4 Bloodline Keeper (3/3 flying, summoner, buff to all vampires) 4 Vampire Nighthawk (3 mana 2/3 flying, deathtouch, lifelink) 4 Nightveil Specter (3 mana 2/3 flying, steals cards and lets you play them) 4 Tribute to Hunger (3 mana creature sacrifice, lifegain) 4 Liliana's Reaver (4 mana 4/3 deathtouch, enemy discard and token summon) 4 Desecration Demon (4 mana 6/6 flying, encourages enemy to sacrifice) 4 Victim of Night (2 mana non-zombie/vamp/werewolf destruction)
3 Murder (3 mana universal destruction) 3 Daggerdrome Imp (2 mana 1/1 flying, lifelink)
1 Thespian's Stage (colorless mana, allows you to copy enemy mana color) 1 Mask of Avacyn (2+3 mana artifact that grants hexproof) 1 Crypt Ghast (2/2 that doubles the effect of lands - ie, 1 land is 2 mana)
__________________________
Here's the philosophy behind the deck:
Combos (ie, relying on many creatures, or relying on specific creatures staying alive) are unpredictable and easily disrupted through counterspells or removals - each card should be powerful on its own
Card draw makes games extremely unpredictable - each card in your deck should be useful at all stages of the game
Games are usually decided around turn 6 with one player establishing dominance and exerting enough pressure to make a comeback unlikely - your 2, 3, and 4 mana cards need to be able to win the game for you
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The deck gives you multiple ways to dominate:
Swarm the enemy with vampires:
Turn 3 - play Vampire Nighthawk (deathtouch blocker with lifelink - discourages your enemy from attacking and can give you life). Turn 4 - Summon Bloodline Keeper. Turn 5 - tap Bloodline Keeper, play Vampire Nighthawk or 2nd Bloodline Keeper (you now have 4 vampires). Turn 6 - tap all Bloodline Keepers and transform them (all vampires have +2/2). Turn 7 - enemy concedes.
Stave off early assaults, clear the field, wait for your 4 mana creatures:
Use your 11 creature destruction cards (none cost more than 3 mana) to disrupt combo creatures (cheap creatures that buff each other or give powerful utility effects). Use your vampire nighthawk to either heal yourself (lifelink) or discourage attacks (deathtouch). Play Daggerdrome Imps if you're lucky to block early flyers or heal yourself. By 4 mana, you will either have a Bloodline Keeper, Liliana's Reaver, or Desecration Demon. At this point the enemy will not want to attack (both the nighthawk and reaver have deathtouch), must deal with multiple flying creatures, and will either be facing a 6/6 flyer, a 3/3 flyer that can begin the vampire swarming, or a 4/3 that will force him to discard and will summon zombies for free. Keep clearing the board and don't be afraid to trade creatures when blocking - you have many, many creatures and they are all expendable.
Crypt Ghast:
Crypt Ghast (doubles every mana point you have) is a very unreliable strategy, which is why there is only one in the deck. As we see here, there are many extremely powerful creatures at just 4 mana, so you don't need to mana ramp. It is also just 2/2, and can be killed with almost any removal spell. However, if you do end up pulling your Crypt Ghast, it can win the game for you (your enemy has likely spent his other creature removal spells on stuff like Vampire Nighthawk and Nightveil Specter - both are dangerous). Play it turn 4, and turn 5 you can drop 2x 4 mana creatures and use a Victim of Night. Oftentimes this is so demoralizing that the enemy concedes.
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Other notes:
Nightveil Specter steals your opponents LANDS as well. Extremely powerful. Another reason the deck doesn't need mana ramp - you will almost always have a land to play.
Thespian's Stage allows you to play spells and creatures stolen from your enemy. No, you will not be able to play ALL his spells because you only have 1 Thespian's Stage. Again, relying on such a strategy is extremely risky and if you don't have multiple Specters and multiple Stages in play, it will not work. But this deck DOES NOT rely on this strategy - it is just a potential way to win. The idea behind the deck is to include many ways to win so that you are never fully countered.
Curse of Death's Hold flat out stops slivers, zombies, cheap humans, and many green decks. It will kill any 1/1 (or any 2/2 if you play both Curses) your opponent plays the second it hits the field. It serves as another demoralizer and it buys you time (by preventing aggro swarm and weakening hits from big creatures).
Mask of Avacin offers some protection against people who play lots of removal (like this deck) or pacification. Again, this deck doesn't rely on getting this Artifact in play. You can win without ever seeing it. All your creatures are disposable, and you have enough creatures to outpace any removal deck. But it gives you something to play turn 2 (can't emphasize that enough - having something to play every turn that HELPS you is extremely important).
