Disclaimer - This is not a vampire Deck. The most important cards in this deck are the non vampires. However, we all know what the best black creatures in standard are right now.
Thesis-
Eldrazi Black is a simple deck that abuses the synergy of undercosted vampires, AP, and Eldrazi Monument. While you can just get accidental wins off of your vampires or persecutor, Eldrazi Monument is your normal win condition.
I'm going to cover the cards..
Creatures
Bloodghast - A black creature with recursion. Comes back as a hasty 3/2 flier with monument out and allows you to "go infinite" if for some reason you need to.
(Naya Allies and Open the Vaults can gain a lot of life, but you will beat them with bloodghast.)
Gatekeeper of Malakir - One of eleven maindeck cards that kills persecutor. You have so many ways to take an AP out, however, it's fine to just slam this down on turn 3 as removal.
Vampire Nighthawk - This is one of the cards I like the least in this deck, just because it doesn't really do anything special. It already flies, it has no real interaction with anything. But... it is a really good creature. It gains you life, it kills wall of denial. It also gives your deck a way to win if you don't draw AP or Monument. The lifegain can also give you an extra turn to hit monument sometimes.
Viscera Dragger -This card ends games fast when monument is out. It's sort of a larger bloodghast for you, as a hasty 4/4 flier during the second monument attack.
Abyssal Persecutor - The second most important card in this deck. You will probably get about 50% of your wins off of a resolved monument, 30% off of AP, and 20% off of random vampire beats.
I don't think I need to explain how AP works. You have eleven main deck ways to kill him, and five more in the board. If you untap with him, you can usually either win and kill him with something, or drop a monument and win almost immediately.
Spells
Eldrazi Monument - Now we get to the reason this deck is good. You usually win the turn you play this. If you don't, bloodghast and viscera dragger will get you there the next turn. The best part about this kill condition is that you don't need a removal spell for your AP. You bash to 0, and you're done.
Duress - Duress is also, surprisingly, how you win. Most decks are only going to have a couple answers to monument, and if you can get a pulse or an o-ring off of duress, you will probably win the game. The fact that these cards are also good against the rest of your deck doesn't hurt either. If it turns into an AP game without monument, chances are you've still taken the right card.
(You need something to do on turn 1 anyway.)
Sign in Blood - With all the synergies in this deck, drawing cards is a pretty good idea.
Maelstrom Pulse - You don't have to splash green for this, but I recommend it. Whether you have an AP out or just need to kill something, pulse is pretty darn good. I feel like it's worth making tendrils worse. This also really shores up your UW match up, where tendrils is pretty dead.
Liliana Vess - Liliana is nuts here. The fact that she can tutor up AP, a way to kill AP, or Monument is pretty amazing. I'm willing to pay the extra mana over Diabolic Tutor for the other two abilities. You don't have to, as the +1 isn't too great for you. Her ultimate does read "you win the game" for you, but I usually just use her to tutor twice.
You usually do get to tutor twice, too. Nighthawks keep people from attacking into her, and nobody O-rings or Pulses her once they realize you're playing monument. Excellent 60th card, as it just turns your whole deck into a toolbox. If your opponent does decide to kill her, it's really not a big deal.
--
Sideboard
Deathmark: Obvious white green hate doesn't need explaining.
Vampire Nocturnus - A lot of people think this is a lynchpin card. It's not. This serves as extra monument copies. This isn't a necessary card for this deck, but it is an extra kill condition that they have to deal with. You side this in after your opponent brings in ways to kill monument and deal with AP.
Tendrils of Corruption - Not really that good for you. Technically kills AP, but usually just removal for bloodbraid or something.
Windstorm - This goes in always against UW control. It kills baneslayer, kills sphinxes, and kills Iona. The Iona player will almost ALWAYS name black during game two, so if they get one down, windstorm is your answer. Sidenote, Iona isn't really that good against you, with your colorless win condition and most other things coming down early.
Black Knight - A pretty straightforward card that comes in against white decks. Not essential, but shores up some match ups. Good against Naya Allies and white weenie. Can attack pretty early into UW.
--
Why I don't run...
Bone Splinters - You're really trying to win with eldrazi and build up a board here. While bone splinters is nice with AP, dragger, and bloodghast, it's not a card I want with monument.
X vampire - This is deck is not looking to be tribal. If it looks like vampires to my opponent, all the better, but this is really about the monument.
