Hello and welcome to Daily Arena! I’m Joe, and today we are going to be taking a look at deck that I’ve had some fun with: Mono-White Vampires

This list is from user andreliverod on Aetherhub:

andreliverod's Mono-White Vampires

Here’s a video of me playing the deck and breaking down the cards in it. I apologize ahead of time for the audio. I’ve been experimenting with a new microphone and I had a lot of vocal dropped in this video. Also the client was restarted during recording and for some reason the audio never came back, so I’ve substituted the wonderful Dixie Outlandish by John Deley and the 41 Players in place of the game audio.

The actual build I’m playing in the video is a little bit different than the one listed above, due to insufficient Uncommon and Rare wildcards to build it completely. I’m going to keep playing the deck as I collect the cards to finish it out and will post some more gameplay videos as I go.

The differences are:

The entire game plan of this deck is to run out as many cheap, aggressive Vampires and Vampire tokens

as possible, as quickly as possible, pump them up, and land enough blows quickly enough to kill the

opponent before they can get the game to parity (or worse).

I’ve divided all of the cards in the deck into six categories, and will group them together by category

for the discussion below (some cards fall into two categories).

Category 1: Cheap, Aggressive Vampires

A 2/1 for 1 mana is pretty aggressive, and gaining evasion in the late game (or often the not-so-late game with this deck) is a nice bonus on Skymarcher Aspirant.







Duskborne Skymarcher is another evasive 1-mana Vampire, just waiting to pump or be pumped.







While not as aggressive as Skymarcher Aspirant, Martyr of Dusk can still get a bunch of damage in under the radar, and the fact that it replaces itself with a lifelinker is valuable (especially in this deck).







Standard Bear stats plus lifelink make Bishop’s Soldier perfectly playable, and if you can pump him up, he can start enabling some pretty gross swings in life totals.







For the intents and purposes of this deck, Adanto Vanguard is a nice, aggressive 3/1 for 2 mana. The fact that you can make him indestructible at will (and often this deck leaves you with plenty of life to spare for that activation) makes it really difficult for your opponent to deal with using anything outside of exile removal or a big-bottomed blocker.





Category 2: Token Creation

By leaving a token behind when he dies, Martyr of Dusk has a build-in 2-for-1. Sometimes if the tokens are pumped and/or vigilant, the lifegain is even preferable to the extra point of power.







Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle is likely the best Vampire in the format for a deck like this. You’ll almost always have a one- or two-drop creature to attack with if you can play him on turn three, and then he just starts pumping out the tokens.







Legion’s Landing is awesome, and I wish I had the wildcards to craft it for my initial version of this deck. You get a token when you play it, and attacking with three or more creatures is Standard Operating Procedure for this deck. Once it transforms, the ability to make lifelinking tokens at will is huge.

Category 3: Tutor

Forerunner of the Legion‘s tutor ability means you can go find that Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle or Bishop of Binding you need to accelerate out more tokens or to deal with an annoying threat. You can also chain these, as you get even bigger pump effects with multiples on the battlefield.





Category 4: Pump

Radiant Destiny is the second step to making your tokens great. Step 1: Create a lot of tokens, Step 2: Make them huge. You tend to ascend very quickly with this deck, as well, so often you end up with an army of 2/2 (or bigger) tokens that swing for lifelink damage on your turn, and gang up to block big enemy attackers, gaining you even more life in the process.







Forerunner of the Legion‘s second ability pairs really well with your token engines, allowing you to shore up your weaker creatures and enable attacks.







Duskborne Skymarcher chips away at your opponent’s life total in the beginning of the game, and later on you can use it to make blocking really difficult for your opponent. It works especially well if you have Radiant Destiny giving it Vigilance, and can even pump itself in that case.







Very often you are using Bishop of Binding to pump itself, thus enabling it to attack, but every so often you get exile something big (I’m looking at you, The Scarab God), and then pump a lifelinking token on the attack to set up gross life total swings.





Category 5: Removal

Bishop of Binding exiles a creature for as long as Bishop of Binding is around, so I would consider it temporary removal (until your opponent deals with the Bishop), but in the meantime the threat is gone, and if it was a big enough threat, you get to swing with [b]Bishop of Binding[/c] and pump it or something else.







Baffling End gets all early game threats and blockers out of the way, and in a deck as aggressive as this one, early threats and blockers are the ones your going to be worried about the most.







Ixalan’s Binding not only deals with a threat permanently, but it also deals with other copies of it in your opponent’s deck and hand. Great against The Scarab God and other difficult to deal with threats.





Category 6: Transform Land Insurance

Field of Ruin blows up those powerful transform lands in the format, and can also deal with a sacrifice-effect Desert if you really need it to.





So far in my testing, this deck has been a lot of fun to play, leading to exciting, fast-paced gameplay, whether you’re winning or losing (though with this deck, you should be winning most of the time).

And that’s Mono-White Vampires! As always, if you have any questions, comments, or criticism, feel free to hit me up here, on Reddit, on Twitter at @DailyArena or on Facebook via the @DailyArenaMTG page.

Peace.

Joseph Eddy is a Father, Husband, Son, Brother, Software Developer, and Gamer. Magic is his favorite hobby, and he’s looking forward to seeing you all on Arena. He streams Magic Arena on a weekly basis (or more), but currently is unable to keep to a set schedule.