I'm looking for some suggestions on this deck build. This is the first deck I've attempted to build with little to no "net-decking." Recently, I was able to finally play a few games with it and started marks some notes on issues, weaknesses etc. I'm looking to have a few questions answered:
What power level would you consider this deck to be out of 10?
I noticed that during all three games I always felt I was starved for mana, is there any ramp/other ways I can improve my mana base?
During play, I was close to or ended up having 1 or 0 cards in hand fairly early in the game, aside from Phyrexian Arena, Underworld Connections, and soon to be added Necropotence what other card draw cards might be solid additions. Or was it just a case of me getting unlucky by not drawing any of the current draw cards?
Some obvious deletions from the deck would be Braidwood Cup and Puppet Stringsas I just don't feel they do enough to take up two slots in the 99. In addition, I'm debating the need for running both Blind Obedience and Authority of the Consuls, I like the effect, but I'm thing keeping Consuls is a strong option while removing Blind Obedience might be a smart move.
At this point I'm looking for constructive criticism on how to improve the efficiency, power level, and overall deck as the meta I play in is fairly strong. Let me hear your thoughts, opinions, comments etc. Hopefully I've built a strong shell that just needs some tweaking, but it's very possible it's utter *****.
Lifegain's biggest problem as a strategy, is indeed closing out the game like you said.
Your deck usually has relatively few power / toughness on the field, so combat damage is difficult for you to inflict, but on the other hand you don't really run tutors so you can't really combo out reliably.
I'd consider this a goodstuff deck for now, since your deck does multiple things but none of them in a particularly good way. Personally I like lifegain - I had an Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck for years - but again lifegain strats are not very competitive.
If you want to make your deck more effective, I suggest you start focusing your deck's game plan more. Are you looking to mass vampire tokens and attack? Are you looking to slow down the game and erode opponents' life totals away while growing your own? Are you looking to combo out with Magus of the Mirror and Selenia, Dark Angel and such cards?
After you decide that, have a look if there's a commander that helps this game plan better. Oloro might be better for slower, grindier games with wins like Test of Endurance. Edgar Markov is absurdly strong in tribal vampire builds, and Licia, Sanguine Tribune seems to be more into gaining a chunk of life and using it for board presence. This one seems most similar to Vona in that regard, at least to me, especially since she fits the vampire plan well.
The rest, like land count, card advantage engines, and individual slots can be determined after you decide what the deck wants to do. It'll also help if you decide on a budget / no budget. Feel free to talk about anything that comes up
Thanks for the reply. For some reason my original account (Jamnikon) is not letting me retrieve my password with the weird Twitch companionship that's forced with the forum. So, this is my now permanent account.
So, I really like Oloro and I thought about it as the commander, but I didn't know if I wanted to go that crazy right out of the gate. I do not want to go vampire tribal, I have too many tribal decks already and I was trying to shy away from that. It just happens that vamps have lifegain. So, that being said I think I would gravitate towards the grindier, grow my life pool and erode my opponents. Vona was chosen for nothing more than the fact she can attack, then I can pay life for, what I thought, would be a strong ability.
Can you explain the Mirror combo, because I'm not getting it.
Don't worry too much about it, it's not a really fun combo anyway. What happens is that at the beginning of your upkeep you play an effect such as Magus of the Mirror's active ability, while you have something like Selenia, Dark Angel on the field. In response to the ability you activate her ability a lot of times so that your life total becomes very low, then once everything resolves you have your opponent's life total (hopefully big) while your opponent has what was once your life total, and is now very very low, so it's easier to kill them.
Actually I think Oloro is one of the best if not the best commanders for gradual grindy eroding of life totals - him giving you the ability to play blue is crucial to your ability to negate opponents' strong plays, since regular Orzhov doesn't have a lot of ways to interact with things like that. There is a really good Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim thread going on in this forum, in which the deck's main purpose is to lay low and slowly accumulate board state until you can go for a winning play. Either way Ayli is a very good Orzhov commander IMO.