X RoE card - I reeeally want a certain 4/1 for this deck, but... yeah. Not talking about rise until it comes out for reals, as per forum rules.
Putrid Leech - I don't want to have that many green sources.
Pawn might just be superior to dread drone, though.
The Pawn seems like a good card for stabilizing the Eldrazi Monument. While it looks like you'd normally look to recurr the bloodghasts to keep the Monument on the board, if you get land-screwed your Monument disappears and destroys your board position. The pawn puts tokens out each time the bloodghast hits the graveyard, so you'll always have something to sacrifice while waiting for that land to come through draws.
On top of that, you'll have bonus mana if you have lands available.
See, while the synergy between bloodghast, viscera dragger, and eldrazi monument is cute, you don't REALLY need to "stabilize with Eldrazi Monument out." That just doesn't happen. It comes out, and you win either that turn or the next turn. If Pawn of Umalog was a little better by himself, I'd consider him, but he only seems good with the monument. And even then, he's not that exciting.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
See, while the synergy between bloodghast, viscera dragger, and eldrazi monument is cute, you don't REALLY need to "stabilize with Eldrazi Monument out." That just doesn't happen. It comes out, and you win either that turn or the next turn. If Pawn of Umalog was a little better by himself, I'd consider him, but he only seems good with the monument. And even then, he's not that exciting.
running gatekeeper and tectonic edge in a 2 color deck is probably a bad idea. just my two cents.
running gatekeeper and tectonic edge in a 2 color deck is probably a bad idea. just my two cents.
You're probably right, but look at the ratio. I should have gatekeeper mana by turn four on average... but I guess I could improve on that. Man, tectonic edge is so good, though. I think I'd almost rather have it available than play gatekeeper on turn 3 consistently.
Still, this is a beatdown deck, so we'll try it your way.
4x Bloodghast
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Viscera Dragger
4x Abyssal Persecutor
Win Condition
3x Eldrazi Monument
Spells
4x Duress
4x Sign In Blood
4x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Liliana Vess
Land
14x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacomb
4x Forest
2x Tectonic Edge
4x Deathmark
4x Vampire Nocturnus
3x Tendrils of Corruption
2x Windstorm
2x Black Knight
Disclaimer - This is not a vampire Deck. The most important cards in this deck are the non vampires. However, we all know what the best black creatures in standard are right now.
Thesis-
Eldrazi Black is a simple deck that abuses the synergy of undercosted vampires, AP, and Eldrazi Monument. While you can just get accidental wins off of your vampires or persecutor, Eldrazi Monument is your normal win condition.
I'm going to cover the cards..
Creatures
Bloodghast - A black creature with recursion. Comes back as a hasty 3/2 flier with monument out and allows you to "go infinite" if for some reason you need to.
(Naya Allies and Open the Vaults can gain a lot of life, but you will beat them with bloodghast.)
Gatekeeper of Malakir - One of eleven maindeck cards that kills persecutor. You have so many ways to take an AP out, however, it's fine to just slam this down on turn 3 as removal.
Vampire Nighthawk - This is one of the cards I like the least in this deck, just because it doesn't really do anything special. It already flies, it has no real interaction with anything. But... it is a really good creature. It gains you life, it kills wall of denial. It also gives your deck a way to win if you don't draw AP or Monument. The lifegain can also give you an extra turn to hit monument sometimes.
Viscera Dragger -This card ends games fast when monument is out. It's sort of a larger bloodghast for you, as a hasty 4/4 flier during the second monument attack.
Abyssal Persecutor - The second most important card in this deck. You will probably get about 50% of your wins off of a resolved monument, 30% off of AP, and 20% off of random vampire beats.
I don't think I need to explain how AP works. You have eleven main deck ways to kill him, and five more in the board. If you untap with him, you can usually either win and kill him with something, or drop a monument and win almost immediately.
Spells
Eldrazi Monument - Now we get to the reason this deck is good. You usually win the turn you play this. If you don't, bloodghast and viscera dragger will get you there the next turn. The best part about this kill condition is that you don't need a removal spell for your AP. You bash to 0, and you're done.
Duress - Duress is also, surprisingly, how you win. Most decks are only going to have a couple answers to monument, and if you can get a pulse or an o-ring off of duress, you will probably win the game. The fact that these cards are also good against the rest of your deck doesn't hurt either. If it turns into an AP game without monument, chances are you've still taken the right card.
(You need something to do on turn 1 anyway.)
