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Here's the deck I'm talking about:

Captivating Vampire x1
Black Knight x2
Guul Draz Vampire x2
Blood Seeker x2
Viscera Seer x2
Vampire Lacerator x2
Bloodthrone Vampire x2
Gatekeeper of Malakir x1
Child of Night x2
Barony Vampire x3

Doom Blade x3
Feast of Blood x3
Rise from the Grave x3
Urge to Feed x3
Smother x4
Diabolic Tutor x 3

Swamp x22

I've been having a lot of fun with this deck.  The person I play with has a number of decks with different approaches, so I'm getting to see how it does against some different decks.  When it works, it does a great job of keeping the field clear of his creatures, and I'm able to wear him down with a lot of low level guys.  The Captivating Vampire's ability to take his creatures hasn't come into play often, but it has come into play, and his +1/+1 has been helpful.

One of the decks I'm having trouble with is a blue deck he has (either with some white or all blue, can't remember).  The focus on that deck is low level "pingers" (tap for 1 damage to player or creature, don't know if that's correct lingo, but it's what we're calling them), and counters that neutralize by "kill creature" instants.  The main problem I have is that once 2 or 3 pingers come out, and if he's been able to counter away my ability to kill the pingers, I don't have much to play.  There's rarely a point in bringing out the low level guys, as he'll tap them out before they do a thing, and I don't really have any killer guys to come in late in the game.  Essentially, I'm finding that I'm strong in the early game, but if he can withstand that early phase, I don't have much to go to.

I'm going to try and get a promo grave titan from the xbox game, but I'm curious if anyone has any advice on how to improve the deck.  We're casual as can be, so I don't care about tournament rules, and I'd be curious about ideas for cards that are more readily available as well as some of the expensive ones.  I don't mind buying a decent card or two, but I probably don't want to spend a fortune on the deck.

Thanks for any opinions.

Agreeing with Tzaph; get some nighthawks in there. Malakir Bloodwitch is also an excellent card, though a bit on the expensive side; I probably wouldn't run more than two.

A playset of Arrogant Bloodlord s might be just the thing against a 1/1 pinger deck, simply as a deterrent. Yeah, they can kill the vampire, but only if they stay untapped so they can block (and they still die).

As long as your theme is vamps, I'd get rid of anything that isn't a vamp. Say goodbye to the Black Knight and replace with Kalastria Highborn if you can get any. If not (and you're as casual as you say), proxy 'em until you can afford the real cards.

Nirkana Revenant s are nice.

Your support spells could use some work. You should be running a full playset of Feast of Blood in a vampire deck, and the same for Urge to Feed . Rise from the Grave is a great card for graveyard decks that want to put out massive creatures without paying the full price, but it's too expensive for a vampire deck. I mean, why would you want to pay 4B to resurrect something that only costs three mana to cast from your hand? If you want to bring vamps back from the graveyard, use spells like Disentomb , Grim Harvest , Grim Discovery , or Morbid Plunder .

Also (and this is just my personal opinion) I hate Doom Blade . Not a big fan of Smother either; I just don't like cards that can be rendered completely useless against entire colors or when you draw them at the wrong point in the game. I'd rather run more versatile removal spells like Disfigure , Grasp of Darkness and Dismember .

Nighthawk x4 and Bloodghast x4!