Vampire Hexmaster + dark depths

[pcccp]

This morning i found a new card in the Zendikar Spoiler.

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Vampire Hexmage BB
Creature - Vampire Shaman
First strike
Sacrifice Vampire Hexmage: Remove all counters from target permanent.
#114/249 2/1
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I would love to build a deck around him with dark depths.

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Dark Depths
Legendary Snow Land
Dark Depths enters the battlefield with ten ice counters on it.
{3}: Remove an ice counter from Dark Depths.
When Dark Depths has no ice counters on it, sacrifice it. If you do, put an indestructible legendary 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying named Marit Lage onto the battlefield.
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The Deck should be Mono Black with a lot of Urborg, Tomb of Y. because it makes a Turn 2 20/20 Token possible and without it dark depth sucks as hell.

Turn1: Urborg, Duress/Thoughtseize for Stifle/StoP,FoW
Turn2: Dark Depths, Vampire Hexmage, sac for token

The Deck should although contain Aether Vial to sneak in Hexmage @ end of turn.

Maybe you guys can help brainstorm a little bit. Hexmages ability may be good for other actions too. (removing counters from jitte or aether vial)

EDIT:
I am playing B.C´s Rat Pack a lot with some success. Maybe it could be a first shell to put these two cards into. Playing Vampire Hexmage with Balthor is good, because you can reanimate him and use his ability multiple times.

// Lands
2 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
13 [P2] Swamp (2)
2 [TSP] Swarmyard
3 [CS] Dark Depths

// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
2 [ALA] Fleshbag Marauder
3 [P2] Ravenous Rats
3 [BOK] Skullsnatcher
4 [LRW] Shriekmaw
3 [VI] Crypt Rats
3 [JU] Balthor the Defiled
4 [DS] Chittering Rats
3 [EVE] Creakwood Liege

[Nidd]

Maybe we could even fit StifleNought in there?

4 FoW
4 Stifle
4 Trickbind
4 Dreadnought

[Jeff Kruchkow]

You could make the deck white, run a few life gain cards that dont totally suck, and use celestial convergence to win out of nowhere.

That or you need a way to find the depths. And a way to stop wasteland.

[Digital Devil]

Marit Lage is coming!!! I guess it could fit in some shell with countermagic backup. Maybe Lim-Dul's Vault, Tolaria West and Brainstorms to help finding the pieces.

[pcccp]

(...) And a way to stop wasteland.

Something like this:

Pithing Needle // Crucible of Worlds // Loam

With Aether Vial @2 you can wait for your opponent to waste dark deepths and in bring in hexmage in response.

[Digital Devil]

What about Scrying Sheets + Snow Lands, Top, Confidant and Counterbalance in a shell? This way, it is easier to find both Depths and Hexmage, and both pieces of the combo can be protected with Duress/FoW, as well as with the Counter/Top soft lock.

[Eldariel]

I believe some kind of UB Dreadstill-style shell would be the best. Probably using Tombstalker as an alternative win. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth slightly increases the utility of Dark Depths, btw, and I suppose it can be used somewhat under Standstill to actually do something sometimes.

Stifle is the only card I'd run to counteract Wasteland and even that only if also cramming Dreadnought into the same deck (enough "I win!" creatures should be able to overwhelm StPs...); you can just cast Hexmage and then drop Depths not giving opponent the chance to Waste it.


Frankly, I like this slightly better than Stiflenought since you don't risk getting 2-for-1d by a counter on Stifle and non-white decks ain't killing Lage. The converted manacost is the same though it requires a landdrop to work.

Also, one swing kill > two swing kill. I don't think there are enough flyers in the format for the lack of Trample to be a problem.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Like this?

4 Delta
2 Strand
4 Sea
4 Island
4 Waste
2 Swamp

4 Dark Depths
4 Stifle
4 Hexhunter

4 Top
4 Counterbalance

4 Force
4 Daze
4 Spell Snare
4 Smother
4 Brainstorm

seems like it needs more ways to find depths tho

[Jak]

Lim-Dul's Vault

[MMogg]

... non-white decks ain't killing Lage. .

Ahem . . . he's a token, so it only requires Wipe Away. Go, blue, go!

[pcccp]

Ahem . . . he's a token, so it only requires Wipe Away. Go, blue, go!

wipe away works with dreadnought too. who cares. you can play duress / thoughtseize first. You only need 1 swing for victory. your opponent needs to topdeck wipe away then. beside... swords to plowshares, path to exile, diabolic edict, fleshbag marauder ... whatever deals with the token and although dreadnougt. If there would be no way stopping the token wizards would not be so stupid to print vampire hexmage.

