a quest to make vamps viable in legacy.

[Vastros]

I love tribal. I love black. With all the love from Innistrad, and Nocturnus comming back I decided to try and make a viable vampire tribal deck.

I wanted to keep the deck mono black. It keeps costs down, and it makes us immune to all of the non-basic hate. Just like Merfolk, Lord stacking with minor control elements do alot more than people want to admit. So heres the break down

Creatures:
4x Vampire Nocturnus
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Kalastria Highborn
4x Captivating Vampire
4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Bloodline Keeper

12 lords may not be as much, but they are solid. Nocturnus can immediately flip things around, more than most lords. Captivating Vampire can take care of enemy creatures that become problems. I love the synergy between Captivating and Keeper. Keeper pops out more vamps making him closer to lord status and captivating's creature steal.

Highborn is great "burn", Gatekeeper is gate keeper and Night hawk is just solid.

Spells
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Dismember

Early discard in hymn/inquisition are fantastic. Flat out. And dismember is a pimp.

Artifacts
2x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Æther Vial

Does anything here need to be described?
Land
20x Swamp




alright well thoughts are appreciated =)

[(nameless one)]

If you're gonna run mono-black, go for Wastelands. If you're scared of getting color screwed, use Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Also, Cavern of Souls to get around blue.

Fetchlands would be good to help power Nocturnus (or SDT)

Fetchlands also help recur Bloodghasts which conviently is a Vampire.

[Burnt-toast]

I would have to say drop x4 captivating vampire and x4 bloodline keeper and add x4bloodghast ad x4viscera seer to add in synergy with highborn and nocturnis. They also run well together with fetch lands to help you find the card you need at that moment AND Keep nocturnis active.

I also like thoughtseize over inquisition becaus it will take away everything you don't want your opponent will play.

I could also see adding 1-2 jitte with the Bloodghast and viscera seer package.

[Beatusnox]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?21386-The-Donner-Afterparty&highlight=Donner

The list on that thread if pre cavern of souls, but the rest of the package in there should be self explanatory.

[Thom]

Volrath's Stronghole : While Nocturnus is on the battlefield, this help make sure your top library's card is a black creature, if any in your graveyard first, and not a land.

[Loghead]

drop captivating and bloodline keeper.Have a bloodghast and viscera seer plus the use of fetchlands will let you abuse kalastria's ability.A more clear-aggro approach is the use of Vampire Lacerator,if you don't like viscera.Thoughtseize is far better than inquisition if you have the budget.Tourach,though it's good disruption does not belong in your deck.Try Confidants/Rituals to gain quick card/creature advantage.I have a similar deck and i have seen it working this way:smile:

[Thom]

But why not playing Red also ? Only for the Nocturnus Ability ?

[ReinVos]

Vampires are too midrangy to be able to shine as a tribal deck. In legacy, there are only four types of creatures viable; stupid big creatures (goyf), fast creatures (delver), utility creatures (maverick, scm, bob) and combo creatures (Griselbrand). Vampires don't work together well enough to warrant building a deck around the whole theme.

Goblins has fast creatures mixed with utility creatures. Merfolk has stupid big creatures (critical mass cheap lords) combined with counters. Hell, Slivers have the unique trait of sharing all their abilities. What can your vampires do what no other tribal deck can? Don't forget they're competing with zombies so discard isn't an argument.

[evanmartyr]

Well, to be fair, zombies are intensely reliant on a few specific cards to have any sort of reach (Gravecrawler + something) and to get that, they generally are forced into blue (to support the lifeloss lord). Vampires are a bit more mana intensive, but Kalastria Highborn is insane reach all in itself, and Vampire Nighthawk, while slow, is great at racing other "fair" strategies.

The main problem Vampires has is other than a few creatures, your good 1-2cc options are not vampires. So, in comparison to merfolk, your curve is generally +1 over theirs (playing a few Reejerays and the *very* flexible Coralhelm Commander gives them uses for mana in play over 3), but you can take more advantage of proactive disruption like Discard. I don't know if this is enough to make it a better deck.

A couple thoughts about the first Donner list from that link:

Vampire Hexmage is a must-have. It strikes first, it's got a reasonable body for it's mana cost, and JTMS is a thing in this format, as are other Planeswalkers, and this is your only reasonable answer in mono-black for them. Automatic 4-of.

