Comments on: Can Vampires Compete in the Current Standard?

By: MagicSteve

MagicSteve — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:58:58 +0000

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.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:44:28 +0000

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.

By: Samuel Blitch

Samuel Blitch — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:35:26 +0000

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.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:23:30 +0000

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.

By: Samuel Blitch

Samuel Blitch — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:36:05 +0000

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.

By: Myrix

Myrix — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:19:45 +0000

“No” would’ve saved us all 10 minutes.

By: Samuel Blitch

Samuel Blitch — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:25:41 +0000

In my last post with my decklist, that should have only 1 vampire’s bite and 1 eldrazi monument.

By: Samuel Blitch

Samuel Blitch — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:51:22 +0000

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

By: Mtgxman

Mtgxman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:48:20 +0000

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.

By: Samuel Blitch

Samuel Blitch — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:35:35 +0000

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.