Zendikar Card Discussipn - Vampire Hexmage

[swawagon]

I'm not exactly sure why you would run several cards that tutor for lands, but not play 4 Dark Depths, or the card you most often want to tutor for, themselves?

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I'm pretty shocked no one has included loam in any lists.
persoanly if I were to make a dd/hexmage list it would start with:
3 loam
4bob's
4 goyfs
1-2 dd
3-4 hexmage
2-3 crop rotation
demon
vamp
strip mine
2-3 wasteland
4-5 duress effect

rits, blue stuff, and rod inclusions would depend on the testing I haven't done. Honestly, a lot of the lists that seem to come naturally from the hexmage dd combo seem just worse than bug fish.

[nataz]

for anyone who is looking at going to aggro control path, aether vial makes the dark depths combo uncounterable.

[Guli]

for anyone who is looking at going to aggro control path, aether vial makes the dark depths combo uncounterable.

Damn, I was secretly working on it

Will post soon about what I put togheter. It is not only the uncounterable part but also the color fixing. You can't produce 2 black and play dark depths so easy.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

for anyone who is looking at going to aggro control path, aether vial makes the dark depths combo uncounterable.

Damn, I was secretly working on it

Will post soon about what I put togheter. It is not only the uncounterable part but also the color fixing. You can't produce 2 black and play dark depths so easy.

please tell me your running urborg?!

[Guli]

I used 1 copy. But to be honest I don't consider getting mana out of dark depths a primary goal.

It is possible to do a turn 2 kill with things like rituals, other than that it has to be turn 3. So I figured why not use Vial, it is as fast.

Turn 1: swamp/vial (with rituals options increase of course)
Turn 2: duress/dark depths
Turn 3: do some more disruption to clear the path or tutor up hexmage if you don't aready have it.

Thing is vial gives you room to disrupt a little bit before you go in for the kill. If the goal is turn 3 kill, with a 2cc utility bear, then believe me aether vial is the right call.

4x Vial
4x Ritual

This is the way i started. The timing on vial is perfect. And if you don't have vial in opening hand the rituals will be the injection you need to still get a tempo boost before you reach turn 3. It all fits design-wise.

What I find important though is to have good disruption and control. The win condition is cool and all but I still want to minimize the draw of sub par cards. You need to cripple them and use the momentum to swing for lethal. So your turn 2 and turn 3 will be very intensive. Preferably free spells like unmask and maybe those new traps. It doesn't matter if you don't have a draw engine, the 20/20 fat guy compensates for it. So there is definitly a suicidal aspect to this idea, or better 'all in' strategy. All you need is powerful harass to buy you a little window.

[Juzam_Jim]

I used 1 copy. But to be honest I don't consider getting mana out of dark depths a primary goal.

It is possible to do a turn 2 kill with things like rituals, other than that it has to be turn 3. So I figured why not use Vial, it is as fast.

Turn 1: swamp/vial (with rituals options increase of course)
Turn 2: duress/dark depths
Turn 3: do some more disruption to clear the path or tutor up hexmage if you don't aready have it.

Thing is vial gives you room to disrupt a little bit before you go in for the kill. If the goal is turn 3 kill, with a 2cc utility bear, then believe me aether vial is the right call.

4x Vial
4x Ritual

This is the way i started. The timing on vial is perfect. And if you don't have vial in opening hand the rituals will be the injection you need to still get a tempo boost before you reach turn 3. It all fits design-wise.

What I find important though is to have good disruption and control. The win condition is cool and all but I still want to minimize the draw of sub par cards. You need to cripple them and use the momentum to swing for lethal. So your turn 2 and turn 3 will be very intensive. Preferably free spells like unmask and maybe those new traps. It doesn't matter if you don't have a draw engine, the 20/20 fat guy compensates for it. So there is definitly a suicidal aspect to this idea, or better 'all in' strategy. All you need is powerful harass to buy you a little window.

1) I don't get why you'd want to wait a couple of turns getting counters on Vial, when you could get Hexmage out faster and use the time to harass your opponent with disruption instead of making room for Vial in the deck?

2) Why would you ever want to play Dark Depths before playing Hexmage?

[Guli]

True, no need to play the land first, would become a target for no reason. (the creature will suffer from summoning sickness no matter what, my bad)

The vial is your safe, long term bet, while ritual is quicker but more vulnerable. The synergy between them is that ritual covers for the vial when he doesn't hit play (you didn't draw vial or you did but it got countered), while the vial opens up new functions for the ritual. That being said I would not see the 4 vial slots as a waste at all. You can use those slots for something else if you like. Either way you will have to wait a couple turns. Vial is good when it comes down to turn 3.

