Pioneer Vampires

When I wrote my set review for Murders at Karlov Manor, I wrote extensively about how much I liked Vein Ripper. I tried to temper my expectations somewhat due to my own well-documented vampire bias, but it turns out I was right to be excited about Vein Ripper. Rakdos Vampires, running a full playset of Vein Ripper, took down the PT illustrating many of the points I made as to why the card is so powerful. Vein Ripper presents an extremely fast clock, and the only way to kill it is to two-for-one yourself while ceding an eight-life swing. In addition, the tempo loss of spending your turn playing a creature just to sacrifice it immediately can be especially punishing while also facing pressure from Bloodtithe Harvester, Preacher of the Schism, and Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. This is assuming you even have the option of killing it in the first place. If Vampire's turns one and two are spent using Thoughtseize and Fatal Push to leave you creatureless, you're utterly powerless to race or remove the clock. On Arena, I had a desperate opponent Molten Rain themselves by sacrificing a Mutavault to kill Vein Ripper. They lost that game.

Adjusting the Vampires list to the new cards and the new meta is interesting. In the PT winning list, Vein Ripper replaced Champion of Dusk, while Preacher of the Schism replaced Gifted Aetherborn, and Smuggler's Copter replaced Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. They also added in Cavern of Souls to fight Mana Leak 2.0, AKA No More Lies. However, there have already been new iterations of the list after it won the PT. Todd Anderson has his own version, where he replaced Smuggler's Copter with another card I mentioned in my set review when discussing Vein Ripper:

Archfiend of the Dross makes sense in a lot of ways. While not being a vampire isn't ideal, it does fit nicely with the Vein Ripper plan. Imagine playing against Vampires, killing a turn three Vein Ripper at great expense, just to have them hardcast another six-power flier on turn four. This line of play puts a ton of pressure on the opponent. Good luck racing six-power fliers that also deal damage every time a creature dies.

As far as a list, this is the base:

[PLANESWALKERS]

4 Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord

[CREATURES]

4 Bloodtithe Harvester

3 Dusk Legion Zealot

2 Preacher of the Schism

4 Vein Ripper

[INSTANTS]

1 Bitter Triumph

4 Fatal Push

[SORCERIES]

4 Thoughtseize

[ENCHANTMENTS]

4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki

[LANDS]

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

1 Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway

4 Blood Crypt

2 Cavern of Souls

1 Haunted Ridge

2 Mutavault

1 Sulfurous Springs

3 Swamp

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

As you'll notice, the base only has 49 cards and 19 lands. That leaves 4-5 spells and 6-7 lands as flex slots, in addition to the sideboard. These flex slots can reflect your play style preferences and the meta you're expecting. I would recommend starting with the remaining mainboard spell slots and using those to better inform your filling of the land and sideboard slots accordingly. There are tons of options and combinations. In theory, you could also go Mono-Black or Orzhov. That being said, as nice as a clean manabase or sideboard cards like Fracture are, they're probably not better overall than Bloodtithe Harvester and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. The continuing evolution of my list will be posted before every RCQ I attend on Patreon. In the meantime, I'm still testing some possible 1-ofs, but this is what I'm currently playing on Arena:

[PLANESWALKERS]

4 Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord

[CREATURES]

4 Bloodtithe Harvester

1 Champion of Dusk

4 Dusk Legion Zealot

3 Preacher of the Schism

4 Vein Ripper

[INSTANTS]

2 Bitter Triumph

4 Fatal Push

[SORCERIES]

1 Duress

4 Thoughtseize

[ENCHANTMENTS]

4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki

[LANDS]

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

2 Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway

4 Blood Crypt

2 Cavern of Souls

4 Haunted Ridge

2 Mutavault

2 Sulfurous Springs

3 Swamp

1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

[SIDEBOARD]

1 Abrade

1 Blot Out

2 Duress

1 Go Blank

1 Kolaghan's Command

4 Leyline of the Void

2 Path of Peril

1 Pithing Needle

1 Rending Volley

1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Just in time for RCQ season, the Vampires have awakened! We are the prince of all of Pioneer once again!