this deck looks amazing.

+1'd!

Thanks so much for the endorsement! But, um...you forgot to actually +1 it! I appreciate it!

I'd say -3 Mindcrank : You are really pushing and focusing on damage- which mono black should!- so the extra milling is not very beneficial to you, especially with cards like Morbid Plunder you're letting them pick and choose what they want from their graveyard.

on the other hand, I'd suggest adding in the +2 Blade of the Bloodchief which goes well with Phyrexian Obliterator . You may even think about using Pith Driller . Just a thought.

But i HAVE to ask... why does everyone love Dark Tutelage so much?

good designed deck i love the combo with Mindcrank and Bloodchief Ascension , and you might be able to add them once more, but i also like that this deck can win without them.

as for the Dark Tutelage i love it in here, almost every card you draw extra does more damage, or prevents more than you lose from its cost. also including that 36.6666667 of your deck is land so no damage will be done.

i also have to compliment you on your curve.

i think this is one of the best designed decks on tappedout.

Exclaminator that is quite a compliment! Thank you and thank you again for the +1!

cool deck, +1

cool deck, +1

cool deck, +1

Very cool - + 1 Have you done any testing?

I'm missing a few cards yet. I mean to take care of that this afternoon

Have you thought of playing this combo in a B/R deck?

card:Tezzeret's Gambit would be good here, giving you that Sign in Blood card advantage but proliferating the ascension. IMO better than the Dark Tutelage s when that extra counter could help. Grim Affliction is also good.

OH i forgot to say I really like this and +1 :)

This deck is very well played. Each other ascension/crank deck I've seen is a LOT weaker than this, very nice job.

You actually put thought into ways that you may put counters on the ascension, hahah. Anyway, +1'd.

3 MB Despise and 3 SB Despise ...?

This deck looks fun and powerful. +1 for sure!

Dark Tutelage is loved because 1/2 the time it draws you lands (and thus gets them out of the way and into your hand), and the other half the time it draws you creature destroy or really efficient creatures. IOW the opponent won't keep up, its like having a Sign in Blood EVERY turn and more than half the time your not losing any life. Yes you may lose 4 life for an Obliterator, but that card kinda makes up the difference =P Also for a deck like this the big thing he wants to do is pull of the combo, so burning through the deck helps a lot.

That being said, you may want to look into options outside of Contaminated Ground since with Bloodchief out that will be the last thing they will EVER tap.

I think card:Tezzeret's Gambit or Sign in Blood doesn't sound like a bad idea to replace it since you shouldn't have trouble getting 2 damage in with the amount of field control you have & its really just speeding up combos either way. Throw in 4 Drowned Catacomb if you go with Tezzy's Gambit, since you don't care about swamp count just make sure its not the first land you play and you wont miss a beat.

I agree about contaminated ground, put in card:Tezzeret's Gambit, especially since you can proliferate the ascension. You may also want to look into tumble magnet, just as a sideboard option in case caw-blade causes you trouble. I love this deck, I wish I had the money to make something like it +1

Oh, I didn't realize you didn't have sign in blood here! It totally belongs in this deck, over tezzeret's gambit, and you can even cast it on your opponent if you need that final push for the ascension!

Such a straight forward deck and looks like this deck could hurt someone bad!!

i give it a +1

Just a sucker for killing the opponent's hand and also the use of vampires =]

i think you should use Sign in Blood 1 for the card draw, but you can also use it on your opponent to get 2 damage if your desperate to fully charge your Bloodchief Ascension . hard to find what you would take out tho. good deck in my opinion.

I love the use of vampires that only deal 2 damage, that's some nice synergy.

I can see the use of geth's verdict combined with pulse tracker.

I'd say include some offcolour snap lands just to thin the land out of this deck, and garuntee less dead draws later on, if you don't mind forking out a few more bucks.

Anothor note would be removing the extractions, while seemingly good, you need to kill people early, hand distruption will likely serve you better, or tez gambit for proliferate and draw engine down to your important cards.

Thanks everyone for the compliments, advice and +1s! I've never had a deck design get so much attention so I'm pretty excited.

@axonn I've thought about B/R, especially since every viable Vamp deck splashes R. There are a lot of ways to do 2 damage a turn, and direct is very tempting. The choice here is dudes and board control. I might make the change if I hit a wall with this deck.

@seibertross The reason I love Contaminated Ground here is because its a two-fer. I get to take out their Creeping Tar Pit or Inkmoth Nexus but still leave them the option of hurting themselves if they're desperate for the mana. I actually replaced 2 Tectonic Edge s with them. But, yours and the following user comments have me second guessing...

CDex, seibertross, infectorus, and krizzymer You guys are making it hard for me to disagree with you. So I'm dropping Dark Tutelage and replacing it with Sign in Blood . Its better in almost every way. I'll probably draw the same number of cards either way, but SIB has a slight mathmatical edge on life-loss, plus as you said, the ability to cast it on my opponent as direct damage.

I'm also going to sideboard the Contaminated Ground s for B/U control matchups, and make Mindcrank and Bloodchief Ascension a four-of since its they don't come up quite often enough in playtesting for me.

Tomfoolery I agree about the Surgical Extraction s. I think I got caught up in the general excitement about them. I thought there couldn't be a better use for them than in this deck for a late game secondary win-con, but I found I never used them in play testing.