Skeletal Vampire

Combos Browse all Suggest

Tokens

Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Skeletal Vampire

Creature — Vampire Skeleton

Flying

When Skeletal Vampire enters the battlefield, create two 1/1 black Bat creature tokens with flying.

, Sacrifice a Bat: Create two 1/1 black Bat creature tokens with flying.

Sacrifice a Bat: Regenerate Skeletal Vampire.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Don´t be afraid to give blood

1 year ago

Strefan akways looks pretty brutal to me, dropping all these vampire beaters. You seem to have most of the big bad bloodsuckers in here, but maybe I can suggest some you haven't considered yet:

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief is powerful, and you can even pump her right after dropping her.

Skeletal Vampire is a lot worse, but still interesting.

Bishop of the Bloodstained will propably deal quite a bit of damage.

Bloodline Necromancer is fine recursion.

Champion of Dusk is a big draw spell.

Defiant Bloodlord will deal lots of damage here.

Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet is fun.

Marshland Bloodcaster is powerful ramp.

Shauku, Endbringer looks pretty cool in here, and if only to have it enter attacking in spite of its static ability.

Metroid_Hybrid on Lucky 13

1 year ago

I co-sign almost everything ldvatwa said, but I'm here to take it a step further..

I agree on cutting Leaden Myr, Tree of Perdition, Triskaidekaphobia, and Skeletal Vampire. I'm also wondering why Sever the Bloodline is here; do your friends play a lot of tokens too?

Adding Bontu's Monument is a good idea, but have you also thought about Mycosynth Wellspring & Ichor Wellspring as well?

You lack only one of the upkeep token generators in Mono-, that is Dreadhorde Invasion. Despite that, you otherwise have all the token generation in the world for . A couple of stax pieces like a Contamination & Smokestack, etc., could easily slide into here without changing very much at all..

Speaking of Mono-, is there any particular reason you are not running Necropotence and/or Bolas's Citadel?

Finally your land situation. I think you will want to cut down on your non-basic utility lands. Even though you are running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, you will want to maximize your Swamp-count to consistently get the most out of Cabal Coffers (and goes triple for Cabal Stronghold), or if you even want to consistently play your Everglades & Lake of the Dead!

I would cut Barren Moor, Hagra Broodpit  Flip, Malakir Mire  Flip, Phyrexian Tower, and Vesuva; all for basic Snow-Covered Swamps... and maybe a Karn's Bastion since you are running several Planeswalkers..

ldvatwa on Lucky 13

1 year ago

I like the theme of cutting people's life totals in half or bringing them to a certain number. I think it would work well, but there's a few that I feel like could be swapped for more situational cards that might benefit you.

Leaden Myr is nice ramp that's also a creature, but you have a ton of token creation already. Why not have that be a Mind Stone or some other one/two cost ramping artifact?

Even though you're running Tree of Perdition, I'm still not sold on the incremental life loss that Triskaidekaphobia offers. It seems like a neat trick to pull it off, but I'd rather go for consistency when you already have a lot of cards that cut their life total in half. Perhaps Bontu's Monument? Over 1/3rd of your deck are creatures and the life loss AND the cost reduction to your creatures/Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor seems pretty solid.

Lastly, I'd just swap Skeletal Vampire for Grave Titan. I've never had good experiences with Skeletal Vampire in that it's usually targeted for the possible creature generation, whereas Grave Titan is a better body, better defensively, and can net an equally large amount of tokens.

Cyberbolt21 on Mono Black Control (Budget Friendly)

3 years ago

Hey jwong14 I finished the deck, I'm pretty happy with this build. I would like your thoughts on any cards I should consider for upgrading the deck. I decided Desecrated Tomb Skeletal Vampire and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed will be good upgrades down the line for token generation and undying creature buffs, but I would like to utilize Whisper, Blood Liturgist a bit more. Any advice? And thanks for all the prior input.

Justrafaplease on Tribal Vampires

4 years ago

I will definitely try it. I thought The Haunt of Hightower would be a great card with Duskmantle Seer but I was mistaken, Skeletal Vampire will provide more value against removals, and even provide bodies against sacrifice.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it.

Masterful on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

4 years ago

Tiddlydon Yeah, I'd say Skeletal Vampire is too much mana to replace any of the cards currently in the deck, especially since it's not a death trigger. It wouldn't do poorly though in a budget build, but I'd still personally rather play token generators that work off death triggers like Ogre Slumlord or Requiem Angel .

