used to run patriarch's bidding but am liking scapegoat more and more. recasting things to get edgar triggers sounds much better at refilling your board. plus its cheap and easy to leave up.
It encourages players to hold back and only play the card when you meet the requirement. Granted, I understand that in this deck it is not a problem but I still do not like it. I'm not sure I will include any of those cards.
Chiming in again...
I didn't fully appreciate how Ascend works. I was unaware or just wasn't thinking straight because I didn't realize that on a permanent it's a static ability that will trigger whenever you meet the conditions.
With this revelation in mind, I rescind these earlier statements
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ISBpathfinder, Oathsworn Vampire and Vampire Lacerator seem very lackluster? Could the deck benefit from playing several of the two drop lifegain vampires?
Chance is a bit overpriced but it's attached to another card I'd play anyway. My Edgar build is a bit slower than this one(and runs more Madness) so I frequently get 2-3 Madness casts off of it, while looting away extra lands or whatever I don't need. It's a pretty good performer.
Lol this thread is so much work to keep up with. I am trying to respond to 16 posts that have happened essentially since the end of last week in one go. I will apologize as to some degree it has been harder to do testing recently as the LGS that I used to play at has closed shop and the next closest place for me to play is an hour drive each way which has resulted in me having not played any commander since before Christmas. I was going to try to go and play some this last weekend but some of my new cards did not show up in time for me to play most of my new decks. I hope to travel and play some games this week but with the extra drive time to play I might not be able to play as frequently for a bit.
I will try my best to keep up but its going to be a little harder for me to do testing and be on top of changes for a little bit unless and until a new store opens closer to my location.
I checked and I did not see Teferi's Protection listed even in the earlier versions of the deck.
This is a great list.
I tend to use Teferi's Protection a little more in a deck that moves a little slower or more reactive in nature. Given how fast I am trying to move and how much I am trying to draw its really hard to keep up a bunch of mana from turn to turn for a situational card like this. I would generally rather push to be faster and refill my hand more. I would also probably rather focus on recovery than protect from being wrathed just because of how the mana is used. As an example, I run Teferi's Protection in my Sram auras deck in part because wraths are a problem for me there and I tend to push more mana and I dont worry about being as fast there.
This is from the standpoint that what if you dont get wrathed? Its better to continue to be proactive as long as possible. Wrath prevention requires you to often save mana and even then its often situational based on what is happening. Teferi's Protection is the least situational of them but even something like Boros Charm is situational in that what if your opponent casts Living Death instead of Wrath of God. Preventing being swept requires you to run situational cards and keep the mana up for them which means being less proactive. I like wrath recovery more than wrath prevention because they are more mana efficient in that you don't save your mana each turn in case you need them but even then they seem very mana intensive in most cases.
I've finally assembled a first draft of Markov deck and played it hard last evening. It was a blast and fun to play. I made few observations though:
1. Cards with tripple black costs are hard to cast. My mana base is not perfect yet but even then I would consider finding single-double black replacements for stuff like Necropotence or Dark Prophecy.
2. Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is fine on paper but I'd rather tutor for anthem than him.
3. Shared Animosity rocks! It rode me into a victory two times yesterday. I need more of such effects.
4. Colored mana rocks (moxes/lotuses) are better than Sol Ring/Mana Crypt. We need as many colored mana as possible in early game. Black is most important followed by White and Red (in that order).
5. Cheap draw spells like Painful Truths or Night's Whisper are important to mantain a tempo against removal-heavy decks.
Thanks for the feedback. I always value seeing how things play for someone else as every meta is a little different and sometimes it opens my eyes to some cards that didn't perform as well for others which sometimes makes me reassess for cards myself.
BBB costs - I am in agreement that they can be a total monster to cast. I am lucky to have as good of landbases as I do. I think Necropotence is so crazy strong that I would suggest running it even if you are having a hard time casting it but I could see trimming Dark Prophecy if you are having issues with it. I have had it in my list for some time but even then, I have been cutting my sac outlets slowly over time which does make it a little worse than it used to be for me.
Haakon, Stromgald Scourge - I agree that he can be a total pain in the ass. I really would only run him if you are sold on running a combo strategy. Otherwise you really have to push the deck hard to have the discard outlets to try to move him. I guess if you are already trying to run some sort of hand cycling vamps or something he might be ok but otherwise I agree that he is a little sketch.
Shared Animosity - good to hear. I have had some conflicting results with the card but I probably need to bring it back in given that I seem to be the one who is having the least luck with it I probably need to give it another shot.
Colorless Mana - While I agree, I also disagree a little too. Colored mana is definitely more relevant but if and when you hit the consistent / heavy draw its really nice to have any mana that you can get. When you get the turns where you are pushing a bunch of one drops the colored mana is definately important but any time you are casting essentially any 3+ mana card (except like the two BBB spells) you are going to have some colorless mana needs. Being able to cast a few cheap vamps and any of the 4+ mana creatures in the same turn is probably going to be a great turn still. Wanting black then white then red mana though is definitely my priority as well which is part of why I have adjusted my landbase slightly the way I have.
Cheap one shot draw - I am actually going to disagree a little on the one shot draw. My issue is that the curve is so low that paying 3 mana to draw 3 cards with an average cost of those three cards being like 4.5 mana seems like a lot of mana spent just on the draw portion of the card. I think as you start getting towards the ones that draw more cards in one shot it might make more sense but Sign in Blood style of draw where you pay 2 mana to draw an average of 3 mana of cards seems kind of crazy expensive on how much you pay to do the draw for how fast I want to be. Ad Nausium is a little different because you can at instant speed draw 10 cards if you want for 5 mana. I think its very important to consider how much mana you spend to draw a certain number of cards in this deck because for the most part you cant cast those cards for that efficiency anywhere near on curve. If you spend your third turn casting Painful Truths its such a bad expenditure of mana given that you can probably cast all three of those cards the following turn and be back to having an issue needing draw but also it spends too much mana for how few cards you end up drawing. Cards like this are great in your average deck with higher mana curves because they are cheap but here we are trying to be so fast that even two to three mana can slow us down a lot and the cost of each card we cast is so low that we need to cheese as to how many cards you can draw for a given amount of mana if you ask me.
I've been thinking of putting in Bloodchief Ascension in my deck and when I looked over your list, I was surprised that I didn't see it. It is such an efficient card that gives you a lot of reach. Is there a particular reason why you decided against it? While my list isn't as efficient as yours, I am always looking for ways to kill the table.
Bloodchief Ascension - my issue is that outside of drawing / playing it early it feels incredibly slow to go online. It could be kind of nice but I just think that anytime I am not playing it in the first 1-3 turns its going to feel incredibly slow.
It is also an effect that tends to be more useful when active as a control player than as an aggro player. We are going to have a very high density of cards going to the graveyard throughout the game but I dont actually use much removal myself so I feel like other than like a token player trading in combat I don't know how viable this card is. Its value is going to be heavily dependent on what type of deck my opponents play and I am not too fond of that either.
It’s not that good as it looks like. That card is very slow, only powerful if you cast it on turn 1, but think, do you want cast enchantment that will not doing anything 3 turns, or you cast two vampires?)
I got my games in on Saturday with this build and it was utterly amazing. Those explosive turn 1 and 2 plays really cripple opponents mindsets and you can just win so fast. When the deck didn't explode, it played a very good midrange to long game. I achieved quite a bit getting stuck on few lands and slow draws. Even managed to turn the corner in a game where I was down to 17 life, and played Ad Nauseam went to 5 life drew 15 cards and came back and steam rolled the whole table. So overall, very well built deck and very fun to pilot.
Now to what I saw that didn't work so well. Arterial Flow didn't seem very good at all. Every time I had it in hand it just felt bad, like I wanted something else. I used it as a bait spell in front of something important to see if it would be countered or would people dump cards before the discard happened, and even then it still felt bad. Dark Prophecy just felt like a bad draw engine, and for the triple black cost I'd rather have Necropotence in hand. The times I wished I had it, it would have been great. Most the time I fed it to a mox.
Depending on how your meta looks, Cover of Darkness may or may not fit. I'm in a heavy black meta, so the fear aspect of it doesn't work so well, but again that all depends on your meta. Cards that I'm on the fence about. Twilight Prophet can be really, really amazing. The only issue I see with it is that since this is a really low mana curve build, we are not benefitting very much from its effect. I would expect in a deck with a higher cmc curve it would be more relevant and gain more value. Austere Command is a good card and multi-functional, but I wonder if it would be better off as something else? Serra Ascendant can be nuts if played very early, but only saw it late game and usually by then was hovering around the 15-20 life range.