Currently, I can't think of any reason to run any targeted removal spell over Dismember, seeing as the things it can't kill generally aren't killable with Go for the Throat and Snuff Out and the like anyway, and it's a reasonable answer to most turn 1 plays you'll see.

Viscera Seer is great with Highborn, great against removal, and is a reasonable sac for Cabal Therapy, should you choose to run it.

I see no reason not to play with Bloodghast, especially with Highborn and Viscera. Throw in a few fetchlands and you have yourself a mini-engine. Pain Artist may be something to consider here, too, as it makes sweepers, combat, and removal painful for the opponent and gets buffed to reasonable stats by the lords.

Keeping it mono-black loses you access to Stromkirk Noble (which is a fairly strong 1-drop in a deck lacking them), and Stromkirk Captain (your best lord by far when mana cost is taken into consideration).

Bloodline Keeper and Captivating Vampire both have something that makes me leery of them: the requirement that you have 5 Vampires in play to do anything reasonable. With Bloodghasts, this becomes eminently more reasonable, but it's still a lot of overextending when you generally want to start the game off with some disruption. On top of that, they're small/expensive and have little effect on the game until you overextend, which won't happen very quickly (and against a lot of decks, you'll be dead by then).

(I just spent a long time thinking about a creature base and came to the following conlusion): The problem is you have plenty of value creatures to choose from, but you'll either end up focusing on a "play creatures, drain opponent" sort of build which Zombies can do better, or you'll be a "play creatures, maybe incidentally they do something interesting but really just beat face slowly" sort of build, which is fine, but nearly every tribal deck that is successful in Legacy has built-in synergies and game plans that are MUCH better than this (Merfolk have great Vial tricks and *some* plan against combo, Elves have a combo win, Zombies do the drain thing better, etc).

So unless your meta contains very little combo, I'd say look into another tribe. If it's all control, by all means rock the beat face plan with the expensive lords and such...but probably I'd still suggest playing red for Stromkirk Noble and Captain. I mean, I fail to see how a UW control deck could even attempt to beat Vampires with discard, Pain Artist + Highborn, Aether Vial AND Cavern of Souls.

[Thom]

Sorry if my english is not very accurate.

In my opinion, the strength of a mono-black vampire deck, lies in a graveyard strategy.

First, any Nocturnus on the battlefield is an auto-target for any creature removal like go for the throat, or direct damage spells, or any counterspells. Some Reanimate in your deck, for only 4 life loss, can change a game dramaticaly.

Second, Buried Alive and 3 Bloodghast work so well. Next land, you can play 3 Bloodghast for free, not bad at all. It also feed your combo with Kalastria Highborn, when your Bloodghast attack, you're almost sure to do 6 damage minimum each turn. And, you can always choose to bury 2 Bloodghast and 1 Nocturnus if you don't have one in your starting hand. Here 4 Dark Ritual are invaluable.

But, a Red/Black vampire deck will almost be better. Your sideboard is more versatile. You have acces to Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast ( vs Blue ), Smash to Smithereens ( vs artifact ) and a slow 4cc Anarchy ( vs white ) is better than no response at all.

In your mainboard, Stromkirk Captain is just great. His first strike ability can give you the upper hand versus creatures deck. A Vampire Nighthawk with first strike is something to consider. A Stromkirk Noble enchanted with Furor of the Bitten is almost a potential goyf, or at least, a quick serious threat. Vampiric Fury is a killer, both in offense or defense. Vampires tribe lack synergy, and this spell help you to forget that.

[Darkenslight]

Hrm...Here's a potential list, based on the syphoning synergies of the Vampires:

Land:
12 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats

Stuff:
4 Aether Vial
4 Blade of the Bloodchief
4 Duress
4 Inquisition of Kozilek

Creatures:
4 Guul Draz Vampire
4 Pulse Tracker
4 Blood Artist
4 Bloodghast
4 Kalastria Highborn
2 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Bloodhusk Ritualist/Vampire Nighthawk/Phyrexian Arena

It's almost completely linear, focussing on the syphoning effects that the Vampire tribe has.