Discussion Forum

I think you're trying to do too much in one deck. It might work better if you focus its purpose. Pick either Aggro or Control, but don't try to do both. The way it's built now, it looks more like it's leaning towards the Aggro side so that's probably where the focus should be.

The purpose of Aggro is do to as much damage as possible as quickly as possible.

To do that, I think you need more things you can do on first turn. As it stands now, there are four cards capable of seeing play in the first turn: 1 of 2 Shocks or 1 of 2 Rakish Heir. You don't have anything black that can drop on the first turn so if you draw a Shock or Rakish Heir and only black mana sources, they just sit in your hand until you get a red mana source. That's time wasted that could have been used to do damage. I'd put 4 of both of those in the deck to give you a better chance of drawing them along with a few black, first-turn drops.

Vault Skirge is a great 1st-turn drop because you can play it regardless of what kind of mana source you draw as long as it's usable on the first turn. Just pay 2 life for the Phyrexian black mana and 1 colorless. He flies so he's likely getting through on subsequent turns. During those turns, there are plenty of things you can do to pump him up like Furor of the Bitten. That's 3 damage every turn and 3 life you're gaining.

There are options like Geistflame and Bump in the Night that you can play in the early game and use them again via Flashback in the late game.

Goblin Fireslinger is always a fun, early-game annoyance.

There's Tormented Soul. There's no reason not to put Furor of the Bitten on him since he's unblockable and can't block.

That's just to get you started. You have a ton of good options for the second turn already in the deck. I think it's just a matter of slimming it down to the most effective. Vault Skirge should probably replace Child of Night and up the quantity to 4. The Skirge is weaker, but it's faster. You can deal 1-3 damage every turn by turn-two or 2-4 damage every turn by turn-three.

You might throw in Skeletal Grimace. It'll give your creature more damage plus a defense against some removal.

With Vault Skirge or Tormented Soul hitting first turn, you could easily have a 3/3 Stormblood Berserker on the battlefield on the second turn. Put something like Skeletal Grimace or Furor of the Bitten on him and you could have a 4/4 or 5/5 who can only be blocked by two or more creatures that's ready to swing on the third turn.

A couple of cards for spot removal won't hurt. You could use Dismember which takes out most creatures. You might also consider something like Tectonic Rift to make sure you get through for that game-win swing.

That's about a deck's worth of ideas so hopefully you'll be able to do something with it.

so then, as a point of order, I have to ask... I was told to avoid using enchant creatures, that they are a waste of space with potentially more useful cards floating around. What would your opinion on the subject be? And would typhoid rats be a good sub for vault skirge?

so then, as a point of order, I have to ask... I was told to avoid using enchant creatures, that they are a waste of space with potentially more useful cards floating around. What would your opinion on the subject be? And would typhoid rats be a good sub for vault skirge?

Looking at the deck, there are a few things I would change out:


First, Swiftfoot boots seem a bit out of place, since there are no serious threats that you want to protect/give haste... Maybe Falkenrath marauders but we'll get to that. I would sub them out for another threat, and in the 2 drop slot, there are few things more threatening than Stormblood Berserkers. These bad boys can often times steal a game themselves, either forcing an opponent to remove them, or block him while your other threats go through.

Another decent one drop to mention is Diregraf Ghoul. While he enters the battlefield tapped, throwing him down on the first turn put's a level of threat on the opponent. I would sub out your Tormented Soul and Blood Seeker's for him mainboard (put the seeker's in sideboard).

Another good set of threats are Phyrexian Rager and Arc Trail. They both will allow your weenie threat's to get through pretty well, I would take out the curse for the Arc Trail and the Typhoid Rats and the bloodgift demon for 3 Phyrexian Rager.

Falkenrath Noble is amazing, but for 5 mana he is slow to get off the board. It will take at least 2-3 turns to make him threatening enough to warrant his Mana cost. Think, By his 3rd turn on the board, he has dealt 12 damage. Seems pretty sweet right? Imagine, for 1 more colorless mana you could lay down an Inferno Titan, dealing 21 damage by his third turn on the field, plus being able to be pumped to deal more with more mana investment.

