Magic the Gathering
destination for articles, podcasts, news and more!
 |
 |
Constructed
Can Vampires Compete in the Current Standard?
The Vampire deck has been hyped ever since the spoilers for Zendikar were released. It is easy to see why since the deck finally establishes vampires as a coherent tribe by giving players quick and efficient creatures. Yet, is the deck competitive enough to stand up against Jund, mono-red, or any control deck? In my opinion, the answer is no. The vampire deck has a good curve and a good creature, but it lacks the versatility, disruption, and the ability to create card advantage that other decks offer. Additionally, the vampire tribe tends to have a difficult time against sweepers like Volcanic Fallout or Jund Charm because of their lackluster toughness. All of this combined with a situational lord in Vampire Nocturnus means that the vampire deck looks flashy, but just cannot compete in the current metagame. Even so, Vampires remain a popular deck choice. With the releases of each new set, the vampire tribe may very well become the best deck in standard. I will analyze the problems of the vampire deck and discuss the cards it needs to become more efficient. An example of what a standard legal and competitive vampire deck looks like is listed at the end of the article.
When you take a look at the vampire deck you might notice that it suffers from identity confusion. It desperately wants to be an agro deck, but it is better geared towards being a midrange deck because of cards like Malakir Bloodwitch, Vampire Nocturnus, Mind Sludge, Sorin Markov, and Tendrils of Corruption. Yet, the deck also runs cards like Vampire Lacerator and Bloodghast which promotes winning as quickly as possible. This is a contradiction. If the goal of a vampire deck is to drop the opponent’s life to ten or below as quickly as possible, then running a bunch of cards with a converted mana cost of four or greater will slow the deck down significantly. I would not want to run vampires without using a full play set of Vampire Nocturnus and a couple of Malakir Bloodwitch for the simple fact that these cards offer a huge incentive for running the tribe. Of course, I would never think to remove Vampire Lacerator or Bloodghast either. Also, I cannot understand why Tendrils of Corruption is so heavily favored over the cheaper Doom Blade or why Sorin Markov sees play over Lillianna Vess.
The vampire deck also suffers from an inability to create as much card advantage and board advantage as other decks. The only cards that supply hand advantage are Sign in Blood and Mind Sludge. Sign in Blood is a good card, but the vampire deck already has to sacrifice a large amount of life for Vampire Lacerator and the fetch lands. Mind Sludge is extremely useful against combo decks and control decks not playing Swerve, but is simply much less effective against other aggro decks. In terms of creating card advantage, Jund is far out in front with Blightning and Jund Charm.
The vampire deck does have an excellent ability to control creatures. Gatekeeper of Malakir, Disfigure, Tendrils of Corruption, and Vampire Nighthawk will keep your opponent’s creatures in check. Marsh Casualties can also be brought out of the sideboard to sweep when needed. However, once again, Jund provides greater board presence with Sprouting Thrinax, Broodmate Dragon, and Cascade cards. Even the new goblin deck that is popping up can create massive board advantage with Warren Instigator and Siege-gang Commander. Also, black struggles to deal with artifacts and enchantments which could be a serious problem. Furthermore, vampires can be easily swept by a simple Pyroclasm. Bloodghast can recur, but you are still left with a 2/1 with the inability to block and situational haste. Vampire Nocturnus can usually survive a sweep and will prevent your other vampires from falling prey to a sweep, but only when its ability is active. Otherwise, it will fall to a simple Lightning Bolt.
Another problem with the vampire deck is its inability to splash for another color. This gives it a lack of versatility that other decks have. I have seen vampire decks try to splash red or green to try to fix this problem, but this is difficult because cards in a vampire deck force a heavy black commitment. Most vampire cards have two or three black mana symbols in their casting cost and vampire Nocturnus needs black cards on the top of the deck. Also, running anything other than Swamps reduces the potency of Tendrils of Corruption and Mind Sludge. The vampire deck simply does not offer the kind of options that a simple Jund Charm does. This makes it predictable and easy to handle.
The vampire deck does have potential and I am sure that Worldwake will provide the deck with much more options. Vampires really only need a couple of more cards and options to be truly competitive. Reprinting Bad Moon would definitely put vampires over the top, but that card will never be reprinted because universal creature pump is a white ability now. I would settle for a more consistent lord in the two drop or three drop slot, but I doubt that the vampire deck will get multiple lords so soon.
It would be nice to see Dash Hopes or a similar card that counters spells unless your opponent pays life. This would fit well into with the vampire’s theme of reducing your opponent’s life as quickly as possible while also adding some much needed control to the deck. A black counter spell would also offer a black deck an answer to artifacts and enchantments.
However, what a vampire deck really needs is a powerful way to accelerate mana. There is no chance that Dark Ritual will get reprinted, but perhaps a card like Cabal Coffers could bridge the gap between the early game and the midgame. Crypt of Agadeem is a possible option, but I do not like the fact that its ability is based on the number of creatures in your graveyard. It is way easier to hit land drops, especially in a set with a landfall mechanic.
If Vampire decks receive some of the above support then they very well could become the deck to beat. This is certainly possible once Jund decks rotate out of standard. Only time will tell if these creatures of the night will cast a large enough shadow on the metagame to make a serious impact. Now here is an example of a competitive vampire deck in the current standard environment:
Subscribe to our Feed
You should Follow us!
Be our fan on FB
Recently on ManaNation.com
- Ding Leong wins GP Kuala Lumpur with Mono-Red
- James Bush wins SCG Open Indy Standard
- High Res art for FNM Bloodbraid Elf
- Upper Deck Entertainment Bites the Dust
- This Week in Magic for 6 Mar. — 12 Mar.
