Deathless Ancient

Creature — Vampire Knight

Flying

Tap three untapped Vampires you control: Return Deathless Ancient from your graveyard to your hand.

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
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (10)

SideBae on Edgar Markov and his Jacked Up Family

4 years ago

Ok. So, here're my suggestions; feel free to ignore any or all of them, if you so choose:

CARD DRAW/SELECTION: This is a big part of EDH.

• Twilight Prophet: This is similar to Dark Confidant, though better with your curve. It's also a vampire, so... yeah.

• Painful Truths: I've been very impressed with this card in my Tasigur, the Golden Fang deck. It's a great three-mana draw-three.

• Night's Whisper: Similar to Painful Truths.

• Phyrexian Arena: This is similar to Twilight Prophet, but slightly cheaper and harder to remove.

• Faithless Looting: This is a powerhouse in Modern, and it's pretty good in EDH too. It makes a lot of one-land sevens or land-heavy sevens into keepable opening hands.

• Sorin, Grim Nemesis: He's good.

• Champion of Dusk: This card can easily be a mass-draw spell, depending on your board, and his body isn't insignificant.

• Throne of the High City: Using the monarch mechanic in an aggro deck is pretty good. Since you're running Anowon, the Ruin Sage, you don't want to run any of the monarch-making creatures, as none of them are vampires. Marchesa's Decree is also worth considering.

TUTORS: These will make your deck more consistent.

• Gamble: A lot of people call this the red Entomb, but it's great if you have four or more cards in hand.

• Demonic Tutor/Vampiric Tutor: These are the gold-standard for tutors, but they're rather expensive and therefore hard to get.

• Mastermind's Acquisition/Diabolic Tutor: These are good subs for Demonic Tutor.

RAMP: I think you're running too many lands for an aggro deck; also, your ramp package has room for improvement. Replacing a few lands with rocks and potentially some more creatures can make the deck a lot better.

• Talisman of Conviction/Talisman of Hierarchy/Talisman of Indulgence: These are better signets. You probably want to keep at least two signets in with these two, at least.

• Mana Crypt/Mox Diamond/Mana Vault/Grim Monolith: These cards are expensive AF, but good. If you can use them, you should.

• Ancient Tomb: This is a great piece of land-ramp and can land a signet or talisman on turn one.

REMOVAL: You have a lot of good removal spells, mainly because a lot of your removal is more than a one-for-one (see Fell the Mighty, Crackling Doom and Return to Dust). In a format with three opponents, you typically want to be doing more than trading one-for-ones, a notable exception being Swords to Plowshares, which is an absurdly powerful card. I suggest running some of the following:

• Fire Covenant: This is EXCELLENT spot removal, as it differentially kills what you need to kill.

• Wear / Tear: Usually a two-for-one. Any red-white deck in EDH should run this.

• Toxic Deluge: This is a great board-wipe, especially for decks with a lot of counters that get your own creatures' toughnesses up. As an added bonus, you can cast it while Gaddock Teeg is down.

• Pestilence/Pyrohemia: These are sorta like permanent-based Toxic Deluges.

• Reckless Spite: Costing five life isn't a big deal, especially if you have life-linking vampires.

• Liliana's Triumph/Innocent Blood: If you have a token on the field, Innocent Blood is pure profit. Liliana's Triumph is just regular profit.

• Despark: I know I just said one-for-one's aren't typically good, but I've been very impressed with this one. At instant-speed, it's a powerful effect. Worth considering.

• Grasp of Fate/Oblivion Ring: I'd take one of these over Luminous Bonds any day.

MANA BASE: Untapped lands are the best lands, but once you hit three colors, it can be tough to make your mana work while coming in untapped. Consider the following:

• Mana Confluence/City of Brass: Worth running in any deck over two colors.

• Blood Crypt/Godless Shrine/Sacred Foundry: Due to the recent reprints, these are unusually cheap right now. I suggest running them if possible.

• Prismatic Vista: It's a better Evolving Wilds, though it is around $20 these days.

• Battlefield Forge/Sulfurous Springs/Caves of Koilos: These ETB untapped and only hurt if you need the colors.

• Sunbaked Canyon/Silent Clearing: A little on the pricy side, but these ETB untapped and can cycle if you're flooded.

• Unclaimed Territory/Cavern of Souls: These are chromatic for your vampires, and Cavern of Souls can hose pesky blue decks.

• Dragonskull Summit/Isolated Chapel/Clifftop Retreat: These'll almost always ETB untapped, if you craft your landbase right and play carefully.

CREATURES: There're some creatures I think you should upgrade from the Maybeboard:

• Drana, Liberator of Malakir: This puts down a hell of a clock. I think she's better than Deathless Ancient.

• Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip: This is a GREAT card. I think it should replace Paladin of the Bloodstained.

• Cordial Vampire: This is probably a good bit better than Legion Lieutenant.

MISCELLANEOUS: There're some other cards you might like. Consider the following:

• Shared Animosity: One time, many moons ago, I built a modern goblins deck with this. It was alright/terrible in Modern, but in a relatively slow-moving format like EDH it can be a real powerhouse.

• Smallpox/Pox: Smallpox is easily one of my favorite cards in EDH, and may be good with your high land count, even if you choose to cut three or four lands. It'll depend on your meta and your final deck list. It could be awful, but it could be good. Pox is much more likely to be terrible, but is worth having on your radar.

