Introduction
This Esper Vampire Control deck is focused on using some of the best control/removal cards in each of its colours to efficiently police the board state while pumping out vampires to swing in and kill your opponent late-game.
While this deck is not 100% complete (I feel a few of the legendaries will be swapped out and the manabase will be streamlined), I believe it's a fun and competitive deck for Modern.
Goals and Key Cards
This deck (which I'll be referring to as EVC) centres on being a pain in the ass in the early game, and going wide in the late-game (or tall, I'll talk about that in a minute).
The main methods of control in the early game will come down to liberal use of cards like
Path to Exile
,
Thoughtseize
,
Doom Blade
and
Mana Leak
, to police your opponents and buy you time to bring out the big threats later on.
"Hang on, isn't
Counterspell
legal now? Why use Mana Leak?"
This may change, but my reasoning for
Mana Leak
is purely down to casting cost. EVC doesn't run a whole lot of blue mana sources, and so a double-pipped card in a colour which is really only splashed seems counter-intuitive. Who knows, though? I might find a way around it. If
Counterspell
is in the list as you read this then I've made it work.
Life for your opponents will become even harder if you cast a
Snapcaster Mage
on Turn 3,
Thoughtseize
'ing them a second time and generally being a bit of a bastard. It's this kind of efficient removal which will secure a greater chance at getting your vampires out. Speaking of vampires...
We've got a great Vampire Lord in
Legion Lieutenant
. Some more threat removal with
Bishop of Binding
(especially handy against big guys e.g.
Craterhoof Behemoth
- how's that for a role reversal?).
Bloodline Keeper
and
Call to the Feast
for token generation, all buffed by our Lords, of course). Throw in a couple of irritating legendaries like
Elenda, the Dusk Rose
and
Anowon, the Ruin Sage
, as well as some lifelink shenanigans and it's looking dicey for our opponent.
Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord
is the card that inspired me to make this deck, and I think he goes great here. Aside from giving all creatures and Planeswalkers lifelink on your turn, he can fetch creatures from the graveyard the turn he ETBs, even grab you a Bishop of Binding if a particularly nasty threat is on the horizon. All in all, I might swap two of him out for another vampire Planeswalker in future, but I like him where he is for the moment.
EDIT:
Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord
has since been added, as I feel he adds a great amount of value to the deck.
Wishboard
The final piece of the puzzle comes in blue, with
Fae of Wishes
. For 3U you can grab a card from your sideboard, reveal it, and put it into your hand. While some of the sideboard cards are 2/3-ofs and meant for actual sideboarding, I've added cards like
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
,
Wurmcoil Engine
and
Shark Typhoon
here for the purposes of shortening the game time. These are all great bombs that should, at the very least, buy you time to assemble your vampire army if you're a bit slow in getting them out. It's also useful to sideboard a card mid-game like
Leyline of Sanctity
and get ahead for Game 2, so you're not starting off on the back foot.
To summarise...
EVC is annoying, and that's what makes it fun to pilot. It is not yet 100% complete, but I think I have a skeleton (no pun intended?) for how it will look once I've streamlined it and figured out exactly how I want the maindeck to look.
Thanks for looking at my list! If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments :)
