Vampiric Tutor

Instant

Search your library for a card, then shuffle your library and put that card on top of it. You lose 2 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

1 week ago

Sometimes when I'm deckbuilding, I focus less on the commander and more on an interesting concept/combo that I want to use or exploit. This is the case with one of my favorite decks in my profile and actually one of the first commander decks I ever built. This deck began years ago when Magic finally started caring about the EDH format. It was a more simple time then, Rhystic study was $1.27 (exactly the price I paid for mine over 10 years ago), Cyclonic Rift was a bulk rare, and demonic tutor could be found for $10.

The combo that I was interested in was Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator. The latter was my favorite card at the time and is still one of my favorites. It was a great tool and with all the ETB effects that were out around then it was an underrated and uber powerful card. In fact, the entire blink mechanic was and is a very powerful strategy.

When I built this deck, I played a few times in shops and was quickly told that edh is a casual format and interaction of any kind is not fair (was told this by a land destruction deck...) So this deck is definitely more on the competitive side, but it would be the distant fringe of cedh. Alright with that let's get into it.

Initial thoughts

So we have a combo that we like Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator, but we don't even have a commander yet and going mono-blue seems not great, so we want to figure out what color(s) to add and what commander to choose. In a combo deck, there are generally three things that I like to make sure I include beyond the normal ramp, and card draw. That is redundancy, the ability to tutor up my combo pieces, and ways to protect my combo. So when thinking about tutoring up my combo pieces, I generally like to have the best tutors. Those are in black. So things like Wishclaw Talisman, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal (if you have money to burn or your playgroup is fine with you proxying the best cards so you can obliterate their precons j/k I proxy all my expensive cards and put them in a binder in case someone has an issue).

So we have Blue and Black and we can certainly add another color if we wanted to, but at the time I liked Dralnu, Lich Lord because Snapcaster Mage was in standard and flashback was cool. So I stuck with it when I revamped it, but decided that I wanted something that could ensure I can protect my combo from any threat and then also use it to win if I wanted to. The answer came in the form of Ertai Resurrected. He can counter basically anything from spells to activated abilities (which will come in handy) or he can take a threat on the field at the cost of letting your opponent draw a card.

So now that we have our commander, how to build the deck?

Redundancy

Combo decks need redundancy. If you don't get your two cards or one of them gets exiled, you need a backup plan, or scooping is your only option. Fortunately, there are some great redundancies here. We have Ghostly Flicker and Displace. Both of these will blink your creatures (ghostly flicker will also blink artifacts). Displacer Kitten can be helpful too, but I don't own it and it is a little more chaotic than I need it to be. Palinchron is great because you can return it to your hand and potentially play it again and create infinite mana through the use of High Tide, but a similar combo that has added benefits is Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker. This bounces both the drake and the archaeomancer untapping 5 lands, and returning ghostly flicker to your hand. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. Archaeomancer also will help in returning key counterspells and tutors to your hand. Nothing like doing double duty. Mnemonic Wall and Great Whale also fit here. The great thing about this combo is that each component is useful in and of itself. Bring out your Great Whale early untap some lands and do some other stuff or play out the rest of your combo with the untapped lands. Cast Archaeomancer to grab a used tutor for another combo piece.

One note here, if you get Peregrine Drake (or one of the other two) paired with Deadeye Navigator and you generate infinite mana you can now draw your deck with Ertai as commander: Step 1: Bounce Deadeye, when he enters don't soulbond with anyone.
Step 2: Cast Ertai, don't choose anything or if you want kill one of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter.
Step 3: Soulbond ertai and deadeye. Step 4: Bounce Deadeye and while that is on the stack bounce Ertai. Step 5: Ertai enters the battlefield counter the Deadeye bounce on the stack Draw a card Step 6: Soulbond ertai and deadeye again rinse and repeat. Draw as many cards as you need. Which means draw until you find your wincon.

Wincon

Since this is an infinite mana combo we need something to use all that mana. Obviously the activated ability on deadeye is great, but we need something to actually win with. I went with Commander's Insight and Blue Sun's Zenith. Both of these cards are useful even when they aren't being used to force your opponents to draw their cards. Blue Sun's Zenith works nicely because once you cast it goes back into your deck, which I showed above you can draw as many cards as you need so you cast it once, put it in your library draw again until you find it, cast it again on the next opponent, then again. You can also tutor them up or bring them back from the graveyard with the tutors or the archaeomancer/mnemonic wall from earlier. I like this more than straight damage, because if you don't have infinite mana these cards will still draw you cards.

Tutors

This is a fairly simple step, we need some good tutors. There are a number of good choices in black so I won't belabor that too much. I don't have some of the standard ones and feel like the deck performs fine with the ones it currently has. I do have a Tribute Mage in the deck because nearly all my mana rocks are 2 mana and so is Wishclaw Talisman. I found that the consistency with the deck is vastly improved by being able to tutor up my ramp. Also with deadeye I can bounce it multiple times and get more rocks or the talisman.

