[SCD] Vampiric Rites

[wcm8]

Vampiric Rites
B
Enchantment
1B, Sacrifice a creature: You gain 1 life and draw a card.
For vampires, blood carries more than life. Memories long eroded from the minds of bloodchiefs can be reclaimed from the veins of their sired kin.
Battle for Zendikar - Uncommon

This is a card that was mostly ignored entirely during spoiler season in favor of Retreat to Coralhelm. Vampiric Rites is a slow draw engine that doesn't typically pay off immediately, so I can see why many may have dismissed it initially.

However, consider its applications with the following:
Lingering Souls
Bitterblossom
Timely Reinforcements
Young Pyromancer, Monastery Mentor
Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek
Zombie Infestation
Reassembling Skeleton
Green Fetchland + Dryad Arbor (+ Life from the Loam)
Gravecrawler + Zombie on the field
Bloodghast + land drops
Grim Haruspex
Ornithopter, Memnite, other 0-mana creatures
[any creature] + response to opponent's removal//lethal block
activate this in response to a trigger from a creature such as Tidehollow Sculler for permanent removal

This card seems tailor-fit for Zombardment.dec. I suppose it could also be utilized in a Mono(or mostly mono)-Black deck like The Gate in tandem with Bitterblossom and/or as an additional sac-outlet for Abyssal Persecutor. Another application might be in some sort of Esper build, that runs some sort of token generator (e.g. Lingering Souls, Thopter Foundry, Monastery Mentor, etc.), and Gitaxian Probe/Cabal Therapy. A Grixis deck utilizing Young Pyromancer could obviously take advantage of it in a similar fashion.

I realize that this card doesn't seem all that exciting at first glance, as it does literally nothing on its own and typically requires a fair amount of setup. But the ability is certainly powerful and can be utilized during the course of a normal game of Magic without having to do a ton of planning. Drawing just one card essentially breaks even with the initial investment (assuming the sacrificed creature wasn't 'worth' a card itself and/or was getting killed anyways), and drawing 2-3 is often enough to set you extremely far ahead. Additional copies beyond the first can be pitched to Faithless Looting or Liliana of the Veil. The most obvious play is sacrificing a creature in response to it being killed by the opponent, e.g. activation in response to a Swords to Plowshares, or activation after blocking an opponent's Batterskull with a token -- not only is their creature blocked, but they don't get the benefit of the life gain and you drew a card. This card could really help out against UWr Miracles and other midrange strategies, essentially negating their removal and perhaps being especially good if you are sacrificing a creature that returns from the grave (e.g. Bloodghast).

The life gain portion shouldn't be completely ignored. Cards like Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Painful Truths, Toxic Deluge, multiple fetchland activations and Bitterblossom can become painful over the course of a game, so being able to recoup the damage matters.

Blue still has a monopoly on cheap/efficient card draw/selection, but it does seem like WotC is at least trying to introduce some methods of card draw to the other colors. The problem of course remains that these sort of cards require some hoops to jump through. But with this card at least, the conditions aren't too difficult to meet and the long-term payoff is quite powerful. The biggest downside of course is the 1B activation cost which severely limits how many times you can activate this per turn, but if it were only B or free it would be too easily abusable.

[Echelon]

It's mostly skipped due to being incredibly mana hungry for legacy standards. You do not only have to pay 2 mana to sacrifice a creature, you also have to pay the mana to actually cast that creature before you can sacrifice it (preferably while keeping open mana to pay for Daze or to mess with something your opponent does). And don't forget the opportunity cost of having to keep 2 mana open at all times, in case your opponent wants to kill your creature the turn you cast it. With Vampiric Rites you basically turn a 1-drop into a 3-drop with an upkeep cost of 1B.

Why run Vampiric Rites when you can run Sylvan Library/Dark Confidant (or Wirewood Symbiote + Elvish Visionary and a bunch of dorks + Glimpse of Nature) in a format plagued by Wasteland and the occasional Stifle..? Pay 2 mana and just enjoy the benefits, without any further opportunity costs. As for lifegain - Deathrite Shaman and Scavenging Ooze are also cards. And when looking at decks that actually utilize lifegain, Courser of Kruphix, Siege Rhino, Thragtusk and Dragonlord Dromoka are other viable options.

Life is a resource to be used, the biggest restriction one has is available mana.

Also, if it were free to activate it, it'd probably be banned. Skullclamp, anyone..?

[ESG]

One life for one creature is a terrible trade, so let’s ignore the life-gain part. The relevant part of this card is drawing, and that costs 1B each time and works only if you have a creature to sac, which is pretty bad. If you don't have a creature, you get nothing. In order to abuse this card, you would have to have a boatload of mana and creatures that suck on their own (maybe something like Eldrazi Spawn tokens). In the examples you cited, you would be better off just to kill your opponent with your creature tokens. Also, Miracles more often plays Rest in Peace these days, so don’t count on abusing the graveyard.