Last, but not least. Reconnaissance is definitely the all-star to the deck. Being able to go to full alpha on somebody and yank back the creatures that get block and then untap the creatures that dealt combat damage just frustrates your opponent to no end. Truly a fantastic piece of tech for an all in aggro deck.
I am glad you have enjoyed the experience. It has a very different play mentality to most decks which is fun.
Arterial Flow - thanks for the feedback. I have felt similar on a lot of cards in the past especially when looking at the noncreature cards. I still want to try to keep it in my list until I get a chance to test it at least once but I know what you mean when you say it was hard to justify casting as its a feeling I have had many times before for several cards that ended up getting cut.
Dark Prophecy - I would always rather have Necroptoence in hand. People just complain if I play two of them in one deck lol. I can tell you that almost every time I have the opportunity to tutor for draw its always going to be Necropotence if its still in my deck.
Cover of Darkness - I still don't have much experience with the card myself so its hard for me to say. For the most part though my interest was to get past chump blockers that looked like tokens and ETB style of creatures. When it comes to black creatures, its not too often that you encounter a lot of tokens / value creatures in black that are going to block vamp swarms which is why I decided that it might be good enough that I put it in my list. Essentially all of the noncreature effects that are not draw / ramp have been questionable in one way or another at one point for me.
Twilight Prophet - I am reserving judgement on this one until I see it. I know that we have a low curve so the output of it probably is not great but it is a vampire and its draw and its evasive and it syphons life off of opponents. I assume that all of these things are probably low quantities but again given that its on a vampire means a lot for me. Given our low curve it might not be as great but I am going to wait and try it out a bit myself before I am overly critical for now.
Austere Command - I kept questioning if I should run it just because like three of the modes have an almost all upside outcome for us. I have not had a chance to draw or play it yet since adding it but I found sometimes I was having issues with noncreature effects and Austere can be so versatile against so many situations I thought it might be worth adding. Sometimes having a one of tool to tutor for is also worth considering as it opens us up for some toolboxing. I am not sure where I stand with it right now but I have been pushing tutors kind of hard given my love for Necropotence with this list that it kind of makes sense to have a few oddities in the list for those pinch moments where you really need access to a specific type of removal. That was the concept at least behind why I was adding it to my list but I agree it can sit in your hand for some time. In this list most answers are intended to be used when you are forced to rather than as a means of disruption.
Serra Ascendant - she snowballs a game really hard. She might not have much synergy with the actual vamps but she is cheap and really you need 2+ anthems before you catch up to her with most one drops and even then you tend to still not have evasion + lifelink.
Reconnaissance - yea its great. I actually prefer the boros god a little more just because it actually forces more damage through on average and given that I am always playing more cards I dont value the vigilance all that much given I out clock most other aggressive decks.
I appreciate the feedback especially the bit on Arterial Flow and Dark Prophecy. I need to get to playing a few more games myself given how long its been since I got to play commander but both will definately be on my radar. Its interesting to hear some mixed feelings on Twilight Prophet already but I will see how it goes for me.
What do you think about Minions' Murmurs? It can be used as some budget friendly draw engine? (in same boat as Promise of Power)
oooo Minions' Murmurs is cool. I had not actually known that was a card. I like it more than Promise of Power / Painful Truths for sure. Thanks for pointing that one out I will have to pick up a copy at some point.
What are your thoughts on Enduring Renewal? It's very strong when combined with a sac outlet, letting you pump out lots of tokens for effectively one mana each, and makes it easy to recover from board wipes.
Enduring Renewal - its an interesting thought. Its a little bit risky in that what if someone plays grave hate, hand hate, exile removal. I think it could be an interesting card to work with but I think you would need to beef up your sac outlets before you could really consider it. It has some risk but I can see some merit in playing a strategy around it. It seems like it would be especially brutal to play something like Purphoros, God of the Forge and then loop a one drop repeatedly.
It does feel a little clunky though in that its a 4 cost spell that feels like it needs a bit of setup. It reminds me a bit of Cloudstone Curio which ultimately I decided it was too expensive and slow for what it was going to do for me. My concerns for the card are its cost and how much setup I feel I would want for it to be good.
I'd rather go with Scapegoat as a Wrath prevention as ER is like Dark Prophecy - it needs to be at board first to work. Combo should not be a focus of this deck and this one needs at least two parts to work reliably. It also blocks 40% of our draws and basicaly kills aggro plan if someone destroys sac outlet.
Scapegoat - I like it a lot more than Boros Charm and I guess I can see some similarities to Yawgmoth's Will but the upside I guess is that it costs less than Yawgmoth and you can cast the vamps back in stages rather than needing to cast them all at once. I guess yea I do think it seems like a decent spell. I will see if I can test it out at some point.
Scapegoat is good even if it's just a cheap, instantaneous way to get cheap vampires back to your hand in order to cast them again and get even more tokens. It doesn't even need to be a reactive card; it could just as easily be seen as a proactive card.
Yea, I am slowly growing on the card the more I hear about it.
used to run patriarch's bidding but am liking scapegoat more and more. recasting things to get edgar triggers sounds much better at refilling your board. plus its cheap and easy to leave up.
I didn't fully appreciate how Ascend works. I was unaware or just wasn't thinking straight because I didn't realize that on a permanent it's a static ability that will trigger whenever you meet the conditions.
With this revelation in mind, I rescind these earlier statements
Yea, when they started spoiling Ascend effects I was kind of pissed because it was really hard to tell exactly how the effect worked and what all it gave. The Monarch for example was another effect that was very odd in that it did not really define what "The Monarch" was / did on the cards that mentioned gaining it and I felt that they did a very poor job of showing what Ascend was especially early on. I literally had to talk to the Rummor Mill mods who had mentioned we had seen the token for it and it did jack squat. I did not really pick up immediately on that you can later gain the city blessing either off of ascend so I totally agree it was a confusing mechanic when it was being spoiled.
Leave // Chance is another similar effect that also protects you from creature theft ("permanents you own") and lets you loot stuff away later.
I think when it comes to protection / bouncing the cost of the spell is really important for this type of deck. The difference between one and two mana is kind of huge when you look at possibly keeping that mana up from turn to turn. I guess I would say that in general I would run Scapegoat before I would run Leave // Chance but I guess if its an effect that I value it could be worth running both. I just think that as you increase the cost it becomes more worthwile to move to Yawgmoth's Will over a card where you have to keep the mana up for and recast everything. I think both sides of Leave // Chance are fairly cool but with both sides I wish they cost less.
ISBpathfinder, Oathsworn Vampire and Vampire Lacerator seem very lackluster? Could the deck benefit from playing several of the two drop lifegain vampires?
Its really hard to have the mana up from turn to turn to try to protect from wraths. I am kind of coming around on Scapegoat given that you can use it as a cheap means to generate more tokens off of Edgar as well as a few ETB effects that we run in the deck but I think ultimately most of them just take too much mana to hold up from turn to turn. Drawing more cards and playing more effects to the board has just seemed to be a superior tactic for vamps as you might not get wrathed.
Oathsworn Vampire / Vampire Lacerator vs Gifted Aetherborn / Bishop's Soldier I think of this deck like a suicide black style of deck. As long as we are the most aggressive deck at the table we dont need lifelink. Lifelink / deathtouch style of creatures tend to be more of a midrange and control strategy that you run when someone is faster and more aggressive than you and you want to make roadbumps for them to kill you. When I play this deck I assume I will always be the aggressor and my opponents will be trying to wrath and answer my board rather than race to kill me before I can kill them. Due to this, I value more power and the ability to self rez even if Oathsworn Vampire is situational he might be a rez play to allow me to stay being the aggressor where as if you are playing against a control deck with Gifted Aetherborn / Bishop's Soldier your only real hope is that you are digging so deep with Necropotence that you need that lifegain to stabilize. Having 40 life starting is a ton of life for a deck that intends to be the aggressor of every game you sit down with it. It is true that on occasion I have burned through a lot of life with Necropotence when it sticks but is trying to recover 2 life a turn really going to do much in that case? Vampire Lacerator's stats being a 2/2 is not that huge of a deal to me but I also dont really worry much about the one life I lose to him each turn either. He is a black one drop vampire and that is something that I do value quite a bit as black is the most common color that I need so I have unbalanced my landbase a little bit to make casting feast and early black cards easier. Oathsworn Vampire is a card I still have not tested yet so I cant say much for him but from the prospect that we are an aggro deck and he is "Cast" from grave means he gets a token generated from recovering him. Even if I don't think that its going to be super likely I think that the potential of recovering him is worth at least tesitng him for this deck.
