Stensia Masquerade

Enchantment

Attacking creatures you control have first strike.

Whenever a Vampire you control deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.

Madness (If you discard a card, you may cast this card for its madness cost instead of putting it into your graveyard.)

Discussion (49)

BRG24 on Insatiable Thirst

4 days ago

Hello again, just a follow up to my previous comment. Looking at your list as it is now, I agree that Key to the City doesn’t look like it would do too well. The card works really well when you have a high number of cards with madness to ensure that the discard isn’t a tempo loss for you. Here, however, there are only three unique cards with madness, and actually rushing out an Asylum Visitor without getting its extra value is often a bad play, making most plays off of Key feel bad. Regarding the untap ability though, you only ever want to be activating it late game when you’re low on cards and up on mana, most of the time it’s irrelevant to you.

As I see it, and you may massively disagree with me here, your deck is, while on one ultimate strategy of playing aggressive with vampires, split in how it gets there. You’ve got your madness/discard package and then your more generic aggro vampire package, and personally it doesn’t seem like both can be the deck’s focus and you need to pick one or the other. Some cards (Asylum Visitor or Stensia Masquerade) probably make it into both versions just off their raw power but that won’t be the case for everything. Having built both versions of vampire aggro in pioneer and modern, hopefully I can give some helpful advice.

Firstly, if we start by looking at the straight aggro deck, cards like Lightning Axe, Fiery Temper and Thrill of Possibility don’t really seem to synergise, and you probably also have better alternatives for your one drops. Knight of the Ebon Legion is a very solid card to replace perhaps the Insolent Neonate as it scales much better into the game. Gifted Aetherborn is incredible as a two drop, and Drana, Liberator of Malakir feels like a must in this type of deck if your budget can accommodate her. Sanctum Seeker and Champion of Dusk are great late game cards that let you close out games as well. Black has really good removal options as well, perhaps my favourite being Drag to the Underworld, although that does put you in heavy black, but that might not be the worst thing with all the support from Ixalan, but Olivia's Bloodsworn and Stensia Masquerade would certainly justify a red splash. There are many other good cards, these are just some of my favourites.

If you decide to go down a more madness/discard based route, other cards become weaker. Weird as it may seem, but Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is not all that great of a card for this strategy in my experience, since it lacks any synergy with discard, and cheating a vampire into play often isn’t worth it since your curve tends to be very low. Thrill of Possibility is another card I’d recommend against, using free discard outlets instead is far better for your tempo. I’d replace these with more units with madness, as I’ve said before Incorrigible Youths and Bloodmad Vampire being my favourites, with Voldaren Pariah  ^Flip being a great finisher or stabiliser. Call the Bloodline is another interesting discard outlet you might want to consider, of course alongside Furyblade Vampire and Key to the City, which now becomes better now that you can curve it nicely into strong turn three aggression. If this is the route you choose to take, the discard outlet slots are quite flexible, so experiment and find those that fit how you want to play.

I’ll put the links to my two lists here for if you want to have a look:

• Mono-Black Vampires (Pioneer Vampires)

• Madness Vampire (Voices in My Head, Madness Vampires)

I understand that you want to test your current build first, and your testing may prove me wrong entirely. These are pretty big changes that I’m suggesting, and they may lead the deck away from what you are envisioning for it, so please feel free to completely ignore these recommendations. I wish you luck with the deck and hope that this has been helpful to you.

skrai on Insatiable Thirst

4 days ago

Hey BRG24. I actually had just changed this list pretty drastically, putting in Asylum Visitor, Olivia's Bloodsworn, and Stensia Masquerade, so I'd like to test the current list before making extensive edits. In a previous version of this list, I've run Stromkirk Condemned, and everytime I got it out I found that it just didn't do enough, so I ended up replacing it for the Asylum Visitor. I do like the idea of Incorrigible Youths as an aggressive turn 3 play, but I did just put in the bloodsworn which can give itself or others haste depending on the turn/situation, and I think that flexibility could be more worth it in the long run. I think I may put in a couple Olivia, Mobilized for War because the deck could use some closing power. I used Key to the City back a while ago, and I found that most of the time it just put me back on card advantage and activating the untap ability just fit too awkwardly. That being said, since you've experienced great success with it, I think I may give it another go before dismissing it fully. Lastly, I may experiment with Furyblade Vampire because I like the inherent trample to push damage through, but there are a lot of 2 drops in this deck as is, so I'm not sure how worth it it would be. Thanks for taking the time to comment!

