One of the biggest keys to success in constructed is synergy. When analyzing, tuning or designing a deck, it's critical to find and exploit synergies. As you may have noticed from my last couple columns, I think Black is a good color to be playing in Standard right now. Up until now, the main aspect of Black that I have been exploiting with my deck builds is hand destruction. Black has many other things that make it powerful however. This week I explore the synergies found in sacrifice.

The obvious example from the decks that can currently be found in the Standard environment is Vampires. Here is my Vampire brew:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Vampire Lacerator

4 Pulse Tracker

4 Mortician Beetle

4 Viscera Seer

4 Kalastria Highborn

4 Vampire Hexmage

4 Bloodthrone Vampire

4 Bloodghast

4 Pawn of Ulamog

4 Gatekeeper of Malakir

[/Creatures]

[Lands]

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Marsh Flats

15 Swamp

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

4 Skinrender

4 Doom Blade

4 Arrogant Bloodlord

3 Dark Tutelage

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

This is a deck tightly designed around powerful synergies related to creature sacrifice. First, there are the sacrifice outlets:

• Viscera Seer- A turn one play for your swarm deck. A zero mana way to sacrifice things for Highborn and Beetle. Combined with cards like Bloodghast and Pawn of Ulamog, it can also help you get to the cards you need. Another Vampire to go with your Highborn.
• Bloodthrone Vampire- The deck's heavy hitter. With Bloodghast, Pawn of Ulamog and the fact that the deck has 37 creatures, it can quickly hit for massive damage. Another way to activate the Beetle and Highborn.
• Vampire Hexmage- Great in the current environment for shutting down planeswalkers, quests, expeditions, levelers and Ratchet Bomb. In the process of doing so, it can trigger Beetle, Highborn and Pawn.
• Gatekeeper of Malakir- Making your opponent sacrifice a creature triggers your Beetle. In addition, if the situation calls for it, you can target yourself with it to trigger your Highborns.

Next are your cards that take advantage of sacrifice:

• Mortician Beetle- Many Vampire decks use Blade of the Bloodchief in this slot. The Beetle serves a pretty similar function, while helping me keep my number of creatures at a maximum. It gives me a one drop which benefits from all four of my sacrifice outlets. A Beetle can quickly become a one mana super creature.
• Kalastria Highborn- The finisher. With a Bloodthrone Vampire or a Seer in play, typically every Swamp you have equals two life loss for your opponent. Especially powerful with a Bloodghast.
• Pawn of Ulamog- While it's nice to have extra creatures to go with a Seer, the Pawn is primarily to power up Bloodthrone Vampire and Mortician Beetle. The combination of Pawn/Bloodthrone or Pawn/Seer/Beetle, not to mention Pawn/Bloodthrone/Beetle with other creatures, especially Bloodghast, leads to massive quantities of damage.

The remainder of the deck consists of the best Vampires to fill out the deck:

• Bloodghast- Especially when combined with fetch lands, they can be sacrificed over and over to Seer or Bloodthrone Vampire, making Bloodthrone or Beetle huge and activating Highborns over and over.
• Pulse Tracker- A speed deck like this really needs to get a creature into play on turn one and this one represents the most damage. Not only does it hit for two a turn, but it can hit for one on the turn it's being sacrificed in combat.
• Vampire Lacerator- Plays the same role as Pulse Tracker, except it can't do a point when it's being sacrificed during combat.

The three big decks in Standard right now are Boros, U/B Control and Valakut Ramp. It's important to address all three with your sideboard, since they are all so different in style. Of course if you think you crush one of them with your main deck, then you could focus on the other two with your sideboard, but keep in mind they will be sideboarding against you.

• Skinrender- Fantastic against Boros. It kills a flyer and gives you a big body to fight with or sacrifice.
• Doom Blade- Good against Boros and Valakut. Not only can it kill any creature in Boros for two mana, it can kill the creature that Valakut spent six or more mana on. Helpful for killing creatures like Avenger of Zendikar, which would be safe from Gatekeeper of Skinrender.
• Arrogant Bloodlord- Pretty good against all three. It's just a matter of deciding what cards to take out for them in any given match-up. They are great against Valakut Ramp, because they don't die to either Lightning Bolt or Pyroclasm.
• Dark Tutelage- Mainly for control match-ups. While not good tempo-wise, they can give you the card advantage needed to fight through the removal of a control deck.