Chance is a bit overpriced but it's attached to another card I'd play anyway. My Edgar build is a bit slower than this one(and runs more Madness) so I frequently get 2-3 Madness casts off of it, while looting away extra lands or whatever I don't need. It's a pretty good performer.
Yea, if you can justify running the card for Leave then that seems good. Madness vamps is tricky in that it feels like an archetype that requires a few things to hit and stick to the board. I was always leery of it because it looked a little harder to assemble and a little more fragile to removal. I think the concept is cool and fun but I just felt like it might fall apart a little easier as well. The cards and interactions look cool and fun though.
Wow that took some time. You guys need to slow down
I apologize if some of the things I said might have changed but I was sort of reading comments as I went so given some of what I was reading I think I am going to make a few adjustments and if it makes some of my earlier statements seem odd I apologize. The changes I am going to make are given the input and feedback I have read and responded to up until now.
DECK CHANGES:
Arterial Flow -> Shared Animosity I gave Arterial Flow a little more thought after having written all of the responses and I think I was trying to do something that I am not really trying to do with this deck which was to try to add proactive disruption rather than responding when forced to. I keep hearing people having good results with Shared Animosity and while I have had issues with it in the past I seem to be in the minority on this card so I think its worth bringing back in for more testing.
Dark Prophecy -> Minions' Murmurs I myself wasn't super happy with Dark Prophecy the last few times I have seen it and cutting more sac outlets makes me even less keen on the card moving forward. Minions' Murmurs seems like a potentially strong card and its nice that it draws right away where I think we have issues with Dark Prophecy that it requires a sac outlet to be able to control it so it is something we have to play ahead of time and potentially get no value from it. I do kind of have an issue with one shot draw but I feel like the difference between Painful Truths and Minions' Murmurs is going to be a night and day difference in draw power.
Mirror Entity -> Scapegoat the prospect of Mirror Entity has not been something that I have been willing to cast thus far in part because investing three mana and then having some large surplus of mana after that seems challenging. Scapegoat is interesting and you guys have been reporting good things for it so I am willing to give it a shot. I like that it does have some proactive ways to play it other than being responsive and with the addition of a few new ETB vamps it seems interesting to cast some of the big vamps and protect them / recover the ETB effects.
Volrath's Stronghold -> Reliquary Tower oh wow my OP list has Stronghold in it..... Ummm I dont think my actual list runs stronghold so I am going to cut it. I honestly need to do an audit of my landbase in my actual list vs the digital one and possibly rebuild my landbase. For now I think there is more value in being able to overdraw and keep more cards. Given how low the mana curve of this deck is being able to Necro deeper and keep more cards might actually be worth doing. If my actual list runs stronghold its an effect I have never used to my knowledge.
I will see if I cant do some sort of audit of my landbase sometime soon and make sure I have everything up to par in the OP. I really dont think I am running Volrath's Stronghold right now but if I am then I do think that moving it to Reliquary Tower makes some sense especially with the new addition of Minions' Murmurs. Sorry that this post got so long lol.
Im not fan of scapegoat. I try to explain why: imagine the situation where you have a scape goat in hand and some good and bad vampires, then someone kill one thats cool (i.e. twilight prophet). So you you use (or not?) scapegoat (only IF you have one W) and just cast it on your next turn. If someone wraths your board you can cast scapegoat (if you have W again) and then recast SOME OF THEM on next turn (this is NOT full recover because you need a lot of mana).
Imagine another situation: you have good and bad vampires on board like in previous situation AND Dark Prophecy. You don't need to save free mana before passing the turn so you can cast more cheap vampires before passing the turn. Someone kill twilight prophet - ok, you draw a card and lose 1 life. its not bad i think. Someone wrath your board - you draw a ton of cards because you draw a card for tokens too. (i have situation when after wrath i draw 9 cards and it was just game winning situation on my next turn).
Im not sure in this card for 100% but i think that scapegoat not so great. With DP you can draw something new (mb cool, mb bad cards for current board state), but with scapegoat you just cast 1-3 vampires on your next turn and that's all.
I hope you will understand me, sorry for bad language
Im not fan of scapegoat. I try to explain why: imagine the situation where you have a scape goat in hand and some good and bad vampires, then someone kill one thats cool (i.e. twilight prophet). So you you use (or not?) scapegoat (only IF you have one W) and just cast it on your next turn. If someone wraths your board you can cast scapegoat (if you have W again) and then recast SOME OF THEM on next turn (this is NOT full recover because you need a lot of mana).
Imagine another situation: you have good and bad vampires on board like in previous situation AND Dark Prophecy. You don't need to save free mana before passing the turn so you can cast more cheap vampires before passing the turn. Someone kill twilight prophet - ok, you draw a card and lose 1 life. its not bad i think. Someone wrath your board - you draw a ton of cards because you draw a card for tokens too. (i have situation when after wrath i draw 9 cards and it was just game winning situation on my next turn).
Im not sure in this card for 100% but i think that scapegoat not so great. With DP you can draw something new (mb cool, mb bad cards for current board state), but with scapegoat you just cast 1-3 vampires on your next turn and that's all.
I hope you will understand me, sorry for bad language
No problem I am totally willing to discuss cards. By no means am I always right with my changes so I really do like when there is a lot of discussion on a type of list in part because sometimes you see situations where several other people are having success with a card and I think its cool to question why that is and if its worth playing.
I agree that there are still some issues with Scapegoat. I think that twilight prophet might not be a great example to go off of in part because it is one of our few value over time four drops that sort of lacks immediate value. Someone was mentioning that it might be a problem card that I have to keep my eye on and I kind of agree in retrospect that it might be a problem. When I went to compare it to Boros Charm I actually felt it had more in common with Yawgmoth's Will instead but given that it is two mana cheaper and I can recast part some vamps and save some for later made me question it in relation to Yawgmoth's Will. Obviously I can replay noncreatures with Yag will as well as recover from more than one set of wrathed creatures with it but the cheaper cost as well as it not being dead if I have not yet eaten a wrath or if someone grave hates me made me interested in Scapegoat.
I don't think that Scapegoat is really ideally used to save a creature from spot removal. I think the stronger options are to use it to retrigger an ETB, get more tokens for cheap, or try to recover in a wrath. In a lot of cases though our strong effects come on fast value cards so having a recovery in spot removal still might be ok but I don't think that spot removal is really the primary reason to consider this card.
It would be nice to hear more from someone who is playing the card right now as to how it has worked for them.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I agree with Oathsworn Vampire & Vampire Lacerator > Gifted Aetherborn & Bishop's Soldier. For one thing, Vampire Lacerator costs half as much as the other two and has the same power. The life loss during each upkeep is negligible in 40-life multiplayer EDH. Secondly, Oathsworn Vampire coming into play tapped isn't a problem because the deck is more about attacking than blocking. So it not being a blocker the turn it comes into play isn't really that important. Additionally, it's easier to cast than Gifted Aetherborn, so that's points in its favor right off the bat. Comparing it to Bishop's Soldier, who has similar stats for similar cost, I'd go with Oathsworn Vampire simply because if you manage to gain life during a turn in which it's in the graveyard, casting it nets you a 1/1 token thanks to Edgar Markov. Bishop's Soldier can't do that. Even if it were situational, it's still a better situation that just having lifelink on a 2/2 for 2.
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I am currently building a similar list for Edgar but some things seem a little bit off. I haven't played as much as I wanted until now, but by reading all of the answers to this post and after much pondering I figured I just have to fit some cards in. I want to add Champion of Dusk and Vampiric Tutor but I can't seem to figure out what to take away. The list is clearly more mid-range oriented and that's because of my local meta, but lowering the curve is always a good idea. Cards that seem like good candidates for an out are Elenda, the Dusk Rose (though I really want to pull off an Elenda-Purphoros mass destruction combo), an anthem artifact (Vanquisher's Banner, Cathars' Crusade or Door of Destinies.)
I also wanted to cut down a land and fit in some mana rocks, but can't seem to figure that out either.
ISB, I totally feel you on the driving to play thing. The closest LGS for me is like 50 minutes away. I have a group I play with close to home on Fridays, but I make the trip every Saturday to play at the LGS. The player base there is really good and the variety of decks that I get to play against is awesome. But ya, don't feel too bad having to drive a bit. It's rough sure, but definitely worth it.
