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Okay, so the deck I'm currently using at FNM looks like this:

4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
2x Vampire Nighthawk
2x Porcelain Legionnaire
4x Nirkana Cutthroat
2x Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
2x Anowon, the Ruin Sage
<16 Creatures>

4x Geth's Verdict
4x Painful Quandary
4x Disfigure
4x Black Sun's Zenith
4x Diabolic Tutor
<20 Spells>

4x Dread Statuary
20x Swamp
<24 Lands>

I'm working off of a budget of very little, so any changes I make will have to be either cheap ($2 or less) or easy to trade for. (This is why there's only a pair of Nighthawks, no Titans, and no Dismembers) I have 3 copies of Massacre Wurm , but they don't quite work in the deck.

Currently I'm planning on getting Vengeful Pharaoh to replace the vampires as finishers, and Bonehoard to replace the Cutthroats as midgame pieces.  Right now the sideboard is really just an assortment of extra cards I have on hand.

That said, does anybody have any suggestions on improving my deck?

Jul 21, 2011 -- 2:22PM, altimis wrote:

I feel like you have too many creatures for the Black Sun's Zenith . I would either run less creatures, or more things to get creatures back; or less BSZ's, my opinion of course, but A deck that I had that ran it only had three creatures, and tons of taxing ( Ghostly Prison , Norn's Annex ) along with other board wipes, Wrath of God , Day of Judgment . I think in that aspect you need to choose, the board wipe, or the board. It's really difficult (to me) to play both effectively.

Also, I know this is really off, but if you trade your Legionaires, for Cavern Harpy 's you could bounce your Gatekeepers and use them more than once lol. A trick I used to love.  But that would mean splashing blue of course.

Cavern Harpy would also pull me out of Standard.

As for the creatures: I usually only have one or two in play at a time, and the BSZs are usually used to clear the board before dropping one. To be honest, I'm not really happy with the Legionnaires, but I'm not sure what to replace them with. Whatever it is needs to be deadly enough to be a threat on its own since the deck has to make every creature count.

I'm trying to avoid adding any more cards from Zendikar block since I'm trying to move towards being ready for Innistrad to show up. 

What about 4 Doom Blade s? Or there's Deathmark But that's very situational.

You could use Wring Flesh as an alternate to your Disfigure s.

Edit: Or better still, Grasp of Darkness .

Both Child of Night and Duskhunter bats are too weak. This isn't a tribal deck anyways. The focus is on the kill, not on the vamps. It just turned into vamps because Nighthawks, Gatekeepers, and the Lords are useful in the deck. But the few creatures the deck has need to be able to carry the game on their own, and neither Child of Night nor Duskhunter bats can do that

I have Doom Blades in the sideboard, but where I play Go for the Throat is more useful maindecked.
With the sheer volume of removal I'm running, they rarely have extra guys to pitch to the sac.
I think it might be useful to show you my current post-Innistrad build:

4x Vengeful Pharaoh
4x Porcelain Legionnaire
<8 Creatures>

4x Bonehoard
4x Grasp of Darkness
4x Geth's Verdict
4x Diabolic Tutor
4x Go for the Throat
4x Painful Quandary
4x Black Sun's Zenith
<28 Spells>

24 Swamp
<24 Lands>

Sideboard:
4x Doom Blade
?????????????

I'd like something more durable than the Legionnaires, probably  Skinrender s. The other finishers I'm considering are Steel Hellkite s or Geth, Lord of the Vault . (Note: There are really 12 creatures counting the Bonehoard) Obviously the perfect card is Phyrexian Obliterator , except a single copy costs more than the entire rest of the deck.

I'd put a few Horizon Spellbombs to avoid missing early land drops (since almost all of your spells have massive costs). You may also want an early beater that doesn't cost you life to cast, since Porcelain Legionnaire dies to anything with first strike and if your opponent gets a creature with more than 4P you have you board wipe. I also faced a pretty fun (but nasty) deck a while back which used Grindclock and Decimator Web to ensure that much fun would be had, since your only means of getting your opponent to 0 seems to be through beatdown and Painful Quandary, and while the Pharaoh can get recurrsion while giving another removal spell, I don't see many options against other decks which run more on spells than creatures.