With the new releases, I've been thinking about Vampires for a medium powered cube as the basis of Red an Black aggressive decks. It's not always easy to incorporate your aggressive decks into the format's other themes, but I think Vampires is starting to get there.
They have a bunch of directions to go in: life gain, tokens, +1/+1 counters, sacrifice and artifacts.
Here is the core package I am envisioning:
Enablers
These would be the basis of aggro for their respective colors. One and two drops that have evasion and/or good stats and that enable madness/GY archetypes. Blood tokens tie into artifacts and there is some definite sacrifice shenanigans that are hinted at.
Discard payoffs
Madness cards are the obvious place to go with the discard and so are cards like Anger + Bloodghast. These fit the aggressive nature of the enablers and are mostly fine on their own. Mayhem Devil is not a discard payoff, but with the blood tokens and the self-sacrificing permanents, it's just too perfect not to include in the base package.
So cheap Vampires as the basis of Black and/or Red aggressive decks with the possibility of fitting into many different archetypes. I think that the novelty here is that these aggressive cards are decent on their own, but also serve as glue cards to other decks in the format, which isn't always possible.
I've left out a ton of potential candidates and didn't expand the potential to other colors, but this was done in the spirit of sharing a random idea that wouldn't leave my mind. So hopefully you've enjoyed it and I can move onto something else!
They have a bunch of directions to go in: life gain, tokens, +1/+1 counters, sacrifice and artifacts.
Here is the core package I am envisioning:
Enablers
These would be the basis of aggro for their respective colors. One and two drops that have evasion and/or good stats and that enable madness/GY archetypes. Blood tokens tie into artifacts and there is some definite sacrifice shenanigans that are hinted at.
Discard payoffs
Madness cards are the obvious place to go with the discard and so are cards like Anger + Bloodghast. These fit the aggressive nature of the enablers and are mostly fine on their own. Mayhem Devil is not a discard payoff, but with the blood tokens and the self-sacrificing permanents, it's just too perfect not to include in the base package.
Even though most of the cards I listed above are playable on their own, we can take advantage of the fact they are vampires. There are some pretty good ones that have tough mana requirements that I am omitting, but the following are decent without being too all in.
The first four are good enough to be included in most aggressive decks regardless of caring about vampires or not, so that is a good start.
Bloodline Keeper is also a decent stand alone threat, but slow to get going. It's also a pretty big removal check.
Sanctum Seeker is mediocre on its own, but can really finish someone off out of nowhere with the pings. I would be more inclined to run this one as a reward for going hard into vampires.
The first four are good enough to be included in most aggressive decks regardless of caring about vampires or not, so that is a good start.
Bloodline Keeper is also a decent stand alone threat, but slow to get going. It's also a pretty big removal check.
Sanctum Seeker is mediocre on its own, but can really finish someone off out of nowhere with the pings. I would be more inclined to run this one as a reward for going hard into vampires.
Since some of the Vampires make Blood tokens, it seems interesting to explore an artifact archetype. Here are more enablers and payoffs for discard. Not sure how to bridge these with other artifact archetypes. Marionette Master? Emry, Lurker of the Loch?
Free sacrifice outlets, random bodies and some payoffs for sacrificing said bodies. This would need to be fleshed out a bunch more to be worthwhile and it might take up too much space with the discard archetype already existing. It's a decent option either way.
So cheap Vampires as the basis of Black and/or Red aggressive decks with the possibility of fitting into many different archetypes. I think that the novelty here is that these aggressive cards are decent on their own, but also serve as glue cards to other decks in the format, which isn't always possible.
I've left out a ton of potential candidates and didn't expand the potential to other colors, but this was done in the spirit of sharing a random idea that wouldn't leave my mind. So hopefully you've enjoyed it and I can move onto something else!