I agree with Oathsworn Vampire & Vampire Lacerator > Gifted Aetherborn & Bishop's Soldier. For one thing, Vampire Lacerator costs half as much as the other two and has the same power. The life loss during each upkeep is negligible in 40-life multiplayer EDH. Secondly, Oathsworn Vampire coming into play tapped isn't a problem because the deck is more about attacking than blocking. So it not being a blocker the turn it comes into play isn't really that important. Additionally, it's easier to cast than Gifted Aetherborn, so that's points in its favor right off the bat. Comparing it to Bishop's Soldier, who has similar stats for similar cost, I'd go with Oathsworn Vampire simply because if you manage to gain life during a turn in which it's in the graveyard, casting it nets you a 1/1 token thanks to Edgar Markov. Bishop's Soldier can't do that. Even if it were situational, it's still a better situation that just having lifelink on a 2/2 for 2.
It all comes down to the mindset of how you want to play. I come in with this deck assuming I will always be the most aggressive deck at the table and due to that I choose cards that help me fill that role. If you find yourself not being the most aggressive deck at the table on a regular basis I do think that adjustments need to be made but I think the lifelink concept slows the deck down a lot without much benefit against most decks.
Honestly you should apply this thread to the mods to make it Primer status. This list is worth including in their primer repository imo.
I usually try to let my lists mature a bit more before I go for that. We just got a lot of new cards for vamps and I would at least want the dust to settle from that before I try. I think there is a lot of room to test and make adjustments still and so I usually wait a bit on primer status rather than trying to rush it.
I also have a lot of other really cool decks so there is the question of why this one in specific? I am already getting more attention than I know what to do with it as it stands for this list lol.
I am currently building a similar list for Edgar but some things seem a little bit off. I haven't played as much as I wanted until now, but by reading all of the answers to this post and after much pondering I figured I just have to fit some cards in. I want to add Champion of Dusk and Vampiric Tutor but I can't seem to figure out what to take away. The list is clearly more mid-range oriented and that's because of my local meta, but lowering the curve is always a good idea. Cards that seem like good candidates for an out are Elenda, the Dusk Rose (though I really want to pull off an Elenda-Purphoros mass destruction combo), an anthem artifact (Vanquisher's Banner, Cathars' Crusade or Door of Destinies.)
I also wanted to cut down a land and fit in some mana rocks, but can't seem to figure that out either.
Awesome top decks for everyone.
For my own sanity I had to reformat you list so it at least had categories so I could see what I was looking at lol.
If I were to make cuts I would start by looking at the following cards:
Bloodcrazed Paladin this is a card that in my mind is kind of always inferior to Boros Charm (a card that I have several reasons I also dont really like). You are trying to hold a flash creature up and wait for someone to wrath you. I just think it has a very large question of why not have that Boros Charm up instead for probably a better result? I really really dislike this vampire for this reason.
Gifted Aetherborn we have had a few back and forth discussions now recently on why I dont like this card. What if instead you just ran Vampire Interloper and had evasion not to mention the fact that its easier on the manabase? Its often better for an aggressive deck to pick up a flying evasion over lifelink deathtouch.
Kalastria Highborn it is BB to cast and honestly, I cant tell you how rare it is for me to pass a turn with a ton of black mana up and ready for me to be wrathed. I loved the concept of this card its just impossible to pull it off. I also tried to play Westvale Abbey in some of my early builds and I found the same issue was happening where I just was not passing entire turns with my mana up to be able to use these kind of cards.
Elenda, the Dusk Rose my issue with this card is that it requires a sac outlet for her to be all that good. If you play her with a board of cards and get wrathed she will make a few tokens but she wont get the counters for other things dying with her so really.... she costs too much and while she is on tribe she lacks much of an aggressive bite. She is better for sustained bodies in a list running a heavier sac focus.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet being that it only makes tokens off of opponents creatures dying I have some qualms with this guy. He is kind of slow value for how fast this list is and four drops can feel clunky especially for a slow value over time creature.
Vampire Nocturnus even with a heavy black focus you are going to be lucky to get more than 1/3 of the time anthem with this guy. The worst part is that when you play him its unknown if you will get his buff and I dont run him because of this. He is too random and I think people also will freak out over him. Too random for me.
Anowon, the Ruin Sage its too slow. If he worked for vampires like Magus of the Abyss I would maybe have a different though but he does nothing until your next upkeep. It is too slow is my thought.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite I think its a wonderful effect, I just think that 7 mana is super expensive for this list.
Door of Destinies its very expensive to cast and then it has little upfront value. I dont like expensive to cast low impact the turn they are plaid effects. It "could" be great if you cast it and it sticks for a few turns but I would rather my big plays come with reward quick after playing them.
Cathars' Crusade I have a similar issue with this card as Door of Destinies. I think it is better than the door to be honest since the creatures keep the counters rather than it all riding on the permenant but I still think it costs too much and its too hard to get the immediate impact. This is still much better than the Door though because the tokens also count.
Vanquisher's Banner Similar to Door and Cathar's I dont like this because its expensive and slow to churn out value.
Exquisite Blood why? Why is this card in your list? If you want to gain life swap this out for True Conviction (I still dont think its the right move but I think its better). I think you just cut this card and move on.
Dreadbore if it was an instant it would be.... ok. I dont really think you need the versatility of planeswalker kills given how fast this deck is though so I think moving it to Terminate might be ok. I don't really love either option though.... I moved to Grasp of Fate for the tempo swing of removing multiple cards for one low cheap effect. I think it is important to stay very versatile as to what our removal can answer for this deck. I think Dreadbore leaves something to be desired so I guess I would just go back to the drawing board on that one offhand.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad I ran him for a bit along with Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Of all of the cards I have listed so far I think this one is probably the least problematic but still I think this card can be a problem in that it costs a lot for an effect that is more robust than strong given the amount of mana it costs for him and his anthem.
Sorin, Solemn Visitor I don't care for this walker. I think I would rather see a number of other cards instead I guess. When it comes to noncreatures I want a LOT of value and he seems like just ok value over time rather than a strong upfront effect. What if you had Eldrazi Memorial instead? I just think there are a lot of higher impact for similar mana cards that could be run.
I don't mean to really pick on your 4+ mana stuff so much but you have a lot of cards that are going to sit in your hand until you can cast them which tends to be later and by then you might not have much hand left to enable them as several of them care about casting things after you cast them and I just think their overall impact is too low.
I struggled with a lot of these cards myself but ultimately when you spend 4+ mana for a card in this kind of a deck you want a LOT of impact soon after casting it (ideally the same turn). This type of deck needs to threaten to murder everyone anytime they dont wrath you. If you play into these slow big cards the problem is that they are too slow to make a threatening board and it lets people wait longer to need to wrath your board. If you having 8 junk creatures in play might mean someone dies the next turn that is where you want to be because then people have to consider wrathing you just because you have numbers rather than allowing them to wait for your threats and then get to sweep your good threats plus your board.
If something costs a bunch of mana it better have a REALLY strong immediate impact on your ability to win. This deck does not want to slow roll anything.
ISB, I totally feel you on the driving to play thing. The closest LGS for me is like 50 minutes away. I have a group I play with close to home on Fridays, but I make the trip every Saturday to play at the LGS. The player base there is really good and the variety of decks that I get to play against is awesome. But ya, don't feel too bad having to drive a bit. It's rough sure, but definitely worth it.
The last time I went to the next closest LGS there was kind of a divide of players I saw:
1) I saw some guys who were playing in a group that were combing off between turns 2-5 and I just looked at that and said.... well I would not get to play with them.
2) I played with a few nice people who were cool but holy cow they had the most casual jank I had ever seen put together. One of them had this rakdos deck that was like literally a mash of a bunch of common / uncommon 1-3 drop creatures and I was just like...... god is this worth me playing against?
So... some of it is I just dont know anyone at the meta for the second store location. My old group was nice in that it had more of a middle of the road player rather than super casual or super extreme combo. My experience thus far has literally been attending a single time though like 2-3 months back though so I hope maybe some of the guys I knew from my old LGS might show at the further out store.
May be it’s stupid question, but do we really need colorless mana from sol ring? Mana crypt is very powerful, but for sol ring we need to pay one mana that can be used for cast vampires more fast. There’s no much expensive spells that cost much colorless mana.
Wow, this thread has come some way since I last looked at it. I've not played Edgar for a few months now, so I really need to look at the list and think it over.
I really like the philosophy behind this deck though - it seems to run on efficiency - taking creatures that in most cases would be suboptimal and using them optimally for advantage. It seems to be a very pragmatic list, and I like that. In most decklists there are risks, cards that if something goes awry could backfire or fizzle. Here, there's just efficiency. It's kind of awesome.
Mostly just commenting to sub, but also kudos on the build ISB, it looks great. I'll likely be revamping (pun intended) my list sometime soon, once I've had a chance to pick up some of the RIX releases.
EDIT: Draw-wise, how crucial have you found Dark Confidant and Necropotence? Necro I may be able to track down but there's no way I can afford Bob, and I remember struggling for draw in this build.
