Darkness is Eternal [Mono-B Vampires]

Modern Competitive Midrange Mono-Black Primer Tribal Vampires

nUKe13

Creature (27)

• 4x Asylum Visitor *f-pre*
• 4x Bloodghast
• 4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
• 4x Gifted Aetherborn
• 3x Stromkirk Condemned *f-pre*
• 2x Vampire Nighthawk
• 4x Vampire Nocturnus *f-pre*
• 2x Viscera Seer

Land (23)

• 4x Bloodstained Mire
• 4x Marsh Flats
• 4x Mutavault
• 9x Swamp
• 2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sorcery (6)

• 3x Inquisition of Kozilek
• 3x Thoughtseize

Instant (4)

• 4x Fatal Push *f-pre*

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Sideboard

Artifact (8)

• 3x Damping Sphere
• 3x Nihil Spellbomb
• 2x Pithing Needle

Instant (3)

• 3x Dismember

Creature (2)

• 2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Sorcery (2)

• 2x Collective Brutality

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WELCOME TO MONO- VAMPIRES

Aggro/Midrange Tribal deck (similar to Jund) that uses aggressive, manipulative spells and creatures to force our way to victory. Early hand disruption and removal pave the way for bigger, more oppressive, creatures, like Vampire Nocturnus or Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet.

Comments and criticism are appreciated!

Inspiration

I wanted to go over reasons for specific inclusions and exclusions.

Some will realize this is closely mirrored to Tom Ross’ mono-black Vampires list from 2017. Here’s the link:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/34495_Modern-All-Over.html

And the 2016 version:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/33340_Making-Vampires-Work.html

And the 2014 version:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27638_Slivers-Vampires-In-Modern.html

And also SaffronOlive’s list:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-92-21-tix-vampires-modern)

Here is one from Adam Yurchick about different combinations and directions vampires can take:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=14388&fb_comment_ID=1553742264674122_1554601984588150

Inclusions

Mainboard Show

• Asylum Visitor - this has synergy with Stromkirk Condemned and helps us with draw power. Also, since the build runs Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize, it can help with the opponent having no hand. Asylum Visitor could be Dusk Legion Zealot, but 3 power, potentially having more draws, and madness make it too good.

• Bloodghast - pretty self explanatory. One of the best creatures (Vampire to boot!) in Modern due to recursion and haste (as I once heard someone say: “a control deck’s nightmare”). Bloodghast also has synergy with Viscera Seer (with Fetchland-Scry trick) and Stromkirk Condemned before playing a land for the turn. Really great addition and worth the price.

• Gatekeeper of Malakir - with indestructible and hexproof running around and causing havoc, it’s nice to just force the sac to remove the threat. It’s flexible to be played as a vanilla 2/2 for 2, but since this is mono-, we will almost always be able to pay .

• Gifted Aetherborn - one of my favorites, great against creature heavy match-ups, burn, or those damn tokens flying around. In the mainboard as a replacement for Kalastria Highborn and Stromkirk Condemned. This should help apply aggro pressure on the opponent while also having some defensive potential (3 toughness and deathtouch).

• Stromkirk Condemned - a pseudo-lord that, as stated before, has synergy with Asylum Visitor and Bloodghast. Also, flavorful with the eldrazi effects that have overcome vampires on multiples planes. This includes Asylum Visitor, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. We don’t need him at 4. Multiples don’t help all that much.

• Vampire Nighthawk - one of my all time favorite vampires. This creature can be so annoying to deal with! However, since Vampire Nocturnus grants flying, I felt it was redundant since I play with a set of Gifted Aetherborn. It’s basically Gifted Aetherborn for an extra mana that we could use for hand disruption or Fatal Push. However, after more playtesting and match-ups, I had a lot of people suggest Vampire Nighthawk as a much needed inclusion. I want to try and see if he can help us. Inclusion came at the cost of a couple lands, but I think we have a low enough curve, and without Kalastria Highborn we don’t need a lot of open mana.

• Vampire Nocturnus - not much to say about this masterpiece. This big, bad, boss monster is the reason to play vampires in modern. “+2/+1 and flying for playing a deck? Yes, please! Thank you!” The build is centered around making sure his effect goes off every turn (Viscera Seer, fetchlands, and sometimes Ghost Quarter).

• Viscera Seer - basic 1/1 for 1 that scrys to fix our draws and enables Vampire Nocturnus. Cute synergy with Bloodghast and Kalastria Highborn. Nothing too special.

