Blood Artist
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Freeform Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Blood Artist

Creature — Vampire

Whenever this or another creature dies, target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. (Dying is being put into the graveyard from the battlefield. Tokens enter the graveyard before they cease to exist.)

clayperce on Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier

1 month ago

Ryski3 -
Ok, I'll throw some thoughts at ya. PLEASE take all this as "brainstorming" though, not as "recommendations", as I'm still very new to Sephiroth, my deck is definitely not "there" yet, and we're almost certainly building for different playstyles and metas.

Looking at my deck (sorry I haven't transferred it over to TappedOut yet) and comparing it to yours, a few general things stand out:

MANA CURVE: My mana curve is quite a bit lower (total mana value 152 and average mana value 2.38, with the peak of the curve at 27x 2-drops) than yours (total mana value 180 and average mana value 2.77, with the peak of the curve at 21x 3-drops). I built it this way partly to make the deck faster, but mostly because I generally want to cast Sephiroth as soon as I have three mana … and every other 3-drop kind of “competes” with him. Depending on how fast you want to go and when you want to play Sephiroth, shifting your mana curve lower might be worthwhile.

MANA BASES: Our manabases are VERY different (I have more lands despite my lower curve, and you have a bunch more mana rocks and utility lands), but the end result is very similar. If we plug our deck lists into Salubrius Snail’s manabase tool, we can see they’re both “Very strong” and we both have a ~60% chance of casting our 6-drops on curve. That may be something you want to keep an eye on though, as you make adjustments to the deck.

“PILLARS” OF AN ARISTOCRATS DECK (SAC FODDER, SAC OUTLETS, DRAIN EFFECTS):

  • I have my sac fodder spread across a few areas: 3x like Fleshbag Marauder in “mass disruption”, 2x like Greedy Freebooter in “ramp”, 5x like Gravecrawler in “recursion”, and of course 12x like Bitterblossom in “tokens”, for 22 total. As for the other pillars, I have 5x free sac outlets and 7x drain effects (3x like Marionette Apprentice in “direct damage” and 4x like Blood Artist in “drain”).
  • In your deck, I think it’s 15 total pieces of fodder (3x in “mass disruption”, 1x in “ramp”, 1x in “recursion”, and 10x in “tokens”), 3x free sac outlets, and 6x drain effects (1x in “direct damage” and 5x in “drain”). You mentioned your deck feels like it could use some more token generation, but we’re actually pretty close there (12 vs 10). But raising your sac fodder in some of the other areas could perhaps make a big difference … maybe start with the “recursion” area (both in my main deck and in the “considering” tab)?

STAPLES (CARD ADVANTAGE, CARD SELECTION, MASS DISRUPTION, PROTECTION, TARGETED DISRUPTION, ETC): We’ve got different priorities here (I think mostly because of our different metas), and that’s cool.

THOUGHTS ON BRACKET 3 VS BRACKET 4:

  • My deck is honestly in a REALLY awkward position … it’s too fast for Bracket 3 but it's generally way too grindy/not consistent enough to compete at Bracket 4. So I need to either tune it down (by removing some infinite combos) or tune it up (by adding either more combos or more tutors to make the current ones more consistent, plus maybe adding some more fast mana sources).
  • As for your deck, adding some infinite combos would definitely be a way to increase the power level. The challenge is it’s very easy to build an Aristocrats deck that can go infinite on Turn 3 (or even earlier with fast mana or a Dark Ritual), and even if it doesn’t happen often, once it does, folks will think we’re playing a Bracket 4 deck at a Bracket 3 table.
  • You may already be using it, but if not: The Find my Combo page, over at Commander Spellbook is a GREAT tool, whether we want to add combos to a deck or keep them out.

A FEW ACTUAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk. Hopefully something in there ^^ was useful, and if not I’m very sorry for the spam. Good luck (and good skill!) with Sephiroth!

Cheers!

clayperce on What exactly is the hard …

1 month ago

Short story: I use Commander's Spellbook as a "neutral arbiter" on combos, and they would call this a 2-card infinite combo with a notable prerequiste. Since the combo requires a 4 drop and 1-drop on the same turn, it's obviously castable on Turn 5 in any deck, and earlier in any deck with a reasonable amount of Ramp. So for me, this combo belongs in a Bracket 4 deck ... and if the deck isn't otherwise strong enough to play on those tables, I'd pull it out of the deck.

A few more points, in no particular order ...

  • Commander Spellbook unfortunately doesn't list any combos for Archon's Glory, but here are other 2-card combos that require an artifact as a notable prerequisite, and here's one with a Bargain mechanic, just like Archon's Glory.
  • From a Comprehensive Rules and Tournament Rules standpoint there isn't actually an "infinite" anything in Magic, just an arbitrarily large number of iterations of a loop ... and 1 trillion obviously counts for that! :-D
  • From a Bracket 3 standpoint, it's important to remember the line is drawn at "No 2-Card Combos (before turn 6) - Game-enders, lockouts, or infinites". So a combo doesn't have to be both game-ending and infinite ... infinite alone is enough to bump the deck up a bracket.
  • I totally understand where your opponent was coming from though ... I once tried to argue a very similar issue myself. I wasn't trying to be a jerk about it; I was just honestly convinced Warren Soultrader + Gravecrawler wasn't a 2-card combo, because it didn't actually do anything ... sure I could loop the Gravecrawler an arbitrarily large number of times, but it needs a third card (e.g., a Blood Artist or Impact Tremors or whatever) to end the game. I was wrong though, and I now think of it like this: Soultrader + Gravecrawler is a 2-card infinite combo, and Soultrader + Gravecrawler + Blood Artist is a 3-card infinite and game-ender combo.

