Vampires have taken Magic the Gathering scene by storm. An exciting new creature type that was previously characterized by a bald guy licking a red tree(experienced players, you know what I’m talking about), Vampires have gained a new face with the release of a very powerful new card : Vampire Nocturnus.

So what’s so special about Mr. Nocturnus you ask? Just about everything. This card alone is helping define the Standard format (along with his other vampire friends of course). Vampire Nocturnus was the pre-release bonus for Magic 2010 and was one of only 3 vampires in the set. Half the people were thinking “huh? I guess this is a good cast…”. At most after M10 Vampire Nocturnus was efficient. Selling for a mere 3-5 dollars across the web, many players passed him up. The other half saw the foreshadowing in his early M10 printing. With the release of Zendikar and all of its low cost/high efficiency vampires, Vampire Nocturnus’s price increased by nearly 400% in 72 hours. Turning your little vampires big and giving them flying to boot is nothing to scoff at. And all for 4 mana!

Vampire Nocturnus just looks awesome. He looks so much more like a vampire than the old Sengirs. The candle lit ominous look coupled with the cool contemplation gives this card a good feel of cool power and smooth tactics. Artist Raymond Swanland did a fantastic job.

As said before, vampires were a scarce creature type in the past and did not emerge as a good strategy until very recently. The ability for this Mythic rare to control such a large amout of creatures is what makes it great. Two Nocturnus’s plus a black card on top of your library means everybody (well, all vampires)gets +4/+2 and flying. Thats BIG trouble for your opponents. Especially since this translates him into a 5/4 flier for only 4 mana!…  The best thing about it? Playing multiples of these by your 4th or 5th turn. Throw some mana acceleration in your deck and, ta-da! I have found that running a Necropotence can really work well with the Nocturnus as well. Not only does it sift through your library until you find a black card, It can fill your hand up with small playable vampires every turn!

“Your life will set with the sun.” – Just awesome. This guy is a vampire through and through. There’s no stopping him once he gets going and the only thing certain about Mr. Nocturnus is that he will spare your opponents a long painful death!