Sign in Blood - With all the synergies in this deck, drawing cards is a pretty good idea.
Maelstrom Pulse - You don't have to splash green for this, but I recommend it. Whether you have an AP out or just need to kill something, pulse is pretty darn good. I feel like it's worth making tendrils worse. This also really shores up your UW match up, where tendrils is pretty dead.
Liliana Vess - Liliana is nuts here. The fact that she can tutor up AP, a way to kill AP, or Monument is pretty amazing. I'm willing to pay the extra mana over Diabolic Tutor for the other two abilities. You don't have to, as the +1 isn't too great for you. Her ultimate does read "you win the game" for you, but I usually just use her to tutor twice.
You usually do get to tutor twice, too. Nighthawks keep people from attacking into her, and nobody O-rings or Pulses her once they realize you're playing monument. Excellent 60th card, as it just turns your whole deck into a toolbox. If your opponent does decide to kill her, it's really not a big deal.
--
Sideboard
Deathmark: Obvious white green hate doesn't need explaining.
Vampire Nocturnus - A lot of people think this is a lynchpin card. It's not. This serves as extra monument copies. This isn't a necessary card for this deck, but it is an extra kill condition that they have to deal with. You side this in after your opponent brings in ways to kill monument and deal with AP.
Tendrils of Corruption - Not really that good for you. Technically kills AP, but usually just removal for bloodbraid or something.
Windstorm - This goes in always against UW control. It kills baneslayer, kills sphinxes, and kills Iona. The Iona player will almost ALWAYS name black during game two, so if they get one down, windstorm is your answer. Sidenote, Iona isn't really that good against you, with your colorless win condition and most other things coming down early.
Black Knight - A pretty straightforward card that comes in against white decks. Not essential, but shores up some match ups. Good against Naya Allies and white weenie. Can attack pretty early into UW.
--
Why I don't run...
Bone Splinters - You're really trying to win with eldrazi and build up a board here. While bone splinters is nice with AP, dragger, and bloodghast, it's not a card I want with monument.
X vampire - This is deck is not looking to be tribal. If it looks like vampires to my opponent, all the better, but this is really about the monument.
X RoE card - I reeeally want a certain 4/1 for this deck, but... yeah. Not talking about rise until it comes out for reals, as per forum rules.Putrid Leech - I don't want to have that many green sources.
--
Anyway, that's my deck! Please critique.
Thank you.
Oh, cool.
I haven't done an RoE update to the deck, because I wanted to run it at FNM last weekend.
I was thinking about Dread Drone and Consuming Vapors.
Pawn might just be superior to dread drone, though.
The Pawn seems like a good card for stabilizing the Eldrazi Monument. While it looks like you'd normally look to recurr the bloodghasts to keep the Monument on the board, if you get land-screwed your Monument disappears and destroys your board position. The pawn puts tokens out each time the bloodghast hits the graveyard, so you'll always have something to sacrifice while waiting for that land to come through draws.
On top of that, you'll have bonus mana if you have lands available.
4x Bloodghast
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Viscera Dragger
4x Abyssal Persecutor
Win Condition
3x Eldrazi Monument
Spells
4x Duress
4x Consuming Vapors
4x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Liliana Vess
Land
14x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacomb
4x Forest
2x Tectonic Edge
4x Deathmark
4x Vampire Nocturnus
3x Tendrils of Corruption
2x Malakir Bloodwitch
2x Black Knight
I've made some changes, and cut windstorm for bloodwitch.
Consuming Vapors is also in for sign in blood. As much as I love card draw, I don't want to cut anything else for consuming vapors.
I'm still not convinced with Pawn of Umalog.
See, while the synergy between bloodghast, viscera dragger, and eldrazi monument is cute, you don't REALLY need to "stabilize with Eldrazi Monument out." That just doesn't happen. It comes out, and you win either that turn or the next turn. If Pawn of Umalog was a little better by himself, I'd consider him, but he only seems good with the monument. And even then, he's not that exciting.
running gatekeeper and tectonic edge in a 2 color deck is probably a bad idea. just my two cents.
You're probably right, but look at the ratio. I should have gatekeeper mana by turn four on average... but I guess I could improve on that. Man, tectonic edge is so good, though. I think I'd almost rather have it available than play gatekeeper on turn 3 consistently.
Still, this is a beatdown deck, so we'll try it your way.
-2 Tectonic Edge
+1 Swamp
+1 Forest
What should I cut for mortician beetle?