in Magic and sacrificing goblins and cats to the god of cantrips is fun for the whole family.

I've won this match with just 1 life left more than once, use that life resource to full advantage.

Most of all, be creative, graveyard recursion and sacrifice mechanics can make for some wily shenanigans.

Fortunatately, when at last you finally succeed, you can celebrate by facing the second toughest opponent of the lot.

[bionic ape]

Bump (though somewhat reluctantly)

[JCWLXV]

Thanks! I've been trying to get through this duel for a couple of days.

[JCWLXV]

I got him on the second attempt after reading your tips. :yay:

[bionic ape]

Ha, I'd completely forgotten that I wrote this, but am pleased you found it helpful. :)

[drunken.dx]

Thanks, I've needed advice from someone who had nerve to test different strategies.
My greatest problem was that he always had cards in hand to counter my oppening hand, and if I get expensive cards in opening hand, I don't draw lands, if I get cheap cards, I only draw lands.

[Mapzilla]

After failed many times I read this guide and won immediately after thanks! And I did it with 16 health left

[HebaruSan]

Apologies for the necro and possible off-topic, but is there a way to inspect your deck in the campaigns? Some people have claimed they beat this duel on the first or second try, but I don't see how that's possible without trying a few times to see what's in your deck (if not also the opponent deck), otherwise you wouldn't know that it's futile to hope to draw any big creatures or flying or direct damage, or what a bad idea blocking is, etc. Presumably Liliana built her own deck, so seeing what's in it would only be fair...

[drunken.dx]

Originally posted by HebaruSan:

Apologies for the necro and possible off-topic, but is there a way to inspect your deck in the campaigns? Some people have claimed they beat this duel on the first or second try, but I don't see how that's possible without trying a few times to see what's in your deck (if not also the opponent deck), otherwise you wouldn't know that it's futile to hope to draw any big creatures or flying or direct damage, or what a bad idea blocking is, etc. Presumably Liliana built her own deck, so seeing what's in it would only be fair...

Tehnicaly possible if you get "good" draw on first try, something unprobable, but not impossible.

when i played it took me more tries for this one than all tries combined for other campaign battles (seriously), but my draws were always something that would just "push" opponent strategy, only when I finally got what I needed in first few turns I won (don't ask what, It's been ages since I beat that battle and I don't remember)

[Aᴘᴘʟᴇᴄᴏʀɴ]

Liliana Deck
==========

Creatures (17)
4x Black Cat
3x Gravedigger
1x Nantuko Husk
4x Scrambling Ghoul
3x Scrambling Goblin
2x Vengeful Dead

Sorcery (4)
2x Bone Splinters
2x Rise from the Grave

Instants (6)
2x Altar's Reap
4x Cruel Revival

Lands
19x Swamp

==========

Simplest strategy I used is kill his Morbid anything w Bone Splinter and then use Rise to steal it. Wurm is ideal but Boar is useful as well.