Zendikar Decks Part I: Vampire Aggro

Welcome to the first article in my series on Zendikar decks. Polls will be running through the week to determine the next deck in the series, and the first one you guys picked was Vampire Aggro. Don't forget to vote for tomorrow's article!

Here's the deck I ended up using:

Lands (24)

24 Swamp

Creatures (26)

4 Bloodghast
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Guul Draz Vampire
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
4 Vampire Lacerator
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Vampire Nocturnus

Spells (10)

4 Doom Blade
2 Duress
4 Sign in Blood

Sideboard:

4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
3 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Deathmark
2 Duress

I hopped on MWS to do battle.

Round 1 vs. Mono-Red Burn

He wins the die roll, and we both mulligan to 6.

He plays a land and passes. I play Guul Draz Vampire. At EOT, he Burst Lightnings me. (18, 20) He plays Hellspark Elemental and swings. I take it. (15, 20). I untap, and swing. (15, 19). I play Bloodghast.

He passes, and I swing for 3. (15, 16). I play Vampire Nighthawk. He Bolts it. He plays Hell's Thunder and attacks. (11, 16). I swing back. (11, 13). I play another Bloodghast. He plays a second Hellspark and swings. (8, 13).

I attack with everything. (8, 8) and then play a Vampire Lacerator. He untaps, and unearths both Hellsparks. I Doom Blade one, and take 3. (5, 8). I attack with my Bloodghasts. (5, 4). He plays Goblin Ruinblaster and passes. I untap, and swing for the win.


Game 2 he elects to play. He keeps, and I mulligan to 6. He plays a land and passes, I play Guul Draz Vampire. Turn 2, he plays a land and passes. I Duress. I take Fallout, and attack. (20, 19). I then play a second Guul Draz Vampire.

He untaps, and Earthquakes for 1. (19, 18). He passes. I play Vampire Nighthawk. He plays double Burst Lightning to kill it. I untap, and play Bloodchief Ascension. He plays Hell's Thunder, and swings. (15, 18). I pass. He unearths Hell's Thunder and attacks. I Doom Blade it.

I untap and play another Bloodchief Ascension. Not the best topdecks. He plays Elemental Appeal and attacks. I Doom Blade it. I pass. Another land. He plays Quest for Pure Flame and Elemental Appeal. He swings. (8, 18). I draw nothing but lands for the next two turns and he plays and unearths Hell's Thunder to kill me.

Game 3 I choose to play, and we both mulligan to 6. Turn 1 I play Guul Draz Vampire. He plays a land and passes. I play Turn 2 Duress, and he aims a Bolt at me in response. (17, 20). I take Elemental Appeal, and swing. (17, 19). He plays a land and passes. I swing (17, 18) and play Vampire Lacerator.

He plays a land and passes. I swing (16, 15) and pass. He passes yet again. I swing, and he plays Fallout (13, 13).  I play Guul Draz Vampire and Bloodghast. He lays a land and passes. I swing, he plays another Fallout. (11, 11). I play another Bloodghast. He plays Elemental Appeal and swings. (4, 11).

I play a land, returning Bloodghast, then play Vampire Nocturnus. I swing with a 4/2 flying Bloodghast. (4, 7). I pass. He draws, plays Earthquake for 2 (2, 5) then Burst Lightnings me for the win.

0-1

Round 2 vs. Vampire Aggro

Note: My computer crashed while writing these, so the rest of the post will be fairly short.


Game 1 I keep a slow hand. He curves out basically perfectly and beats me before I put up much resistance.

Game 2 we trade for a while until I manage to get out multiple Bloodwitches and win that way.

Game 3 he gets the advantage, then I play Nocturnus. Unfortunately I then draw 3 swamps in a row and die.

0-2

Round 3 vs. Bant

Game 1 he plays Great Sable Stag with Rafiq of the Many. I die about as horribly as you'd expect.

Game 2 I play lots of guys, and by the time he stabilises I have 3/2's with fear to seal the deal.

Game 3 we play a long game. I eventually stick a Gatekeeper of Malakir with FOUR removal spells in hand. I then bash him to death over six turns killing everything he plays.

1-2

Round 4 vs. B/R Bloodchief

Game 1 his deck works perfectly, getting 3 counters on Bloodchief Ascension and Blightninging me to death.

Game 2 he stalls for a bit and I end up winning with Vampire Nocturnus's buff.

Game 3 we race. He eventually sticks an Ascension and Earthquakes my guys to activate it, but he's at 2 and I manage to kill him even with his active Ascension.

2-2

My Ranking: 2/5
Matches Won x2: 4/8

The ranking system will work as follows. I will rank the deck by consistency and power out of 5, then the amount of matches out of 4 won, x2, will be the rest of the score. At the end, I'll rank them all up.

Frankly, I don't think Vampire Aggro is that great, and B/R hate will keep it down. I rate it Tier 2.

See you soon with the next deck!