Vampires

After much deliberation, I decided to play my Vampire deck at last night's Friday Night Magic which proved fruitful; I eventually won 1st out of 42 people with this deck (record was 6-0-2). Here is the list I played with and some notes on how to win with our Twilight friends.



These guys are the obvious "I like to win" cards. Vampire Nocturnus is a non-legendary beast that overruns your opponents by making all your vampires +2/+1 and flying if the top card of your library is black. The deck uses Marsh Flats, Sign in Bloods, and Relic of Progenitus to help draw or shuffle your library to increase the chance of a black card. Malakir Bloodwitch is the best "F Baneslayer" card ever made. She can block Baneslayer all day AND can't be Path to Exiled or Doom Bladed AND syphons life for each vampire you control upon entering the battlefield.




These are the guys that get the job done while waiting for the deck to explode. Bloodghast is my favorite card in the set. He is a recursive, possible haste 2/1 for 2 mana that returns to play at each land drop. He is amazing. Most control and burn decks have a hard time dealing with him. Vampire Nighthawk is the best limited uncommon in the set and is an amazing standard card as well. Black can't get any happier than an uncommon 2/3 flyer, lifelink, deathtouch creature for 3 mana. Gatekeeper of Malakir is an amazing card as well. He causes your opponent to sacrifice a creature upon entering play ("F you Great Sable Stag, Sphinx of Jwar Isle, Wall of Denials, and everyone else.") Vampire Hexmage is an awesome 2/1 first strike creature that can kill planeswalkers and reset quests.



Sorin is an amazing card that most other Vampire decks aren't using (which perplexes me greatly). He is AMAZING. Typically he will kill creatures or players while gaining you life or drop your opponent's life to 10, which is amazing vs the mirror or other lifegain decks (last night I beat the mirror with Sorin; with Tendrils of Corruption and Vampire Nighthawk he had his life at 28...I played Sorin, dropping it to 10 and alpha striked for the win). His 3rd ability is amazing especially vs control, but typically he will win the game with his 1st ability. Tendrils of Corruption is the deck's power spell. It is an instant kill spell that gains you X life for 4 mana.



The deck also uses these 2 sideboarded cards that give it a huge edge in certain matchups. Fleshbag Marauder acts as another Gatekeeper of Malakir ("F you again Great Sable Stag, Sphinx of Jwar Isle, Wall of Denials, and everyone else.") When he comes into play both players sacrifice a creature. Typically I will sacrifice Bloodghast and return him to play at the land drop. Relic of Progenitus is a great card vs the Bloodghast mirror and any other graveyard deck including Pyromaner Ascension and Hellspark Elemental. It helps get rid of those pesky recursive creatures and can be sacrificed to remove all graveyards from the game to draw a card (which can help ensure the library's top card is black for Vampire Nocturnus.)

Maindeck
4 Bloodghast
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Vampire Nocturnus
3 Vampire Hexmage
3 Malakir Bloodwitch
3 Duress
3 Disfigure
2 Sorin Markov
4 Sign in Blood
3 Tendrils of Corruption

2 Marsh Flats
21 Swamp

Sideboard
3 Deathmark
3 Mindsludge
3 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Marsh Casualties
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Malakir Bloodwitch

This deck is a blast to play and can restabilize itself the longer the game lasts with card draw in Sign in Bloods and 13 lifegain cards (Sorin, Tendrils, Malakir, and Nighthawk). It is a blast and can win. Enjoy!!!

Rise of the Eldrazi

MTG Salvation recently released some information about the 3rd block in the Zendikar set.

The set's logo.



The new set's symbol.



A awesome picture featuring Nissa and Sorin and what appears to be the Eldrazi behind them.