You mentioned Painful Truths above, and it’s way, way better. Just play that card instead.

[wcm8]

One life for one creature is a terrible trade, so let’s ignore the life-gain part. The relevant part of this card is drawing, and that costs 1B each time and works only if you have a creature to sac, which is pretty bad. If you don't have a creature, you get nothing. In order to abuse this card, you would have to have a boatload of mana and creatures that suck on their own (maybe something like Eldrazi Spawn tokens). In the examples you cited, you would be better off just to kill your opponent with your creature tokens. Also, Miracles more often plays Rest in Peace these days, so don’t count on abusing the graveyard.

You mentioned Painful Truths above, and it’s way, way better. Just play that card instead.

The Zombardment deck is what I was specifically referencing as a potential home for this card in Legacy. That deck lacks card draw aside from running Dark Confidant, Faithless Looting, and/or potentially Painful Truths. The creatures in that deck include Bloodghast and Gravecrawler, both of which come back from the graveyard quite easily. That is why the deck is able to abuse stuff like Cabal Therapy, Goblin Bombardment, Tragic Slip and Carrion Feeder. The philosophy of that deck is using cards that are individually weak, but become quite formidable in combination with other elements.


I also figured that Mono-Black 'The Gate' could utilize this as a method of card draw/sac outlet in combination with Bitterblossom and Abyssal Persecutor.

The card simply may be too slow for Legacy, but a pseudo-Skullclamp (even 'fixed' with only drawing 1 card and requiring 1B per activation) could be useful in a less-powerful format like Modern.

And hey, maybe it's not worth running multiple copies. Sylvan Library is often only run as a singleton (perhaps a second in the board for grindy matchups), but it makes a huge impact when it resolves. That's what I'm sort of envisioning with this card -- but only in the right context.

[tescrin]

EDIT: I think in most cases, Evolutionary Leap is going to be better. Less mana to splooge your dude, more reliable card quality (in the type of deck who would use it.) But.. swapping the mana costs may be enough to make this a reasonable card. I'll note that Evolutionary Leap has been mildly played (on camera/successfully) in Elves. Can't say whether or not this will be. I'd prefer Leap against Miracles, athough being in Black and not in Green has it's own advantages as well.


I think people are forgetting that:
* Nullifying a kill spell is a +2 CA in this case, which may be reasonable. Against Miracles, this turns things like Bloodghast on because they can't terminus it or plow it.
* We leave mana up *all the time.* For bluffing. For kill spells. For counters. For SFM. For DRS. etc..
* This is a 1-drop, so fits easily into a deck
* No one is recommending as a 4-of

I think as a 2-of it's quite worthy of testing. It turns would-be-dead dudes into gas, and gives you a way to get rid of chaff that is no longer helpful. It can turn opposing Liliana Lockdowns into obnoxious issues for the opponent, where they have to -2 because of the creature, but you just sac it anyway and find your way into another threat.

I think I'll try it out in place of a library or something. Even someone wasting Jitte counters on your dudes and you spending mana to turn him into Cold-Hard-Cash seems fine. Rabblemaster token get's blocked? Kill it for profit. You have to chump an Angler/Goyf? Sac the dude. Also, turning off Life-Link is a thing. Block that GBrand with flyer and sac it for profit; and you draw a card instead of them being at another +7 cards.

[Echelon]

text

I'd say present us a list.

[jrsthethird]

Card is definitely good. Just competes in a spot that other cards have carved out for 20 years and it's really hard to find the right fit.

I'm stashing away any copies I come across for when it eventually breaks out in Modern.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

I was super hyped about Evolutionary Leap in Standard. Played a sweet bg deck with all the cip dudes like the land search Satyr and Elvish Visionary to get value from Leap and Sidisi. I started with 4 MD Leap, quickly cut down to 2, then moved them to the SB, then cut them entirely.

You dont "break even" with it. It does nothing on its own -1CA, and just exchange cards 0CA.
Your opponent will play around it if you want to doge removal. Also you cant doge, your creature will die anyway...
Most of the time you dont have mana/tempo/creatures to make this work and it sits there doing nothing.
And even if you want it to work its B+1B+sacrifice a creature: draw 1 gain 1. Thats not even limited playable.
Rarely you can grind out your opponents with it... ...in a format so slow everYbody hardcasts his Ugin!

So I understand why you like the card, its super interesting (and I lol played 4 MD). But it just doesn't do enough!

[wcm8]

I recently discovered a card that accomplishes a very similar thing, with the downside of costing you life per activation (instead of granting it like V. Rites):

Dark Prophecy
BBB
Enchantment
Whenever a creature you control dies, you draw a card and lose 1 life.
Rare - M14

I think this card might've had some discussion about it around the time it was first spoiled, but at 3 cmc it's less enticing for Legacy play despite its 'fire and forget' nature [i.e. zero mana cost of triggering the effect].