EDIT: Draw-wise, how crucial have you found Dark Confidant and Necropotence? Necro I may be able to track down but there's no way I can afford Bob, and I remember struggling for draw in this build.
Necropotence is one of the two big draw factors for the deck. The value it gives by allowing you to have a full grip and keep the pressure up at all times is very key in my experience playing the deck. Bob helps with extra draws and can come down very early for an advantage, yes its pricy but worth it.
Also, ISB, Scapegoat works really well. Got some games in Saturday and it saved my board many a time and frustrated my opponents to no end. Specially if I had Purphoros out. And Golden Demise seems really lackluster unless your up against other swarm/token decks.
I don't have Bob, but have found the deck to work fairly well, and I just added a bunch of draw, which should help out even more. RIX gave us 3 vampires with draw attached at 2, 4, and 5 mana drawing 1 card, Bob-style each turn, and a big shot equal to # of vampires we control, respectively. Then I added Ad Nauseum and Minions' Murmurs, which, on top of Skullclamp, Tymna, and Necropotence, feels like it should be enough to keep the deck going. Bob looks good because he's also a cheap, efficient (power = CMC) beater, but I think the deck should be able to live without him.
I have not really gone back through the landbase to reassess and make changes in a while. I should probably do that sometime in the future but right now its not something I find too pressing. There is a diminishing return in how good your landbase is generally because I still have colorless mana symbols in a lot of what I play and so even though pushing draw hard and cheap drops is important its also not so relivant that I have cut my utility lands because I still in general just need mana in a lot of cases regardless of the color. I cant think of many times that I have had any issues with my landbase but if I did I would go deeper on things like City of Brass and such. I just have not had enough issues that I have gone to that extreme.
Having the full 9 fetchlands with ABU / Shocks goes a long ways on its own given that its a 15 card package and it adds a LOT of fix. If I didnt have all of the fetches and or all of the duals that I do I might be more worried about running more fix. For those who do not have the luxery of having an optimized landbase there will have to be more tinkering with lands and I think more concern towards colorless mana lands.
My landbase has not been an issue for me so I don't give it a lot of thought. Rugged Prairie probably could be cut for something else and I might get around to doing that sometime in the future. I just have not been having much issues with the landbase for now so I don't give it all that much attention. The lands like Blackcleave Cliffs seem ok for those who are struggling with their landbase but I think I would prefer pain lands over them though because honestly, I think those lands are great in standard / modern where you have more consistancy in decks but I feel like there is a real big downside to them anytime after the third land drop and this deck still wants to play its lands past that.
Overall I have been fairly happy with my landbase. I could probably go back and possibly tweak it but its just not really been an issue for me so I have not really been that motivated to try to improve it.
Played Edgar again two times yesterday and I'm liking this deck more and more.
First game I managed to kill Sisay player despite him throwing lifelinking creatures (Gisela, Dromoka) at my vamps but he slowed me enough for Avacyn player to build his board presence and kill me with indestructible, Mother-protected angel.
Second game I focused on Avacyn player instead and managed to kill both opponents after a long battle despite mass removal (Wrath, Elesh Norn) and hurting myself with Ad Nauseam and Mana Crypt. All stars this time were Ascendant Evincar keeping white tokens and elves off the board and Dictate of Erebos killing beefier stuff with the help of Bloodthrone Vampire. Sure, both cards are costly but hey - they worked!
Ad Nauseam is really great here especially if deck includes cheap mana artifacts and spells like Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak. Oathsworn Vampire is also worth mentioning - paired with sac outlet and stuff like Tithe Drinker makes a lot of free vamps if game goes into late stage.
It sounds like you have an interesting meta. I guess I would say to watch out for having too many high cost cards but if you are playing through sisay tutors and wraths.deck you might have to adjust some things.
May be it’s stupid question, but do we really need colorless mana from sol ring? Mana crypt is very powerful, but for sol ring we need to pay one mana that can be used for cast vampires more fast. There’s no much expensive spells that cost much colorless mana.
I still have enough things I need colorless mana for. Edric, Spymaster of Trest is one of the few decks I have played where colorless mana does in fact feel really awkward but the number of one drops in that deck far surpasses this deck. It is true that you might not play your Sol Ring on turn one over playing a cheap drop but without having reliable card draw our one drops have limits in what they can do not to mention there just are not that many one drop vamps you can run that we are not already running.
There are still a lot of 3+ mana plays in this deck and almost all of them benefit from colorless mana. There are times I would give priority to Sol Ring over one drops as well for this deck on turn one as well. I think its sort of a thing you play given your hand rather than given an assumption that you always play X on turn 1.
Wow, this thread has come some way since I last looked at it. I've not played Edgar for a few months now, so I really need to look at the list and think it over.
I really like the philosophy behind this deck though - it seems to run on efficiency - taking creatures that in most cases would be suboptimal and using them optimally for advantage. It seems to be a very pragmatic list, and I like that. In most decklists there are risks, cards that if something goes awry could backfire or fizzle. Here, there's just efficiency. It's kind of awesome.
Mostly just commenting to sub, but also kudos on the build ISB, it looks great. I'll likely be revamping (pun intended) my list sometime soon, once I've had a chance to pick up some of the RIX releases.
EDIT: Draw-wise, how crucial have you found Dark Confidant and Necropotence? Necro I may be able to track down but there's no way I can afford Bob, and I remember struggling for draw in this build.
The hope for the list I run is essentially to have a lot of redundancy on its primary goal of being an aggro deck. I run very few answers and responses because whenever I can I want to keep to my plan A of being an aggressive swarm style of deck. I really love that this deck can be so explosive and yet it still plays into the mid / late game in a lot of ways.
Thanks, I have had a lot of help from posters here as well. Hearing what has and has not been working for other people in a lot of cases gets me to ask if I am running a card incorrectly or due to meta reasons.
Dark Confidant & Necropotence - Necro is a must have if you ask me. Its the card I tutor for the most. Bob is cool and I think he fits the build but I think you could slot in Phyrexian Arena and it would probably be similar. I like bob because he is faster and can beat in but he can also get swept / answered easier. Necropotence is one of my most tutored for cards in the deck and a lot of the reason I run so many tutors. I think bob is really cool and I think he does fit the build but I do not think he is a mandatory card to own. There are just so few decks where bob actually seems to fit well for commander so I love having a list that I can justify running him.
Necropotence is one of the two big draw factors for the deck. The value it gives by allowing you to have a full grip and keep the pressure up at all times is very key in my experience playing the deck. Bob helps with extra draws and can come down very early for an advantage, yes its pricy but worth it.
Also, ISB, Scapegoat works really well. Got some games in Saturday and it saved my board many a time and frustrated my opponents to no end. Specially if I had Purphoros out. And Golden Demise seems really lackluster unless your up against other swarm/token decks.
Good to hear the Scapegoat support. I was trying to get out to play this weekend but I got hit by a big headache and didn't manage to get out. I guess on the upside the cards I ordered including Scapegoat should show up this week.
Golden Demise I am still trying to assess where I stand on the card. I brought it in for Mizzium Mortars which was really in the list for similar reasons. In some ways evasion can also be similar to these cards but I have just found token decks and ETB creatures to sometimes be an issue. The list has gone through a LOT of changes though since I added Mizzium Mortars in the first place so you might be right that its time for me to cut the card. Let me sit and think on it for a bit but if anyone else has experience with Golden Demise / Mizzium Mortars I would appreciate the input.
I don't have Bob, but have found the deck to work fairly well, and I just added a bunch of draw, which should help out even more. RIX gave us 3 vampires with draw attached at 2, 4, and 5 mana drawing 1 card, Bob-style each turn, and a big shot equal to # of vampires we control, respectively. Then I added Ad Nauseum and Minions' Murmurs, which, on top of Skullclamp, Tymna, and Necropotence, feels like it should be enough to keep the deck going. Bob looks good because he's also a cheap, efficient (power = CMC) beater, but I think the deck should be able to live without him.
Yea there are a lot of different card advantage engines that we can and do run. I am also not sold that any one of them has to be there. Necro has definitely been the shining star of card advantage for me though.
Dark Confidant is indeed a nice card for the deck, efficient, due to being a body and low cost draw.. Depending on how low your curve is it might be one of the best draws.. but if you don't have the money for it, Phyrexian Arena is a decent sub I would say.. harder for opponents to get rid off also... ^^
Most of the 2 cost draw 2 cards are not really worth it though.. the Vampire that draws you a card for 2 mana is just nice efficiency due to it giving you 2 bodies and a card draw attached to it.. I have not tried the new vamps myself, due to not having this deck at the moment, moved on to try out a few other decks..