Good luck in your future games with this opp; cheers!

DreadKhan on New player got a question.

2 months ago

You could look into something like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, Oloro doesn't need to be on the battlefield to benefit you, and he encourages you to run slower strategies that will naturally recover better. The Esper shard that Oloro uses will allow you to run stuff like Blood Artist or Sangromancer that don't care who's stuff dies, or stuff like Guide of Souls that doesn't care who's creatures are entering, anything that cares about gaining life WILL get a trigger each upkeep, so it's a pretty solid thing to build around IMHO.

clayperce on Elektra: Assassin (Massacre Girl Ultra-Budget)

3 months ago

seshiro_of_the_orochi -
Thanks much for the comments and suggestions. Some thoughts ...

  • Tarrian's Soulcleaver and Blade of the Bloodchief are great on other creatures (they basically turn anyone into a Venomcrawler). But they don't do anything for Massacre Girl at all.
  • Thinking about Fake Your Own Death: Yeah, like I say in the description, I've got "a few blink effects for Elektra, for when the party gets out of hand again". But I probably need to either add more or delete the package entirely. With my current 5x cards (Synod Sanctum, Voyager Staff, Erratic Portal, Conjurer's Closet, and Demonic Gifts), I only have a 54% chance of having one by Turn 7, and that's not as consistent as I'd like. But to justify more, I'd really need to swap a bunch of creatures out for ones with ETB effects (currently I only have 7 creatures worth blinking). Hmmm ...
  • You might not have noticed it in the deck description, but "I'm already bringing plenty of salt to the table with a repeatable board-wipe in the Command Zone; I don't want to bring much more. As an example, I'm avoiding Blood Artist effects." So thanks, but Bastion of Remembrance is right out.
  • Similarly, you might not have noticed that I said "I mostly play in an ultra-budget (USD $25) Bracket 2 pod. So ... any card above USD $3 has to be better for the deck than Skullclamp". Grave Betrayal is good, but it's no Skullclamp. And Revel in Riches is great, but ridiculously overpriced for this deck.

Thanks again; cheers!

clayperce on Thoughts on Massacre Girl?

3 months ago

YesterdaysGhost -
Good to hear; thanks much! I'm definitely going to go ahead and at least try to build her. Mostly just a bunch of X/1s to get the party started, and some BFSs for the aftermath (Votron package + a 4/4 with Menace + a nearly empty board = seems prettty decent, at least as a starting point).

Thanks for the offer; I will DEFINITELY reach out once I get something started!

//

FormOverFunction -
That's a REALLY good point, thank you! I'll definitely watch out for that. I think it'll be fine ... Turn 5 board wipe is almost a tradition in my usual pod anyways, so telegraphing it louder will probably be just fine. But with that baggage in mind (plus to keep it from getting too same-y with my friend's Zurgo deck), I think I'll probably forgo any Blood Artist effects.

//

Great thoughts; thanks again to you both! Cheers!

NV_1980 on Modular Marchesa

6 months ago

Overall, this looks great and balanced. Was just thinking that since there are so many creatures that will be moving into (and out of) your graveyard, wouldn't it make sense to add something like Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat for some practically free draining?

legendofa on The Baron's Coterie

7 months ago

Silversmote Ghoul is worth a try, but you need to have the Blood Artists and/or Kalastria Highborns active to get the full use out of it. I'll suggest it, but put a question mark next to it.

Outside of Vampires, good recursive creatures are Nether Traitor and Reassembling Skeleton.

Finally, Bone Splinters might be an upgrade to Bitter Triumph. It's sorcery speed, but you save a mana and this deck would probably rather throw away creatures than pay life.

SaberTech on Ideas for an Ayli, Eternal …

7 months ago

I kind of see Ayli as more of a control oriented commander when compared to other potential WB aristocrats style commander options, although the need to gain life and have creatures to sac to her ability does cause a lot of overlap.

The first real hurdle is getting up to 50+ life. Running Ayli means that you opponents have even more reason to default to attacking you so that they can to keep you from using Ayli's removal ability. While being able to pick up life off of Blood Artist and extort type effects is useful, I think that it's worth finding ways to get big swings in life too. Tree of Perdition is one that comes to mind since it has 13 toughness for 4 mana right off the bat and you can increase its toughness even more if it stays on the board. Unhallowed Phalanx offers another high toughness for sac fodder. Serra Ascendant, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and Exsanguinate are also ways to gain a bunch of life. Angelic Chorus, Proper Burial, Rhox Faithmender, and Cleric Class have potential as well. Heliod's Intervention could be worth running as a removal option.

There are a bunch of options for token production but I thought that I would mention God-Eternal Oketra combined with Kor Skyfisher, Whitemane Lion, and possibly Stonecloaker as well. Oketra has reasonably high toughness and comes back quick if sacrificed for life. 4/4 tokens are good for sacrificing if you need to. The white bounce creatures can be used for repeatedly triggering your extort effects and other cards like Angelic Chorus, Oketra's Monument, and Cathars' Crusade.

Prava of the Steel Legion is another token producer that can pump all your little tokens into high-toughness sac fodder to gain life.

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