I've always loved tribal and BW decks, so I'm gonna give this a spin. Might suck. Might rock. We'll see.I'm mostly going for a go-wide aggro, but I think I'll have some midrangy/control stuff in the sideboard. The main benefit BW aggro has over mono red is it's staying power, and I think this deck has plenty of that.
The vamps:
Duskborne Skymarcher: Not a lot of fliers in standard right now, so this could get some good chip damage in. Then, once they get something that could kill it, it gives it's power to someone else. Pretty decent as a one-drop, but I could see dropping it when Rivals comes out.
Vicious Conquistador: Pretty much a 1 mana 2/2? Seems pretty nice to me! Yeah it doesn't trade with 2 toughness creatures, but 1 damage will always go through. Feels like a good give and take to me.
Bloodcrazed Paladin: This guy fills a weird spot. There's a lot of board wipes that could really wreck us. BCP acts as a way out. Technically, he can easily be our biggest vampire if we flash him in after combat.
Gifted Aetherborn: Best vampire in standard? Probably. This comes down turn two as a blocker that survives against most of Ramunap Red's attackers, kills the biggest dinos, and gains a bit of life to negate the damage we took from other sources.
Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle: Vampires is a go wide tribe. We run 15 cards that we want to play on turn 1 or turn 2 that give us a vampire to attack on turn three to trigger Mad Mav's raid-not-raid, so if this comes down we will almost always get value from him turn one, and if we untap with him and get a second swing in, then we paid three mana for four power across three bodies. Seems good? Yeah, seems good.
Yahenni, Undying Partisan: Full disclosure, part of the reason I'm so keen on this card is that I just love the aetherborn as a tribe and I'm still a little salty that they didn't have enough support to play them earlier, but I also think Yahenni is a good creature. We'll always have sacrifice fodder to make them indestructible, which makes this a huge headache for control. They get HUGE if we wipe the board. Plus the synergy with Fatal Push is ridiculous! Think about it, we sac something to make Yahenni indestructible. This triggers revolt so we can push a 4 drop, which then goes to buff our Yahenni. That turns what was already a great removal spell into something even better! Wouldn't be caught dead without it.
Sanctum Seeker: It's not hard to have five or six vampires on the field when we play this. That can go to make a 12 point life swing the turn we play it for only four mana. Honestly, they can kill it their next turn and it's already been worth the cost we put into it. However if we DO get to untap with this, we kinda just win.
Bishop of Rebirth: I knew I wanted two copies of a five drop vamp in this slot as a curve topper so I had to choose between this, Vona, Butcher of Magan, and Bishop of the Bloodstained. In the end, bishop seemed like worse Sanctum Seeker for more mana, and seven life was too much for Vona to be worth it. However, bad sun titan still feels like a good card. We have 19 possible targets, and we kinda play by swinging all in against huge decks for chip damage, so a lot of our guys are going to die. This is another flex slot honestly, but for now I think I like it. We'll see how that changes with Rivals
The not vamps that make vamps:
Legion's Landing
: If you can't flip this four out of five games, you're not playing right. Then once it flips, even our turns with dead draws get us a vampire token. That's surprisingly good value. It's also worth noting that you can flip one, play a second, and then on a later turn use the mana from the first and flip the second to get a second activation in the same turn. 1/1s with lifelink can do way more than you might expect.
Call to the Feast: We're a go-wide vamp deck. Seems obvious that we should play the token spawn card that spawns vampires. This honestly isn't a great card by most merits, but it fills a role that needs filled. If we get something better in Rivals, I wont be sad to see this go but in the meantime we just need to play it.
The utility:
Dusk / Dawn: One of the biggest faults with aggro decks is that we don't have anything big. DnD makes that downside into a plus by not only killing all the dinos and big stuff, but also leaving all our little guys alone. True, it's not a perfect one sided wipe, but against dinos it might as well be. And if we can resolve Dawn against control, we pretty much just get all our guys back and win. It's stupid how powerful this can be.
Fatal Push: We're slower than some of the other more aggressive aggro decks, so we need to have a way to slowing them down so we can turn the corner on them. Push is just super good right now.
The horse:
Crested Sunmare: Yeah, this one seems kinda weird,but it's just super powerful in this deck. We gain life almost every turn we attack due to all the lifelink tokens and Sanctum Seeker. Then if they attack us, we block with a vamp token, gain a life, and then get another horse. It just spins out of control super fast.
The sideboard: Cast Out Sometimes you gotta deal with a planeswalker or a pesky artifact or god. Cast Out is just a good all around catchall nope.
Crook of Condemnation: Lots of graveyard shenanigans. Crook is one of the best ways of dealing with them.
Duress: If control turns the corner, we are usually too small to win. Duress is a good turn one way of keeping them from using that piece of removal when they want to.
Settle the Wreckage: Wrath to Exile is quite possibly the most powerful card in the 75. I will happily ramp my empty handed opponent if it means I get to exile wrath them. This can just blow them out, allowing me to come back strong and kill them in the next turn or two while they try to rebuild.
Vona, Butcher of Magan: Repeatable target removal seems good, but seven life is a pretty high price. I may move these to the main eventually, but not until I get some testing in.
