A quick and dirty Vampire Tribal deck centered around playtesting some RIX cards.
Lots of small two-drops that can stack together via Legion Lieutenant and Radiant Destiny, as well as some token play with Legion's Landing
, Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle, and Squire's Devotion to keep the board wide and trigger the new Ascend effects, as well as well as synergize with our queenie Elenda, the Dusk Rose and fuel Yahenni, Undying Partisan if needed.
Boosters [Vampiric Lords]
Radiant Destiny - A cheaper Vanquisher's with an Ascend effect? Yes please. RD allows us to move past a traditional Vamp Sacrifice deck and actually ramp up our tokens and cheap two-drops into obscene aggro, often alongside lifelink. The ascend effect is also easy to achieve thanks to our low mana curve and token generation, and proves a nice cherry on top.
Legion Lieutenant - And a two-drop vampire lord as well? Lovely! Should have no trouble getting the colored mana required at this cost, and the 2/2 is on curve as yet another cherry on top. Like the rest of our two-drops, it is susceptible to the Fatal Push meta, so bait it out beforehand if you can (or don't. Vampires swarm all the same).
Standard Combos
Famished Paladin + Squire's Devotion - 3/3 for 2 is an exciting drop, and while the tap condition isn't difficult with the rest of our deck, we can make things really interesting by making the Paladin untap himself, in addition to being a 4/4 with lifelink and a new token. Essentially gives him psuedo-Vigilance before the city blessing comes online. Worth reiterating that the enchantment attached to two-drop beefcake makes him even more of a target for Fatal Push.
Elenda, the Dusk Rose + Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle / Legion's Landing
/ Oathsworn Vampire - Elenda is at once a card I find super fascinating and in initial tests somewhat underwhelming. Given our low mana-curve even a 4CMC feels expensive, but if she gets on a proper board Elenda can make some magic happen. The standard play is to have a bunch of tokens to sacrifice (bonus points if Yahenni is around too), which requires generation from Landing or Mavren or whatever else, or you can play with Oathsworn a bit and keep pulling from graveyard. Where things get really reaaaallllly fun is when you have a couple of Destinys on the board, making Elenda start as a 3/3 lifelink explosive. In this scenario, she'll continue to grab a couple of 1/1 counters if you're lucky, and when she pops, she pops for X tokens, which are all 3/3 with lifelink as well. Very fun to stress people out over.
Radiant Destiny + Everything - Just to mention again that a couple of these on the board gives every draw a pretty serious impact, given that almost a third of our deck is Vampires.
The Immortal Sun + Everything - Our late game enabler for when our mana is just sitting around. A cure-all for all of our woes.
Utilities
Dusk Legion Zealot - Keeps the cards flowing, as with our curve we often empty our hand much faster than our opponent.
Recover - More draw, plus some recovery from control/removal decks.
Fatal Push - Shouldn't need an explanation for FP. Is good.
Vampire's Zeal - Cheap instant to win out blocker trades or surprise an overconfident push.
Ixalan's Binding - For Planeswalkers or artifact/enchantment meanies.
Sideboard
Notes
Going to have fun for a couple weeks ironing things out, but as a newbie brewer, please let me know if there are synergies you've found or found new combos with the fresh set of RIX. After that phase I'll narrow down the cards so it's not just 2x of everything. Cheers!
