In the beginning, Sengir Vampire was the only member of his tribe in the world of Magic. This 4/4 flyer is still legal in all formats except pauper and, while I guess he could be a fair pick in a limited environment, he just doesn’t make the cut for most cubes. Later additions to the tribe in Ice Age and Homelands may have had awesome illustrations, but if you want people to draft vampires in your cube, you should definitely leave those vamps out.
Not Everything Is Black or White – But Perhaps It Should Be
Looking at the stats, one could argue that a vampire archetype in cube should be either mono-black or Rakdos (black-red). There are more than 130 mono-black vampires and nearly 170 in total in the Rakdos colors. So why would anyone want to go with Orzhov (white-black) for a vampire archetype in cube? Especially when considering the meager 18 mono-white vampires printed in all of Magic’s history. Well, it comes down to a matter of quality over quantity – and also of looking at which way the wind is blowing.
Going by the latest releases from Wizards of the Coast containing vampires, we have seen both a three-colored Commander deck from 2017 with vampires in white, black and red and we have more recently seen the black and white vampires of Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan. Since the release of Rivals of Ixalan there are more two-colored vampires in the Orzhov colors than in Rakdos. Moreover, the black and white vampires are more synergistic, since a lot of them are focused on a life gain strategy.
Orzhov vampires have additional synergy as well. For example,
Vampires in black and white also work well in synergy with other archetypes making them draftable if your cube has archetypes with focus on graveyard recursion and token generation.
Gathering Your Bloodthirsty Hordes
When you have decided to add some aristocratic bloodsuckers to your cube, the next step is to survey the possible recruits and choose which ones fit your taste and the budget you are building your limited environment within.
A good place to begin is to see what vampires lurk out there. You can do an advanced search on Cardmarket to see all creature cards with the type vampire – the result is right here. It may take some time to check them all, but perhaps you'll discover something interesting that you didn't know existed.
You can make a “wants list” and add everything that catches your fancy and then prune it later on. When refining your list remember to take into consideration both the color balance within the archetype and the mana curve. There are a lot of cool vampires in Magic that are just too expensive to be playable in limited, unless you chose ones that work well with a reanimator archetype in your cube.
Do you already have vampires in your cube or are you planning to build a vampire archetype for you and your friends to draft? Which vampire-related cards would be sure picks for your cube and which would you avoid? What is still missing for vampires to make it into your cube? Post a comment below with your thoughts on vampires as a cube archetype.
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