- Cost to Print Cards increasing
- Roon’s Tales — Planeswalker’s Spark
- New Magic application — ‘Learn to Play’
- Duels of the Planeswalkers Expansion #2
- XMTG — 10 Places Not to Play Magic
Poll
MTG
Partners
webcomic
Being a pioneer of the Vampire deck myself, I look at your decklist and think about my own. First off, I run a similar land base except with 6 fetches and 18 swamp, but that’s just me. The main thing comes from some of your card choices. First, Lacerator is just depressing. If you’re winning, then you don’t need the lacerators as your bloodghasts / nighthawks are swinging in, probably pumped by nocturnus. 3 hexmages with 1 in sideboard is the standard now because it assassinates planeswalkers and stops most if not all of jund’s advance with kills to everything except the landfall guys. 4 nighthawks in main deck are great because they can easily put you out of bushwhacker range and begin a small decimation of jund.
One card that I’ve been running two off but haven’t seen anywhere else, which kind of makes me happy, is Sadistic Sacrament. Versus Jund, you remove, in my opinion, all of their blightnings. Versus Boros, kill the rangers, since you can hold the board pretty well if you’re running the loldiculous amount of creature removal that you should be running.
Another card that I seem to be running solely and any time I play it I end up winning with is Vampire’s Bite. The +3/+0 makes a life threat out of any creature that you play on turn 2. Even better is throwing it turn four on Nighthawk to generate a 10 point life swing. And best case scenario is that you survive to turn 6, have bloodwitch on the field, and kick it for a 14 point life swing. It’s extremely dangerous, and very few people tend to run the card which costs, at the very least, 1 mana to do incredible things.
There are some other little tweaks I would make in and around your version of vampires, but that’s from personal preference and my judge of the metagame. For example, you have no idea how fun it is to kill a pumped steppe lynx because you disfigure it so nighthawk can safely eliminate it, because of this I run 3 disfigures with 1 sideboard. Disfigure is also great against the mirror, which is why three is always safe. Marsh casualties is also good but only with 2 copies. Tendrils only packs 2 copies, since against most decks, especially since you’re packing lacerators, you want to remove creatures quickly and efficiently in order to get your opponent below 10 asap.
I also run 1 consume spirit in the sideboard, because if games are running long, one consume spirit can mean game over for your opponent.
My 2 cents.
I can’t give you as much feedback on Vamp’s as Sam did.
His analysis sounds very good and I would take his advice.
I do have a soft spot for Nighthawk. Not only is it a GREAT Card it was spoiled right here at Mananation so it is kinda of “our” card. Should be 4 of Main in any vamp deck.
Good article though. Enjoyed the read.
I’ll type up my decklist so the comparison can be made. Keep in mind some cards are being replaced due to budget (terramorphic expanse), but this is how it is right now and running great.
Main Deck
4 Bloodghast
3 Hexmage
4 Gatekeeper
4 Nighthawk
4 Nocturnus
3 Bloodwitch
4 Sign in Blood
3 Disfigure
2 Sadistic Sacrament
2 Tendrils
2 Vampire’s Bite
2 Mind Sludge
4 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Verdant Catacombs (Which never seems to turn up EVER!)
18 Swamp
60 Cards
Sideboard
2 Mindsludge
3 Duress
1 Hexmage
1 Liliana
1 Disfigure
2 Soul Stair
2 Marsh Casualties
2 Doom Blades
1 Consume Spirit
15 Cards
This deck is, in my opinion, the best counter a vampire deck can be against everything in the current meta-game. It trounces Bushwhacker on a regular basis and I can remember quite a few times I’ve beaten Jund with this as well, just due to the fact that in some cases I can pump out 10 damage sometimes by the time they have a thrinax up, and by that time I have at least one flier to take care of the rest out.
The only thing I don’t like about vampires is that it doesn’t have many blockers. If they get thrinax out, I have to race it, I can’t block it. This is fine if I have nighthawk out, but sucks when I don’t because everything that can possibly block it kills it. My solution against jund is to sideboard in the duresses and the marsh casualties, taking out things such as sacrament, and killing the thrinaxes as soon as they come out, letting them make their tokens. The tokens can be handled easily, the 3/3 can not.
Game one vs. Jund, you try to eliminate all of their bit blasts, these are the only real threats, since you will be playing anything you draw or can anyways so you rarely have a hand for blightning to get you.
Again, my 2 cents
In my last post with my decklist, that should have only 1 vampire’s bite and 1 eldrazi monument.
“No” would’ve saved us all 10 minutes.
But that’s the thing, they are, and by posting his reasoning I can sit here and refute it all day long like the vampire fanboy that I am.
I can do nothing but agree with Samuel.
I personally really like the vampire deck a lot. I’ve been playing several builds and it can be a very versatile deck.
I’ve been doing quite good overal also, so I think that although it might not be the most powerful deck in the current standard it can compete for sure!
I’m running Samuel’s build as a test atm and it ranks among my best! Kudo’s to you for a great deck list.
The cruel tech is the bites and the sacraments, being able to go through an opponent’s deck and tell him to remove his three best cards is devastating for them, especially against jund when you’re removing blightning.
I’ve played some games with the sacraments and bites, but I have to say I wasn’t to impressed with the sacraments.
I usually draw only one per game and it’s hardly enough to really do damage.
It worked great once against a Pyromancer Ascension deck when I removed three ascensions, tho ;) But beside that time I never found it game changing.
I like the idea bites, but since they’re a bit ‘fire and forget’ I’ve replaced them with trusty machete’s, which I find work very well indeed. Especially since they take your Nighthawk’s out of lightning bolt range.
Just some more idea’s to play with.
Funny how no one mentions “Feast of Blood.” Two mana to kill any creature without Pro-Black and you gain 4 life. The only time after turn 2 that it doesn’t work is if you let your creatures get killed or someone sweeps the board.