Protecting the combo

So I needed to figure out how to protect my combo and do so in a way that is flexible or can be used as needed. So Counterspell. Honestly, this part was fairly simple, most blue counter magic is here. Only reason Fierce Guardianship isn't here is because I don't have it. Other than that we have the typical cards here Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, etc.

I also have a couple other standouts. Venser, Shaper Savant is great here as it can be bounced with Deadeye Navigator to essentially boomerang my opponent's board and all their spells. Ertai Resurrected also protects the combo and with deadeye becomes a nice repeatable counter/removal spell.

glen_elandra_archmage can be bounced when she has her -1/-1 counter allowing her to be used again and again to counter noncreature spells.

Typical stuff

There is a lot of ramp in the deck, so Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other mana rocks including some larger ones like Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith to really get the ramp going, the sooner you can get to 7-8 mana the sooner you can combo out.

For card draw some key performers here are Rhystic Study, Black Market Connections, Phyrexian Arena, The One Ring. Mystic Remora. In my initial hand I want to have 3 lands, and one of these/tutor to find one or I typically mulligan.

Special notes

A couple other cards deserve mention here. Time Stretch and Time Warp. These are both repeatable with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall and I can honestly say that if I'm able to resolve either of these, it is unlikely that I'm going to lose, especially Time Stretch. With the ramp in the deck or a well timed Dark Ritual/High Tide I can play this fairly early and get a huge advantage.

Lands

Since this deck tends to be fast, you don't want lands that come into play tapped, so this deck uses fetch lands, shock lands, and duals that have the ability to come in untapped. (there are a couple that come into play tapped, but they are fetchable so I fetch them only when I know that I'm not going to be able to use the mana and only on an opponent's turn.)

I've had this deck for a while and it performs far better than any of my other decks. It always presents interesting lines that if followed will lead to surprising victories. As always let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a commander in mind that you want to see me build put it in the chat.

Here is the final decklist: Unlimited Power!

Gidgetimer on EDH Merens Reanimator

2 weeks ago

The most compact Hulk line is going to be Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Walking Ballista which requires you to add only Protean Hulk and Walking Ballista both of which are decent outside of the combo. The combo does require a sacrifice outlet, and I was having trouble thinking of how to grab one since the combo already uses all 6 CMC of the tutor and I am most familiar with the combo in Abzan where you get Karmic Guide. Luckily DreadKhan supplied the missing piece, if you add in Activated Sleeper you can tutor the Sleeper and Viscera Seer to provide the sacrifice outlet.

Combo I am describing in case you are not familiar with Mike and Ballista. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed gives non-human creatures +1/+1 and undying, so the Ballista enters as a 1/1 and doesn't die. Sacrifice Walking Ballista and it comes back with a +1/+1 counter. Remove the counter from Ballista and deal 1 damage to an opponent. Repeat loop of sacrificing Ballista and removing counter until all opponents are dead.

You are also already running Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, so you can add in a few low cost undying creatures and get that combo with low opportunity cost. Young Wolf and Butcher Ghoul are the easiest to cast ones since they only have a single colored pip. Treacherous Pit-Dweller, Geralf's Messenger, and Strangleroot Geist are perfectly defensible options too, though the pit dweller is more all-in on having a way to sacrifice for value before the trigger to give an opponent control resolves and as such I think isn't a great fit here.

In general you can also up the power level of the deck by adding tutors. The "good" ones you are not running are Worldly Tutor, Grim Tutor, and Vampiric Tutor.

Profet93 on K'rrik, Blatant Cheater

1 month ago

TheForsakenOne

Beseech the Mirror > Diabolic tutor - It has another black symbol for your commander, can act as a sac outlet and even a potential free spell. Pretty much a strict upgrade.

Cabal stronghold should be cut IMO because it isn't impactful enough. You need 4 basics just to break even and 5 basics just for 1 mana. It doesn't get a benefit from urborg like coffers does. If this was a more basic, budget deck I could see it's inclusion, but I don't feel its impactful enough for a build of this quality. What has your experience been with it? Perhaps swap in a Bojuka Bog and/or a fetchland? Bog is nice given your lack of grave hate (meta dependent). The fetchland is nice because it can bring in bog at instant speed or even witches cottage. Not to mention potential shuffling synergy. None of needed of course, just wanted to offer a potential alternative utility land that could still tap for black (unlike stronghold). Urborg allows you to keep the fetch until you need it too!

Should neither of those lands interest you, perhaps a Deserted Temple to untap coffers/nykthos/crypt + politics?

I notice a lot of your deck is devotion based, how has that been going for you? How often did you need devotion on board for a card like Sanguimancy where it just didn't pan out as needed? I think sanguimancy is a ripe cut, expensive cost and boardstate required.