• Bloodstained Mire and Marsh Flats - fetchlands for deck thinning, trigger revolt on Fatal Push, and reset top of library for Vampire Nocturnus. For more budget, use Polluted Delta in place of Marsh Flats. I love Mardu colors and I use those specific colors in my Mardu Vampires build, which you can see from my profile page. Definitely worth the sacrifice/investment. If you want to use less, you can use only 4, and just have more Swamps in their place. You will, however, miss out on the above mentioned benefits of additional fetchlands.

• Mutavault - another meta pick that helps with the late game grind. Again, can just be more Swamps if budget demands.

• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - great for preserving fetch lands and allowing Mutavault to tap for . I, personally, didn’t think they were worth it, at first. However, I’ve found myself wanting to tap my fetchlands without cracking them and wanting to tap Mutavault for occasionally. Since they’re legendary, I feel 2 is a good number.

• Swamp - because mono- needs to do things. Grab these early if you feel a Blood Moon coming on. Leave 1 or 2 open to scare opponent with Fatal Push, Dismember, or for Mutavault.

• Fatal Push - meta 1 drop removal. Revolt triggered by fetchlands or Viscera Seer. Most creatures, with the exception of Eldrazi, can be hit by this. I split the set of Fatal Push between the two boards to allow room for Thoughtseize. I had moments in games where Fatal Push either didn’t do anything, or I drew 2-3 in a row. I’d rather have the discard to diversify game 1 match-ups.

• Inquisition of Kozilek - this DAMN card. This bane of existence! Have you ever kept a hand for a card or 2 and the opponent turn 1 or 2 tears it from your grasp? Yeah... that feeling is why I play this and Thoughtseize. Since modern is a turn-4/5 format, this card basically hits EVERYTHING. And, since we are aggro/midrange, it removes problematic cards, like various counters or pseudo-board wipes. In addition, I believe it is Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet on the artwork of Inquisition of Kozilek MM3 so... THAT FLAVOR TEXT THOUGH! It’s basically, “Inquisition of Kalitas”.

• Thoughtseize - hand disruption against threatening stuff, like board wipes or big planeswalkers or Eldrazi. Could be Duress, but these are much better, more consistent, and worth the investment. Also, we have enough lifegain (and we don’t play shocks) where the -2 life doesn’t hurt us that bad.

Sideboard Show

• Collective Brutality - as per suggestion from another commentator, I want to try and see how Collective Brutality does in this build. As mentioned in the comments, it helps against burn, it helps against combo, it helps against aggressive strategies that may also provide “indestructible”, and it helps trigger Asylum Visitor with madness and get Bloodghast in the grave. Theoretically, when this hits, it should be an absolute bomb on the opponent’s field and/or hand. I’m gonna try it out and report back to you all on how it did.

• Damping Sphere - I have been on and off about this card. Since my meta has a lot of Storm and Tron, I thought it should feel right. However, can be less than optimal or helpful late game. Nice to mess up early Storm/Tron gameplay so we can set up a swarming creature board. Most of the creatures are low enough CMC anyway so the extra mana requirement doesn’t hurt a ton. I feel better about this choice since I removed Ghost Quarter. I’m willing to try it at my LGS to see what happens.

• Dismember - additional removal and good against Infect or Indestructible meta that occasionally pops up. If the need arises, you can leave a mana up late game to force a creature with 5 or higher CMC (to avoid Fatal Push) and with 5 or less toughness and then surprise them with this. The life loss isn’t too critical with Gifted Aetherborn, Kalastria Highborn, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Could be replaced with Victim of Night, Cast Down, Go for the Throat, or Doom Blade. I wouldn’t recommend Walk the Plank due to Sorcery speed.

• Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet - great with creature heavy decks or Dredge/Delve “graveyard recursion” shenanigans. Has lifelink to help against burn if need be. Great at deterring board wipes when opponent has board presence, and can save itself from -X/-X effects, if you have enough mana.

• Nihil Spellbomb - helps against storm and graveyard abuse. Also can be put in if we are having resources ripped from us, like The Rack-based decks for example for additional card draw, at which point, we would probably just rely on Asylum Visitor. Good against the occasional effects of “+/+ when * is number of [insert type here] in the graveyard” decks, like Tarmogoyf and Enigma Drake or delirium.

• Pithing Needle - sort of like Damping Sphere, I feel like this is flexible, but I think it doesn’t do enough. It’s great against Affinity, but bad at the same time, because there are soooo many potential targets and hard to nail one. It’s good against Tron when naming Karn Liberated or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, but they have other ways to kill us. I want it to work, but I don’t know how to do so. It’s nice because it can hit manlands (like Raging Ravine, Blinkmoth Nexus, Treetop Village, Creeping Tar Pit, or Inkmoth Nexus) and give mono- protection against some weaknesses. Just for kicks, I’m going to try 2x Pithing Needle. I want to see if it helps against weak match-ups.

