You may remember a while ago, I was determinedly tweaking my black/white mana vampire deck to combat my son’s all-blue, Jace-led, mostly-merfolk Magic the Gathering deck. I’ve since modified my deck three more times with varying degrees of success. However, the most recent version seems to have made the most significant impact.
Vampires, the next generation.
Creature (29)
- 2 Captivating Vampire
- 2 Drana’s Emissary
- 2 Gifted Aetherborn
- 2 Inspiring Cleric
- 2 Martyr of Dusk
- 2 Paladin of the Bloodstained
- 2 Tithe Drinker
- 2 Vampire Cutthroat
- 2 Vampire Neonate
- 1 Blood Artist
- 1 Blood Seeker
- 1 Bloodrite Invoker
- 1 Bishop of the Bloodstained
- 1 Drana, Kalastria Blood Chief
- 1 Elenda, the Dusk Rose
- 1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
- 1 Legion Lieutenant
- 1 Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
- 1 Skymarch Bloodletter
- 1 Vampire Nocturnus
Enchantment (1)
- 1 Legion’s Landing
Sorcery (2)
- 2 Call to the Feast
Instant (2)
- 1 Moment of Craving
- 1 Moment of Triumph
Land (25)
- 9 Swamp
- 4 Forsaken Sanctuary
- 4 Kabira Crossroads
- 4 Piranha Marsh
- 4 Scoured Barrens
Planeswalker (1)
- 1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Even vampires don’t always get it right on the first try.
Really, one of the simplest changes came out of a very simple observation made by my ten-year-old. Despite fielding a semi-spammy low-mana deck, I found that the luck of the draw left me land-starved more often than not. My son’s very astute suggestion of increasing my land-to-other-card ratio was probably one of the most beneficial changes I made.
The other change that seemed to have significant impact was doubling down on lifelink, “gain 1 life,” “lose 1 life,” and “create a 1/1 [token]” cards while eliminating most others. As a result, I’m constantly gaining a life here and there while my opponent loses a life just as frequently. I suspect this makes my deck super-annoying to play against which makes it even more appealing to me.
Up next? Figuring out a sideboard.
Then? Tweaking my five-mana, no-creature deck!
Vampire notes!
I always like it when things match and coordinate, so I’ve since tricked out my deck with some accessories that I thought I’d share:
- I picked up an Ultra Pro Black Satin Tower Deck Box because it’s black, it has a storage compartment for dice and tokens, and it holds a bunch of sleeved cards.
- Speaking of sleeves, I decided to go cheap with my first foray into protecting my cards. I went with Premium Black Double Matte Deck Guard Sleeve Protectors by BCW.
- For tokens, I went with a buttload of small d6s. I liked the Chessex 12mm Smoke with Red Translucent and the Chessex 12mm Marble Ivory with Black.
- To keep things organized in the deck box, I picked up a pack of Black Ultimate Guard Card Dividers.
- I’ve also created a bunch of custom 1/1 white and black vampire tokens with lifelink that I’ll blog up another day.
