Community

 
Magic: The Gathering Legacy Life Sucks ...and so does this deck ...please...
Jump Menu:
Post Reply
Switch to Forum Live View Life Sucks ...and so does this deck ...please help me fix it!
7 months ago  ::  Nov 15, 2012 - 4:26AM #1
MarkovsLiege
Date Joined: Nov 14, 2012
Posts: 12
Friends game. Minor local tourney play. Legacy/vintage format.

I used to play a lot but I had forgotten a lot. I played against a bunch of friends over the last three days and my deck has been...a disaster.

I'm looking to make it more competitive. The problem? I seem to only draw lands 6-8 rounds at a time. I long for the day of downloading ala STCCG.
Last game I played a friend who was trying a new deck and by turn 15 I still only had ONE mana. 

I've done the math but the deck seems under powered. I kept all the cards lean and I'll be explaining why I selected each one. Hopefully you guys can help me make this thing more competitive while keeping its general identity.


Black Aggro/Life-Loss Vampire Deck: AKA LifeSucks.

Lands: 20(1/3...so far I've been short on mana 3 times and had NOTHING but mana 2 other occasions. I rarely seem to have the right amount. )

Swamp: 10 - Too many cards target non-basic lands. It's always best to have plenty of swamps.
Scrubland  4 - I use Vindicate and Sorin Innestrad, so I need a splash of white. This is cheap and tried and true.
Orzhov Basilica 4 - I really don't like this land but everyone told me to use it. It's pretty but it seems counterproductive. Sure it gives me black and white but the playing tapped/ replacing an existing land makes it a slow process.
Vault of the Archangel  2 - I kept two colorless mana producers because the W/B cost for Lifelink and Deathtouch is damned tasty for all creatures and it seemed that only 2 colorless couldn't hurt me. But two games ago all I drew WERE 2 VAs and by turn 9 I had ONLY them for mana. WTH?!?


Creatures: 18/30 (about 1/3...I thought it gives me a nice payload of vampires)

Vampire Nighthawk. x4 The deck revolves around non-"Life Drain" life drain and VN is broken. No explanation needed.     
Markov Patrician x2 I'm starting to wonder if I can replace her with another vamp? I love the lifelink and fat attack but her 3 cmc is a hair steep.
Child of Night x2 Same as Patrician. Just smaller and more affordable. But also less useful, even after taking into account the adjusted cost.  

I know that Patricians and Childs aren't as popular as say...Lacerators? Or Guuls. But Guuls aren't useful to my mind since by the time an opponent has 10 hps...I'm locked in control. Moreover, Lacerators are really expensive and are missing that very tasty Lifelink which is the point of the deck and gives me that fat lead.   

Sangromancer x2 I should have some Malakir Bloodwitches since I face so many white decks but I love the Sangromancer. She's a 4 cmc "giant" that flies and has two additional powers! A flying 3/3 for 4 cmc is pretty average. The two additional powers make her decidedly above average. Yes...the hawt pic doesn't hurt.
Captivating Vampire x1 I had a Nocturnus but this guy is cheaper and  still gives all my vamps a nice healthy bonus.
Bloodline Keeper x2 He's just amazing. A 5 cmc cost 3/3 flier that for an extra mana becomes a 5,5, pulls 2/2 flying vamp weenies out of his bum and buffs them to 4/4? Broken as hell. I'd include more but he's sooo expensive.
Drana Kalastria Bloodchief x1 5 cmc flying 4/4 angel with self pump and that "infects" any target and can kill anyone with enough -1 counters? Tasty. Plus, she's gorgeous. 
Nirkana Revenant x1 I'm really considering giving her the boot. Never gotten her to play in almost 10 games. 4/4 for 6 cmc is lousy, even with a self pump. Although the additional power of boosting mana production by one extra B per land is so tempting that maybe I've let her cloud my judgement.  
Liliana of the Veil x1 Cheap cost. A bit brittle but the sacrifice creature has saved me on multiple occasions. I didn't want to reach for a beefier more expensive Lili here. Besides, her +1 ability of discarding cards is a nuisance but I'm dying to get her -6 split to work one day. Devastating.
 Sorin Lord of Inn x1 Cheapish cost. Pumping out vamp weenies and buffing them is similar to Bloodline Keeper. Plus he has the extra bonus of being infinitely ultracool and being able to capture and subvert up to three targets, including creatures and even planeswalkers.  
Chosen of Markov x1 No idea why I chose her. Not because she's hot. There are other hot vamps too. She's cheap though, matches the theme and when she pumps for cmc of 3 and a tapped vamp, she is a 4/4 monster. Great value...it's just...she's a tough one to get out. I think she'll get cut.


I'm pretty sure the nighthawks and bloodlines will survive. Lili is a great choice, Drana and Sorin are good enough to stick around. I think I should ditch Chosen, Nirkana, and maybe Captivating.  I know some of you will ask to swap the lifelinkers but with Sanguine Bond x 3 in the deck, that kind of breaks the point. But any tips would be super huge. :/  The problem is that lacerators give me NO hp bonus and don't blend with Sang Bond. Even if they are cheaper and they don't hit any harder. Plus they're doing damage to me, which against my opposing decks can be a problem. I suppose I could swap the Sangromancers for Malakir Bloodws...but the Malakirs are more expensive and in a deck where I'm already slower than creeping death and very unvampire...I don't know if that is the best move.


