Across the multiverse of Magic: The Gathering, we see similar tropes, societies, and, in particular, creatures. The world of Magic is bound and limited by our own world, and our own fantastical creations. Sadly, the world of fantasy is limited. The world of popular fantasy, even more so. While there are still untapped reserves of human stories and legends, the creators of Magic have no qualms about double-dipping into the more popular ones. And here’s the reason why we have another Vampire precon.

Vampires have existed throughout Magic’s history, but didn’t take center stage until Innistrad, the plane ruled by the denizens of horror stories, such as Zombies, Spirits (ghosts), and the science-gone-wrong abominations of H.P. Lovecraft. Fast forward a few years to Ixalan, a world with four creature types at its center: two of myth (Vampires and Merfolk), and two of history (Pirates and Dinosaurs). What do these four types have to do with each other? Nothing, except their popularity.

As we’re returning to the world of Ixalan in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, it makes sense each of these four types would get their own Commander precon. Today we’re looking at the deck populated with the bloodsucking undead. It’s Blood Rites, led by Clavileño, First of the Blessed.

#Blessed

Clavileño is a 2/2 white and black Vampire Cleric that Demonizes attacking Vampires - sort of like a reverse exorcist. Then when those creatures die, they make 4/3 flying Vampire Demon tokens. 

No new mechanics here, just a strange bloodsucker who wants you to kill our Vampires to make bigger Vampires that are also Demons. Cuz why not.

Our backup commander for this deck is Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher. She’s a 2/2 flying Vampire Soldier that gets bigger with +1/+1 counters whenever permanents get sacrificed. Also lifegain. Also also, a very strong recursion effect. Aside from the counters only going on her instead of all our creatures, I’d say she’s a big step up from Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. And she’s in the color identity of Smothering Tithe, the best tokens-for-sacrifice engine in the game. Not that that card is in this deck, of course.

Here's the full decklist:

Hold the Garlic

So what does this deck of sparkly-skinned heartthrobs do? Kind of a lot. Like the precons of old, this deck is far from streamlined. A master of none, it tries to fit in multiple themes and avenues for play.

Both of our commanders want combat - Clavileño for his demonic “gift,” and Carmen for her resurrection ability. So one might assume this is a combat deck. And there are certainly cards that play into that theme. 

Several cards make our creatures bigger (crucial, since most of these Vamps only have two power). Radiant Destiny, Etchings of the Chosen, and Legion Lieutenant are Anthem effects for our Vampires, while Drana, Liberator of Malakir, Patron of the Vein, Indulgent Aristocrat, and Cordial Vampire pass out +1/+1 counters like glasses of virgin blood at a Vampire soiree.

There’s also a lifegain theme. Sanctum Seeker gives us some life whenever a Vampire attacks, which should be happening every turn, hopefully. Twilight Prophet buffs our life total along with some card advantage (assuming we're blessed). And we have the best reprint in the deck, Exquisite Blood, which gives us life whenever our opponents lose it.

But the lifegain doesn’t end there. For more, we have to move over to the deck’s Aristocrats theme. Blood Artist, Cruel Celebrant, and Falkenrath Noble are all looking for creatures to die so we can drain our opponents. 

To feed this need for sacrificial creatures, the deck has a token theme as well. Elenda's Hierophant and Elenda, the Dusk Rose are both looking to die so that more Vampires may live. Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle drops a Vamp whenever nontoken Vamps die, while Charismatic Conqueror can make Vamp tokens if our opponents aren’t willing to pay the Vamp toll. There’s also Timothar, Baron of Bats, who will have our dying Vampires shouting “Bat!” on their way out.

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad can make a token with his +1, Glass-Cast Heart makes blood tokens (though not nearly enough to get to 13), March of the Canonized can make as many Vamps as we can afford, and Promise of Aclazotz Populates.

Like I said, the deck does a lot of things that seem to suggest a lack of cohesion. But as we can see, these different themes all do a pretty good job of flowing into each other.

Salem’s Tot Lot

So how does this deck of the undead play? It’s efficient, for sure. With an average mana value of 3.14, it’s a breeze to get cards on the board, even with a slightly anemic ramp suite (only eight cards). It takes no time at all to get Clavileño in play with his low cost, and there are 14 Vampires in the deck with MV two or less. So we’ll frequently be able to drop a creature on turn two, then Clav turn three, and immediately trigger Clav by attacking with the other creature.