EDIT: vampire hexmage + dark depths could be good in the next EXT season. No wasteland and stifle roteted out.

[MMogg]

wipe away works with dreadnought too. who cares. you can play duress / thoughtseize first. You only need 1 swing for victory. your opponent needs to topdeck wipe away then. beside... swords to plowshares, path to exile, diabolic edict, fleshbag marauder ... whatever deals with the token and although dreadnougt. If there would be no way stopping the token wizards would not be so stupid to print vampire hexmage.

EDIT: vampire hexmage + dark depths could be good in the next EXT season. No wasteland and stifle roteted out.

Easy there, I was just refuting the statement that non-white decks can't kill Lage. I wasn't implying the deck isn't viable or making any comparison to Dreadnought.

[Nihil Credo]

you can just cast Hexmage and then drop Depths not giving opponent the chance to Waste it.

Your opponent can just Waste it in response to Hexmage's ability - or even after that, since Marit Lage only appears if Dark Depths is sacrificed to its trigger. Sadly, it seems those Stifles are going to be needed.

Are there any good way to tutor up Hexmage without interfering too much with the rest of the deck? The card positively sucks on its own. Dark Depths can be grabbed by Tolaria West, but I don't think there's much decent in U/B for the Vampire. Unless you want to run Green and use Worldly Tutor or Living Wish to grab either side.

[Darkenslight]

Uhh, Alexi's Cloak?

It's a 2-mana Flash aura which has Shroud. The only thing it doesn't answer is Wipe Away, which is what CB is for...

[scrumdogg]

The deck seems to have adherents for blue anyway, why not include Intuition or Gifts Ungiven as your ultimate set-up piece? If you include Counter-Top & Stifle-Nought a Gifts Ungiven becomes very scary for your opponent unless they have seen your hand...what dare they give you?

[BreathWeapon]

Green splash seems good, Living Wish grabs both parts of the combo.

[georgjorge]

Your opponent can just Waste it in response to Hexmage's ability - or even after that, since Marit Lage only appears if Dark Depths is sacrificed to its trigger. Sadly, it seems those Stifles are going to be needed.

If your opponent lets the Hexmage's ability resolve, wouldn't Depths get sacrificed as a state-based effect before he had a chance to use Wasteland on it (can't Waste something that's already in the graveyard) ?


Also, while it would be nice to have a combo not vulnerable to Wasteland, we'll see how much of a deal it is: They would have to keep a Wasteland open all the time, effectively wasting one mana every turn, and especially game one, and if you have other Wasteland targets out, I'm not sure they would really do that, depending on the overall situation of course.


I agree that Living Wish is probably worth the green splash (and it can get you a Wasteland to kill theirs as well). UBg sounds right, the manabase would be rather ugly when wanting U on the first turn, and BB and G early, but as the combo is already vulnerable to Wasteland anyway, it's not that big of a deal. I'm not sure about Stifle + Nought, since the nice thing about Depths would be not being vulnerable to Explosives/Deed/Smother/Terminate etc. Also, I don't like running too many 2-card combos (Stifle + Nought, Depths + Hexmage, Counterbalance + Top) in a deck, because it will be harder to assemble any of them than if you would just run additional search and tutors, and ending up with Stifle + Depths, Nought + Hexmage, Counterbalance + Depths or whatever is bad.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Wouldn't it die to Stifle leaving you with an empty board sans 1 nonbasic come turn 3?
I mean, a blue splash for some kind of countermagic would be nice, even if its something like Mana Leak.
Personally, it seems to me that this is best done in a Quinn-style Vampire Aggro. Now if only there were Snow Vampires...

[MMogg]

If your opponent lets the Hexmage's ability resolve, wouldn't Depths get sacrificed as a state-based effect before he had a chance to use Wasteland on it (can't Waste something that's already in the graveyard) ?

No, it's a triggered ability, not a state-based effect.

Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[Trigger condition], [effect],” and begin with the word “when,” “whenever,” or “at.” Whenever the trigger event occurs, the ability is put on the stack the next time a player would receive priority and stays there until it’s countered, it resolves, or it otherwise leaves the stack.

When Dark Depths has no ice counters on it, sacrifice it. If you do, put an indestructible legendary 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying named Marit Lage onto the battlefield.

[Apex]

Maybe in an It's the Fear shell with Intuition, Loam, Volrath's Stronghold, Eternal Witness, Pernicious Deed plus some CBTop and Force of Wills? With the ITF playstyle, you don't really need to run 4x Hexmage and 3 or even 4 Dark Depths. They can be tutored for while you control the game with CBTop + Permission and disruption, and eventually you can setup a recuring 20/20 flier. So basically condensing the deck slots needed for the actual combo (since the pieces aren't that great by themselves).