Spells: 22.

Dark Ritual. x4 I need mana. I'm still very, very slow. Even with Dark Ritual. Vintag only allow one Black Lotus and Legacy none though so I was looking into Cabal Ritual and Cull the Weak but they're really lousy for performance.
Blood Tribute and Sanguine Bond x3 each. This is the bread and butter. One shot kills and I keep them in threes to have failsafes. I'm thinking however that I might just keep two and use the two extra slots for card retrieval instead for flexibility? The other problem is leyline and all the jazz. But with a SBin place, one BT will kill outright and ignore if an opponent has 5 life...or 5000.
Vindicate x4. I've been running into Leylines. Circles. Pacifisms. Just general shennanigans. I see tons of monoblack decks that have NO defensive spells. Everyone I know uses them. I have no idea how they do damage. Maybe they're just for casual environments?   Vindicate is the great equalizer. It obliterates anything in my way. 
Unmake x2. With blighsteel colossi and boomerang riding badguys that seem to use the graveyard as a revolving door...the exile capability of unmake seemed great.  
Enslave x2. I know I have a ton of expensive defensive spells but enslave is a great way to capture an ultra-tough baddie and use her. WIth so many mono-black hosing strategies(mono black seems weak now to me), capturing say...an angel or dragon of an opposing color gives me options.  
Animate Dead x2 This gets me back my monster in case it dies. NO explanation necessary. It lets me steal theirs too.
Relic of Progenitus x2 I got tired of decks that focused on getting me to a smaller hand count than they do. It seems like everyone in my circle does that. Relic of progenitus keeps people from playing cards and bringing them back and casting them 10 times like say...doubling health spells. Or retrieving millstones...with painters in play. Etc. Etc. Cheap.

What am I doing wrong? You guys are at this all day. After 20 hours of careful pruning the deck is 3 wins 8 losses. It's a mess. Granted a few losses were due to 7 straight land draws. Or no lands at all until turn 15...etc. But still...Help me senseis.  

Is there a way to make a mono black vamp deck be competitive in legacy? Vintage? Technically I have some white in there. Do I need more? What could be improved? How can my defenses and efficiency and speed be improved? Is there a way to make a sexy, fun vamp deck work in high stakes games? Or is vamp deck a flavor for the casual nub that doesn't mind losing a lot? 

Thanks.

        
         

Quick Reply
Cancel
7 months ago  ::  Nov 15, 2012 - 5:01AM #2
Anubuss
Date Joined: Mar 9, 2007
Posts: 5,159
If you want speed, you should probably be running Suicide Black.  You could probably splash White for Vindicate and Path to Exile if you wanted with the those Scrublands.  That'd let you say on 20 lands, since otherwise you'd need to cut 3 cards for some more land.

However, it would require a pretty big overhaul, and it would no longer be a Vampire Deck, it'd mostly be full of Zombies with Lacerator tagging along.  And since you don't see how powerful a 2/2 for 1 can be, you may no like the whole "killing myself to kill them first" game plan Suicide Black uses.

Your key problem is you have very little early plays that are threatening.  You want to have a lot of 1-drop and 2-drop creatures if you want to establish a presence for an Aggro deck.

Dark Ritual has no place in a deck that is not trying to combo out.  It's a temporary shot of mana, and if you're just using it to ramp out a 3-cmc or 4-cmc creature, you're doing it wrong.

A lot of your plays are pretty clunky at 3, 4 and 5+ mana.  If you're playing Aggro, you have to want the game to end before you get the option to be able to use most of your 5-cmc spells.

On lifelink/Lacerator:

You say you're record is 3-8 with this deck?  And that lifelink is giving you a fat lead?  Seems like all it's doing is making sure you don't die as fast.

   
   
   
        height="200" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
    pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" />


My Decks Show

Standard:
BR Aggro
Burn
RDW

Modern:
Dragon Stompy
Burn
Fae Tempo
Zoo
Cherrios

Legacy:
Zoo
Dragon Stompy

Pauper:
Slivers
Landfall

EDH:
Sliver Overlord


1000th post on 2-1-10.
5000th post on 1-21-13.
Quick Reply
Cancel
7 months ago  ::  Nov 15, 2012 - 6:30AM #3
AzureShade
Date Joined: Jan 30, 2012
Posts: 3,735

Nov 15, 2012 -- 5:01AM, Anubuss wrote:

Dark Ritual has no place in a deck that is not trying to combo out.  It's a temporary shot of mana, and if you're just using it to ramp out a 3-cmc or 4-cmc creature, you're doing it wrong.


What if you are using it to ramp out three one-drops on the first turn?

Dec 18, 2012 -- 7:05PM, magicpablo666 wrote:

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!

