My attempt at making a competitively viable modern vampires deck. I don't have much experience making competitive decks so any help would be greatly appreciated.
By playing Aether Vial with Dark Confidant and Sign in Blood, we get lots of vampires into our hands and can get them out fast.
The focus of the deck is taking advantage of cards like Stromkirk Captain, Captivating Vampire, Bloodline Keeper
, and Vampire Nocturnus to buff all your vampires and give them flying/first strike to make them big threats. Aether Vial allows for us to get a better board presence faster, as we can play two buffing vampires together, or even a buffing vampire and an offensive vampire like Vampire Nighthawk to make it even more of a threat.
Rakish Heir makes it so that every time a vampire gets in and does damage it becomes even stronger, giving incentive for the opponent to sacrifice their creatures to block. Our creatures will usually be safe in exchanges because of Stromkirk Captain's first strike buff.
Vampire Lacerator is a great early game threat, and can also be a useful card to take advantage of Aether Vial's first charge counter.
Gatekeeper of Malakir and Bloodghast can be used with Aether Vial's second charge counter, and give good early game removal and consistent aggro.
You should keep Aether Vial's charge counters at 3, since the bulk of this deck is comprised of powerful three-drop vampires, and you can use mana to get out the few four-drops we run.
Stromkirk Captain, Rakish Heir & Vampire Nighthawk are the bulk of your offense, especially when comboed. Vampire Nighthawk already has flying, deathtouch, and lifelink, but when he's buffed and also has first strike, he's a terrifying threat for your opponents.
Captivating Vampire & Olivia Voldaren gives your deck the ability to take control of your opponents threatening creatures, but since this ability is situational these will probably be some of the first cards you'll want to side out.
Cryptborn Horror is a very good win condition with this build, since you can use Aether Vial to get it out after already using your mana to get out a vampire. Since this deck's aggro is very bursty, it's not uncommon for Cryptborn Horror to get close to 10/10 or even larger, and with trample it's a force to be reckoned with.
The sideboard is pretty straightforward, Vampire Hexmage deals with any deck that relies on counters of any kind, Thoughtseize & Inquisition of Kozilek help against decks with early game combos, Blade of the Bloodchief is good against removal decks and decks that sack creatures, and Slaughter Games can wreck any deck that relies on a specific combo piece or two.
If anything I said is blatantly wrong, or if there are better angles you think I could take this deck, please let me know! I want to establish as good a deck as I can before trying to work on a budget version (budget alternatives would be appreciated as well).
Thanks so much, and I hope some of you try it and end up liking vampires as much as I do :)