Exclusions

First off, these are my opinions and are subject to change based on experience or convincing evidence. This build tries to play the best of each drop and end with Vampire Nocturnus.

• Liliana of the Veil - as I’ve heard, the BEST planeswalker in modern magic, right there with Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Everything about her is great in mono- control and midrange. Since most of my build is aggro/midrange and cares about the vampire creature type (Vampire Nocturnus, Stromkirk Condemned, Kalastria Highborn, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet) I felt this was an exclusion that could be made. Plus, she is so expensive!

• Kalastria Highborn - with this being an aggro/midrange deck, in addition to Viscera Seer/Bloodghast sac-tricks, we can gain and drain the opponent. Kalastria Highborn also acts as a pseudo-deterrent to board wipes, along with Bloodghast. Again, since this is mono-, shouldn’t be hard to pay for when a board wipe comes around. Lately I’ve been tapping out with the creatures and other 1 drop instant/sorcery spells and haven’t really had to pay for Kalastria Highborn, so I’m trying to learn to manage my mana better. I think Kalastria Highborn may belong more in a or token build with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for mass mana devotion and then mass sacrificing our board during or post combat. At that point, we might as well be playing tokens with Lingering Souls, Spectral Procession, and Leyline of the Meek and we would be token focused, rather than Vampire Tribal, in which case, we wouldn’t run Vampire Nocturnus. For these reasons, I don’t think Kalastria Highborn belongs in this build. Love her, but can’t use her without high mana production.

• Fulminator Mage - more Tron hate. Really attractive, disruptive effect. Personally, I’d rather have the Ghost Quarter to also help with resetting top of library for Vampire Nocturnus. Also... another pretty expensive addition after everything else that has been added.

• Ghost Quarter - Tron hate and reset top of library for Vampire Nocturnus. Also really funny to hit an opponent’s land after fetch + shock so they just get a basic. Most 2-3 color builds run only a few basics usually. Honestly, not incredibly helpful, I’ve found. I’m trying 4x Mutavault to aggressively combat/pressure Tron before they can set up.

• Vampire Hexmage - I used to have this in the build when it first started. Great deterrent to planeswalkers, besides the fact that they could still use one effect of the planeswalker before being destroyed. Honestly, didn’t do much after that. Cute with first strike, but the build already has better vampires. If the meta became way more planeswalker oriented, I would sub this in, with graveyard recursion, like Call to the Netherworld or Macabre Waltz.

• Any splash of / - I have tried both and found the bonuses of each color clash with the original purpose of Vampire Nocturnus. With , you get burn, artifact hate (Shatterstorm), and Stromkirk Captain. With , you get grave and artifact/enchantment hate, like Rest in Peace, Disenchant, and Stony Silence and even Legion Lieutenant. These are all fantastic cards! However, they unfortunately mess up the power and probability of Vampire Nocturnus, which is the reason to play vampires in the first place! Also, when splashing or , or both, we begin to include shock lands, so we take damage more frequently. Unfortunately, shocks + fetches can and will take their toll. Plus, we have to get rid of some of our or synergy due to the splash because we are more susceptible to Blood Moon since we focus mainly on synergy. On a side note, I’m building a tribal lord based vampire build (mirrored similarly to Saffron’s build, but with different ratios) and it has worked pretty well so far, but it is very linear. It is basically: play lords, smash face. Almost like Modern Humans, but weaker. I personally think that mono- with hand disruption (Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize) make mono-, in my opinion, one of the strongest solo colors, and tribes, in modern. Basically, just try to get rid of problems before they even hit the board.

• Damnation/Languish/Mutilate/Ratchet Bomb/Oblivion Stone - the bane/curse of creature based decks. Theoretically, we want to be on the offensive and rip board wipes from their hand or punish our opponent for playing them (like Kalastria Highborn or Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet). We don’t want to have to use them ourselves. The way I see it: everybody is already out to board wipe creature decks, so why should we worry? Besides, we have Gifted Aetherborn and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to deal with other heavy “go wide” creature strategies, due to deathtouch, lifelink, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet’s amazing no-graveyard-for-opponent’s-creature-exile-instead-and-OMG-a-zombie-token ability.

