In case you hadn’t heard, Innistrad is making its way to Spellslingers and we can confirm that Helvault Unsealed will become available in-game after the update downtime on Thursday, November 10th at 10am PST. What you haven’t heard until now is that Sorin himself, the vampire lord of Innistrad, will also be coming to Spellslingers as part of tomorrow’s update!
Unsurprisingly, Sorin’s build revolves around Vampires, draining your opponent anytime one or more friendly Vampires attack. Additionally, if your opponent has 10 or less health, your attackers (not just Vampires) become much more deadly, gaining +1 to their power for the turn. Both of these abilities are callbacks to the original Sorin Markov card which had both a drain effect, and an effect to set your opponent’s life to 10.
Many of Sorin’s incarnations, whether in mono-black or Orzhov colors have had nods to Vampires and life draining, so the design team has definitely hit on the flavor of what makes Sorin unique. What’s a bit outside the box, and more of an interesting design aspect of Spellslingers, is the Noble Bloodline ability which allows Sorin decks to splash a second color and include Vampires from there.
Without the full list of cards from Helvault Unsealed we know that Vampires will fall in at least white and red as secondary options. Olivia Voldaren was previewed already as a Rakdos vampire, just like in Magic: the Gathering, while the existing cards from the Opening Ceremony and D&D Icons expansions include the white vampire Redeemed Thief and two black/white vampires in Strahd, Lord of Ravenloft and Vampiric Knight.
Whether you pick white vampires or red vampires to compliment Sorin’s brood, you’ll almost certainly want to make use of one or more of Sorin’s signature spells, each of which will either add more vampires or make your existing ones stronger.
My favorite from this set is absolutely Bloodline Creator who not only is a solid 1-drop, but also replaces itself when it dies, a powerful effect especially if you combine it with any sacrifice outlet. Sorin’s Feast is a very interesting effect as stealing health isn’t something we’ve seen before. This can turn it into a powerful removal spell to supercharge one of your vampires, or even just a way to bring a large target in range for a burn spell (if you splash red). Lastly there’s Rowdy Reveler who is a solid body at four mana and can gain evasion most turns if you have a Vampire heavy deck.
Sorin will have access to the Warlock, Paladin, and Barbarian classes depending on which color splash you pick. While Warlock obviously compliments the life draining side of Sorin’s mechanics as well as the mythic Voldaren Drainlord who increases your drain effects by 1. On the other hand Paladin makes an interesting choice for Orzhov vampires to continuously pump them up creating an overwhelming tide of bloodsuckers. Barbarian might have a niche spot in Rakdos Sorin decks, but it likely won’t have the same synergy as Warlock.
Helvault Unsealed releases tomorrow with 160+ new cards hitting Spellslingers and Sorin will join them to bring a whole new dynamic to the game’s environment. How will you be building Sorin decks? Let us know on social media and make sure you subscribe to our newsletter for all of the latest Spellslingers information!
Rich Stein (he/him) has been playing Magic since 1995 when he and his brother opened their first packs of Ice Age and thought Jester’s Cap was the coolest thing ever. Since then his greatest accomplishments in Magic have been the one time he beat Darwin Kastle at a Time Spiral sealed Grand Prix and the time Jon Finkel blocked him on Twitter.