Your universal creature destruction spells let you deal with big creatures (esp. against mana ramp decks that want to get a big guy out at turn 3-4). Your victim of night lets you deal with creatures for an extremely low cost. Your Tribute to Hunger lets you deal with indestructible and hexproof creatures (the one "combo" this deck has - if you want to use Tribute to Hunger on a hexproof or indesctructable creature, you need to clear the board first, BUT you have many ways of doing so). Your Curse of Death's Hold also lets you deal with hexproofs like Invisible Stalker.
Finally, this is a pretty cheap deck. Online versions of these cards are even cheaper - Crypt Ghast is about 40 cents (but you only need 1), desecration demon is about $1 (but its extremely powerful), That's it - everything else is 5 to 25 cents.
Anyway, hope this deck is fun for someone, I'm having a ton of fun.
Edit: Because you used the deck tags, all someone needs to do when looking at your deck is simply to click the link on the card they want to look at. Also, please sort your cards under Creatures/Spells/Lands so it is easier for people to look through your list.
I'm fairly sure this scoops to control almost unconditionally. One board wipe and they cruise onto victory. As a side note, thespian's stage isn't all that needed when you're taking their lands. Sure, you might miss a cast or two but I'd be more concerned with being able to dominate the game than playing with extra confetti. This also seems to lose to aggro very quickly so long as aggro has a halfway decent hand. Your cmc breakdown looks like this.
Daggerdrome imp has nothing to make it bigger so it won't be much more than a roadbump to aggro.
Now you have 4 two cmc removals and 7 three cmc removal.
8 three cmc creatures are next.
13 four cmc creatures are next.
After that are a pair of 5 cmc enchantments and an equipment at 2-3.
I'm seeing things kinda like this. You do nothing relevant turns 1 and 2. Turn 3, you have 3 cmc creatures that are just the right size to eat an abrupt decay or a searing spear. There is an abundance of 3 power, 2 and 3 cmc creatures right now. The 2 cmcs will generally trade with you and the 3s will generally kill and survive. Descecration demon is the only one of your creatures that doesn't die from a searing spear. With the speed that aggro moves, I just can't see you surviving with so little action early on. I think cards like nightveil specter are fun too but if I was playing aggro, I wouldn't be too concerned. In fact, I'd be happy to see you play it because it effectively means that I get some more free damage on you. Low ability to stabilize and low speed, you may have won 75% of your games but I can't see this standing up in a competitive or even budget competitive environment. Since it doesn't like you want to end up in mono black control, my suggestion is to add some more lower cost cards so you can interact and disrupt the opponent from killing you early on. Drop some of the top heavy stuff that works well in the magical Christmas land but not so well in a situation where you opponent is actually trying to wrench control from your hands.
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I wanted to share my deck because I've been seeing A LOT of success with it. I win 75% of my games.. I'm pretty amazed.
Here it is:
21 Swamp
4 Vampire Nighthawk (3 mana 2/3 flying, deathtouch, lifelink)
4 Nightveil Specter (3 mana 2/3 flying, steals cards and lets you play them)
4 Tribute to Hunger (3 mana creature sacrifice, lifegain)
4 Liliana's Reaver (4 mana 4/3 deathtouch, enemy discard and token summon)
4 Desecration Demon (4 mana 6/6 flying, encourages enemy to sacrifice)
4 Victim of Night (2 mana non-zombie/vamp/werewolf destruction)
3 Daggerdrome Imp (2 mana 1/1 flying, lifelink)
2 Curse of Death's Hold (5 mana -1/-1 for all enemy creatures at all times)
1 Thespian's Stage (colorless mana, allows you to copy enemy mana color)
1 Mask of Avacyn (2+3 mana artifact that grants hexproof)
1 Crypt Ghast (2/2 that doubles the effect of lands - ie, 1 land is 2 mana)
__________________________
Here's the philosophy behind the deck:
The deck gives you multiple ways to dominate:
Swarm the enemy with vampires:
Turn 3 - play Vampire Nighthawk (deathtouch blocker with lifelink - discourages your enemy from attacking and can give you life). Turn 4 - Summon Bloodline Keeper. Turn 5 - tap Bloodline Keeper, play Vampire Nighthawk or 2nd Bloodline Keeper (you now have 4 vampires). Turn 6 - tap all Bloodline Keepers and transform them (all vampires have +2/2). Turn 7 - enemy concedes.
Stave off early assaults, clear the field, wait for your 4 mana creatures:
Use your 11 creature destruction cards (none cost more than 3 mana) to disrupt combo creatures (cheap creatures that buff each other or give powerful utility effects). Use your vampire nighthawk to either heal yourself (lifelink) or discourage attacks (deathtouch). Play Daggerdrome Imps if you're lucky to block early flyers or heal yourself. By 4 mana, you will either have a Bloodline Keeper, Liliana's Reaver, or Desecration Demon. At this point the enemy will not want to attack (both the nighthawk and reaver have deathtouch), must deal with multiple flying creatures, and will either be facing a 6/6 flyer, a 3/3 flyer that can begin the vampire swarming, or a 4/3 that will force him to discard and will summon zombies for free. Keep clearing the board and don't be afraid to trade creatures when blocking - you have many, many creatures and they are all expendable.