Or a grave titan in :manab:, he has dealt (between himself and his tokens) 24 damage by his third turn out, and has 2 untapped 2/2 blockers for the next turn. I would say 1 of each instead of your marauders, and then the other 2 marauders would become 2 more removal spells.

Lastly, I would say get rid of the Bloodcrazed Neonate, Typhoid Rats, and Rakish Heir's and put in some more removal and advancement spells, filling out room for Shocks, Geistflames, and Black Sun's Zenith.

I made a mistake in my previous post. Rakish Heir isn't what I thought it was and I didn't double-check before I said something. I was thinking of Reckless Waif when I was talking about it. You don't have enough vampires to make good use of Rakish Heir. Reckless Waif wouldn't be a bad idea for a first turn drop.

[QUOTE=cob]so then, as a point of order, I have to ask... I was told to avoid using enchant creatures, that they are a waste of space with potentially more useful cards floating around. What would your opinion on the subject be? And would typhoid rats be a good sub for vault skirge?[/QUOTE]

There are cards of every type that are potentially more useful than cards of every other type. It's all relative to the deck you're working on at any given time. Auras (enchant creature cards) would definitely be a waste in a low-to-no creature deck, but are necessary for a deck built around Thran Golem. Generalizing any card type immediately closes you off to the potential it could have.

Typhoid Rats are more defensive than the Vault Skirge.

With the rats, you're looking to scare your opponent into not attacking or blocking in fear of losing an important creature regardless of how big or small it is. In the early game, there's probably not much they're worried about losing and they'd much rather block with a first-turn drop of their own than a late-game beast. They might also be playing with something like Viridian Emissary or Solemn Simulacrum (very popular card right now) which they want to die. The rats would actually help your opponent get ahead of you in both mana and cards to play.

With the skirge, you're flying right over early-game weenies to get some damage in and gaining some life to be ready just in case your opponent starts getting some damage in. Assuming you go first, you only have to worry about a Birds of Paradise, Ezuri's Archers or Glint Hawk Idol. The latter of the two I never see anyone play in the current environment. So best case scenario, you get some damage through. Worse case, you go quail hunting before you get some damage through.

[QUOTE=Ulimortus]... there are few things more threatening than Stormblood Berserkers.[/QUOTE]

Just pointing out that it was suggested twice so it really should be considered.

[QUOTE]Another decent one drop to mention is Diregraf Ghoul. While he enters the battlefield tapped, throwing him down on the first turn put's a level of threat on the opponent. I would sub out your Tormented Soul and Blood Seeker's for him mainboard (put the seeker's in sideboard).[/QUOTE]

I saw the Ghoul when I went looking, but I almost always pick a flier over a walker. It's more likely to get through. I agree that the Seekers should go, but the Souls are valuable since they get past any and every creature.

[quote]Another good set of threats are Phyrexian Rager and Arc Trail. They both will allow your weenie threat's to get through pretty well, I would take out the curse for the Arc Trail and the Typhoid Rats and the bloodgift demon for 3 Phyrexian Rager.[/quote]

I don't know about the Trails, but the Ragers will give some damage plus a bit of card advantage.

I'm not sure if it matters but, this deck has been playing out to be a slow aggro so, I'm losing concern for the one drops in favor of generally more aggressive cards. Any thoughts?

First Tournament for this deck is Friday. Also, as of this post, the deck list is out of date but, red/black slow aggro from innistrad and core 2012

So you're wanting to deal high damage in the late game?

Then you'll need to slow your opponent down in the early game. In black/red, removal and burn are your options.

Black Sun's Zenith can weaken your opponent's creatures at the very least and wipe the board at best.

Rolling Temblor can knock out a boardful of weenies as can Whipflare and Slagstorm. You could also use Blasphemous Act against swarm decks right before you drop something big.

There are a ton of options for spot removal and general burn: Dismember, Go for the Throat, Doom Blade, Tribute to Hunger, Brimstone Volley, Shock, Incinerate, Red Sun's Zenith... The list goes on. There may be some better options out there. These are just off the top of my head.

That stuff also comes in handy in the late game when you need to clear the way for your attackers.