My vampire deck. It has undergone massive changes since its first version. My aim is to make it a deck capable of challenging typical modern netdeck archetypes.
See ahead long description of deck building rationale and updates to make it much faster and resilient.
(Scroll down to the bottom for title and image explanation).
Currently, it is a modern-legal vampire-themed Br deck (black with a splash of red) which hopefully should perform fine in Modern and be able to challenge modern archetypes. I haven't tested it after the revamp, but it should perform way better and I will keep posting its performance.
Now follows a long and thorough description of the deckbuilding:
The first version packed what I thought were the best vampire (BR) creatures for their casting cost, Strength / Toughness, and special abilities, including 2-3 copies of some of them from 1-drops to 4-drops. Against many comments I did NOT include many popular vampires like the Gatekeeper of Malakir, Vampire Nocturnus, or Olivia Voldaren. The strategy was to drop them as fast as possible, hopefully building synergies among them (via
Stromkirk Captain
, Blade of the Bloodchief, and Bloodline Keeper
). Complementary spells were no efficient aside of Lightning Bolt, so the deck performed badly.
I have decided to totally revamp it for SPEED and Consistency.
The original decklist was:
Artifacts:
Creatures (in ascending CMC):
Other spells:
Land:
After being totally destroyed by a monored burn deck and a hexproof-auras deck at a local store modern tournament, it was time to introduce some changes in the deck.
First, the deck is waaaaaay toooo sloooooow. There's no way I can deal with an opponent throwing (3 times the turn number) damage at me (3 in the first turn, 4-6 in the 2nd turn, 8-9 in the 3rd turn, etc). Even blocking the red critters with haste which die at end of turn with my own vampires (which hampers the synergies and leaves me with only 4 lightning bolts to throw at the opponent or its creatures), I don't last long. Blade of the Bloodchief is also too slow, not because it needs 2 mana to start pumping my creatures, but because it needs a critter to die to pump my critters: Inconsistent unless comboed with something you provoke that will make creatures die.
Then, some critters are clearly suboptimal.
Vampire Lacerator
just kept pinging me in upkeep, kept alive by an opponent critter with lifelink who would block it but not kill it.
Child of Night
died too often blocking with no time as to make his lifelink ability relevant... The only match I won was thanks to the Vampire Nighthawk because my opponent had only 4x flyers in his deck and he didn't draw any. After 2 turns pounding with 2 of them with a
Stromkirk Captain
in play (but chump-blocked continuously by a small critter like a wall), I was at 32 life and swinging for 6 per turn. Dash Hopes was a dead draw always, as the mana was always spent trying to drop critters fast. Tragic Slip was more a (useless) -1/-1 than a killer -13/-13, unless you know you are going to sac critters or tokens continuously (much like with Blood Artist) and you are going to have the mana, it is not that useful.
SO, the changes:
- Blade of the Bloodchief goes maybeboard, enter Vampire Nocturnus which grants flying AND 2/1 to HIMSELF AND EVERY OTHER OF MY VAMPIRES just by lying around and drawing black cards; to maximise this effect we need no colorless cards aside of no non-black cards.
- Likewise: EXIT ALL NON-BLACK CARDS (I'll deal later with losing Lightning Bolt)
- Exit all suboptimal vampires, aside of all red vampires
- Exit all original complementary spells: we need disruption, direct damage, and removal, at instant speed, maximum consistency, and lowest CMC
- Adjust manabase accordingly
New creature base:
-
Pulse Tracker
stays; it looks just about the most efficient black 1-drop vampire; it deals 1 damage just by being declared as an attacker, regardless of combat results.
- Enter Gatekeeper of Malakir, due to overwhelming advice. Yes it is a vanilla 2-drop vampire, but in turn 3 it can kill an early Tarmogoyf with its kicker ability! It is a normal 2-drop but with built-in removal.
-
Stromkirk Captain
and Vampire Nighthawk remain, of course; they are staples.
- Bloodline Keeper
stays, in case the game lags until he can start producing 1 token per turn (which hopefully land as 3/3 first strikers thanks to the Captain, and can be turned 5/4 flying first strikers with the Nocturnus, or which can become 4/3 flyers with the Nocturnus); he can easily land as a 4/4 flyer first striker with a Captain in play.
- Vampire Nocturnus, the walking near-automatic Blade of the Bloodchief.
Let's say 4,4,4,4,3-4,3-4: 22-24 creatures.