You can present the argument that instead of vial why not play a turn 1 duress or ritual duress/hymn. Sure it is possible to immediately start with disruption. But You will have to use your second turn to play hexmage then. The problem is you need to have the perfect hand and rely on not being disrupted to execute your plan in good order. Vial gives you the mana to keep them busy and tutor up a combo piece. You just can't disrupt, tutor, cast hexmage all at the same time if you want to swing relatively early.

Infernal tutor might be nice in here, combined with things like unmask, duress, rituals, .... to keep hand count low on both sides.

How would you guys feel about the new Sadistic Sacrament as a disruption piece? Or some of the traps? What should the control/disruption package look like? Any acceleration apart from jet/lotus/ritual and maybe vials needed?

I am thinking Duress, Unmask, Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize

Also what about splashing a color? Living Wish can get both vampire and dark depths. Infernal tutor is hard to pull of imo.

Should their be things like anger in the grave? Buried Alive+Unearth? Red would give us fling.

just some ideas to mess around ^_^

guli

EDIT: in all honest I think it is going to be hard to pull this combo off

[RecklessEmbermage]

True, no need to play the land first, would become a target for no reason. (the creature will suffer from summoning sickness no matter what, my bad)

The vial is your safe, long term bet, while ritual is quicker but more vulnerable. The synergy between them is that ritual covers for the vial when he doesn't hit play (you didn't draw vial or you did but it got countered), while the vial opens up new functions for the ritual. That being said I would not see the 4 vial slots as a waste at all. You can use those slots for something else if you like. Either way you will have to wait a couple turns. Vial is good when it comes down to turn 3.

You can present the argument that instead of vial why not play a turn 1 duress or ritual duress/hymn. Sure it is possible to immediately start with disruption. But You will have to use your second turn to play hexmage then. The problem is you need to have the perfect hand and rely on not being disrupted to execute your plan in good order. Vial gives you the mana to keep them busy and tutor up a combo piece. You just can't disrupt, tutor, cast hexmage all at the same time if you want to swing relatively early.

Infernal tutor might be nice in here, combined with things like unmask, duress, rituals, .... to keep hand count low on both sides.

How would you guys feel about the new Sadistic Sacrament as a disruption piece? Or some of the traps? What should the control/disruption package look like? Any acceleration apart from jet/lotus/ritual and maybe vials needed?

I am thinking Duress, Unmask, Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize

Also what about splashing a color? Living Wish can get both vampire and dark depths. Infernal tutor is hard to pull of imo.

Should their be things like anger in the grave? Buried Alive+Unearth? Red would give us fling.

just some ideas to mess around ^_^

guli

EDIT: in all honest I think it is going to be hard to pull this combo off

The haste part would give the combo a whole new level of complexity (tutor for anger/dragon's fangs, then therapying yourself?) that I doubt will be worth it. Plentiful hand-diruption can be used on bounce as well as counters and you'll tend to know your opponent's hand.

You mind if I jot down a list? So we can see roughly what we're working with?

1 mox jet
1 mox emerald
3 dark depths
1 strip mine
1 wasteland (I only included one, since I don't like going below 12 green sources and mana-denial isn't a core component in this list. Black mana is plentiful, but I think the second swamp is more important than the second waste)
1 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2 city of brass
4 green/black fetch (might as well draw out some stifles)
4 bayou
1 forest
2 swamp

3 vampire hexmage
4 dark confidant
3 tarmogoyf

4 aether vial
2 pithing needle (power, timevault and wasteland)
1 sensei's divining top

4 dark ritual
4 duress
4 thoughtseize

4 living wish
1 demonic tutor
1 demonic consultation
1 vampiric tutor
2 crop rotation
1 yawgmoth's will

Wishboard:
1 vampire hexmage
1 dark depths
1 wasteland (may be hard to justify. Offs Karakas though!)
1 karakas (just an idea. might become playable whenever Iona becomes a common oath/dread return target)
1 jotun grunt (something fat from the board, though goyf may be better)
1 kataki, war's wage
1 stingscourger
1 gatekeeper of malakir (this one can't be vialed, though. Is the wishboard too big?)

It looks like the deck wants either red or blue (preferably blue, I think) to deal with stax/lockpieces and silly stuff like Iona, but I don't know if it's worth the strain on the manabase.

Whenever duress/thoughtseize is the right disruption to protect the combo, it should be pretty consistent though. We've got 12 dark depths and 10 vampires.