I guess that for now I can just suggest Divinity of Pride as a start.
If you need extra copies of Phyrexian Arena, you're not alone. It's my #1 tutor target for any black deck because it's super subtle (unlike say Skullclamp which instantly catches the eye of someone with a removal spell) and generates a ton of value for a nearly negligible cost.
Finally, life-gain for the sake of just life-gain isn't going to get you anywhere in the long run. It should be almost incidental in nature. As mentioned above, pick a win-con that happens to go well with your life gain. The Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo is pretty good because either half can stand up on its own.
Just stopping by to offer some suggestions for Vona synergies. Magewright's Stone - 50% Cheaper to activate than Puppet Strings Maze of Ith - Just a good card, but also you can activate Maze of Ith’s ability targeting Vona during the end of combat step, after Vona has already dealt damage. You can then activate Vona in response to destroy a nonland permanent with Maze's ability on the stack. The end result is that you got to attack with Vona, activate her, and still have an untapped Vona to activate again or play defense. Reconnaissance - Works the same way as the Maze of Ith trick. Rings of Brighthearth - Double up on activations without paying 7 life the second time around. Thousand-Year Elixir - Also an upgrade on Puppet Strings. Guarantees that you can get at least one activation out of Vona if she resolves.
I'd also look into ways to grant Vona double strike.
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1x Ajani's Pridemate
1x Arvad the Cursed
1x Blood Artist
1x Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1x Bloodbond Vampire
1x Bloodcrazed Paladin
1x Bloodline Necromancer
1x Cliffhaven Vampire
1x Crypt Ghast
1x Defiant Bloodlord
1x Drana's Emissary
1x Elenda, the Dusk Rose
1x Evra, Halcyon Witness
1x Gifted Aetherborn
1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Malakir Bloodwitch
1x Nyx-Fleece Ram
1x Patron of the Vein
1x Rhox Faithmender
1x Royal Assassin
1x Sanctum Seeker
1x Sangromancer
1x Serra Ascendant
1x Soul Warden
1x Soul's Attendant
1x Vampire Nighthawk
1x Vizkopa Guildmage
1x Command Tower
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Field of Ruin
1x Isolated Chapel
1x Kabira Crossroads
1x New Benalia
1x Orzhov Basilica
12x Plains
1x Rogue's Passage
1x Scoured Barrens
14x Swamp
1x Vault of the Archangel
Artifacts
1x Aetherflux Reservoir
1x Alhammarret's Archive
1x Braidwood Cup
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Orzhov Signet
1x Pristine Talisman
1x Puppet Strings
1x Sol Ring
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Well of Lost Dreams
Instants
1x Beacon of Immortality
1x Sanguine Sacrament
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Teferi's Protection
1x Vraska's Contempt
1x War Report
1x Blood Tribute
1x Death Grasp
1x Debt to the Deathless
1x Diabolic Tutor
1x Exsanguinate
1x Fumigate
1x Merciless Eviction
1x Wrath of God
Enchantments
1x Ashes of the Abhorrent
1x Authority of the Consuls
1x Blind Obedience
1x Boon Reflection
1x Exquisite Blood
1x Palace Siege
1x Path of Bravery
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Sanguine Bond
1x Subversion
1x Underworld Connections
I'm looking for some suggestions on this deck build. This is the first deck I've attempted to build with little to no "net-decking." Recently, I was able to finally play a few games with it and started marks some notes on issues, weaknesses etc. I'm looking to have a few questions answered:
At this point I'm looking for constructive criticism on how to improve the efficiency, power level, and overall deck as the meta I play in is fairly strong. Let me hear your thoughts, opinions, comments etc. Hopefully I've built a strong shell that just needs some tweaking, but it's very possible it's utter *****.
Your deck usually has relatively few power / toughness on the field, so combat damage is difficult for you to inflict, but on the other hand you don't really run tutors so you can't really combo out reliably.
