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Today I decided to buy some stuff to make a standard legal deck after discovering that my old Vampire Nighthawk and Vampire Nocturnus were reprinted.
I haven't played since Zendikar so I'm not sure how much better I could have done. I love Heartless Summoning to pullout some awesome creatures quickly but it wasn't moving quite quick enough so I added Fume Spitter to get a 1 drop that I could sacrifice before casting heartless. 

4 x Bloodline Keeper
4 x Stromkirk Captain
2 x Stromkirk Noble
4 x Fume Spitter
2 x Blood Artist
4 x Vampire Nocturnus
4 x Rakish Heir
4 x Vampire Nighthawk
3 x Olivia Voldaren

2 x Murder
4 x Heartless Summoning
2 x Go For The Throat

4 x Dragonskull Summit
5 x Mountain
12 x Swamp  

Aug 9, 2012 -- 12:28AM, RorixCollector wrote:

You should have used those funds to build Zombies there actually viable.

Thanks! Constructive pointers are always real, real helpful

I would consider replacing heartless summoning in this deck. Perhaps with sphere of the suns. I dont feel like this deck can get good value out of heartless, because -1/-1 hurts your aggro, and for a lot of vampires it only makes them 1 cheaper. Sphere allows you to cast bloodline keeper or olivia on turn 3 just as well as before. 

I sincerely believe that an aggresive B/R vampire deck is simply not competitive in the current standard. Like many other I tried, and failed, to build such a deck, and do not believe it can be done. B/R zombies (which does have several vampires) is simply a much better deck.

W/B exalted is similar to vampires in that even if you build it perfectly, I dont believe it functions well(when you try to make an agressive version)


I havent really put much thought into really controlling versions of B/W exalted or B/R vampires, so maybe there is something there (although I doubt it)

Now, I try new crazy deck ideas all the time. Most of them are just somewhat bad (recently I buit a deck trying to break faith's reward )


My advice for building decks is to look for cards that have a lot of potential. Cards like heartless summoning , puresteel paladin , birthing pod , faith's reward , snapcaster mage , disciple of bolas , restoration angel , talrand, sky summoner etc.

None of the above cards is that amazing on their own. All of those cards has the potential to be amazing. For example, if greater gargadon were in standard, then I think faith's reward could become a real deck. Some of those cards(snapcaster, birthing pod, etc) turned out to have the support they needed, and became some of the top decks in the format.

 Once you have a card or idea that you think has a lot of potential, invision the optimal start for the deck (this is less important for control decks perhaps, but still relevant). Once you see the kinds of plays you want your deck to be doing, focus on making those great starts as consistent as possible. Often you might have to sacrifice some degree of power for increased consistency (I built a puresteel paladin deck that  could theoretically kill on turn 2, but that version wasnt the best at winning games overall)

 Also, if you see that your "optimal start" is too slow, or just looks mediocre, its probably time to start questioning whether the concept can work at all. If a good start for your aggro deck kills your opponent on turn 6 if they do nothing, your deck is just too slow (if your deck is "aggro" it should goldfish(kill an opponent who does nothing) by turn 4 if all goes as planned in the current standard, for example).

Deckbuilding also takes a really good knowledge of the cards that are available in standard. This is definitely where people on the forums can help, by suggesting cards you might not have thought of.


My suggestion for a deck idea would be a mostly black deck that splashes white for restoration angel and lingering souls, and tries to abuse interactions between cards like geralf's messsenger and disciple of bolas (and of course restoration angel lets you resuse disciple).  

Aug 9, 2012 -- 2:55PM, mr.physics wrote:

I sincerely believe that an aggresive B/R vampire deck is simply not competitive in the current standard. Like many other I tried, and failed, to build such a deck, and do not believe it can be done. B/R zombies (which does have several vampires) is simply a much better deck.

W/B exalted is similar to vampires in that even if you build it perfectly, I dont believe it functions well(when you try to make an agressive version)


I havent really put much thought into really controlling versions of B/W exalted or B/R vampires, so maybe there is something there (although I doubt it)

Now, I try new crazy deck ideas all the time. Most of them are just somewhat bad (recently I buit a deck trying to break faith's reward )


My advice for building decks is to look for cards that have a lot of potential. Cards like heartless summoning , puresteel paladin , birthing pod , faith's reward , snapcaster mage , disciple of bolas , restoration angel , talrand, sky summoner etc.

None of the above cards is that amazing on their own. All of those cards has the potential to be amazing. For example, if greater gargadon were in standard, then I think faith's reward could become a real deck. Some of those cards(snapcaster, birthing pod, etc) turned out to have the support they needed, and became some of the top decks in the format.

 Once you have a card or idea that you think has a lot of potential, invision the optimal start for the deck (this is less important for control decks perhaps, but still relevant). Once you see the kinds of plays you want your deck to be doing, focus on making those great starts as consistent as possible. Often you might have to sacrifice some degree of power for increased consistency (I built a puresteel paladin deck that  could theoretically kill on turn 2, but that version wasnt the best at winning games overall)

 Also, if you see that your "optimal start" is too slow, or just looks mediocre, its probably time to start questioning whether the concept can work at all. If a good start for your aggro deck kills your opponent on turn 6 if they do nothing, your deck is just too slow (if your deck is "aggro" it should goldfish(kill an opponent who does nothing) by turn 4 if all goes as planned in the current standard, for example).

Deckbuilding also takes a really good knowledge of the cards that are available in standard. This is definitely where people on the forums can help, by suggesting cards you might not have thought of.


My suggestion for a deck idea would be a mostly black deck that splashes white for restoration angel and lingering souls, and tries to abuse interactions between cards like geralf's messsenger and disciple of bolas (and of course restoration angel lets you resuse disciple).  

This is awesome (albeit dissapointing) advice, it helps a ton, thanks, I'll have to get on something new and hope it becomes viable with the release of the next block!