But here we reach the problem of the deck. All these little Vampires aren’t terribly effective in combat when our opponents are at 40 life and, probably, playing bigger creatures than us. They can block our 2/1s easily, but they know killing them means they’ll just come back as flying 4/3s. All too often, that damage will probably just get through, and our opponent is now at 38 life instead of 40. Not very effective. 

This is why the deck has to rely on either the Anthems or the Aristocrats cards. Preferably both. We need the Anthem cards to make our Vampires big enough to be a threat, and we need free sacrifice outlets, like Viscera Seer and Bartolomé del Presidio, to kill the small Vamps so they become big Demons, whether our opponents block or not.

So while the deck may be efficiently costed, it’s not gonna do much without ways to sacrifice creatures and make them bigger. So do your best to get those cards in your opening hand. 

Token-makers are also key to the deck's success. There are a lot of creatures in the deck (36), but Aristocrats decks are always hungry for more. Charismatic Conqueror, Elenda, the Dusk Rose, and Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle are all-stars for making fodder.

Even if we have to sacrifice non-token creatures to get things moving, the deck has a small recursion package to get things back, including repeatable effects like Carmen and Redemption Choir.

Lastly, I want to add that the two commanders, Clavileño and Carmen, work so well together, I wish they had Partner. Each makes up for what the other lacks. But if I had to choose, I’d say Carmen is the better of the two to be your lead singer. She simply does more, and doesn’t rely on so many other things to happen.

New Blood

We’ve seen what the deck does, so let’s move on to the best part of precons: the new cards. We’ll start with one of the best cards in the deck, Charismatic Conqueror. In the right pod (read: with other token decks), this guy is likely to net us a huge amount of Vampires. Or, at the very least, a huge amount of advantage in slowing down our opponents if they don’t want us having all our little friends. An Aristocrats dream come true, and likely to see a ton of play in the format.

For more tokens, we’ve got March of the Canonized, which gives X Vampires on entry, then 4/3 flyers on subsequent upkeeps if we're sufficiently devoted. Elenda's Hierophant much like Elenda herself, likes to get +1/+1 counters and make lots of Vamps when she dies. 

Then we’ve got a couple new sacrifice outlets. Master of Dark Rites is cheap, and very rewarding in this deck. Sometimes we won’t even need the mana, but it’s nice to have. Promise of Aclazotz is our only Adventure in the deck, and gives us a Clavileño-ish effect. The Populate on the enchantment half is the real prize here. 

Redemption Choir can bring back our cheap creatures from the grave when it enters or attacks. Certainly sounds abusable in blink decks. Dusk Legion Sergeant can sacrifice itself for a Cauldron Haze effect, which goes nicely with the +1/+1 counters in the deck. And then there’s Order of Sacred Dusk. Honestly, I’ve never been much of a fan of Exalted in Commander. +1/+1 on just one creature seems ineffective. But you can’t go wrong with a 5/5 flyer with lifelink.

Edit: I misread Order of the Sacred Dusk. With all of your Vampires getting Exalted, it means one Vampire attacking will get pumped for each Vampire you control. So it's much better than I initially assessed. 

This Deck Sucks

Is this deck any good? Here’s my final grade:

C

This deck has the skeleton of a great precon, but it needs a few things fleshed out. More sac outlets are needed so we can always be sure our creatures are dying when we need them to. The Aristocrats/combat combination that we have in the deck can work, in fact I’ve done it pretty spectacularly with a Garna, Bloodfist of Keld deck. It just needs more support.

The biggest dent in this grade is the deck's value. Outside of a solid reprint of Exquisite Blood and the new all-star Charismatic Conqueror, there’s not much here to justify buying the whole deck. Especially considering many of the Vampires in the deck are easily replaceable with better creatures. Bloodghast, for instance, while having some decent value as a reprint, isn’t terribly popular in Commander. A 2/1 that can’t block doesn’t go very far when you have to remove 120 life points from your opponents. It’s simply here because it’s a well-known Vampire from Magic’s history, not because it’s good in the deck. And it’s not the only one like this.

We’ve got a lot of work to do to get this deck more streamlined. So stay tuned for my upgrade guide, coming soon!

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