why not have Stromkirk Noble or Rakish Heir in the deck? Noble is a good 1 drop to start the game with and Rakish Heir empowers any vampire that deals damage

I would probably replace the Evolving Wilds with an additional Tragic Slip , one more Falkenrath Aristocrat and a Swamp 24 might be too many lands to be running when your curve goes to 4.

That's just my opinion

Also, to answer the guy above me, it's because it turns off Nocturnus, which is arguably the best card in the deck.

Let me first start off by saying, I am big fan of aggressive agro decks, I always have been. I really admire what you done with your deck, because it looks competitive and a lot of fun. I have two ideas for your deck that you can either choose to accept or not accept, completely your choice. The first idea I had for you deck was instead of ruining evolving wilds for a land base card, why not use the new card that has just come out in Avacyn Restored, called Cavern of Souls. I figure that since your deck has all the same creature types, vampires, this card will allow a more sufficient and diverse mana base, and allow you to play your big vampires and not being worried about your opponent countering them. The second idea I had for your deck is instead of using the two drop vampire, Child of Night, why not put in the one drop, Stromkirk Noble, this is an amazing card for Vampire Decks. This is a great one drop creature that has the potential to be a huge force in your deck by just pumping itself up early game. Plus if your opponent is playing a human deck, you already have a huge advantage over them. As I said before sir just some things to consider in making your deck, either way your deck looks like a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy playing it!

To reply to the comments above:

Rakish Heir and Stormkirk Noble: Rakish Heir just isn't good enough in the 3 spot. Stormkirk Nobel is awesome, but as noted above its not black so it doesn't activate Vampire Nocturnus which is an Insane card.

The idea behind the Evolving Wilds is to crack away Non-black (lands) cards when I have out Vampire Nocturnous. The second chance to get a black card is pretty ok and well worth sacrificing a little tempo as there are still a lot of creatures to play early on.

Cavern of Souls.... Yeah I know its an awesome card. I just need to trade for a bunch. As soon as I get them they are going straight in the deck. LOL

And lastly Child of Night for stormkirk... as stated above the ONLY reason Stormkirk Noble isnt in this deck is because he's not black. However, I really like running Child of Night, because with the lifelink from Child of Night, Vampire Nighthawk, and life draining effects of Blood Artist this deck is really resilient to a slower start and can match up well with other aggro decks, which might have a real problem with decks gaining life on them.

honestly, you don't need duress or blood artist here. i would add the nobles (he's the only non-black vampire i would ever use, and is worth running in 4) and possibly a few red removal/damage cards. i'm wondering if you have too many 4-drops, and vampires need low mana creatures to drop quickly, as in, 1-drops. child of night, at 2 power + life gain for 2 mana, is a decent addition. in regard to your sideboard, i would drop the mutilates for 2 ratchet bombs. in the mainboard, i might suggest dropping falkenrath aristocrat for Olivia, but the aristocrat works well here, in that she's a 4 power flying/haste. the deck is black enough as it is to where you can afford a few non-black cards.

that's my input, take it as you will.

Yamishi to reply to your comments:

Durress, I like playing duress because it takes out some of the things that are really good against this deck, and that this deck doesnt have an answer for. It can take out planeswalkers, wrath effects, bonfire, rancor, oblivion ring which are all really solid cards against my deck. Admittedly it has been somewhat awkward in testing, as I have tested against a very creature heavy monogreen aggro deck so there arent many noncreature targets, but i think it works well in most matchups and could get boarded out for more removal like geths verdict against the really heavy creature decks.

Blood Artist, I like the idea that it swings a lot of blocks (especially trades) in my favor and can turn my go for the throats, and tragic slips into searing blazes (minus the whole landfall bit). Also the synergy with falkenrath aristocrat has been nice because sometimes I can get close on damage and then sac my team to the aristocrat and the blood artist triggers will kill them (hes kinda like a hell rider in that regard)

And olivia doesnt make as much of an impact when she comes in. she's most accurately considered a 5 or 6 drop so i could play her and shoot something. I love her in the more grindy matchups, as well as an answer to phyrexian metamorph, which is hard for my current removal set to deal with.

the deck is very 4 drop heavy and greedy, i know. I am thinking of tweaking this a little bit. Here are some of the changes I am thinking of. Changing one of the evolving wilds for a swamp. Then I might cut one of the bloodline keepers not sure for what yet... thoughts??

-3 Evolving Wilds for +2 Ghost Quarter and a 12th Swamp

-2 Go for the Throat , +2 Doom Blade (Inkmoth Nexus is still out there)

-3 Duress , +3 Sign in Blood because card draw wins games, and with such a low curve you'll need to replenish your hand

since you've got 8 lifelinkers, -2 Mutilate for +3 Killing Wave . Synergy between Killing Wave and Blood Artist is pretty awesome.

in addition to the 3 Killing Wave s, board needs to be more threat specific. the 3 card:Geth's Verdict are groovy, as is the 2 Olivia Voldaren , Phyrexian Metamorph and Liliana of the Veil . Up Surgical Extraction to a 3 of to mangle control decks

if you still want to run blood artist, why not add a playset of Bloodthrone Vampire ?

another decent 2-mana vamp you can run is Vampire Interloper . 2/1 evasion for 2 mana, at the cost of being unable to block. vampires aren't meant to block, they're meant to swing. your removal does the blocking for you. and i'm pretty sure this goes without saying, but Cavern of Souls and Phyrexian Metamorph are both options to consider.

