Vampires v0.4, totally rebuilt. Feedback appreciated!

seedub · Joined: 10 Apr 2005 Posts: 12

def wouldnt run the vapors or doom blades due to fae and jund being the top 2 decks and generally finks and black creatures everywhere. also, hard to say what comes out of ur list without testing but vamps has some pretty good 1 drops that help put pressure on early and often in pulse tracker and vampire lacerator that could be worth fitting in, and demon of deaths gate seems pretty sweet there too. viscera seer has potential with highborn but prolly too marginal for ext, and highborn might not even be a 4-of in ext. nocturnus kinda hurts at 4 mana but is kinda too powerful to pass up. mutavault is an absolute must. just some thoughts

magicman85 · Joined: 22 Aug 2009 Posts: 552

I think the T2 BR Vamp is better than that... at least put in some pulse trackers. There is something called a mana curve and you have almost no 1 drops. It's like you are playing a control deck with crappy 3 mana cratures.

ck3gds · Joined: 21 Jun 2005 Posts: 998

As a source of reference I looked up the Vampires deck which placed second at the Irish National Championships 2010, which can be found here.

I wasn't sure if simply "upgrading" the cards would work, so I hope to get some feedback for this too. Smile

Kookie_Mnstr · Joined: 09 Feb 2010 Posts: 85

i played vampires during zendikar/reborn. crypt of agadeem BLOWS in vampire lists. trade it out for mutavaults. not only does it slow you down but the ability does pretty much nothing for you.

-2 highborn -1nighthawk +4 pulse tracker (tracker helped me to put the hurt on them early game)

3 - blood seeker in the SB (fae would just love to walk into this one Wink

i've never been too hot on captivating vampire. i chose to run 2 mainboard bloodwitches in it's stead.

just some advice from my experience

ck3gds · Joined: 21 Jun 2005 Posts: 998

I think Blood Seeker is an absolute house against most of the creature decks out there, so much so that I feel like I want to MD it. Possible?

Raybelfast · Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 129

Hi guys,

Simon Carmichael is an awesome vampires player. he has been playing that deck since they were spoiled. The build he had was very optimum as it was T2 at the time of that tournament.

Viscera seer and bloodghast with noctournus seems like a must.
i suppose you could fit infest into the board for elves.

Contaminated ground was just devestation on some of the decks that were around but im not sure how it would fit in current EXT.

As for current extended there just seems like a room for some one drops. also highborn, viscera seer and ghast i think would be an auto include.

Captivating vampire is just another 3 drop. but it pumps your guys and sometimes u can nick a big threat, again probably a meta choice at the time.. other than that only way to tell is testing. Ill give it a go myself see what i come up with for EXT and drop a decklist in when i get a good couple of games in.

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 1671

you need 1 drop vampires or else you will not be able to race any deck

ck3gds · Joined: 21 Jun 2005 Posts: 998

Noted. I've rebuilt my deck from scratch following the principles laid out by Michael Jacob (article can be found here)

I chose to build my deck around Vampire Nocturnus, easy 4-of.

4 Vampire Nocturnus

Most of the time I'm the beatdown, and this means I need lots of Vampires. A tentative list of cards I might want:

Pulse Tracker
Vampire Lacerator
Viscera Seer
Bloodghast
Blood Seeker
Kalastria Highborn
Vampire Hexmage
Gatekeeper of Malakir
Captivating Vampire
Arrogant Bloodlord
Vampire Nighthawk
Malakir Bloodwitch
Sangromancer

Throwing in the cards I want for sure:

4 Pulse Tracker
3 Vampire Lacerator
4 Bloodghast
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Nighthawk

Identify possible synergies...

2 Kalastria Highborn
2 Viscera Seer

At this point, I have 26 creatures. My plan is to run 23 lands and 37 spells, possibly around 30 creatures and the rest being removal/disruption. It's possible that I might tweak this ratio as testing reveals more.

For now I'm definitely running the full set of Thoughtseize as disruption, which leaves me with some slots to play with. My current plan is:

4 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Liliana Vess
1 Dead Reckoning (this card has immense synergy with Vampire Nocturnus IMO, but I'm not sold on it yet, so I've included a miser's copy to test)

For the remaining four creatures, I'm trying out

1 Arrogant Bloodlord
1 Bloodseeker
1 Captivating Vampire
1 Vampire Hexmage

Final list:

VAMPIRES v0.1

15 Swamp
4 Marsh Flats
4 Mutavault

4 Vampire Nocturnus
4 Pulse Tracker
3 Vampire Lacerator
4 Bloodghast
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Kalastria Highborn
2 Viscera Seer
1 Arrogant Bloodlord
1 Bloodseeker
1 Captivating Vampire
1 Vampire Hexmage

4 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Liliana Vess
1 Dead Reckoning

Numbers will be tweaked as testing progresses. Sideboard will be included when I come up with v1.0 for this deck Smile

Raybelfast · Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 129

Messing around with this list below. no board as yet

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)
// NAME: Vamps for EXT

// Lands
14 [M10] Swamp (4)
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [ZEN] Marsh Flats

// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 [M11] Viscera Seer
2 [WWK] Pulse Tracker
3 [WWK] Kalastria Highborn
4 [M10] Vampire Nocturnus
4 [ZEN] Vampire Lacerator
2 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast

// Spells
3 [M11] Dark Tutelage
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [ROE] Inquisition of Kozilek

Bob_A_Wilson · Joined: 25 Mar 2010 Posts: 241

I've been running this with some great results. It's maindeck is tweaked towards anti-control, with everyone and their mom running Jace on M-L. SB options include 4 slots for anti-aggro (Doom Blade), 4 slots for anti-weenie (Inquisition), 7 slots for anti-valakut and eldrazi-ramp (Contaminated Ground and Sadistic Sacrilege).

20 [M11] Swamp (3)

4 [ZEN] Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 [WWK] Pulse Tracker
4 [WWK] Kalastria Highborn
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
4 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
4 [M11] Viscera Seer
4 [ZEN] Vampire Lacerator

4 [ZEN] Feast of Blood
4 [M11] Sign in Blood
4 [M11] Duress

SB: 4 [ROE] Contaminated Ground
SB: 3 [ZEN] Sadistic Sacrament
SB: 4 [ROE] Inquisition of Kozilek
SB: 4 [M11] Doom Blade

So yeah, no Blades. That card is so broken, but in this meta, just not worth running. You can blame that on Jace.

Playtesting
vs Three-Color Jace Control (2-0 Win): didn't need to sb anything at all for f2
vs GW Fauna-Quest (2-0 Win): -4 Duress, -4 Sign in Blood, +4 Doom Blade, +4 Inquisition

ck3gds · Joined: 21 Jun 2005 Posts: 998

@HailEris No Nocturnus? Thoughtseize?

Your deck-list looks Standard to me...you do realize we're talking about Extended here, right? Cool

Bob_A_Wilson · Joined: 25 Mar 2010 Posts: 241

Yup, got 4x Thoughtsieze sb for games where duress isn't that great. It's just that the 2 damage hurts.

ck3gds · Joined: 21 Jun 2005 Posts: 998

Raybelfast · Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 129

leechridden swamp is useless