I might be wrong, but I think the effect stacks with multiple copies on the field -- so if you had 3 copies of D.Prophecy, you would draw 3 cards and lose 3 life if one of your creatures died. (Let me know if this isn't true, but I'm pretty sure that's correct. So this makes running multiple copies of the card alright, whereas multiple copies of V. Rites (or similar things such as Sylvan Library) are mostly useless. (And yes, I realize one could stack multiple Sylvan Libraries, but outside of EDH who has that much life to spare?))

I'm not sure if Dark Prophecy could see play in Modern. It has the 'quirk' of firing on your creatures dying, and not requiring a sacrifice like V. Rites -- so that's a bonus against removal from your opponent. In Modern though, the life loss might be pretty relevant.

The problem though is that it requires a sacrifice outlet to abuse the effect, whereas V. Rites has that aspect already built into it. So in a deck running something like Carrion Feeder, it's not a problem, but elsewhere it would require additional elements to abuse in tandem with token-generators (Bitterblossom, Lingering Souls, Thoper/Sword, etc.)

I just figured I would add this card to the discussion since I created this thread. None of these cards are anywhere quite near the power level of Skullclamp, though that card was obviously a huge mistake to print in the first place (seriously! who designed that card? did they not foresee its obvious abuse potential??) In any case, there's now quite a lot of precedent to show this sort of effect is part of Black's color pie identity, so perhaps one day we will see printed a new, playable, albeit toned-down version of Skullclamp that grants Black creature-centric decks a method of aggressively-costed repeatable card draw.

edit:

Back to Vampiric Rites. This is a fairly well-known procedure, but another potential method of abusing this card (and other similar sacrifice outlets) is to use cards that steal control of your opponent's creatures (even if it's only temporary, until end of turn) and then sacrifice them. A Legacy (and Modern)-playable method of achieving this is Vedalken Shackles, though there are plenty of other options as well. And given that the temporary-steal effect is squarely in Red's slice of the color pie, perhaps we will see a Red card printed in the future that can abuse cards that let you sacrifice creatures.

edit2: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...d-Of-Days.html for Legacy-related discussion on Dark Prophecy

edit3: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...he-End-Of-Days thread on the source related to afore-mentioned article, including discussion on D. Prophecy and related cards, including Fecundity

edit4: Thinking about Vampiric Rites again, I think the card is actually pretty good and would be an awesomely 'cute' singleton in a Grixis tempo list running 4 Young Pyromancer. It would be an easy way of converting unused mana at the end of turns into raw card advantage, and there are times when YP and his tokens get ground-stalled (against, say, a Tarmogoyf) and you simply need to dig for removal and/or bigger threats. It would be pretty amazing against slower decks like UWr Miracles, or even against some slower combo decks when you need to dig for more disruption. I like that Grixis has lately become a truly legitimate, 'real' option as a tempo deck (in comparison to RUG, BUG, and UWR) thanks to the printing of cards like Pyromancer, Kolaghan's Command, and Gurmag Angler. I also love that old tech like Terminate, Cabal Therapy and Fire Covenant are seeing play again after languishing in obscurity for quite a long while. Stuff like this is what makes Legacy such a great (and nostalgic) format.

[tescrin]

The only real reason I like this card or Evo Leap is to deal with the issue of creature decks stalling out against miracles or the occasional Token shenanigans. When they terminus, being able to recoup your cards before it lands is a thing. Any thoughts of using this as a combo should be avoided as best as you can :p.

I think it's best near Bitterblossom as a 1B: Draw a card engine, but I can't say it'll be good. Again, it seems that these cards are mostly a way to clear your garbage before a sweeper.


I'll mention that Dark Prophecy is garbage. Swords to Plowshares, RiP, and Terminus are all ever-present; as is Decay. BBB is basically impossible to pay as well.

[rufus]

...

edit4: Thinking about Vampiric Rites again, I think the card is actually pretty good and would be an awesomely 'cute' singleton in a Grixis tempo list running 4 Young Pyromancer. It would be an easy way of converting unused mana at the end of turns into raw card advantage, and there are times when YP and his tokens get ground-stalled (against, say, a Tarmogoyf) and you simply need to dig for removal and/or bigger threats. It would be pretty amazing against slower decks like UWr Miracles, or even against some slower combo decks when you need to dig for more disruption. I like that Grixis has lately become a truly legitimate, 'real' option as a tempo deck (in comparison to RUG, BUG, and UWR) thanks to the printing of cards like Pyromancer, Kolaghan's Command, and Gurmag Angler. I also love that old tech like Terminate, Cabal Therapy and Fire Covenant are seeing play again after languishing in obscurity for quite a long while. Stuff like this is what makes Legacy such a great (and nostalgic) format.

It's mana hungry and CA neutral, even in that scenario. Effectively a lose-more card.