Elspeth Assault V2

After many hours of testing and seeing what works and doesn't work I've made some changes to my original Red/White Elspeth Assault deck that I posted after Pro Tour-Austin. The old list just wasn't quite strong enough to deal with the really powerful decks that are making the rounds in today's meta-game. The newest deck to make a splash is Eldrazi Green which took 1st place at a 5K tourney in Nashville recently. It features Elves, Elves, and more Elves combined with token producers Ant Queen and Master of the Wild Hunt. Toss in 3 Eldrazi Monuments and you've got yourself a very powerful Aggro deck that destroys other Aggro decks. It has a tougher time against Control but still holds its own very well. Here is the list that placed first in Nashville...



Artifacts
3 Eldrazi Monument

Creatures
3 Ant Queen
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Great Sable Stag
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Master Of The Wild Hunt
4 Nissa's Chosen
2 Noble Hierarch

Planeswalkers
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Nissa Revane

Lands
20 Forest
4 Oran-rief, The Vastwood

Sideboard:
1 Eldrazi Monument
3 Pithing Needle
4 Acidic Slime
1 Great Sable Stag
1 Mold Shambler
3 Mycoloth
2 Windstorm

Its biggest weakness is that it doesn't main deck any removal and the only creature removal it has is 2 Windstorm in the sideboard. But, it gets around that with the Master of the Wild Hunt which can act as a removal spell every turn. I'm not sure how my Elspeth Assault V2 would do against this powerhouse as I haven't tested it out yet but I would like to think it would be able to compete. Here's my latest installment of Elspeth Assault...



Creature Spells:
Goblin Ruinblaster x3
Hellspark Elemental x4
Hell's Thunder x3

Non-Creature Spells:
Ajani Vengeant x4
Elspeth, Knight-Errant x3
Goblin Assault x4
Lightning Bolt x4
Journey to Nowhere x4
Day of Judgment x3
Martial Coup x2
Oblivion Ring x2

Lands:
Arid Mesa x4
Terramorphic Expanse x4
Plains x8
Mountain x8

Sideboard:
Celestial Purge x3
Goblin Ruinblaster x1
Luminarch Ascension x3
Intimidation Bolt x3
Volcanic Fallout x2
Oblivion Ring x1
Banefire x2

I decided to take out the 3 Scepter of Dominance and put in 3 Goblin Ruinblaster instead. I think the Ruinblaster is a little better because I can permanently take out an important non-basic land and have a hasty creature on the board to do some possible damage as well. Ruinblaster is an absolute monster against all of the 3 or more color decks out there. Take out a Savage Lands against Jund on turn 4 and it could really hurt them down the stretch.

I also took out the 4 Burst Lightning and put in 4 Journey to Nowhere. There were too many times that I ran into a situation where I needed something a little more powerful than Burst Lightning to play on a troublesome creature like Baneslayer. Path to Exile was my first choice until I realized how it would negate the effect of Ruinblaster. It doesn't make sense to play Path to Exile and give your opponent a free land in a deck that has land destruction as a way to control the board. Journey to Nowhere gives me the same power albeit a little more expensive than Path to Exile.

Another addition to the main deck is Martial Coup in place of Banefire. Martial Coup is one of the best spells out there for late game board control. To be able to wipe the board and reinforce your side at the same time is pretty sick. This is a very important spell when dealing with late game monsters like Broodmate Dragon and Sphinx of Jwar Isle.

The last change I made to the original main deck is a small one. I decided I needed to main deck one more Elspeth, Knight-Errant and took out one Oblivion Ring to make room. There were too many games where I was waiting for an Elspeth to swing the game in my favor and came up empty handed. This decks main win condition is Goblin Assault comboed with Elspeth, Knight-Errant. It's hard to stop a 4/4 flying Goblin that comes at you every turn no matter what.

The sideboard has been changed up a bit as well. I took out the Baneslayers and put in Luminarch Ascension. This spell kills other control decks and Baneslayer just becomes a big target for removal because I have so few creatures to begin with. I'm planning on testing this version out quite a bit. If you guys decide to use it let me know how it fares against the other decks out there. Peace out and good luck on your next coin flip!