Quick Reply
Cancel
7 months ago  ::  Nov 15, 2012 - 7:08AM #4
Anubuss
Date Joined: Mar 9, 2007
Posts: 5,159

Nov 15, 2012 -- 6:30AM, AzureShade wrote:

Nov 15, 2012 -- 5:01AM, Anubuss wrote:

Dark Ritual has no place in a deck that is not trying to combo out.  It's a temporary shot of mana, and if you're just using it to ramp out a 3-cmc or 4-cmc creature, you're doing it wrong.


What if you are using it to ramp out three one-drops on the first turn?




That'd be fairly good, but if you have enough 1-drops that you'd want to play, you're better off not wasting 4 slots in the deck with Dark Ritual.  I can't think of any reason an Aggro deck would want Dark Ritual.

If it was a wise idea to run cards just because then you can do cool stuff with them early in the game, every deck would run Leyline of Anticipation , because who doesn't want everything to have flash?  I can just picture the fun things I could do with my Zoo list if I could play my guys on the other player's turn.

But I don't run it because as sweet as it would be, I'm not always going to get it in my opening hand, and I'm not going to throw a good hand back because I don't have it, and it's useless to me if I don't have it on turn 0.


   
   
   
        height="200" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
    pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" />


My Decks Show

Standard:
BR Aggro
Burn
RDW

Modern:
Dragon Stompy
Burn
Fae Tempo
Zoo
Cherrios

Legacy:
Zoo
Dragon Stompy

Pauper:
Slivers
Landfall

EDH:
Sliver Overlord


1000th post on 2-1-10.
5000th post on 1-21-13.
Quick Reply
Cancel
7 months ago  ::  Nov 15, 2012 - 2:47PM #5
MarkovsLiege
Date Joined: Nov 14, 2012
Posts: 12

Nov 15, 2012 -- 7:08AM, Anubuss wrote:

Nov 15, 2012 -- 6:30AM, AzureShade wrote:

Nov 15, 2012 -- 5:01AM, Anubuss wrote:

Dark Ritual has no place in a deck that is not trying to combo out.  It's a temporary shot of mana, and if you're just using it to ramp out a 3-cmc or 4-cmc creature, you're doing it wrong.


What if you are using it to ramp out three one-drops on the first turn?




That'd be fairly good, but if you have enough 1-drops that you'd want to play, you're better off not wasting 4 slots in the deck with Dark Ritual.  I can't think of any reason an Aggro deck would want Dark Ritual.

If it was a wise idea to run cards just because then you can do cool stuff with them early in the game, every deck would run Leyline of Anticipation , because who doesn't want everything to have flash?  I can just picture the fun things I could do with my Zoo list if I could play my guys on the other player's turn.

But I don't run it because as sweet as it would be, I'm not always going to get it in my opening hand, and I'm not going to throw a good hand back because I don't have it, and it's useless to me if I don't have it on turn 0.


Fair enough. Suppose I ditch the Child of Nights for Lacerators? Four? And suppose I keep the Nighthawks and ditch the Nera/Chosen for other 1/1s. Say, Guuls? Then I could ditch the Dark Rituals for what? What should I cut? What should I keep?

I still think the Nighthawks are impossible value.
 

Quick Reply
Cancel
7 months ago  ::  Nov 15, 2012 - 5:49PM #6
tonyto3690
  • Boy Genious
Date Joined: Mar 10, 2005
Posts: 1,679
I don't know the meta anymore, but I don't think dark ritual in aggro is necessarily a bad thing.  You just have to have a reason to play.  Is [/c]Phyrexian Negator[/c] stil unviable?   

Duress + Confidant is a pretty sweet first turn play.
 
Quick Reply
Cancel
7 months ago  ::  Nov 16, 2012 - 5:16AM #7
Anubuss
Date Joined: Mar 9, 2007
Posts: 5,159
You do not 1/1's for Aggro in this format.  If they're a 1/1, they better be able to get bigger of have some useful ability.  My Zoo runs Kird Ape , Wild Nacatl , Steppe Lynx and Grim Lavamancer .  Ape and Nacatl always see a Forest when I play them, so they're never 1/1s.  I run about 10 fetch lands, so Lynx is usually a 4/5 attacker early on, and Lavamancer is self explainitory.

Carnophage , Diregraf Ghoul , Gravecrawler , Rakdos Cackler .  These are about as agressive as Black 1 drops go.  Deathrite Shaman can be a Lavamancer who only hits face in mono-black.

You'd also need Hatred so you can finish the game before it drags on for too long.

   
   
   
        height="200" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
    pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" />


My Decks Show

Standard:
BR Aggro
Burn
RDW

Modern:
Dragon Stompy
Burn
Fae Tempo
Zoo
Cherrios

Legacy:
Zoo
Dragon Stompy

Pauper:
Slivers
Landfall

EDH:
Sliver Overlord


1000th post on 2-1-10.
5000th post on 1-21-13.
Quick Reply
Cancel
Jump Menu:
 
Magic: The Gathering Legacy Life Sucks ...and so does this deck ...please...
    Viewing this thread :: 0 registered and 1 guest
    No registered users viewing