• Captivating Vampire - I wanted this to work. I wanted to be able to steal big creatures and pump the team. But, honestly, this belongs in a token builds and at the top of the curve for the deck. In this build, Captivating Vampire gets completely overshadowed by Vampire Nocturnus and I haven’t ever had enough creatures to ever make the steal ability relevant. And, at that point, I’d rather smash face with 4-5 vampires with +2/+1 and flying (evasion!), than worry about stealing an opponent’s creatures. It was funny, during testing, to steal the big, scary, indestructible creature with his ability, then sac with Viscera Seer.

Modern Meta and Sideboarding

Eldrazi Tron Show

Coming soon!

Tron Show

Coming soon!

Humans Show

Coming soon!

Jeskai Control Show

Coming soon!

Mardu Pyromancer Show

Coming soon!

Burn Show

Coming soon!

Hollow One Show

Coming soon!

Krark-Clan Ironworks Show

Coming soon!

Affinity Show

Coming soon!

Death’s Shadow Show

Coming soon!

Azorius Control Show

Coming soon!

Dredge Show

Coming soon!

Gifts Storm Show

Coming soon!

Jund Show

Coming soon!

Delve Show

Coming soon!

The Rack Show

Coming soon!

Bogles (Hexproof) Show

Coming soon!

Elves Show

Coming soon!

Scapeshift Show

Coming soon!

I hope you found the web links to my inspiration helpful, as well has the interactive sections just above. Write a comment, upvote, or send me a message with any critiques or compliments on the build. I look forward to the criticism to make this build the best possible! Thank you!

Recent Match-Ups

Tron Show

- Game 1 was incredibly close, but I miss-counted available mana and as I swung for lethal, Oblivion Stone was used. Dropped Batterskull right after and I scooped. Game 2 I didn’t draw anything bigger than Gifted Aetherborn or Viscera Seer. My Gatekeeper of Malakirs were nowhere to be found. Got swept.

Madness Show

- Game 1, opponent didn’t draw anything to slow down my go wide strategy. Didn’t draw Vampire Nocturnus, but Stromkirk Condemned did work! Game 2 was extremely close within a few life. However, opponent drew into 2nd and 3rd Demigod of Revenge right in a row. Couldn’t overcome. Didn’t have time for game 3.

Spirit Tribal Show

- only played one game, but it was a long one. Basically, opponent drew every Lingering Souls and Spectral Procession he owned, with a Drogskol Captain on the field, and finally his only Spell Queller in the deck against my last board push. Close game, but that RNG though!

Tokens Show

- Game 1, first hand, opponent drew Leyline of the Meek, 2 Lingering Souls, 2 Gather the Townsfolk, and drew straight lands the next few turns to play all of them. Again, couldn’t keep up and never drew Inquisition of Kozilek. Got mana flooded. Right when I played Vampire Nocturnus, he immediately used Path to Exile. Game 2, I subbed in all my Gifted Aetherborn for all my Gatekeeper of Malakirs, and never drew them. Opponent? Leyline of the Meek in opening hand. Again. Felt almost like 8 Lingering Souls were played within the first few turns, with how many times he used them.

Extort and 5-Color Door to Nothingness Show

- Game 1, opponent never drew into enough threats, and got flooded. Every threat was answered with Fatal Push or Gatekeeper of Malakir. Opponent was overwhelmed. Game 2 was Door to Nothingness, and he almost took the game due to a misplay where I played a Marsh Flats when I should have pumped the team with Stromkirk Condemned. Didn’t get to activate the Door before the vampires took over.

Grixis Shadow Show

- 0-2 game 1 opponent drew key removal Dismember and Lightning Bolt and Snapcaster Mage and destroyed every blocker I presented. Game 2 was more of a grind, but opponent had 2 Death's Shadow, Lightning Bolt, Snapcaster Mage, and Temur Battle Rage. Never drew my removal or blockers (only drew Bloodghast.

Good-Stuff Eldrazi Show

- 0-2 game 1 has opponent against the wall with a full board. He drew Cataclysmic Gearhulk and couldn’t come back. Game 2 was close as well, but opponent used Eldritch Evolution on Kitchen Finks for a Sigarda, Host of Herons and couldn’t come back. Also don help getting mana flooded. Considered going down to 22 by cutting 2 Swamps.

Top Ranked	Achieved #19 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	WURG
Splash colors	B
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 2 Mythic Rares 28 - 4 Rares 17 - 6 Uncommons 2 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.05
Tokens	Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Modern Reference, Other's Decks I like, Vamps, Interesting Modern Decks, Good decks, Vampire Decks, Maybe, Favorite Modern Decks, life, My Stuff