Happy Thursday MTG peeps,
We here at MTG Realm are at it again - deck-brewing for standard constructed. We've accumulated a sufficient number of new Magic: the Gathering Gatecrash cards to be able to start testing a few strategies for tomorrow's Friday Night Magic event at our local card shop and of course over the weekend. Yesterday we looked at a sample Simic (green / blue) strategy to play and evaluate some of the new cardboard awesomeness. Today, we're looking at an Orzhov (black / white) but more specifically, the Exquisite Blood and Vizkopa Guildmage 'infinite' combo in an Orzhov shell. We've put together and taken apart this several times and through discussions with our group, decided on this particular pile of 60 cards.
Our overall goal in this is to live for just enough turns to have both Exquisite Blood and Vizkopa Guildmage on the game table. After these two have met, we will pour our three mana (1WB) to activate the Guildmage’s second ability, promptly followed by triggering a lifegain. The options are faitly open at this point - we could swing in with a lifelinking attacker, pay the one black or white mana to extort a spell or just a bump in the night to get the ball rolling.Here's our draft list . . .
2x Vault of the Archangel
2x Godless Shrine
4x Isolated Chapel
6x Swamp
6x Plains
19 Creatures
3x Vizkopa Guildmage
3x Blood Artist
4x Vampire Nighthawk
3x Rhox Faithmender
2x Ozbedat, Ghost Council
19 Other Spells
2x Blind Obediance
3x Sign in Blood
4x Orzhov Charm
2x Orzhov Keyrune
2x Chalice of Life / Chalice of Death
3x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
3x Exquisite Blood
~
Still developing a sideboard against the new and forever changing metagame. For now however, we do have a few Faith's Shield in the sideboard board may save either our Guildmage creature or the Exquisite Blood enchantment as well as some Elixir of Immortality which not only will give us a lifegain but also some protection against all the new mill builds we 
expect. We also wanted to be able to have a plan 'B' and included Chalice of Life / Chalice of Death which we loved since it was reprinted - having this artifact flip and pinging for five is solid good.Anywhoos - any MTG Realm reader out there have an Orzhov build they would like to share - drop your ideas or your list in the comments below !
~