SwordOfMorning I don't usually kill with token damage, so I wouldn't play Vizkopa Guildmage . I could see running it in more of a token-centric lifegain build. This build doesn't actually gain as much life as you might think which is why I don't play lifegain payoffs.

Sabelaine Recruiter of the Guard isn't super necessary to the success of the deck, he just makes it more consistent. I mainly use him to start a Ranger of Eos death chain, but he can also get Blood Artist and friends which are the main wincons. If you're willing to spend the money he's a great addition.

Tiddlydon on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

4 years ago

Would Skeletal Vampire be useful as a token generator or too expensive?

LordBlackblade on more

4 years ago

I'm going to lay it all on the table here to make my train of thought as clear as possible, and back up my statements with source material. I spent way too much time on this already, so I might as well post it!

Here's a Scryfall search showing all creatures with the Vampire subtype. Of them, thirteen (a mere 5.8% of all vampires) have an additional race subtype. Of those thirteen, three are undead Vampires ( Vampire Revenant , Nirkana Revenant , and Skeletal Vampire ), four are from the Eldritch Moon block and are Vampire Horrors ( Weirded Vampire , Voldaren Pariah  Flip, Stromkirk Occultist , and Stromkirk Condemned ), and four were printed before the Grand Creature Type Update (hencefore GCTU) ( Vampiric Dragon , Vampire Hounds , Mirri the Cursed , and Irini Sengir ). The final two are Aetherborn Vampires from Kaladesh ( Yahenni, Undying Partisan and Gifted Aetherborn ).

All of this points to Vampires with two races being the vast minority (again 5.8%) of all Vampires ever printed. Aside from the pre-GCTU Vampires, they all have set-specific reasons for having two racial subtypes or are undead (which seems counter intutive as I've always considered Vampires to be undead already...but I digress).

Here again (for posterity) is the link to the GCTU Announcement. This clarifies what the stance is or R&D in their approach to creature subtypes. From the article, "...we implemented the "race class" model for Magic creatures..." This establishes a baseline for every single MTG creature from September 2007 onward. Elf Druid, Human Warrior, Zombie Knight, etc. This is a framework for card design.

I want to be clear, its a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. In general, they wanted to keep it simple as part of the New World Order of MTG which you can find in an article here. While the article doesn't explicitly state that creatures typing is part of the NWO, it can be inferred from it that simplicity is important in MTG going forward. With that in mind it only makes sense that they would try very hard while designing cards to keep to the "race class" system for both consistency and simplicity. Are they never going to print a card with two races? Of course not, as you mentioned Frilled Mystic and as I mentioned Vorel of the Hull Clade . Wizards isn't afraid to work outside their own general guidelines if it suits their purposes, fits with the lore (this one is important for this argument), and doesn't unbalance the game.

By your argument, every Vampire would have the "Pre-Vampire-Race Vampire Class" e.g. Elf Vampire Druid, Human Vampire Warrior, Vampire Zombie Knight. Could they do it? Sure, but it goes against R&D's stated goal for what they want for MTG going forward by adding needless complexity (and letterhead) to cards.

Your example of Ahn-Crop Invader brings up an interesting point though and I have a thought about it. Let's use some cards with current links as examples. For you side I produce Marauding Boneslasher . A Zombie Minotaur 'Race Race" just like your example. For my side I produce Merciless Eternal . A Zombie Cleric "Race Class." I think what this shows is that when Wizards does put two races on a card it is unlikely be two "Common" races. E.g. Zombie Human, Elf Goblin, etc., unless there are extreme circumstances (Looking at you Vorel). Again I think it comes back to complexity. If every undead or mutated creature had to state its pre-death/mutation type, there'd be way too many of the core tribes in the game. The vast majority of Vampires and Zombies were originally humans judging from their art. By giving cards like that the Human subtype, Humans as a tribe would become overly powerful simply from having a large pool to draw cards from. Keeping the number of races/classes on a card to a minimum could potentially be balance related.

tldr:

1) Multi-Race Vampires are small percentage of all Vampires ever printed.

2) Wizards wants to consistent in its product and has chosen the "Race Class" model for subtypes

3) Wizards wants to keep the game simple when possible. Extra subtypes go against this and as such are only used when crucial mechanically (e.g. Horrors for the Eldritch Moon block) or from a lore perspective (e.g. Yahenni, Undying Partisan )

Load more