[Juzam_Jim]

I really, really, really cannot see Aether Vial being a good card in a combo deck like this.
Also, Pithing Needle isn't really needed in my opinion.

[RecklessEmbermage]

I really, really, really cannot see Aether Vial being a good card in a combo deck like this.
Also, Pithing Needle isn't really needed in my opinion.

Aether vial basically turns on living wish. What do you think the alternative would be? Intuition? Draw sevens?

[Juzam_Jim]

I really, really, really cannot see Aether Vial being a good card in a combo deck like this.
Also, Pithing Needle isn't really needed in my opinion.

Aether vial basically turns on living wish. What do you think the alternative would be? Intuition? Draw sevens?

Well, I've actually posted two (rough) lists earlier in this thread. I don't see what good Vial does in getting out a combo piece.
I'm not saying my lists are near perfect or anything, but the way I see it, the deck should lean towards combo rather than creatures with Vial, and running Vial with a quite low creature count, seems way off for me anyway

[Guli]

I really, really, really cannot see Aether Vial being a good card in a combo deck like this.
Also, Pithing Needle isn't really needed in my opinion.

Aether vial basically turns on living wish. What do you think the alternative would be? Intuition? Draw sevens?

Well, I've actually posted two (rough) lists earlier in this thread. I don't see what good Vial does in getting out a combo piece.
I'm not saying my lists are near perfect or anything, but the way I see it, the deck should lean towards combo rather than creatures with Vial, and running Vial with a quite low creature count, seems way off for me anyway

I agree, but more creature and colors can be added.

If you go too combo with this it might simply get outplayed a lot.

[RecklessEmbermage]

I really, really, really cannot see Aether Vial being a good card in a combo deck like this.
Also, Pithing Needle isn't really needed in my opinion.

Aether vial basically turns on living wish. What do you think the alternative would be? Intuition? Draw sevens?

Well, I've actually posted two (rough) lists earlier in this thread. I don't see what good Vial does in getting out a combo piece.
I'm not saying my lists are near perfect or anything, but the way I see it, the deck should lean towards combo rather than creatures with Vial, and running Vial with a quite low creature count, seems way off for me anyway

I agree, but more creature and colors can be added.

If you go too combo with this it might simply get outplayed a lot.

Which creatures? I guess tidehollow sculler would be a good fit, and white could shore up some of the deck's weaknesses. Don't know if I'd cut back on duress/seize to play it though..

[Guli]

I really, really, really cannot see Aether Vial being a good card in a combo deck like this.
Also, Pithing Needle isn't really needed in my opinion.

Aether vial basically turns on living wish. What do you think the alternative would be? Intuition? Draw sevens?

Well, I've actually posted two (rough) lists earlier in this thread. I don't see what good Vial does in getting out a combo piece.
I'm not saying my lists are near perfect or anything, but the way I see it, the deck should lean towards combo rather than creatures with Vial, and running Vial with a quite low creature count, seems way off for me anyway

I agree, but more creature and colors can be added.

If you go too combo with this it might simply get outplayed a lot.

Which creatures? I guess tidehollow sculler would be a good fit, and white could shore up some of the deck's weaknesses. Don't know if I'd cut back on duress/seize to play it though..

You don't need to cut anything, thanks to the new fetchlands. We can easily play 2-3 colors just keep it black with some splash.

Those new free summoning trap's are interesting as well, since we will play worldly tutors. Do we need white? Green is the color when it comes to land/creature tutors.

Oh man so many options, we need to narrow things down. Instead of Vial, Null Rod is also possible, which a lot of players would suggest. I will (as usual) work on the vial list

[nataz]

my question is why even go aggro control at all? And if you really haaaave to go that way, why not model yourself on something like the old stifle noght lists. Its the same idea, 2 card combo for huge beats. It's just that now 1 of the two cards is uncounterable, and you get a bigger baddie at the end.

I guess i'm asking, why play tarmo at all? All he adds to the deck is fat. This is a two card combo - compare it to dragon. If I was throwing a list together, I'd focus on finding and protecting the combo, not adding in random beaters.

Also, why wasteland/strip mine? Or at least why so many. You have crop rotation if you really want to find a singleton stripmine, but with out null rod or chalice to back it up it seems underwhelming. Even more so with the new fetchlands coming out. Mana bases will get even better, and it will even even easier to find a singleton on color basic to work off.

The direction I keep thinking about is a cerebral assasin shell. Something with bazaar to cycle through lots of cards, and reanimate and lftl to get back combo peices. Fast mana similar to Ad Naus, and then lots of protection. Maybe even add anger to the mix. It should be easy to get a 4 color mana base that uses mountains as a base with the new fetchlands. 