At the risk of winmore, Alhammarret's Archive?

In Garruk's Wake - 7-9 mana for a wipe is a bit expensive. How has it been? Same idea with Increasing Ambition. 5 mana for a card and then 8 for 2 cards is a bit steep. I think Vampiric Tutor to help you set up draws, cast "for free" and at instant speed is better.

One thing I will say, I love the synergy of the entire deck, seems to flow very nicely without too much fat on it. I know most Krrik decks focus on a lower avg cmc to go with their speedy commander. What made you chose a more midrange approach, the resiliency? Have you thought of cutting down the avg cmc from 4.00 to 3.8 or potentially 3.6? Speeding it up would make this even more deadly!

Balaam__ on Dark Depths combo

1 month ago

I’m curious about something here. The cards that give poison counters—namely Infectious Inquiry, Phyresis Outbreak and Prologue to Phyresis—is that an intended strategy, or are the poison counters just incidental?

I ask because I don’t think incorporating poison counters is a useful road to go down for this particular build. It doesn’t contribute much at all, and ideally you want to be locating/playing Dark Depths as fast as possible (which I think you’ve done a good job at), and likewise with Vampire Hexmage.

I’d consider replacing those combination draw/poison counter spells with straight up Tutors, of which Vintage has access to the very best. Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor and so forth.

Also, and this isn’t relevant to deck building, but if you want to link a card in the description for easy viewing you can just enclose the card name with double square brackets.

Goyfs-R-Us on Sliver Overlord

1 month ago

DoctorMunchiesPHD Crypt Sliver winds up being more mana efficient in board states without Training Grounds. Love Brood Sliver always have always will. Frenetic Sliver is more a last resort removal protection and more often then not is a blue card to pitch for Force of Will or used to get Dormant Sliver off the board if I need to attack to finish someone. Don't really need mana reduction from Herald's Horn and it winds up not discounting a number of important Slivers in the deck. I'm not the biggest fan of the tutors that put the card on the top of the deck and not in hand, Worldly Tutor was the closest to making the deck among your suggestions but I chose Vampiric Tutor over it, due to the greater versatility and not having to reveal the card.

Profet93 on Mind-Gnawer

1 month ago

Lands

Cabal Coffers/Cabal Stronghold - Ramp

Deserted Temple - Untap the above / politics

Thespian's Stage/Vesuva - Copy cabal

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Color fixing, not needed but nice to have if you include coffers.

Instants + Sorceries

Mind Twist - Random discard, super effective ramped into and as counterspell bait

Imp's Mischief - "Counter" counterspells and redirect targeted removal, draw and extra turns. Given your deck is extremely reliant on your commander, having some protection/bluff ability/utility is very valuable.

Bubbling Muck - Ramp

Feed the Swarm - Enchantment removal

Syphon Mind - Draw 3, each opponent discard 1

Vampiric Tutor - Tutor

DoctorMunchiesPHD on A Pimp Named Sliver Overlord

1 month ago

haki2022 Funnily enough I used to run a more Zur-Heavy list. In my experience he seemed to end up less useful as I bought more cards like Vampiric Tutor, just seemed more consistent and less-likely to get pathed the second it hit the board. Also I get why people run graveyard recursion style Overlord decks for sure they make for very explosive plays, but I'm going for a more control-heavy deck myself to better protect my combos and win-cons. It's been nasty in playtesting so far, current list is 4-1. Also Intruder Alarm is definitely in my deck, I use it to lock people out of games with Telekinetic Sliver lmao people do NOT like that interaction.

Profet93 on Visions of Erebos

2 months ago

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse - Offsets commander lifeloss, great against blue/draw decks. Deathtouch is nice. Synergy with Peer into the Abyss (which also goes well with underworld dreams).

MAYBE Heartstone? - I'm unsure if this works with your commander only if he's a creature or even if he's just an enchantment.

Cabal Coffers - Ramp. Cabal Stronghold is more budget.

Deserted Temple - Untap coffers + politics

MAYBE Rings of Brighthearth - Copy commander ability without paying life. Also Coffers + Deserted temple + rings = {INFINITY}{B}. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Makes you need less swamps but is not budget (or needed, but helpful).

Imp's Mischief - "Counter" counterspells while redirecting targeted removal, extra turns and draw.

Necropotence - Draw

I am unsure what your wincon is, beatdown? You lose a lot of life with your commander's ability. Perhaps a The Meathook Massacre could help as a wipe + lifegain effect?

Diabolic Tutor/Beseech the Queen/Beseech the Mirror. Tutors are black's biggest strength, utilize it for consistency.

Alhammarret's Archive - Extra draw

Black's 3rd biggest strength is massive mana. Aside from coffers, Crypt Ghast, Nirkana Revenant, Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power

Once you determine your wincon, you can start to mold the deck to achieving that goal.

EDIT: Removed the non-budget options