Hi, welcome to my deck tech. I will be doing a breakdown on my deck. DISCLAIMER: "I watched and read many other people deck tech before I eventually came up with this so it may not be that original."
You can only include 100cards in this format, I picked the ones that are more relevant to my synergy. This is my very first commander deck and I have been playing and upgrading the deck ever since. I shall skip the explanation of lands, kill/removal spells, mana ramp, card draw and planeswalkers in this deck as it pretty much straightforward.
1st (winning infinite combo): Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond. Once you are able to gain 1 life or make your opponent lose 1 life, the infinite you gain life and opponent lose life starts to loop until every opponent hp is 0. There are quite a number of cards that allow me to gain life as well in the deck and one of them is Exsanguinate.
2nd (Make your opponent bleed / Free life Gain): Blood Artist or Falkenrath Noble or Kalastria Highborn all make your opponent bleed whenever you lose a vampire and you leech life this way. Sangromancer on the other hand just allows you to leech life for each dying creature your opponent control.
3rd (Counter Removal): Both Vampire Hexmage and Thief of Blood comes in handy when you don't have removal spell to deal with planeswalker or other permanent that have counters on it. Usually, I used them for planeswalker removal. Becareful when playing Thief of Blood as it remove all counters which includes counters on your permanent as well, so weight out the option before bringing it on the board.
4th (Answers to indestructible): If your opponents have creatures that are indestructible, the best way is to exile or sacrifice their creatures. Anowon, the Ruin Sage / Dark Impostor / Gatekeeper of Malakir / Butcher of Malakir all have answers for that especially Dark Impostor, allowing us to exile creatures and buffing him as long as you have the mana.
5th (Creature Lords / Mini Lord): Stromkirk Captain, Captivating Vampire, Bloodline Keeper
(flipped) and Ascendant Evincar are creature lords for this deck buffing your other vampires. There are plenty of other cards out there that buff vampire if you feel like there is a need to add more which I did, adding Adaptive Automaton and Door of Destinies.
My Mini lords are the card that in some form of way buff my creatures due to attacking or dealing combat damage or sacrificing creatures or etc. They are Drana, Liberator of Malakir / Rakish Heir / Necropolis Regent / Stensia Masquerade / Indulgent Aristocrat / Vampire Nocturnus / Patron of the Vein. On a side note, I always leave my Indulgent Aristocrat not attacking so if any of my creatures were to die in combat, in response I just sacrifice them for the buff ability.
6th (Things that goes well with Olivia): Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves give my commander some form of protection just to prevent Olivia from being the target of opponent removal. She has a decent converted mana cost but the with multiple casting, the tax can bounce up really quick. She also draws quite a fair bit of hatred due to her stealing ability.
Blade of the Bloodchief and Quietus Spike makes her stronger and scarier each time you attack.
Heartstone makes her ability cheaper to cast and with Illusionist's Bracers attached to her, we get to perform her ability twice to steal more creatures.
I know many will wonder why I don't run cards such as Basilisk Collar ( better version of Quietus Spike) or Braid of Fire or tutor cards such as Demonic Tutor / Vampiric Tutor. Truth be told I also feel like it should be included if you have the cash to spend as they are not cheap but somehow whatever I have included seems to work fine for me and helped me won multiple games. As for Braid of Fire, somehow I tried with it before and it never stays long on the board because the people whom I played with instantly counter it the moment it appears as they know what I am going to use it for. Really depends on your playgroup, thus I replace that card.
Thanks for spending the time to read this. Any suggestions are definitely welcome. Have a great week ahead and happy playing mtg.
Check out my other deck techs in my profile, I run:
- Reaper King EDH
- Grimgrin, Corpse-Born EDH
- Athreos, God of Passage EDH
- Atogatog EDH