Now, other spells:
Direct Damage:
The loss of Red implies no Lightning Bolt, Lightning Strike, Lava Spike, or Flame Slash, among a myriad of other "sparks". The best way to compensate for this, I think, is to pack a maximum amount of disruption: Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress, and also Blackmail, Despise, Blightning, or Rakdos's Return
Let's say Thoughtseize.
Now, removal. Another myriad possibilities:
- To take advantage from the critter theme:
Pack's Disdain
- To make -x/-x: Tragic Slip, Disfigure,
Bile Blight
,
Last Gasp
,
Sudden Death
, Dismember, Profane Command,
Urge to Feed
- To make the opponent sac a critter:
Devour Flesh
,
Geth's Verdict
,
Tribute to Hunger
,
Cruel Edict
, Chainer's Edict
- To destroy critters: -- Without limitation (aside of hexproof or shroud): Terminate,
Murder
, Hero's Downfall, Dreadbore;
Flesh Allergy
,
Launch Party
,
Sip of Hemlock
, Feast of Blood-- With limitations:
Terror
, Shriekmaw,
Dark Banishing
,
Dark Betrayal
,
Doom Blade
,
Death Bomb
, Slaughter Pact,
Agonizing Demise
,
Go for the Throat
, Ultimate Price, Smother,
Eyeblight's Ending
,
Nameless Inversion
,
Hideous End
-- Board wipers: Damnation, Black Sun's Zenith, Mutilate, Sickening Dreams,
Spontaneous Combustion
, Death Cloud
Let's preselect Dismember or Feast of Blood or
Geth's Verdict
Now, direct damage. Because we want to pressure our opponent and either wipe the board clean for our creatures to swing, and/or damage the opponent.
A surprising big amount of spells without red:
- as per number mana invested:
Tendrils of Corruption
,
Corrupt
, Consume Spirit, Drain Life
- damage player only:
Breath of Malfegor
, Blightning,
Kiss of Death
,
Poison the Well
,
Rite of Consumption
,
Shadow Slice
,
Skull Rend
,
Syphon Soul
,
Taste of Blood
,
Thought Hemorrhage
, Toil / Trouble,
Traitor's Roar
,
Undercity Plague
- damage creatures only:
Bituminous Blast
,
Corpse Lunge
,
Dead Reckoning
,
Douse in Gloom
, Fire Covenant,
Kiku's Shadow
,
Last Kiss
,
Midnight Charm
,
Pharika's Cure
,
Ribbons of Night
,
Sorin's Thirst
,
Sorin's Vengeance
,
Soul Shred
,
Spinning Darkness
,
Swallowing Plague
,
Tendrils of Corruption
,
Twinstrike
,
Vicious Hunger
- damage either or both: Consume Spirit,
Covenant of Blood
,
Corrupt
,
Dry Spell
,
Essence Drain
, Evincar's Justice,
Famine
,
Morgue Burst
,
Soul Spike
,
Wail of the Nim
- opponent loss of life:
Absorb Vis
,
Blood Tithe
,
Blood Tribute
,
Bond of Agony
,
Bump in the Night
,
Burden of Greed
(Tech SB vs Affinity?),
Death Bomb
,
Death of a Thousand Stings
,
Despoil
,
Devouring Greed
, Essence Harvest, Exsanguinate,
Flesh Allergy
,
Geth's Verdict
,
Needlebite Trap
,
Phthisis
, Profane Command,
Shadow Slice
,
Sip of Hemlock
;
Soul Feast
,
Suffer the Past
(graveyard hate);
Syphon Life
Let's preselect 4x
Bump in the Night
Candidates are Thoughtseize, Dismember, Feast of Blood,
Geth's Verdict
,
Bump in the Night
... we do not have 20 slots for these spells, lest we leave only 16 lands in the deck; so let's readjust the overall strategy:
Early drops are essential, so let's leave 4x of all critters with CMC < 4; that makes 16. Let's keep 3x of Bloodline Keeper
and 3x Vampire Nocturnus because we want a fair chance of drawing one of each in every game, but possibly no more than that (this is Modern after all): 22 critters, mostly concentrated arounf 3 CMC. We can do safely with 22 lands as there are no pumping spells (but THERE ARE mana dumpers: I may flip the keeper as many times as necessary for B each time, regardless of it being tapped).
That leaves room for 16 non-creature spells.
4x Thoughtseize (proxied by Duress for a long time for budgetary reasons) is a keeper. Destroy opponent strategy by discarding a combo-piece, or a removal spell, or whatever.
