Olivia Voldaren

piggybanks112, I went with Captivating Vampire instead. Smaller casting cost and a bit of a pump for my vampire army.

This needs serious work. Let's get started, shall we?

Drop the Captivating Vampires. Straight up inferior to Stromkirk Captain. Add in a 4th Nocturnus. 8 lords is plenty.

Shadow Alley Denizen is awful. Drop her for Pulse Tracker, Viscera Seer or Vampire Lacerator.

Olivia Voldaren borders on necessary. If you're in for a longer game, she'll win games by herself.

And now for the best vampire in the game. 4 Gatekeeper of Malakir. Run them or your vampire deck sucks something a lot less savory than wine of the vein.

Rakdos colors have access to better creature hate. In particular, Lightning Bolt and Terminate should usually be 4-ofs. The ascensions are seriously mediocre.

22 lands is correct, but you need fetch lands. Drop your mountains outright. If you can add in 8 fetches you can search for Blood Crypts on demand. Blackcleave Cliffs is also recommended. You can toss in 1 Mutavault for added punch.

Other options? Running the Kalastria Highborn engine with Viscera Seer, Bloodghast, Blood Artist, Falkenrath Aristocrat and Vampire Nocturnus is viable, but then it becomes a completely different deck. You could splash green for Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse if you really wanted to hate on creatures. Dark Confidant is great for draw power, but he lacks the early game speed vampires like. Vampires want a low mana curve, usually topping off at 4 mana. The individual creatures do their own thing independently until the bosses show up and buff your entire board. But above all this deck wants to hit the ground running.

Gatekeeper of Malakir, Bloodstained Mire, Blackcleave Cliffs and Dragonskull Summit are all pretty good, you should consider them.

Dragonskull summit was good. And then Khans happened. Now we have more fetches.

as a one-or-two-of it's still good, but not as a playset. Only if you have extra slots.

Meh. If you have that extra space I'd either go up to 10 fetches or just add in 2 more swamps. You need a handful of basics in a format where Blood Moon exists.

YamishiTheWickedOne what do you think of Geth's Verdict?

Terminate is better in the two-drop removal slot. You have Gatekeepers as a way to force sacrifices (seriously, run him.)

Stromkirk Noble is arguably one of the best 1 mana vampires, just so you know.

And if you want to go the highborn route, run at least 8 fetch lands; you need them to keep looping bloodghast as well as thinning the deck to increase your odds of an active Nocturnus.

It looks much better now. But if you can fit him in, I think running at least 2 Nighthawk would help you.

So I put Blood Artist in, YamishiTheWickedOne. I don't think there's any room for Vampire Nighthawk. But thanks for your impute man. It really helped me along.

I don't see the point in running Polluted Delta in this deck considering that you don't have any blue. i understand that u could use it just to get rid of cards in the deck to gain what you need faster but in my opinion i would rather run Temple of Malice because you can just scry 1 and if its a card that you don't need then just throw it at the bottom of the deck and also you can use it for black and red mana

....Fetch lands take lands out of the deck. Lands out of the deck are lands you're not drawing when you'd rather have something you actually need. And in a deck like this you absolutely don't want a land you can't immediately use.

Furthermore, Polluted Delta fetches for swamps. That's what matters. And Blood Crypt is a swamp. Note that it doesn't say "basic" in Polluted Delta's text.

The fetches are also crazy with Bloodghast.

And lands in deck = lands you're not topdecking with Vradeen (Nocturnus does indeed have a name).

good one

i like Tragic Slip over lightning bolt for removal. it's black (for nocturnus), kills indestructible things, and hits for 13. you just have to have something die first. i suggest bloodghast. also, Dragonskull Summit will help get more red available. and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will let you hold onto your fetches until you want them to recur bloodghast/get a shuffle.

Blackcleave Cliffs is better than dragonskull summit. And Bolt is generally the better option.

most people here seem to agree that the check lands are better than the fast lands: http://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/general/rank-the-duel-lands/

i would agree, at least in some cases. in a list like this, you're pretty much always gonna have a swamp first turn. the only time the fast land ends up being better is if you only draw fast lands in your opening hand. but with 8 fetch lands and 4 shock lands, and the rest swamps (or urborg), every other land would get you swamp.

if you have at least one swamp, the check lands will always come in untapped, whereas the fast lands could turn into guildgates late game. which isn't as good. leaves you fewer options. i've playing a mana base that's 7 fetches, 4 shocks, 4 check, 1 scry, 3 swamps, and 2 urborgs, and it works really, really well. though the scry might get cut; i think a basic might be better.

you're right that bolt is generally a better option, but i chose slip for synergy reasons. bolt will lose you a nocturnus activation on the top of the deck, slip won't. slip hits way harder if you're sacking dudes, which you should be. it's slightly more possible for it to be a dead card, but it's way more likely to kill a goyf late game, or take care of a pesky indestructible problem creature. i've been trying slip in my list for a little while now and it takes care of tons of things that bolt just wouldn't. the biggest downside is that it doesn't hit the player.

I'll test Tragic Slip.

From personal experience, I can tell you that the check/buddy lands like Dragonskull Summit are a handicap, completely paling in comparison to fast lands like Blackcleave Cliffs. The 2 or less other lands clause will almost never matter. Whereas the condition for buddy lands can and will screw you over. An entire thread of people can be dead wrong.

Olivia Voldaren and Disfigure seem good in the deck, Oliva is a late game mana sync, and just a generally overall amazing creature, and Disfigure is just cheap and efficient, i'd say like 1-2 of each would be okay. less so on the disfigure, as it could easily fit it the sideboard