 

[Guli]

@nataz
So you want to run blue in order to get in force of will or what? How do you plan on getting your combo together and then protecting it? What cards will you use?

What will you do if your combo pieces get extracted? Or if they break your counter wall and bounce your token. You are left with 2 combo pieces in your grave and most likely you have no relevant card left in hand. The combo is not affected by null rod. So there could always be null rod in the deck (like oath sometimes runs null rod)

Maybe a good solid control package like this would support this combo well.

4 Force of Will
4 Duress
4 Null Rod
4 Spell Pierce

Don't forget, you need to get rid of enemy wastelands, because they can strip your combo land in response to hexmage. (found out the hard way during play testing)

5 Wastelands/strip (protects your dark depths)

Maybe even stifle is a good way to additional protection but at the same time mana denial and other applications.

1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 demonic consultation

1 ancestral recall
1 time walk
1 ponder
1 brainstorm
1 merchant scrol
1 mystical tutorl

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Depths

4 Dark confidant (seems logical)

// Lands
    3  Dark Depths
    3  Polluted Delta
    3  Wasteland
    1  Strip Mine
    4  Underground Sea
    2  Swamp
    2  Island
    2  Verdant Catacombs

// Creatures
    4 Vampire Hexmage
    4  Dark Confidant

// Spells
    4  Duress
    4  Force of Will
    4  Spell Pierce
    4  Stifle
    1  Mystical Tutor
    4  Null rod
    1  Brainstorm
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Demonic Consultation
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Time Walk
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Jet

[nataz]

I like that list a lot more then some of the others. I think there are 3 ways to model this. 1) aggro control - stifle naught, 2) oath -dragon oath, and 3) combo - dragon.

Of the three, I like the comparison to oath the best, and I your above list is a good starting point. I'm still not sold on the number of wastes.

Do you really need the blue tutors? Neither of them find the hexmage or the dark depths. I like crop rotation better in that slot, which then would allow you to free up some wasteland slots as well. Loam seems like something we should explore as well if you are really worried about wasteland. 

can we tweak the mana to include some number of tomb of yawgmoth? The idea of going t1 tomb -> duress, t2 dark depths -> hexmage is attractive. The BB cc of hexmage and the land drop requirement is actually the biggest draw back of this combo.

I wonder if dark confidant is a trap in how we are thinking about the deck. Is that really the best draw engine for this type of deck? Maybe we should look at Remora, or a combonation of remora and bob.

Wasteland effects are certainly a problem, but wasteland effects of our own seems clunky as an answer. Maybe we can look at alt. win conditions. Even something as simple as key/vault as a back up win.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Dark depths is a pretty bad land. It makes no mana and is only useful with hexmage (granted at that point it's very useful). If you’re playing 4, it seems like a pretty bad idea, if you run 1-2 dark depths, and 2-3 crop rotation you have = or greater access to half your combo as oath decks do. In addition, you get increased access to strip mine/wastes, even urborg if you want. If you pair this with life from the loam, you've god a strip lock while you can swing to victory with hexmage/bob (which isn't bad at all) or an answer to "aww, you stripped my dark depths" in loam.  If you’re unhappy about getting your lands wasted, pithing needle and stifle always been a great multipurpose answer to strip effects.

[Juzam_Jim]

Here's another list I've been working on the last couple of days. It works really nice, as it's much like a regular ANT deck, but with the inclusion of Hexmage + DD, which randomly pops up once in a while or you can cast Ad Nauseam and drawing 4-6 cards and drawing into this combo.

Creatures
3   Vampire Hexmage     

Spells 
4   Ad Nauseam     
1   Ancestral Recall     
1   Brainstorm     
3   Cabal Ritual     
2   Crop Rotation     
4   Dark Ritual   
1   Demonic Consultation     
1   Demonic Tutor   
4   Duress     
1   Hurkyl's Recall   
1   Imperial Seal     
1   Mystical Tutor     
1   Ponder     
3   Tendrils of Agony   
4   Thoughtseize     
1   Vampiric Tutor     
1   Yawgmoth's Will   

Artifacts 
1   Black Lotus     
4   Chrome Mox     
1   Lotus Petal     
1   Mana Crypt   
1   Mox Jet     
1   Mox Sapphire     
1   Sol Ring     

Lands 
1   Bayou     
2   Dark Depths   
1   Island   
4   Polluted Delta     
1   Swamp     
1   Tolarian Academy     
1   Tropical Island     
2   Underground Sea 

[arctic79]

In a mono b or b/g build with Dark Depths, I would seriously entertain Imp's Mischief or lightning greives as protection from bounce.  This maybe the chance for Imp's to shine as it is versatile but never had the right deck to be run in.