I did play the cheap draw 2 cards, but for me those where never really that great, the ones that drew you more cards overall where better.. I think Wheel of Fortune is probably somewhat a must in that regard..
Necropotence is the best draw in this deck, bar-none.. I would say it even outclasses Ad Nauseam and other draw like Tymna, but Tymna is also really nice efficiency in this deck... I would say that probably around 8 to 10 draw spells should keep you going..
Try not to go overboard on draw, cause that wil cut into your vampires a bit also.. having less vampires means less efficiency also... Never could test Purph myself.. but I would indeed be fairly sure that Purphorous would be awesome..
Are you sure you are done with vamps
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
It sounds like you have an interesting meta. I guess I would say to watch out for having too many high cost cards but if you are playing through sisay tutors and wraths.deck you might have to adjust some things.
Yea, my meta is developed and diversified enough to face many strategies. Mana elves and tokens are common so Evincar fits here alright and Dictate is great against Narset and such.
I'd like to raise another topic though as I wonder about importance of evasion outlets you play and their value compared to removal and pumps. As for me cards like Reconnaissance, Cover of Darkness or Goblin War Drums are simply waste of space that could be used for removal (eg. Retribution of the Meak) or permanent pump effects like Coat of Arms. Wouldn't alpha-striking be more relevant than slow but steady beatdown? The former gives an opponent a chance to block (and lose his creatures in a process) while the latter gives him more opportunities to find an answer or wincon (if he's able).
If mana elves and tokens are common in your meta wouldn't Coat of Arms help your opponents as well?
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If mana elves and tokens are common in your meta wouldn't Coat of Arms help your opponents as well?
Not if they are dead ;). Anyway CoA would be used as an alpha-strike tool in a scenario when you can kill with it but if you're worried about helping opps there is less potent but easier to play Obelisk of Urd or even Eldrazi Monument. You could even use Vampiric Fury. They are only examples to choose from thought.
Well sure, I get your point. But it'll be a bit hard alphastriking with beefy vamps when your opponents have beefy elves and/or beefy tokens . So there is some merit in evasion. I alphastrike with my Edric deck because they have evasion so when I pump them then I get the win.
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Well sure, I get your point. But it'll be a bit hard alphastriking with beefy vamps when your opponents have beefy elves and/or beefy tokens . So there is some merit in evasion. I alphastrike with my Edric deck because they have evasion so when I pump them then I get the win.
Precisely my concern using Coat of Arms - especially in this scenario - if you're facing down goblins or elves, there are a couple of options that can generate a horde very quickly, whereas our vampires need to be really stripped back and be extremely efficient to build our army.
Chiming in again...
I didn't fully appreciate how Ascend works. I was unaware or just wasn't thinking straight because I didn't realize that on a permanent it's a static ability that will trigger whenever you meet the conditions.
With this revelation in mind, I rescind these earlier statements
If Chance weren't so expensive, it would be amazing with Falkenrath Gorger.
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ISBpathfinder, Oathsworn Vampire and Vampire Lacerator seem very lackluster? Could the deck benefit from playing several of the two drop lifegain vampires?
Chance is a bit overpriced but it's attached to another card I'd play anyway. My Edgar build is a bit slower than this one(and runs more Madness) so I frequently get 2-3 Madness casts off of it, while looting away extra lands or whatever I don't need. It's a pretty good performer.
I will try my best to keep up but its going to be a little harder for me to do testing and be on top of changes for a little bit unless and until a new store opens closer to my location.
I tend to use Teferi's Protection a little more in a deck that moves a little slower or more reactive in nature. Given how fast I am trying to move and how much I am trying to draw its really hard to keep up a bunch of mana from turn to turn for a situational card like this. I would generally rather push to be faster and refill my hand more. I would also probably rather focus on recovery than protect from being wrathed just because of how the mana is used. As an example, I run Teferi's Protection in my Sram auras deck in part because wraths are a problem for me there and I tend to push more mana and I dont worry about being as fast there.
Me too, I would prioritize it along the lines of:
Draw > Wrath Recover > Wrath Prevention
This is from the standpoint that what if you dont get wrathed? Its better to continue to be proactive as long as possible. Wrath prevention requires you to often save mana and even then its often situational based on what is happening. Teferi's Protection is the least situational of them but even something like Boros Charm is situational in that what if your opponent casts Living Death instead of Wrath of God. Preventing being swept requires you to run situational cards and keep the mana up for them which means being less proactive. I like wrath recovery more than wrath prevention because they are more mana efficient in that you don't save your mana each turn in case you need them but even then they seem very mana intensive in most cases.
Thanks for the feedback. I always value seeing how things play for someone else as every meta is a little different and sometimes it opens my eyes to some cards that didn't perform as well for others which sometimes makes me reassess for cards myself.
Bloodchief Ascension - my issue is that outside of drawing / playing it early it feels incredibly slow to go online. It could be kind of nice but I just think that anytime I am not playing it in the first 1-3 turns its going to feel incredibly slow.
It is also an effect that tends to be more useful when active as a control player than as an aggro player. We are going to have a very high density of cards going to the graveyard throughout the game but I dont actually use much removal myself so I feel like other than like a token player trading in combat I don't know how viable this card is. Its value is going to be heavily dependent on what type of deck my opponents play and I am not too fond of that either.
^ yea that's where I am at.
I am glad you have enjoyed the experience. It has a very different play mentality to most decks which is fun.
I appreciate the feedback especially the bit on Arterial Flow and Dark Prophecy. I need to get to playing a few more games myself given how long its been since I got to play commander but both will definately be on my radar. Its interesting to hear some mixed feelings on Twilight Prophet already but I will see how it goes for me.
oooo Minions' Murmurs is cool. I had not actually known that was a card. I like it more than Promise of Power / Painful Truths for sure. Thanks for pointing that one out I will have to pick up a copy at some point.
Enduring Renewal - its an interesting thought. Its a little bit risky in that what if someone plays grave hate, hand hate, exile removal. I think it could be an interesting card to work with but I think you would need to beef up your sac outlets before you could really consider it. It has some risk but I can see some merit in playing a strategy around it. It seems like it would be especially brutal to play something like Purphoros, God of the Forge and then loop a one drop repeatedly.
It does feel a little clunky though in that its a 4 cost spell that feels like it needs a bit of setup. It reminds me a bit of Cloudstone Curio which ultimately I decided it was too expensive and slow for what it was going to do for me. My concerns for the card are its cost and how much setup I feel I would want for it to be good.
Scapegoat - I like it a lot more than Boros Charm and I guess I can see some similarities to Yawgmoth's Will but the upside I guess is that it costs less than Yawgmoth and you can cast the vamps back in stages rather than needing to cast them all at once. I guess yea I do think it seems like a decent spell. I will see if I can test it out at some point.
Yea, I am slowly growing on the card the more I hear about it.
Good to hear, I will see if I can pick up a copy.
Yea, when they started spoiling Ascend effects I was kind of pissed because it was really hard to tell exactly how the effect worked and what all it gave. The Monarch for example was another effect that was very odd in that it did not really define what "The Monarch" was / did on the cards that mentioned gaining it and I felt that they did a very poor job of showing what Ascend was especially early on. I literally had to talk to the Rummor Mill mods who had mentioned we had seen the token for it and it did jack squat. I did not really pick up immediately on that you can later gain the city blessing either off of ascend so I totally agree it was a confusing mechanic when it was being spoiled.
I think when it comes to protection / bouncing the cost of the spell is really important for this type of deck. The difference between one and two mana is kind of huge when you look at possibly keeping that mana up from turn to turn. I guess I would say that in general I would run Scapegoat before I would run Leave // Chance but I guess if its an effect that I value it could be worth running both. I just think that as you increase the cost it becomes more worthwile to move to Yawgmoth's Will over a card where you have to keep the mana up for and recast everything. I think both sides of Leave // Chance are fairly cool but with both sides I wish they cost less.
Yea... I still have yet to have ever used the madness benefit of Falkenrath Gorger.
Its really hard to have the mana up from turn to turn to try to protect from wraths. I am kind of coming around on Scapegoat given that you can use it as a cheap means to generate more tokens off of Edgar as well as a few ETB effects that we run in the deck but I think ultimately most of them just take too much mana to hold up from turn to turn. Drawing more cards and playing more effects to the board has just seemed to be a superior tactic for vamps as you might not get wrathed.