Crypt Ghast:
Crypt Ghast (doubles every mana point you have) is a very unreliable strategy, which is why there is only one in the deck. As we see here, there are many extremely powerful creatures at just 4 mana, so you don't need to mana ramp. It is also just 2/2, and can be killed with almost any removal spell. However, if you do end up pulling your Crypt Ghast, it can win the game for you (your enemy has likely spent his other creature removal spells on stuff like Vampire Nighthawk and Nightveil Specter - both are dangerous). Play it turn 4, and turn 5 you can drop 2x 4 mana creatures and use a Victim of Night. Oftentimes this is so demoralizing that the enemy concedes.
__________________________
Other notes:
Nightveil Specter steals your opponents LANDS as well. Extremely powerful. Another reason the deck doesn't need mana ramp - you will almost always have a land to play.
Thespian's Stage allows you to play spells and creatures stolen from your enemy. No, you will not be able to play ALL his spells because you only have 1 Thespian's Stage. Again, relying on such a strategy is extremely risky and if you don't have multiple Specters and multiple Stages in play, it will not work. But this deck DOES NOT rely on this strategy - it is just a potential way to win. The idea behind the deck is to include many ways to win so that you are never fully countered.
Curse of Death's Hold flat out stops slivers, zombies, cheap humans, and many green decks. It will kill any 1/1 (or any 2/2 if you play both Curses) your opponent plays the second it hits the field. It serves as another demoralizer and it buys you time (by preventing aggro swarm and weakening hits from big creatures).
Mask of Avacin offers some protection against people who play lots of removal (like this deck) or pacification. Again, this deck doesn't rely on getting this Artifact in play. You can win without ever seeing it. All your creatures are disposable, and you have enough creatures to outpace any removal deck. But it gives you something to play turn 2 (can't emphasize that enough - having something to play every turn that HELPS you is extremely important).
Your universal creature destruction spells let you deal with big creatures (esp. against mana ramp decks that want to get a big guy out at turn 3-4). Your victim of night lets you deal with creatures for an extremely low cost. Your Tribute to Hunger lets you deal with indestructible and hexproof creatures (the one "combo" this deck has - if you want to use Tribute to Hunger on a hexproof or indesctructable creature, you need to clear the board first, BUT you have many ways of doing so). Your Curse of Death's Hold also lets you deal with hexproofs like Invisible Stalker.
Here's some proof of how effective it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta-QBUN-BZg&feature=c4-overview&list=UUHfg_zdyQpQyDtplVgV1QqA
This deck has won 13 of the last 15 games.
Finally, this is a pretty cheap deck. Online versions of these cards are even cheaper - Crypt Ghast is about 40 cents (but you only need 1), desecration demon is about $1 (but its extremely powerful), That's it - everything else is 5 to 25 cents.
Anyway, hope this deck is fun for someone, I'm having a ton of fun.
Edit: Because you used the deck tags, all someone needs to do when looking at your deck is simply to click the link on the card they want to look at. Also, please sort your cards under Creatures/Spells/Lands so it is easier for people to look through your list.
Daggerdrome imp has nothing to make it bigger so it won't be much more than a roadbump to aggro.
Now you have 4 two cmc removals and 7 three cmc removal.
8 three cmc creatures are next.
13 four cmc creatures are next.
After that are a pair of 5 cmc enchantments and an equipment at 2-3.
I'm seeing things kinda like this. You do nothing relevant turns 1 and 2. Turn 3, you have 3 cmc creatures that are just the right size to eat an abrupt decay or a searing spear. There is an abundance of 3 power, 2 and 3 cmc creatures right now. The 2 cmcs will generally trade with you and the 3s will generally kill and survive. Descecration demon is the only one of your creatures that doesn't die from a searing spear. With the speed that aggro moves, I just can't see you surviving with so little action early on. I think cards like nightveil specter are fun too but if I was playing aggro, I wouldn't be too concerned. In fact, I'd be happy to see you play it because it effectively means that I get some more free damage on you. Low ability to stabilize and low speed, you may have won 75% of your games but I can't see this standing up in a competitive or even budget competitive environment. Since it doesn't like you want to end up in mono black control, my suggestion is to add some more lower cost cards so you can interact and disrupt the opponent from killing you early on. Drop some of the top heavy stuff that works well in the magical Christmas land but not so well in a situation where you opponent is actually trying to wrench control from your hands.