So this is the new Vampire Lord? I wonder if
it's replacing Vampire Nocturnus, or if this
means Cemetery Reaper is out. I liked Cemetery
Reaper. At any rate, it is nice to see a Vampire
that plays off the traditional power of Vampires
to convert other people into vampires and make
them the head vampire's slave. Soul Collector
was nice, but so is this. I do see a few
problems with it though. For one, you need to
tap five Vampires. Which means you need to get
this and at least four other Vampires out onto
the field. And of course, tapping them will
leave you a bit short on blockers. And another
problem: while it gives Vampires +1/+1
(regardless of the top card of your library),
it's only a 2/2 itself. making it quite easy to
kill. Oh, it'll be great when you live the
dream, I'm just worried it won't happen enough.
Captivating Vampire is the clearest indication
possible that the tribe is here to stay.
Designed on a similar template to M10 mainstays
Elvish Archdruid and Goblin Chieftain, this lord
is also fairly straightforward but offers the
relevant decks an interesting extra dimension. I
expect to see it on all manner of tables once it
makes an appearance at the M11 pre-release (save
some for me!).
Magic The Gathering Card of The Day:
Captivating Vampire
Welcome back readers today's card of the day is
a throwback to the tap five creature types
effect. Captivating vampire is a decent sized
2/2 body that is a lord for your other vampires,
the fact the creatures you steal become vampires
is highly flavorful and the fact they get
boosted is great. In standard five creatures is
a lot to commit to the board, maybe if there was
a way cheap and effective way of pumping out
vampire tokens I would consider this. Otherwise
nocturnus is in most cases better, but is
rotating so we face a conundrum. Vampires I
don't feel need the support in standard even
with the loss of nocturnus they will be a
relevant and powerful tribe. In extended once
again getting five creatures is a chore but if
you do achieve you can tap all your creatures
and steal it from opponents before they launch
their mass removal, vampire based decks mostly
revolve around hexmage here so im not sold on
this card. In casual and multiplayer this card
is amazing stealing all your opponents creatures
is good, combine with Awakening or similar cards
to untap all your creatures and repeat. In
limited its hard to draft around a tribe without
drafting a subpar deck I would avoid this card
unless it becomes a money draft.
Today's 2011 card of the day is Captivating
Vampire which at three mana is one less than the
previous lord for the vampire clan, Vampire
Nocturnus. Unlike Nocturnus this lord
always applies a bonus of +1/+1, but has an even
less reliable secondary effect as having five
creatures in play of a specific type untapped is
a tall order. Even ignoring the second
effect this is a very playable addition to an
already strong family and will be played for at
least as long as Vampire Nighthawk is around.
For Limited the value of lords is often less
than the constructed formats due to the lack of
creatures in the correct type. This isn't
an exception for Captivating Vampire as the
second effect in particular would be unlikely to
be activated in a Limited game. The full
setlist for 2011 isn't available at this time,
but 2010 had only three different vampires to
choose from and only three have been revealed
for 2011 so far. If you can get several
other vampires as support this isn't bad, but
that depends heavily on very specific conditions
of packs and for booster the table around you as
well. You may draft this as a rare or
hate, but without other vampires it is just a
three mana 2/2.