Oathsworn Vampire / Vampire Lacerator vs Gifted Aetherborn / Bishop's Soldier I think of this deck like a suicide black style of deck. As long as we are the most aggressive deck at the table we dont need lifelink. Lifelink / deathtouch style of creatures tend to be more of a midrange and control strategy that you run when someone is faster and more aggressive than you and you want to make roadbumps for them to kill you. When I play this deck I assume I will always be the aggressor and my opponents will be trying to wrath and answer my board rather than race to kill me before I can kill them. Due to this, I value more power and the ability to self rez even if Oathsworn Vampire is situational he might be a rez play to allow me to stay being the aggressor where as if you are playing against a control deck with Gifted Aetherborn / Bishop's Soldier your only real hope is that you are digging so deep with Necropotence that you need that lifegain to stabilize. Having 40 life starting is a ton of life for a deck that intends to be the aggressor of every game you sit down with it. It is true that on occasion I have burned through a lot of life with Necropotence when it sticks but is trying to recover 2 life a turn really going to do much in that case? Vampire Lacerator's stats being a 2/2 is not that huge of a deal to me but I also dont really worry much about the one life I lose to him each turn either. He is a black one drop vampire and that is something that I do value quite a bit as black is the most common color that I need so I have unbalanced my landbase a little bit to make casting feast and early black cards easier. Oathsworn Vampire is a card I still have not tested yet so I cant say much for him but from the prospect that we are an aggro deck and he is "Cast" from grave means he gets a token generated from recovering him. Even if I don't think that its going to be super likely I think that the potential of recovering him is worth at least tesitng him for this deck.
Yea, if you can justify running the card for Leave then that seems good. Madness vamps is tricky in that it feels like an archetype that requires a few things to hit and stick to the board. I was always leery of it because it looked a little harder to assemble and a little more fragile to removal. I think the concept is cool and fun but I just felt like it might fall apart a little easier as well. The cards and interactions look cool and fun though.
Wow that took some time. You guys need to slow down
I apologize if some of the things I said might have changed but I was sort of reading comments as I went so given some of what I was reading I think I am going to make a few adjustments and if it makes some of my earlier statements seem odd I apologize. The changes I am going to make are given the input and feedback I have read and responded to up until now.
DECK CHANGES:
I will see if I cant do some sort of audit of my landbase sometime soon and make sure I have everything up to par in the OP. I really dont think I am running Volrath's Stronghold right now but if I am then I do think that moving it to Reliquary Tower makes some sense especially with the new addition of Minions' Murmurs. Sorry that this post got so long lol.
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[Modern] Allies
Im not fan of scapegoat. I try to explain why: imagine the situation where you have a scape goat in hand and some good and bad vampires, then someone kill one thats cool (i.e. twilight prophet). So you you use (or not?) scapegoat (only IF you have one W) and just cast it on your next turn. If someone wraths your board you can cast scapegoat (if you have W again) and then recast SOME OF THEM on next turn (this is NOT full recover because you need a lot of mana).
Imagine another situation: you have good and bad vampires on board like in previous situation AND Dark Prophecy. You don't need to save free mana before passing the turn so you can cast more cheap vampires before passing the turn. Someone kill twilight prophet - ok, you draw a card and lose 1 life. its not bad i think. Someone wrath your board - you draw a ton of cards because you draw a card for tokens too. (i have situation when after wrath i draw 9 cards and it was just game winning situation on my next turn).
Im not sure in this card for 100% but i think that scapegoat not so great. With DP you can draw something new (mb cool, mb bad cards for current board state), but with scapegoat you just cast 1-3 vampires on your next turn and that's all.
I hope you will understand me, sorry for bad language
No problem I am totally willing to discuss cards. By no means am I always right with my changes so I really do like when there is a lot of discussion on a type of list in part because sometimes you see situations where several other people are having success with a card and I think its cool to question why that is and if its worth playing.
I agree that there are still some issues with Scapegoat. I think that twilight prophet might not be a great example to go off of in part because it is one of our few value over time four drops that sort of lacks immediate value. Someone was mentioning that it might be a problem card that I have to keep my eye on and I kind of agree in retrospect that it might be a problem. When I went to compare it to Boros Charm I actually felt it had more in common with Yawgmoth's Will instead but given that it is two mana cheaper and I can recast part some vamps and save some for later made me question it in relation to Yawgmoth's Will. Obviously I can replay noncreatures with Yag will as well as recover from more than one set of wrathed creatures with it but the cheaper cost as well as it not being dead if I have not yet eaten a wrath or if someone grave hates me made me interested in Scapegoat.
I don't think that Scapegoat is really ideally used to save a creature from spot removal. I think the stronger options are to use it to retrigger an ETB, get more tokens for cheap, or try to recover in a wrath. In a lot of cases though our strong effects come on fast value cards so having a recovery in spot removal still might be ok but I don't think that spot removal is really the primary reason to consider this card.
It would be nice to hear more from someone who is playing the card right now as to how it has worked for them.
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[Modern] Allies
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
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1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Anointed Procession
1 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
1 Austere Command
1 Blood Artist
1 Blood Crypt
1 Blood Seeker
1 Bloodcrazed Paladin
1 Bloodghast
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Boros Charm
1 Captivating Vampire
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Caves of Koilos
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Cover of Darkness
1 Dark Confidant
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Door of Destinies
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1 Dreadbore
1 Dusk Legion Zealot
1 Duskborne Skymarcher
1 Elenda, the Dusk Rose
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Exquisite Blood
1 Fetid Heath
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Forerunner of the Legion
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Gifted Aetherborn
1 Godless Shrine
1 Graven Cairns
1 Guul Draz Assassin
1 Guul Draz Vampire
1 Indulgent Aristocrat
1 Insolent Neonate
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Kalastria Highborn
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Legion Lieutenant
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
1 Metallic Mimic
1 Mirror Entity
1 Mountain
1 Necropotence
1 Oathsworn Vampire
1 Olivia's Bloodsworn
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Quag Vampires
1 Read the Bones
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sanctum Seeker
1 Scapegoat
1 Scrubland
1 Shadow Alley Denizen
1 Skullclamp
1 Skymarcher Aspirant
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Strip Mine
1 Stromkirk Captain
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Sulfurous Springs
4 Swamp
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Tithe Drinker
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Unclaimed Territory
1 Vampire Cutthroat
1 Vampire Nocturnus
1 Vanquisher's Banner
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Vicious Conquistador
1 Viscera Seer
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
Hello, thank you all for this awesome discussion.
I am currently building a similar list for Edgar but some things seem a little bit off. I haven't played as much as I wanted until now, but by reading all of the answers to this post and after much pondering I figured I just have to fit some cards in. I want to add Champion of Dusk and Vampiric Tutor but I can't seem to figure out what to take away. The list is clearly more mid-range oriented and that's because of my local meta, but lowering the curve is always a good idea. Cards that seem like good candidates for an out are Elenda, the Dusk Rose (though I really want to pull off an Elenda-Purphoros mass destruction combo), an anthem artifact (Vanquisher's Banner, Cathars' Crusade or Door of Destinies.)
I also wanted to cut down a land and fit in some mana rocks, but can't seem to figure that out either.
Awesome top decks for everyone.
GVorinclex, Voice of HungerG
WUBMerieke Ri BeritWUB
UBRNekusar, the MindrazerUBR
GWUBAtraxa, Praetors' VoiceGWUB
It all comes down to the mindset of how you want to play. I come in with this deck assuming I will always be the most aggressive deck at the table and due to that I choose cards that help me fill that role. If you find yourself not being the most aggressive deck at the table on a regular basis I do think that adjustments need to be made but I think the lifelink concept slows the deck down a lot without much benefit against most decks.
I usually try to let my lists mature a bit more before I go for that. We just got a lot of new cards for vamps and I would at least want the dust to settle from that before I try. I think there is a lot of room to test and make adjustments still and so I usually wait a bit on primer status rather than trying to rush it.
I also have a lot of other really cool decks so there is the question of why this one in specific? I am already getting more attention than I know what to do with it as it stands for this list lol.
For my own sanity I had to reformat you list so it at least had categories so I could see what I was looking at lol.