BRG24 on Insatiable Thirst

1 week ago

Cool deck. I’ve built a similar one based more around the madness mechanic and have been running it for years with lots of success. If you’re wanting to go down that route, and I note your have many of the key pieces already (Falkenrath Gorger, Stensia Masquerade, Asylum Visitor), I have a few suggestions. Furyblade Vampire and Incorrigible Youths allow for a very aggressive curve, giving you a lot of attacking power turn 3. Stromkirk Condemned is another nice card that can push you through for the win, although the mana cost might be slightly awkward. The really nice card though would be Key to the City. Giving your creatures unblockable for the price of being able to cast another spell is great value, especially when combined with Stensia Masquerade or perhaps a Bloodmad Vampire another decent include. Finally, Olivia, Mobilized for War is a great card that enables amazing turns that an just end games. As I said, this is for if you want to turn this into more of a madness vampire deck, and I’m not sure if that’s where you want to take it, but I hope this has been of help to you.

BRG24 on Vampire go face

2 weeks ago

Nice deck. I run a deck that focuses more on the discard/madness side of vampires, and from my experience with it I’d recommend Stensia Masquerade. The first strike attacks makes attacking so much more favourable, and the counters can get problematic if left unchecked. Also, if you do intend to look at madness a bit more, cards like Fiery Temper or Bloodmad Vampire might be nice, or even Incorrigible Youths if you can discard consistently. Finally, Castle Locthwain seems really good, card draw does seem a little weak here. Hope this is helpful.

Last_Laugh on Edgy Markov

2 weeks ago

Copied/pasted from my deck description...

How to break combat:

The intended use of Reconnaissance is pretty straightforward, allowing you to dodge most combat tricks, unfavorable blocks, etc. In itself a nice ability, but this card has a few tricks hidden up it's sleeves.

1) After damage is dealt players recieve priority (the chance to use spells and abilities such as Reconnaissance) while creatures are still considered 'attacking'. This means that you can use Reconnaissance to untap your creatures even after damage has been dealt, effectively granting them pseudo-vigilance. No, the "neither deals, nor recieves damage" part is not applied retroactively. Not bad for a 1-drop enchantment.

2) Since you can attack with all your creatures every turn with no fear of losing any, you'll have more attackers than your opponent has blockers, resulting in more unblocked creatures and therefore more damage.

3) Here's where it really gets fun. Players recieve priority after EVERY combat damage step. This means that you have a chance to use Reconnaissance AFTER first strike damage, but BEFORE regular damage. This is especially broken with Stromkirk Captain/Stensia Masquerade as it makes combat entirely one-sided.

tkjanacek on Edgar Markov

3 weeks ago

You play a lot of expensive creatures, i would suggest including a reanimator package: Animate Dead, Reanimate, Victimize, Living Death, Elspeth Conquers Death, Whip of Erebos, Entomb, Buried Alive, Olivia's Dragoon, Stromkirk Condemned. I caution you against cutting Door of Destinies, it's very strong. Instead I would cut Brave the Sands, Stensia Masquerade and maybe a couple of rocks. Check out my list: Edgar Aggro

Last_Laugh on Edgar Markov

3 weeks ago

How to break combat:

The intended use of Reconnaissance is pretty straightforward, allowing you to dodge most combat tricks, unfavorable blocks, etc. In itself a nice ability, but this card has a few tricks hidden up it's sleeves.

1) After damage is dealt players recieve priority (the chance to use spells and abilities such as Reconnaissance) while creatures are still considered 'attacking'. This means that you can use Reconnaissance to untap your creatures even after damage has been dealt, effectively granting them pseudo-vigilance. No, the "neither deals, nor recieves damage" part is not applied retroactively and technically doesn't even exist on the oracle text anymore since the rule it's referring to no longer exists. Not bad for a 1-drop enchantment.

2) Since you can attack with all your creatures every turn with no fear of losing any, you'll have more attackers than your opponent has blockers, resulting in more unblocked creatures and therefore more damage.

3) Here's where it really gets fun. Players recieve priority after EVERY combat damage step. This means that you have a chance to use Reconnaissance AFTER first strike damage, but BEFORE regular damage. This is especially broken with Stromkirk Captain/Stensia Masquerade as it makes combat entirely one-sided.

bigrigroy on Fatman's Lardlust

1 month ago

MISC to consider adding

Creatures Cordial Vampire Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip Indulgent Aristocrat Blood Artist Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle Drana, Liberator of Malakir Viscera Seer Vampire Hexmage Bloodcrazed Paladin Metallic Mimic Shadow Alley Denizen Blood Seeker Guul Draz Assassin Gatekeeper of Malakir Bloodghast Vindictive Vampire

Sorcery Ruinous Ultimatum Wrath of God / Damnation

Instant Flawless Maneuver Path to Exile Despark Bedevil

Enchantment Arcane Signet Sol Ring Legion's Landing  ^Flip Stensia Masquerade Phyrexian Arena Smothering Tithe Radiant Destiny

Artifact Herald's Horn Icon of Ancestry Urza's Incubator Eldrazi Monument