• Suppression Field: You're running very few planeswalkers, fetches, and with a little crafting, you can have very few creatures and/or artifacts with activated abilities. In my meta, this card is absurd. Especially against me.

• Price of Glory: This discourages instant-speed interaction. In a deck like this, it's very likely to hose blue-players without really touching you.

• Necrogen Mists: This is a good way to limit your opponents' ability to oppose you, especially if you choose to run Falkenrath Gorger off your Maybeboard.

• Armageddon: Speaking of limiting your opponents' ability to stop you... Just make sure you cast it while you're ahead. Decree of Annihilation is good for this at instant-speed.

• Stranglehold: Everyone searches. Make 'em stop.

• Aura of Silence: This is good in most metas. The tax effect is brutal, and the sacrifice has the ability to break a combo in a pinch.

• Rule of Law: This'll hose pretty much any combo deck. I hate playing against this card. (I play Storm.)

• Authority of the Consuls: This is a good way to make sure opponents can't poop out blockers too quick.

Recon419A on Orzhov Vampire Deck

5 years ago

Cool. You might want to consider Deathless Ancient or Vampire Sovereign to fill that top slot.

ThePearlTrident on Who Let the Bats Out

5 years ago

I'm sure there is a way to abuse Deathless Ancient in this scenario.

Ouroboros_47 on Khaos Knights of Chaos.

5 years ago

My first question would be why do you have Woodland Cemetery and Temple Garden in this deck when you have no green spells. Second is that there are a lot of one-off spells which will hurt consistency. Lastly, it would seem to me you don't have enough creatures for how this deck would seem it wants to function. Also [divine visitation]. You have by my count 9 cards that make tokens, most of them high mana cost spells, that means you aren't getting the value you want out of the card. Oh and one last thing Deathless Ancient you only have 3 vampires in the entire deck (in the mainboard), one of which is Deathless Ancient himself. You will never be able to use his ability making him a 4/4 flyer for 6...not great.

realgino on First Deck

6 years ago

xyr0s

I'm not too sure on why I did the color combo. I guess I wanted to diversify my deck if that makes sense, and picked the white and black since vampires seemed to have both.

I'm thinking of what I want my deck to do... Probably trying to get a bunch of Vampire tokens out with lifelink, and try to control.

So far, I'm planning on taking out Liliana, Death Wielder, Bontu the Glorified, Deathless Ancient, Dire Fleet Ravager,Forerunner of the Legion, Sanguine Glorifier for the creatures.

Taking out Vanquish the Weak, Gravepurge, Rallying Roar,Renewed Faith.

Going to be adding some of those lands you mentioned.

I want to add 4xSorin, Lord of Innistrad, one more Vona, Butcher of Magan. 2 more Sanctum Seeker, Gatekeeper of Malakir. So far that's all I have.

I want to focus on the synergy. I'm not sure what I could possibly have the deck do. I'm thinking about adding 4xElenda, the Dusk Rose to build her up and sacrifice the creatures from the planeswaker. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks for your help.

Mice_Overseer on TOken Vampire

6 years ago

Immediate thoughts: NEEDS a playset of Legion's Landing  ^Flip. Get rid of Deathless Ancient, Squire's Devotion and The Immortal Sun. Also, get a playset of Concealed Courtyard, if it's in budget.

Freezingfist on Shinning Death

6 years ago

Cool idea, Reba04.

Not sure if you're open to suggestions, and if not, go ahead and just skip over the rest of this post =)

I'd look into adding some more 2 and 3 cost creatures to smooth your mana curve out. having a hand full of 5/6/7 drops in your opening hand feels bad... and if the Magic Gods treat you anything like they treat me, it's going to happen. A lot.

2 CMC: Gifted Aetherborn(probably the best, but requires which can get weird) Adanto Vanguard(give you something to do with all the life you're gaining and hard to remove if you're willing to pay)

3 CMC: Yahenni, Undying Partisan... there isn't much on this slot. Maybe Legion Conquistador to fill your hand back up with creatures.

I'd pull out about 4 lands, 2Deathless Ancient(expensive for what it does and the body isn't impressive for the mana cost. 4Gravedigger(same reasons), 2-4Queen's Agent(same reasons), 1Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle(he's legendary, so once you have one out, the rest in your hand are dead cards until they kill him), 2Liliana, Death Wielder(expensive to cast. doesn't synergize well with vampes since her abilities are -1/-1 counter up until the ultimate), and 2Vanquisher's Banner(I like this card but expensive to cast before it starts giving you benefits).

That's a lot of cards to pull... what else is going in?

Removal. 2-3Cast Out IMO runner-up for best removal in Standard. Cycling and a lot of decks don't play enchantment removal, so you can remove whatever it is... forever.Fatal Push and/or Walk the Plank Push IS the best removal... but pricey.

This is getting longer than I Anticipated... so I'll stop here. Sorry for the novel. Regardless, +1 from me, and keep brewing. Have you played this in paper yet? How's it been for you?

dross on Vampires [Ixalan only]

6 years ago

I personally think dropping your curve should increase the performance of this deck substantially. maybe lose the 2 Bishop of Rebirth in favor of 2 more Vicious Conquistador and lose the Deathless Ancient instead put in Adanto Vanguard or Bishop's Soldier that should add a little consistency and smooth out your curve a bit.