I think with card draw I'm so leery unless it's repeatable, you know?

One of my back-burner projects s a B/W Extort deck. The main reason I haven't built it yet is that I kept gravitating to too many Extort cards and no real win condition. This deck gives me ideas on the best way out of that trap. :-)

Necrologia might be good

What about Tablet of the Guilds and Contemplation? They are cheap and do way more work then for example Nyx-Fleece Ram and Palace Siege. Sure you lose the drain of Palace Siege. But you compensate that with the total amount of creatures you play.

I found out that in my Karlov deck (deck: primer-karlovs-will-1) I really want to have a lot of lifegain triggers and not just one once in each upkeep. Thats way to slow. Maybe my decklist provides some ideas for your build, even tho I skipped all the vampires. They are nice beaters, but with the arrival of Edgar Markov they kinda found their commander. There are lots and lots of creatures who benefit lifegain triggers if you ever think about replacing them :)

If you need any help or tips I would love to Brainstorm with you about your deck :-)

Ripwater: Awesome thoughts! Never saw the Tablet of the Guilds definitely going to be putting one in. I'm try replacing Palace Siege but I am enamoured with my mass draining. As for the vampire thing, it stays. Even if it's detrimental to total power, Edgar can suck it and my little edgelord goth goons are a requirement. Super appreciate the thoughts and suggestions. I'll check out your decks.

Not sure if it's an upgrade, but Ill-Gotten Inheritance is funny. On-flavor with Karlov, too. Not sure it's better than Fountain of Renewal

Command the Dreadhorde might be good

I'm not sure if I just play with cutthroat players, but I've did a few rounds with this list and found it to be a bit too slow. Perhaps budget is a limiting factor, but I would cut a huge number of the 4+ cmc enchantments and creatures in favor of a higher consistancy turns 3-5. On one game I had to take 4 full 7 mulagins before I felt comfortable playing the hand, if I were at a more competitive table with firmer mulagin rules, I dont feel I would have fared very well.

There's a lot of potential here, I like the list overall, but I'm not sold on a large number of the cards. There is a huge number of cards that you cast for 4+ mana that do absolutely nothing on ETB and I'm just sitting there hoping my opponents dont have interaction. Sure you can set up a good engine, but then I always feel I'm overextending trying to cast any of them. A single blue player can just lock you out on t4-6 if you cant cast multiple cards per turn. I would cut the curve quite a bit.

JESUSSAYSNO I appreciate the feedback. It could be a budgetary restraint, depending on what you think would be good replacements. It could also be a different level of competitiveness at the table. Do you have any specific suggestions? This was the first deck I ever made in MTG so there could very well be old relics of a more ignorant mind. I also know that I am very partial to enchantments, likely to my detriment. What do you think could go? And what would replace those cuts?

Bloodthirsty Aerialist

Twilight Prophet is a bit pricey but very powerful and doubly on-theme

Optimator For sure. Gets me some more card draw too which I think is what I'm lacking most. Damn pricey for sure though. Next time I'm doing a round of upgrades it's going in for sure. I currently have 2 kind of "floating" slots that I am playing with replacements for, which is nice, so this wouldn't even have the Sophie's choice stress of what to cut.

Swallow Whole, Unexpected Fangs, The Ozolith, Duskfang Mentor

Ha. Fangs!

Right? How appropriate! The lifelink is relevant as is the +1 +1 counter. Is it worth a slot? Maybe, maybe not.

I think it's worth a shot for the fangs aspect if nothing else.

Vitality Hunter

Scion of the Swarm

It's weird, Optimator but Scion of the Swarm actually doesn't feel like much of an upgrade. It has no Lifelink and costs 5 cmc so it kinda doesn't break the bar for The Goth Mafia at this point on first inspection. Rather have something cheaper that starts smaller. The built in Flying is nice, but Bloodthirsty Aerialist just made it in and is vastly superior e.g. I appreciate the idea though!

Indulging Patrician, Witch of the Moors

Marauding Blight-Priest

Mask of Griselbrand

Phyrexian Altar+Gravecrawler with The Meathook Massacre on the field with all your extorts would be pretty nice. I know it breaks your vamp extort theme but it is definitely an easy addition in this deck.

lazarusdraigon That is an awesome combo, but it would require adding $80+ of cards just to try and wrangle some Gravecrawler shenanigans and I have so few zombies to ensure it coming back again for more. You know?

Rodolf Duskbringer might be an upgrade