And so my Vampire saga continues… I had originally planned to play in an online Standard PTQ today, but our dinner plans made that impossible, so I woke up at 8am and decided to audible into a 9am Standard Daily. I figured that I could probably get through four rounds of Standard and keep the house under relative control. Somehow I managed that and more. I 4-0’d the daily event and managed to clean a good deal of the house in-between rounds. I think I shall mark that down in the win column.
So my deck of choice for the event was, as the title of the post indicates, Vampires. The Black-Red variety with a sideboard modified to fit my needs. The maindeck is just standard Vampires, nothing too exciting:
4 Marsh Flats
4 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
7 Swamp
3 Viscera Seer
4 Vampire Lacerator
3 Vampire Hexmage
3 Pulse Tracker
4 Kalastria Highborn
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Bloodghast
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Burst Lightning
2 Go for the Throat
2 Dark Tutelage
Like I said, pretty much your standard Vampires list, running two Dark Tutelage main. I used to have them in the sideboard but I found that I boarded them in against almost everything, so they should probably be maindeck. I had quite a bit of trouble figuring out what to cut, though, so I settled on cutting the Staggershocks that were somewhat mediocre in the past and don’t exactly combo with Tutelage.
The sideboard is a bit of a different story. I had to modify it quite a bit from my last Vampires sideboard because I felt it had many weak points. Here’s my new sideboard:
3 Arc Trail
3 Captivating Vampire
3 Manic Vandal
3 Memoricide
3 Vampire Nighthawk
I know what you’re thinking: Why do almost all of these cost 3 mana or more? Because they do the job! I had several other options that were cheaper but didn’t do exactly what I needed in the given matchup. Mark of Mutiny, Crush, Doom Blade, Duress, they all seemed underwhelming. Arc Trail comes in against any creature deck and/or Caw-Blade. Captivating comes in against Eldrazi Green (huge plus in this matchup), GW Aggro and that Mono-White deck. None can effectively remove him and it doesn’t take long to start Control Magicing their guys. The Vandals come in against CawBlade to deal with the Mortarpods, Sylvok Lifestaffs, and Swords. Memoricide is almost strictly for Primeval Titan decks, but also works lovely against the control decks that depend mostly or entirely on Grave Titans for their win conditions. Vampire Nighthawk is my buddy. Ever since he was spoiled I thought “wow, what a great creature, I’ll want to put him in every deck.” Sadly he is underwhelming in most matchups. But where he really shines is against the Mirror, Red Deck Wins, and Green decks. Now let’s get down to the matches!
Round 1: mirror match, best draw wins
This match was fun, but in the mirror match you want to hit 3-5 lands then stop drawing them. Usually the player who draws more lands than the other is the loser. Of course, after sideboarding Arc Trail makes a large difference in the match. If my memory serves me right, this guy came out great in game one while I stalled. Then games two and three I got better draws and he floundered on lands. In game two skill was the deciding factor as I made several plays that enabled me to eek out the win. The other two games were one-sided, though.
round 2:caw-blade
This was an interesting match. I took the first game very quickly just burning through Hawks & Mystics, while swinging with Bloodghasts. The second game hinged on me having Viscera Seer and Bloodghast in play, as I was able to sacrifice the ‘Ghast in response to his Condemn, which essentially won the game as he couldn’t deal with the recurring Bloodghast.
round 3:caw-blade
This gentlemen (and by that I mean sad-sack) was very cross that I won. I believe we went to three games, and it was very close. I believe I lost the first game and won games 2 and 3. My sideboard here was something like +3 Manic Vandal, +3 Arc Trail, -2 Tutelage, -1 Burst Lightning, and -3 Pulse Tracker. Game one was one-sided in his favor, game two was one-sided in my favor and game three was of epic proportions. I kept a land-light hand hoping to draw out of mana-screw, as Vampires is apt to do. This is what happened and while he had a slow start, every time he had a great threat I had the correct answer. Stoneforge Mystic? Arc Trail. Sword of F&F? Manic Vandal. Mortorpod? Manic Vandal #2. Celestial Colonade swining with Sword of F&F equipped? Go for the Throat. It was a pretty crazy game and in the end he succumbed to Bloodghast recursion, but I need to comment on his attitude during the match.
Every play I made in the third game was met with a snarky attitude. At no point did he say “wow, good pull” or “nice topdeck” or anything that could even be construed as nice. It was all “wow what a sack you are” and “I can’t believe you’re sucking so bad and still winning.” Comments of this nature really don’t belong in Magic. Sometimes you just lose. You could be the best player in the room with the best deck in the room and you could still lose to random good draw from random deck. Now my opponent didn’t really think back on his plays and realize that he Mana Leaked a non-impactful spell, nor did he talk about equipping wrong, etc, etc. He made a few mistakes here and there that were completely overlooked, but because I had all the answers, it was the end of the world. Nevermind the fact that I kept a one-land hand with six spells in it and drew a couple of lands over the first four turns, enabling me to play every card in my hand because of the low curve of my deck… Nevermind!
round 4: red deck wins
After the third round I was ready for a break, but the fourth round popped quickly. This time it was against Red Deck Wins and I have to say this guy played pretty well. Game one came down to a turn where we were both at two life and had he drawn a burn spell I’d have lost. Fortunately he didn’t and my vampires swung in for the win. The second game was much quicker and he was never really in it. I had the removal for his guys and the Bloodghast recursion to seal the deal.
I haven’t 4-0’d a Daily Event in a long time. The 11 packs were very nice and should enable me to chain some drafts. As I type this I played an SOM draft this morning and lost in the finals to net a pack. It’s like I’m on a roll or something.
Overall I think Vampires is a fine deck that, with the right pilot, can do just fine. I think it was Sam Stoddard who said that most players that play Vampires are those with budget concerns (I would be playing Caw-Blade if Jace weren’t $70+), and are necessarily not the most skilled players either. This is most likely correct as I’ve never lost the mirror due to anything but poor land draws. I do enjoy the fact that I didn’t need to shell out a ton of cash to build this deck and it is still able to win. Given that, if I had the cash, I would still play Caw-Blade as it is just a much better deck.
Good luck in Standard!
Force of Nature 