While I love Vampires, I also like the idea of combining the power of Black with a second color. I've especially been a fan of Black/Green for awhile, ever since playing The Rock at PT Houston. Here is my latest Black/Green creation:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Fauna Shaman

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Bloodghast

1 Sylvan Ranger

1 Bloodthrone Vampire

1 Bloodhusk Ritualist

1 Wolfbriar Elemental

4 Gatekeeper of Malakir

4 Abyssal Persecutor

4 Vengevine

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Eldrazi Monument

[/Spells]

[Lands]

4 Verdant Catacombs

10 Swamp

10 Forest

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

4 Doomblade

4 Vampire Hexmage

4 Skinrender

3 Obstinate Baloth

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

This deck features some of favorite Black cards: Bloodghast and Gatekeeper. Green provides some powerful elements. First, mana:

• Birds of Paradise- Ramps my mana, color smoothes my mana and gives me another creature to go with Monument, Vengevine, Shaman and Bloodthrone.
• Lotus Cobra- Similar to Birds, but it can hit for two damage as well. With a fetch land it can really ramp your mana, great for giving Ritualist or Wolfbriar a big kick.
• Sylvan Ranger- With eight landfall creatures in the deck and some expensive spells, sometimes you just want to be able to search for a land out of your deck, especially if it comes with a creature attached.

The Fauna Shaman/Vengevine Engine is a powerful Green combo that synergizes well with black:

• Fauna Shaman- This allows you to put cards like Bloodghast and Vengevine directly into the graveyard, while searching for the best creature for the situation. It also allows you to play with single copies of creatures that can be searched for when the situation is right for them.
• Vengevine- A 4/3 haste creature for four mana isn't bad already. Giving it the resiliency and recursion of a card like Bloodghast makes it an awesome addition to the deck.

This deck also has three cards which while really powerful in general, specifically are really helpful against Valakut:

• Abyssal Persecutor- With most decks, the match up with Valakut is a race against time and this deck is no exception. A 6/6 for four mana is obviously good for racing. Even though you can get it in play by turn three, sometimes they can get a big creature into play even before you attack with it. That's one of the reasons why the flying is so significant. My deck is also well prepared to overcome the Persecutor's drawback. Gatekeeper can help and Monument and Bloodthrone Vampire can be used to get rid of multiple ones. Besides having these nine cards, use can use Shamans to search for the Vampire.
• Eldrazi Monument- A back breaker for Valakut. Now they can't kill or block any of your creatures and all of your creatures are bigger. However if you don't kill them in one swing, beware of them just killing you in one turn if they have a good enough draw. The drawback of the Monument isn't a big deal, because of cards like Bloodghast, Vengevine, Persecutor and Wolfbriar.
• Bloodhusk Ritualist – Valakut is slow enough that if you have a Lotus Cobra, you might be able to get enough mana to empty their hand before they can do anything too dangerous. Of course emptying your opponent's hand can be powerful in any match up.

Green can also give you good sideboarding options, in this case:

• Obstinate Baloth- A 4/4 for four mana is excellent, but it's mainly in the sideboard for aggro and discard. The four life gain attached to a 4/4 can be a huge game swing.

In both of these decks, they are tightly built around card synergy. This principle can be seen clearly when playing most sets in limited. Scars of Mirrodin is a great example. The two big archetypes in Scars draft are Infect and Metalcraft. In Infect, it's important to draft creatures that specifically have Infect and things that synergize with Infect, like Proliferate, creature pump and things that give minus counters. In Metalcraft, it's important to draft at least 15 or 16 artifacts, with an emphasis on cheap ones. By doing these things, you make each of the cards in your deck more powerful, thus making your deck powerful.

Synergy makes each card in your deck better than it would be on its own. While this is true in limited, it's especially important in the unforgiving world of constructed. I enjoy the synergies offered by Black in Standard, because I like what it offers me against the current metagame: removal, hand destruction, speed and resilience. I especially enjoy the power I receive in return for making sacrifices and making my opponent make them. Even if Black isn't your style, make sure that your deck is based on powerful synergies and ones that match up well with the metagame.