They come at night,
in search of blood.
They feed on blight,
and death. No wood
can keep them off your home.
You'd be afraid, were you alone.
So always friend, don't travel lonely.
Otherwise, you'll be just only
their prey and they will leave you dead.
The beast I mean, it is the bat.
Enough of my terrible rhyming skills. This is bat tribal. These little suckers love to drain life, though they aren't espacially great at it. It's weird to play a deck where a three mana 2/1 flyer with deathtouch is your best attacker, but your swarm can grow out of control after a little while.
While the described Malakir Familiar is a weird, but powerful card, there are other interesting bats as well. Our one-drops are Blight Keeper and Vampire Bats. While both aren't exactly the most efficient creatures, they are important both as a quick start and as creatures to recurr later with Dusk / Dawn's aftermath. Blight Keeper's activated will rarely ever be of any relevance, but a kind-of strictly better, black Suntail Hawk isn't a bad deal at all. Gurmag Swiftwing is where the aggression starts: Though first strike on a 1/2 is just minimally better than deathtouch on a 0/1, a 1/2 flying, haste for two mana is still a good card. Basilica Screecher is one the deck's center pieces: You get the chance to increase your creatures mana cost by to have them drain one life on casting. This synergizes nicely with Bontu's Monument: With both in play, every black creature spell you cast (which are all of them here) has their normal cost, but drains you two life. This in addition to three copies of Path of Bravery indeed makes Malakir Familiar a very dangerous attacker. Blind Hunter is another lifegaining attacker.
Regal Bloodlord: We have a lot of lifegain, thus this guy can supply us with these beautiful bat tokens from core set 19. Seriously, look at them. They are gorgeous.
Bontu's Monument: An artifact that makes black creatures cheaper and makes them drain life. Just perfect. And it synergizes with Basilica Screecher.
Dusk / Dawn: A combined one-sided wrath and value bomb that is on flavour? Has to be included without a doubt.
In addition, the deck has some removal spells: Sorin's Thirst and Moment of Craving synergize well with the lifegain triggers. Killing something while buffing a Malakir Familiar is a fine card for two mana.
Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord: More lifegain and even some recursion. Great card for the deck.
The deck is meant to be flavourful and fun in casual games. It is far from competitive by any means, but I tried to make it at least a little synergistic (which is surprisingly hard considering real bats are highly social animals...).
Do you like the deck? please leave a +1 and/or a comment. Do you have suggestions to improve it? I'd love to hear them.