[Phele]

On the base of good ol' Dark Illusions Mask-Stifle-Nought-builds, I could imagine a similar approach looking like this, very similar to the list of Guli:

4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Duress/Thoughtseize
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

3 Crop Rotation
1 Life from the Loam

4 FoW
4 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild

3 Null Rod
2 Dark Depths

4 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Island
6 Fetch
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Saphire
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus

Demonic Consultation is less attractive with a more Crop Rotation based list. The blue count in this list is pretty low to feed FoW. Stifle serves as mana denial and protection of your combo as well. I included two bounce to care about possible maindeck Needles, Ensnaring Bridges, Stormscape Apprentices, Sowers ... whatever. Even though Smmenen didn't see any use for Grim Discovery in Vintage, I could easily imagine a few copies in this build, lets say for the Null Rods and exchanging Spell Pierce with Cursecatcher, as it brings back the whole combo for two mana but Confidants, Cursecatchers, Strip Mines, Fetchlands too. Well, tests have to show if this makes sense.

[BruiZar]

Why are you not playing regrowth? It's much more versatile then Grim Discovery

[xouman]

Crop rotation and loam seem too important, along with hexmage and dark depths, so we have a BG core. Now the questions are:

-Which decks are we going to win? Non-combo decks imho, so we need cards to win combo, like sadistic sacrament. Not sure about stax and muds, but G will give us an opportunity.

-Which cards can be a trouble? Lots: bouncers, stifles, strip effects, magus of the moon, diabolic edict (and similar cards), sower/threads... we need to defend plan A, with lots of duress, hymm, tgz... Also we need a strong B option, since main idea could be easily destroyed. That is: tarmos. And maybe we can add bazaar (good with crop rotation and LFTL) and a bit of madness/flashback cards to the side to make a new deck post side.


A difficult idea to implement, never going to be a Tier 1, but interesting nevertheless

[Phele]

Why are you not playing regrowth? It's much more versatile then Grim Discovery

Grim Discovery is not in the list as well, I just mentioned it as a candidate.

Yes, Regrowth is more versatile. But Grim Discovery offers card advantage and sets up the combo again with one card. But I guess both are not worth including.

@ Xou: I think Combo is one of your best matchups: Between Duress, Stifle, Spell Pierce, FoW, Null Rod, Strip-Effects it is pretty hard for them to win. I think the most diificult matchups will be proper build Aggro-Control-Fish-builds and UBR Tez with a good mix of Fire/Ice, Needles and Stuff.

[RecklessEmbermage]

Here's another list I've been working on the last couple of days. It works really nice, as it's much like a regular ANT deck, but with the inclusion of Hexmage + DD, which randomly pops up once in a while or you can cast Ad Nauseam and drawing 4-6 cards and drawing into this combo.

Creatures
3   Vampire Hexmage     

Spells 
4   Ad Nauseam     
1   Ancestral Recall     
1   Brainstorm     
3   Cabal Ritual     
2   Crop Rotation     
4   Dark Ritual   
1   Demonic Consultation     
1   Demonic Tutor   
4   Duress     
1   Hurkyl's Recall   
1   Imperial Seal     
1   Mystical Tutor     
1   Ponder     
3   Tendrils of Agony   
4   Thoughtseize     
1   Vampiric Tutor     
1   Yawgmoth's Will   

Artifacts 
1   Black Lotus     
4   Chrome Mox     
1   Lotus Petal     
1   Mana Crypt   
1   Mox Jet     
1   Mox Sapphire     
1   Sol Ring     

Lands 
1   Bayou     
2   Dark Depths   
1   Island   
4   Polluted Delta     
1   Swamp     
1   Tolarian Academy     
1   Tropical Island     
2   Underground Sea 

This list looks very appealing indeed. If I was filthy rich or played in a meta allowing proxies, this is the first list I'd try.

[BruiZar]

Sorry to burst your combolicious bubble but may I remind you of:

   

And if that doesn't work, there's always trusty Sower of Temptation and Preacher.

[Juzam_Jim]

Yeah, and all of these cards see a lot of play....

There's a solution to everything. Naming 5 cards that destroys this combo doesn't mean that it won't work. I could name the first 50 cards that destroys artifacts, does that mean that Vault + Key doesn't work?

[BruiZar]

Getting beat by your own token is sort of nasty though

[Juzam_Jim]

Well, then I'd just play a Guilded Drake....