Now, it would be nice to find among the exhaustive listings of direct damage and removal spells some cheap spells which would do more than one thing (removal + life loss, removal + disruption).... they exist, but the drawback is immense: they come at sorcery speed :<
Let's say
Geth's Verdict
: it dodges hexproof AND indestructibility, and pings for an extra life point, AND at instant speed.
For the remaining 8 slots, I am tempted to include Feast of Blood because it should be easy to have 2 vampires by turn 3-4 (I want to be pressuring the opponent from the very beginning and emptying my hand, not keeping spells), and the lifegaining effect is great against aggro decks, eg burn.
And speaking of red sparks, there actually is a black Lava Spike!
Bump in the Night
, which has also red flashback!!This looks promising, since I could recast an early
Bump in the Night
from the graveyard with just a red mana which should be available from the beginning for
Stromkirk Captain
; it can also act as a pumping spell, needing 6 CMC for recasting...
So, it looks we have 16 slots... Except I really want to include Blightning, which is like an imprinted Lightning Bolt over a
Hymn to Tourach
, and cheaper than a Rakdos's Return for X=1 which would yield 1 discard and 1 damage!!
There's no room for all of them... well, let's just pack 3x instead of 4x ! (
Bump in the Night
has flashback, so we probably shouldn't be packing 4x).
We get therefore:
As regards the mana base:
We want to cast red cards (gold cards) whenever I have to, so let's pack 4x Sulfurous Springs and 4x Dragonskull Summit on top of many swamps and maybe some mountains. Except...we have 22 colorless land cards in the deck which broadly means a 36% probability of revealing a land (ie a non-black card) in the library when playing the Vampire Nocturnus, or roughly that one in every 3 turns the Nocturnus will not boost itelf and its peers. Is there a way of extracting lands from a deck? Sure: fetchlands. The "thinning the deck effect" is known to be actually much less than what would appear at first glance, but there's no doubt that if I can extract a land from the deck, I am diminishing the probability of revealing a land in the next turns. AND furthermore, I can crack the fetch after seeing if there is a land on top of the deck, so I can shuffle the library and (very slightly but still a little bit, due to the shuffling) increase the probability of not drawing a land afterwards (Bayes theorem, I think).
All this would mean packing 8x Black/Red fetchlands. As Bloodstained Mire is not modern-legal, that will have to be Verdant Catacombs (which I also need for another deck) and maybe Steam Vents. Both Fetchlands can search for
Blood Crypt
. The rest of the land can be Swamps, Mountains, and maybe some copies of Dragonskull Summit or Graven Cairns.
Some copies of Tectonic Edge could also be mainboard, to destroy opponent manlands, and freeing SB slots; but the deck needs quite a lot of black mana...
And finally, it would be great to have some extra spells to draw cards, to avoid stalling, and perhaps more importantly, to overcome the Nocturnus conditional or increase the chance of doing so. I think a couple of Sign in Blood would fit nice. There's also its uncommon version, Night's Whisper, easier to cast in a two-color deck. We could also consider
Scarscale Ritual
with no lifeping, but in the new list the deck has no permanent way of pumping my creatures with counters (like the Blade of the Bloodchief) and no creatures pumping themselves with counters like
Stromkirk Noble
, so it looks a priori less consistent than the Night's Whisper. To make room for those 2 card drawers, we can ban the 4th copy of the
Pulse Tracker
(although it is cannon fodder for the Vampire Nocturnus and also to flip the Bloodline Keeper
, but the 4th Gatekeeper can be that also without its kicker and should be more resilient after the first turns) and possibly the 3rd copy of Blightning or the 3rd copy of
Bump in the Night
(due to its flashback).
This is the final (for now) listing:
21 Crits:
17 other spells:
22 lands:
The name of the deck comes from Tim Powers' novel The stress of her regard, which I recommend to anyone whishing to read a serious fantasy novel; it depicts plausible, mythological, serious non-despicable vampires, similar to lamiae, and described by a character as a mix of a jewelled snake and a statue of the most beatiful woman. As the MTG vampire cards illutrations point to gothic human-like vampires, which I don't like, I looked for the closest thing to Tim Power's book description (Pharika's Mender or Pharika itself). However, as this would shock the reader, in the end I left good old Vampire Nighthawk as flagbearer...
Please feel free to make any suggestions, thoughts, SB and MB ideas, whatever. Thanks in advance!
