[Standard] Mardu Sacrifice Midrange - New Player Needs help

[CardinalSilence]

Mardu Sacrifice Midrange

This deck only uses cards from Battle for Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch, and Shadows over Innistrad. The deck's main goal as a midrange is to be aggressive enough to outpace any control decks, as well as survive any aggro decks, while pushing much more costly, efficient creatures with a focus on sacrifice, recursion, and life drain. The deck aims to end games around turn 6-8 with either Archangel Avacyn and/or Westvale Abbey flips and aims to have a body led by Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Any advice, tips, and/or suggestions on how to improve this deck in any way are fully welcome. Sideboard is currently WIP - again, suggestions welcome.

I'm a newer player so I know I missed some really important things - thanks for the help!

[moan3564]

Mainboard:
I think I would remove the blood bond vampires in favour of another Zula port Cutthroat and perhaps another colossus, you might have to play around with that. With the blood bond vampires, they're very hard to trigger, and it doesn't help that your deck doesn't contain too much life gain. Sometimes their great, other times, its a 3/3 for 4 mana. Zulaport cutthroats are always a solid card, and having more helps yo get them and combos better with the cards your playing. With the colossus or maybe an extra Avacyn, you have extra draw chance on a quick powerful card that builds to a threat, or a huge board wipe that can come out of no where. Or maybe you can add a third anguished unmaking. Great removal spell. For a midrange, its not super heavy on removal, although it does offer a lot of control  of board state with its creatures.

Sideboard:
As for your side board, you maybe want to consider those heavy removal spells, for moments where your against a rush or aggro. Spells like grasp of darkness, languish, and planar outburst removal unwanted creatures from the board. They also remove yours but as your deck needs some graveyard fuel, its not a bad idea. It will keep your walkers, and give you an advantage there. Great for changing pace, and ruining tempo, just like midrange is supposed to.

Cards to think about(Maybeboard):
You may also want to consider Archangel of tithes, to slow your opponents down. She works really well with always watching, and forces your opponent to choose between higher cost spells, removing her, and attacking. Ob nixilis reignited is a great walker, adding both draw and creature removal. Not to mention very good for destroying heavy control decks, or to gain card advantage. Gideon Ally of zendikar isn't a bad pick here either, creating tokens, becoming a 5/5 or creating an emblem are all good options. He can ult immediately, giving your creatures a potentially lethal damage boost. His tokens are great as well for blocking fodder. Read the bones is a great card draw card, allowing you to scry, then draw 2 cards. It only costs 2 life, and 3 mana. Great for those moments where you really need that 1 card that you don't have.

That's all I have, and those are just suggestions. If anyone knows better cards, or better plays, please feel free to correct me.

[CardinalSilence]

In my playtesting so far I actually haven't had any trouble proccing the Bloodbond Vampires +1/+1 actually, between Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Shambling Vent's manland ability, and the 3 Zulaport Cutthroats I have currently they go to at least 4/4 by the time they untap in most cases I've run through - I do agree completely though, especially against some removal heavy decks it could be pretty difficult so I sideboarded and extra copy of the Diregraf Colossus as well as a 4th Zulaport Cuttthroat to switch the Bloodbond Vampires out with, but at least for now they haven't caused me any trouble so I think I'll keep them mainboarded.

I don't even know how I missed Planar Outburst, the spell is perfect for clearing the board, without devastating my board control because zombies just come right back - I was stuck on Descend Upon the Sinful but the exiling and mana cost turned me away, that is gonna be huge to keep in my sideboard, awesome idea, thank you. As for Grasp of Darkness I've had trouble paying for the BB cost while trying to pump out Relentless Dead and Drana, Liberator of Malakir on curve that have the BB cost as well, so I'll playtest a little but I think I may stay away at least for now, the manabase was already pretty tight... great idea though I should at least try it out. I also sideboarded the extra copy of Anguished Unmaking you mentioned, the sideboard is seriously coming together to help deal with both control and aggro - thanks man

As for the rest of your suggestions, I added just a single of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Ob Nixilis Reignited to the sideboard as well, for the just in case effect, especially if I decide I need to take out the Bloodbond Vampires the lifegain from Sorin, Grim Nemesis is gonna have a lot less impact and the token hoard or instant +1/+1 can win games pretty much instantly,  - Ob Nixilis Reignited's removal and card advantage doesn't hurt either (well okay maybe 1 life point). Instead of Read the Bones I put in Painful Truths, I figure having the variable of 1-3 since Mardu is a tri-color deck would prove to be more advantageous in the long run, but I could be wrong about that.

Thanks so much man, I didn't really change to much in the mainboard but the sideboard is looking a million times better than before, helped me a ton.

I have a couple more specific questions is anyone has any comments on those as well:

1. How is the mana curve, avg. cmc, etc.?
2. Is the manabase proportioned properly to colors?
3. Is the manabase too slow because of the land vs. basic land ratio? A lot of my lands come in tapped (or conditionally tapped) and I'm wondering if there's a better way to manafix or set up the manabase, during playtesting it's been enough to get me by for the mostpart but it doesn't seem perfect.
4. Enough land, enough spells, enough creatures? Or is my ratio there totally off, I still prefer msotly creatures, I have a couple burn and removal spells as well as Sorin, Grim Nemesis but is it enough, or too much? (Same with Land and Creatures)
5. Carrier Thrall in sideboard, good idea or is there something better, I put  originally it there for potential ramp options (swap out the Bloodbond Vampires to lower curve and get the token sac mana for example) but I feel like there's a better choice there as well so for now has been removed for 2 copies of Quarantine Field and 2 copies of Chandra, Flamecaller
6. Any thoughts on Chandra, Flamecaller as a sideboard option? (or mainboard, but probably not)
7. FNM Ready?

Thanks again to everyone for the help and suggestions, I know this post is a little long winded, apologies