1 Edgar Markov
CREATURES
1 Duskborne Skymarcher
1 Guul Draz Assassin
1 Guul Draz Vampire
1 Indulgent Aristocrat
1 Insolent Neonate
1 Quag Vampires
1 Shadow Alley Denizen
1 Skymarcher Aspirant
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Vicious Conquistador
1 Vampire Cutthroat
1 Viscera Seer
1 Blood Artist
1 Blood Seeker
1 Bloodcrazed Paladin
1 Bloodghast
1 Dark Confidant
1 Dusk Legion Zealot
1 Gifted Aetherborn
1 Kalastria Highborn
1 Legion Lieutenant
1 Metallic Mimic
1 Oathsworn Vampire
1 Olivia's Bloodsworn
1 Tithe Drinker
1 Captivating Vampire
1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1 Forerunner of the Legion
1 Stromkirk Captain
1 Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
1 Mirror Entity
1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Elenda, the Dusk Rose
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Sanctum Seeker
1 Vampire Nocturnus
1 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Door of Destinies
1 Vanquisher's Banner
ENCHANTMENT
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Cover of Darkness
1 Necropotence
1 Anointed Procession
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Exquisite Blood
INSTANT
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Scapegoat
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Boros Charm
1 Anguished Unmaking
SORCERY
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Dreadbore
1 Read the Bones
1 Austere Command
PLANESWALKER
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
LAND
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Caves of Koilos
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Fetid Heath
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Godless Shrine
1 Graven Cairns
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mountain
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Scrubland
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Strip Mine
1 Sulfurous Springs
4 Swamp
1 Unclaimed Territory
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
If I were to make cuts I would start by looking at the following cards:
I don't mean to really pick on your 4+ mana stuff so much but you have a lot of cards that are going to sit in your hand until you can cast them which tends to be later and by then you might not have much hand left to enable them as several of them care about casting things after you cast them and I just think their overall impact is too low.
I struggled with a lot of these cards myself but ultimately when you spend 4+ mana for a card in this kind of a deck you want a LOT of impact soon after casting it (ideally the same turn). This type of deck needs to threaten to murder everyone anytime they dont wrath you. If you play into these slow big cards the problem is that they are too slow to make a threatening board and it lets people wait longer to need to wrath your board. If you having 8 junk creatures in play might mean someone dies the next turn that is where you want to be because then people have to consider wrathing you just because you have numbers rather than allowing them to wait for your threats and then get to sweep your good threats plus your board.
If something costs a bunch of mana it better have a REALLY strong immediate impact on your ability to win. This deck does not want to slow roll anything.
The last time I went to the next closest LGS there was kind of a divide of players I saw:
1) I saw some guys who were playing in a group that were combing off between turns 2-5 and I just looked at that and said.... well I would not get to play with them.
2) I played with a few nice people who were cool but holy cow they had the most casual jank I had ever seen put together. One of them had this rakdos deck that was like literally a mash of a bunch of common / uncommon 1-3 drop creatures and I was just like...... god is this worth me playing against?
So... some of it is I just dont know anyone at the meta for the second store location. My old group was nice in that it had more of a middle of the road player rather than super casual or super extreme combo. My experience thus far has literally been attending a single time though like 2-3 months back though so I hope maybe some of the guys I knew from my old LGS might show at the further out store.
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[Modern] Allies
I could not cut down to 34 lands and am at 36. I had Rugged Prairie in the deck but am thinking of dropping it for Reliquary Tower.
What do you think about lands like Blackcleave Cliffs for this deck?
I really like the philosophy behind this deck though - it seems to run on efficiency - taking creatures that in most cases would be suboptimal and using them optimally for advantage. It seems to be a very pragmatic list, and I like that. In most decklists there are risks, cards that if something goes awry could backfire or fizzle. Here, there's just efficiency. It's kind of awesome.
Mostly just commenting to sub, but also kudos on the build ISB, it looks great. I'll likely be revamping (pun intended) my list sometime soon, once I've had a chance to pick up some of the RIX releases.
EDIT: Draw-wise, how crucial have you found Dark Confidant and Necropotence? Necro I may be able to track down but there's no way I can afford Bob, and I remember struggling for draw in this build.
Necropotence is one of the two big draw factors for the deck. The value it gives by allowing you to have a full grip and keep the pressure up at all times is very key in my experience playing the deck. Bob helps with extra draws and can come down very early for an advantage, yes its pricy but worth it.
Also, ISB, Scapegoat works really well. Got some games in Saturday and it saved my board many a time and frustrated my opponents to no end. Specially if I had Purphoros out. And Golden Demise seems really lackluster unless your up against other swarm/token decks.
GVorinclex, Voice of HungerG
WUBMerieke Ri BeritWUB
UBRNekusar, the MindrazerUBR
GWUBAtraxa, Praetors' VoiceGWUB
I have not really gone back through the landbase to reassess and make changes in a while. I should probably do that sometime in the future but right now its not something I find too pressing. There is a diminishing return in how good your landbase is generally because I still have colorless mana symbols in a lot of what I play and so even though pushing draw hard and cheap drops is important its also not so relivant that I have cut my utility lands because I still in general just need mana in a lot of cases regardless of the color. I cant think of many times that I have had any issues with my landbase but if I did I would go deeper on things like City of Brass and such. I just have not had enough issues that I have gone to that extreme.
Having the full 9 fetchlands with ABU / Shocks goes a long ways on its own given that its a 15 card package and it adds a LOT of fix. If I didnt have all of the fetches and or all of the duals that I do I might be more worried about running more fix. For those who do not have the luxery of having an optimized landbase there will have to be more tinkering with lands and I think more concern towards colorless mana lands.
My landbase has not been an issue for me so I don't give it a lot of thought. Rugged Prairie probably could be cut for something else and I might get around to doing that sometime in the future. I just have not been having much issues with the landbase for now so I don't give it all that much attention. The lands like Blackcleave Cliffs seem ok for those who are struggling with their landbase but I think I would prefer pain lands over them though because honestly, I think those lands are great in standard / modern where you have more consistancy in decks but I feel like there is a real big downside to them anytime after the third land drop and this deck still wants to play its lands past that.
Overall I have been fairly happy with my landbase. I could probably go back and possibly tweak it but its just not really been an issue for me so I have not really been that motivated to try to improve it.
It sounds like you have an interesting meta. I guess I would say to watch out for having too many high cost cards but if you are playing through sisay tutors and wraths.deck you might have to adjust some things.
I still have enough things I need colorless mana for. Edric, Spymaster of Trest is one of the few decks I have played where colorless mana does in fact feel really awkward but the number of one drops in that deck far surpasses this deck. It is true that you might not play your Sol Ring on turn one over playing a cheap drop but without having reliable card draw our one drops have limits in what they can do not to mention there just are not that many one drop vamps you can run that we are not already running.
There are still a lot of 3+ mana plays in this deck and almost all of them benefit from colorless mana. There are times I would give priority to Sol Ring over one drops as well for this deck on turn one as well. I think its sort of a thing you play given your hand rather than given an assumption that you always play X on turn 1.
The hope for the list I run is essentially to have a lot of redundancy on its primary goal of being an aggro deck. I run very few answers and responses because whenever I can I want to keep to my plan A of being an aggressive swarm style of deck. I really love that this deck can be so explosive and yet it still plays into the mid / late game in a lot of ways.
Thanks, I have had a lot of help from posters here as well. Hearing what has and has not been working for other people in a lot of cases gets me to ask if I am running a card incorrectly or due to meta reasons.
Dark Confidant & Necropotence - Necro is a must have if you ask me. Its the card I tutor for the most. Bob is cool and I think he fits the build but I think you could slot in Phyrexian Arena and it would probably be similar. I like bob because he is faster and can beat in but he can also get swept / answered easier. Necropotence is one of my most tutored for cards in the deck and a lot of the reason I run so many tutors. I think bob is really cool and I think he does fit the build but I do not think he is a mandatory card to own. There are just so few decks where bob actually seems to fit well for commander so I love having a list that I can justify running him.
Good to hear the Scapegoat support. I was trying to get out to play this weekend but I got hit by a big headache and didn't manage to get out. I guess on the upside the cards I ordered including Scapegoat should show up this week.
Golden Demise I am still trying to assess where I stand on the card. I brought it in for Mizzium Mortars which was really in the list for similar reasons. In some ways evasion can also be similar to these cards but I have just found token decks and ETB creatures to sometimes be an issue. The list has gone through a LOT of changes though since I added Mizzium Mortars in the first place so you might be right that its time for me to cut the card. Let me sit and think on it for a bit but if anyone else has experience with Golden Demise / Mizzium Mortars I would appreciate the input.
Yea there are a lot of different card advantage engines that we can and do run. I am also not sold that any one of them has to be there. Necro has definitely been the shining star of card advantage for me though.
Are you sure you are done with vamps
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[Modern] Allies
If mana elves and tokens are common in your meta wouldn't Coat of Arms help your opponents as well?
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Well sure, I get your point. But it'll be a bit hard alphastriking with beefy vamps when your opponents have beefy elves and/or beefy tokens . So there is some merit in evasion. I alphastrike with my Edric deck because they have evasion so when I pump them then I get the win.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Precisely my concern using Coat of Arms - especially in this scenario - if you're facing down goblins or elves, there are a couple of options that can generate a horde very quickly, whereas our vampires need to be really stripped back and be extremely efficient to build our army.