I'd consider this a goodstuff deck for now, since your deck does multiple things but none of them in a particularly good way. Personally I like lifegain - I had an Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck for years - but again lifegain strats are not very competitive.
If you want to make your deck more effective, I suggest you start focusing your deck's game plan more. Are you looking to mass vampire tokens and attack? Are you looking to slow down the game and erode opponents' life totals away while growing your own? Are you looking to combo out with Magus of the Mirror and Selenia, Dark Angel and such cards?
After you decide that, have a look if there's a commander that helps this game plan better. Oloro might be better for slower, grindier games with wins like Test of Endurance. Edgar Markov is absurdly strong in tribal vampire builds, and Licia, Sanguine Tribune seems to be more into gaining a chunk of life and using it for board presence. This one seems most similar to Vona in that regard, at least to me, especially since she fits the vampire plan well.
The rest, like land count, card advantage engines, and individual slots can be determined after you decide what the deck wants to do. It'll also help if you decide on a budget / no budget. Feel free to talk about anything that comes up
Thanks for the reply. For some reason my original account (Jamnikon) is not letting me retrieve my password with the weird Twitch companionship that's forced with the forum. So, this is my now permanent account.
So, I really like Oloro and I thought about it as the commander, but I didn't know if I wanted to go that crazy right out of the gate. I do not want to go vampire tribal, I have too many tribal decks already and I was trying to shy away from that. It just happens that vamps have lifegain. So, that being said I think I would gravitate towards the grindier, grow my life pool and erode my opponents. Vona was chosen for nothing more than the fact she can attack, then I can pay life for, what I thought, would be a strong ability.
Can you explain the Mirror combo, because I'm not getting it.
Actually I think Oloro is one of the best if not the best commanders for gradual grindy eroding of life totals - him giving you the ability to play blue is crucial to your ability to negate opponents' strong plays, since regular Orzhov doesn't have a lot of ways to interact with things like that. There is a really good Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim thread going on in this forum, in which the deck's main purpose is to lay low and slowly accumulate board state until you can go for a winning play. Either way Ayli is a very good Orzhov commander IMO.
I guess that for now I can just suggest Divinity of Pride as a start.
There are two potential ways to do this:
1. Run some more cheap tutors to maximize your ability to find it. Depending on your budget, I'd start with Enlightened Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Demonic Tutor.
2. Run more functionally similar spells. You already have Underworld Connections, so maybe you want Graveborn Muse, Twilight Prophet, or Bloodgift Demon. If you want more single-shot draw spells, consider Syphon Mind, Ancient Craving, or Ambition's Cost.
As for ramping, you either need to run more mana rocks (Thought Vessel, Fellwar Stone, Coldsteel Heart, Charcoal Diamond, Marble Diamond) or dip into white's land search effects. Land Tax is the original, and there's also Tithe, Kor Cartographer, Knight of the White Orchid, etc.
Finally, life-gain for the sake of just life-gain isn't going to get you anywhere in the long run. It should be almost incidental in nature. As mentioned above, pick a win-con that happens to go well with your life gain. The Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo is pretty good because either half can stand up on its own.
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
Magewright's Stone - 50% Cheaper to activate than Puppet Strings
Maze of Ith - Just a good card, but also you can activate Maze of Ith’s ability targeting Vona during the end of combat step, after Vona has already dealt damage. You can then activate Vona in response to destroy a nonland permanent with Maze's ability on the stack. The end result is that you got to attack with Vona, activate her, and still have an untapped Vona to activate again or play defense.
Reconnaissance - Works the same way as the Maze of Ith trick.
Rings of Brighthearth - Double up on activations without paying 7 life the second time around.
Thousand-Year Elixir - Also an upgrade on Puppet Strings. Guarantees that you can get at least one activation out of Vona if she resolves.
I'd also look into ways to grant Vona double strike.