This mono-black vampire deck features exponential combos which pile +1/+1 counters on your creatures, buffing them up while giving you life. I originally intended this deck to be a blue/black extortion deck, and there still are some cards in the deck which have that effect, though I removed the blue cards, which really did play into the theme that I had. This deck can be really powerful when the right cards are played.
Key Combos:
Captivating Vampire + Drana, Liberator of Malakir + Necropolis Regent
This combo is really useful in ramping up your creatures +1/+1 counters. If you get these cards out in the first few turns, and an opponent doesn't have any flying creatures out yet, you can swing in with Drana and all of your flying creatures (buffed up with one or two of the Captivating Vampires) and when each attack and deal damage to your player, Drana, Liberator of Malakir (when it damages opponent) gives all attacking creatures (including itself) a +1/+1 counter, and due to Necropolis Regent's effect, all creatures which deal damage to players get a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the amount of damage each creature dealt. Two turns of this usually gives your opponent more than they can handle, and your flying creatures become unstoppable (I've even had the cards become 50/50 and 60/60 before! These kind of "fortified" creatures can be really hard for your opponent to eliminate, they could be nullified, or removed from the field in some way.
Vampire Nocturnus also adds +2/+1 counters to all vampires (at almost all times because it is (except for the artifact) an all-black deck) and gives them flying. The only downside to this is that you play with the top card of your library revealed.
Thrull Parasite + Vampire Outcasts
If you use the Thrulls extort ability (I think Crypt Ghast has it too, though Thrull Parasite costs less to cast), then Vampire Outcasts will come into the battlefield with 2 +1/+1 counters on it. And when used with the counter combo above, helps you gain life quickly.
Bontu's Monument
+
Crypt Ghast
This combo makes it way easier to cast black spells, especially creature spells. Bontu's Monument allows you to cast black creature spells (since the deck is black, this is all creature spells) for (1) less mana. Couple this with Crypt Ghast's ability of doubling the swamps you tap, and you will triple (or quadruple, if you have two on the field) the amount of black mana you produce (at least for black creature spells, making high-mana-costing creature spells really easy to cast.
Strategies
(Click the drop-down menus to see the different categories.)
Malakir Bloodwitch damages each opponent equal to the number of vampires you control, and you gain life equal to all the life lost this way among all your opponents.
Sangromancer gives you 3 life when an opponent discards a card or when an opponent's creature dies.
Dying Wish whenever your creature enchanted with this card dies, target player loses X life and you gain X life, where X was the creature's power. (you could use this card for revenge against a player who ousted you, or you could sacrifice a really powerful creature you control and really make someone unlucky...)
Palace Siege, (if you choose "Dragons"), gives you 2 life and makes each opponent lose 2 life at each of your upkeeps.
- Bontu's Monument gives you one life and takes one life away from each opponent when you cast a creature spell.
I can use some suggestions for this deck as what to add to it. Some of the cards are mainly just filler cards that seemed cool, and I'm not particularly attached to them. If anyone has some better ideas, please let me know in the comments section down below.
I was browsing magic cards on my Pinterest account (I do not own the rights to Pinterest and the name is copyright by Cold Brew Labs, Inc.), and I just wanted to try to make a deck around extortion, then when I put the deck together, I ended up with something really close to this, and so far it has proven an excellent deck. I would like to start acquiring some of these cards. If you like this deck, don't forget to Upvote it, and if you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please write them in the Comments pane below.
And if you want to see more of my decks, please visit my profile page. I am relatively new on this website but I've made a couple of decks, and I haven't received much feedback yet.
Disclaimer: I do not yet own most of these cards, but I did design this deck.