To answer the above comments:

Guiness76: I am going to replace at least one of the Evolving Wilds with another Swamp . I'm really on the fence with what I want to do with the other two. The Ghost Quarter idea is a good one and one I'm struggling to find a lot of problems with. I do like the Evolving Wilds because it can help me find one of the Mountains to cast the few black/red cards or it could help me find a Swamp turn 1 so I can have my Dragonskull Summit s come in untapped. But one of my favorite uses for it is to be able to shuffle away a non black card for Vampire Nocturnus

The Go for the Throat vs. Doom Blade Question is a tougher one. Inkmoth Nexus is a card but I can remove it pretty easily with Tragic Slip . I'm not sure how the metagame is going to shake out. Im not sure if I will see some more monoblack strategies like control or zombie builds. Any thoughts on that?

I think I wanna keep Duress because it fits in the curve better than Sign in Blood and it helps get rid of things that my deck has trouble with like wrath effects, and planeswalkers.

Killing Wave I'm not sure about. I really need to play the deck more with the sideboard in, but I like the idea of playing an extra Surgical Extraction . Im going to play this deck at FNM and the Game Day Saturday so the sideboard should get some more experience once I see how it functions now.

Yamishi: I thought about Bloodthrone Vampire a lot. I really love the card and it works extreemly well when you have a swarmy deck and a couple of them in play, but I think if they dont do lethal in one hit it really hurts your team.

Also Vampire Interloper is good and I had him in one of the first builds of this deck, but I found that this deck IS meant to block and can often block favorably a lot. Whether its just Vampire Nighthawk ,Stromkirk Captain or the pair of them together is amazing at blocking, and then if you pair that with a Blood Artist your trades on blocking actually end up dealing them damage and gaining you some life, and then hopefully you can kill them on the backswing.

And then Phyrexian Metamorph is on the sideboard for flexibility, and Cavern of Souls will go in the deck as soon as I trade for some, or just bite the bullet and buy them.

yes, i've used the nighthawk + captain trick as a surprisingly effective ultimatum (i play vamps in modern) as if to say "go ahead and swing, you're just throwing your creature away". most of the time though, you want to end the game fast though.

i think bloodthrone is a tad hit-or-miss as well, she was fantastic in zendikar standard (top 8 world for Sorin's sake), but with the absence of Kalastria Highborn or Bloodghast, she's very much past her prime in standard now.

i think including Child of Night is generally a good idea. Stromkirk Noble is the only one-drop vampire in standard atm, which greatly hurts their playability next to modern/legacy where we have all the Zendikar 1-drops that almost function like the kind of thing you see in RDW. (pulse tracker, lacerator, viscera seer, guul draz vampire/assassin) so you have to make do with 2-mana creatures in standard.

terramorphic wilds... fetch lands are a good idea since your scry options are somewhat limited. i've had many cases where verdant catacombs has single handedly won me the game by activating nocturnus. let's not forget you can crack the fetch on their end step.

i would side the duress, since you'll know by game 2 whether or not their deck is creature fat.

i would drop the aristocrats and the bloodline keepers (he's good, but 12 lords is far to excessive and he clogs your mana curve with nocturnus wannabes. 4 nocturnus and 4 captain is plenty). and mainboard Olivia. even in modern, when i drop Olivia it's basically game over.

you may want to think about splashing a few Arc Trail

Yamishi: You make some really good points. I played against vamps in standard when Kalastria Highborn and Bloodghast were around (modern vamps might be my next project).

I think the Duress 's will be able to be boarded out for more removal against really creature heavy decks. I like the Aristocrats because when youre winning they are just pure gas, and they can survive a fair amount of removal (at the cost of one of the little guys), and work well with Blood artist. I agree that Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip is somewhat underwhelming, however it is nice to be able to drop one after a sweeper and proceed restocking with tokens. It also works nicely with bloodline keeper to make a token and then chump block with the token.

That being said I do think youre right in the fact that 4 might be too many. As nice as it is to have two out at the same time, it might not happen enough to warrent it. Ill probably cut one of them maybe 2, but i think i want to keep 3 in the deck.

I know Olivia has a place somewhere around this deck. It was in the original build of this deck, but i thought it was somewhat slow. I do like the fact that it provides another out against a Phyrexian Metamorph which the current removal suite has some trouble removing.

Im also somewhat worried I dont have enough red sources to make Olivia Voldaren really scary.

if you'd like, i have my modern build posted, under the name "The Impaler Reborn". you can go take a look at it for ideas if you build a modern vampire deck.

Thanks I'm still working on acquiring some of the pieces for that. I have all the vampires needed, but I need to get the shock lands and fetch lands. Hopefully I can win some store credit or something with this deck and put it towards that.

Thanks I'm still working on acquiring some of the pieces for that. I have all the vampires needed, but I need to get the shock lands and fetch lands. Hopefully I can win some store credit or something with this deck and put it towards that.