Hey guys! I have been a huge magic fan and have been playing close to 12 years now. My mom got me into magic when I was little when she owned a card shop, so I have always been a huge Legacy/Modern Fan. Some standard here and there, but never really commander. I have just recently moved to Illinois, prior to living in Ohio beforehand. Since I've been here everyone has tried to get me into commander so I built an Edgar Markov Deck because I love vamps, but I need some help on what to do with it and how to make it a bit quicker and/or a little deadlier. Here's the decklist:
Commander:
Edgar Markov
Creatures:
Marven Fein, Dusk Apostle
Vampire Cutthroat
Olivia Voldaren
Blood Artist
Dark Imposter
Indulgent Aristocrat
Skeletal Vampire
Blood Seeker
Nirkana Revenant
Balthor the Defiled
Falkenrath Aristocrat
Vampire Nocturnus
Yahenni, Undying Parisan
Sanctum Seeker
Skirsdag High Priest
Olivia's Bloodsworn
Captivating Vampire
Malakir Bloodwitch
Bloodline Kepper
Drana's Emissary
Stromkirk Captain
Bishop of Rebirth
Vampire Nighthawk
Blood Baron of Vizkopa
Gifted Aetherborn
Viscera Seer
Olivia, Mobilized for War
Butcher of Malakir
Vein Drinker
Vona, Butcher of Magan
Spells:
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Sorin Markov
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Disentomb
Merciless Eviction
Vindicate
Blood Tribute
New Blood
Diabolic Revelation
Teferi's Protection
Swords to Plowshares
Go for the Throat
Fated Return
Darkness
Dash Hopes
Mortify
Crackling Doom
Radiant Purge
Anguished Unmaking
Painful Quandary
Sanguine Bond
Exquisite Blood
Animate Dead
Whip of Erebos
Cathars' Crusade
Sol Ring
Rakdos Signet
Cryptic Gateway
Boros Signet
Door of Destinies
Black Vise
Orzhov Signet
Howling Mine
Lands:
Westvale Abbey
Command Tower
Clifftop Retreat
Godless Shrine
Battlefield Forge
Rakdos Carnarium
Orzhov Basilica
Temple of Triumph
Evolving Wilds
Bojuka Bog
Opal Palace
Nomad Outpost
Terramorphic Expanse
Smoldering Marsh
Sulfurous Springs
Path of Ancestry
Dragonskull Summit
Cave of Koilos
Isolated Chapel
Strip Mine
Vault of the Archangel
Graven Cairns
Boros Garrison
7x Swamp
3x Plains
4x Mountains
Sorry for the long list but any tips on what cards need to come out and what need to go in would be greatly appreciated! ^~^
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First, a couple things regarding the forum in general:
1) Put your deck in a deck tag so the cards are all linked. Not everyone knows what every card does
a) Note that the card names need to be correct in order to work. I notices you have 7 typos in your list above.
2) Organize them in some way so it is easier to follow along with the card choices. That is, group them in categories (lands, enchantments, etc.) and then sort them. The most common sort methods are Alphabetical and by CMC. I prefer alphabetical.
3) It is generally best to provide a summary of what you want to do. With Edgar, do you want to spit out tons of low cost creatures or are you going for big, scary creatures? Or, somewhere in between?
4) What is your budget? Can you afford OG duals and things like Phyrexian Tower or Volrath's Stronghold?
5) There is a dedicated forum for Commander decks so you will want to put future posts in there to get the "right" visibility to your questions.
So, here is your cards in a deck tag and organized as mentioned. Feel free to "quote" my post to see how the tag works: (I will provide help in the next post as this one is kind of long and I don't want to muddle help with the deck)
So, the first thing I notice is that you have 101 cards. You need 99 cards + 1 for Commander (+1 is your Commander so you have 99 in your main deck).
Your land count seems fine especially with the mana rocks you have included so there are no real problems there.
If your group is fine with infinite combos, I can see the value in keeping the Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo. But, not every group is ok with them so I figured I would call it out.
Your overall curve is fairly high for an Edgar deck. Due to Edgar's ability, you usually want to keep things low to get more value out of him. I would look at cutting the following for either being too high on the curve or not impactful enough overall:
Vein Drinker - I had this in one of my Vampire decks and I never really liked it. It just did very little when I am already trying to go wide and "swarm" the board Blood Baron of Vizkopa - Maybe this is alright but in most cases, this is going to be a 4/4 for 5 with Pro White and Black. Once an opponent gets below 10 life, they will probably die soon which turns Blood Baron back into a 4/4. I could be wrong, but it is my initial impression. Fated Return - This is a very high cost for this effect and one you could do more efficiently with other cards. I personally would just go with Patriarch's Bidding or [/c]Living Death[/c]. Neither are instants but they do so much more. Elspeth,Sun's Champion - I understand you are probably wanting her for her Emblem but it takes work to get there. I would rather see Eldrazi Monument here as it is cheaper, gives Indestructible, and you have plenty of fodder to sacrifice to it. Dash Hopes - This is a bad card, especially in Commander. Rarely will you get anything worth countering because most of the time it either isn't powerful enough to be countering or, more likely, the player will just pay the 5 life. And there are better ways to get players to lose 5 life. Disentomb - Either play Reanimate or Phyrexian Reclamation. A one shot effect like this is not really worth the slot.
In my Edgar build, card draw was the biggest issue with keeping the deck going. If I ran out of cards in hand, I never felt that I could realistically stay in the game no matter what my board state was.
Thank you so ridiculously much! I will most likely be taking out Blood Baron because he is always just an iffy card in my hand and I will be making those other changes also because honestly yeah dash hopes doesnt help me all that much haha. But I want to make one commander deck for now and stick to it but in my group, before I got the infinite combo, i was the only one that didnt have one. I want my deck to start early and keep control and constant damage. The amount of board wipes are ridiculous that I play with and after like 7 board wipes it hurts coming back with no draw power. Keeping this in mind, what should I take out to really make this deck crazy? I'm willing to take time and put money and effort into this deck I'm just so confused as to what to do. I want a big board state that at the same time my enchantments/artifact are scary on their own, while I'm pooping out tokens that will become huge in a matter of no time! I took Vein Drinker out as SOON as i read you had a complaint hahaha I was also thinking about throwing Karn Liberated in there for *****s and giggles?
In regards to board wipes, I think Balthor (which you have), Living Death, and Patriarch's Bidding are the best options for coming back. You could also play Immortal Servitude if you want and maybe Return to the Ranks if your overall curve is low enough. Reclamation (mentioned above) is also a way to come back
Karn is expensive for this type of deck so I would shy away from including him.
In regards of what to include, feel free to review this deck list to see what mine ended up being. I am not suggesting this was the best it could be, but it might give some ideas on things to include:
If I may dump a couple of random (untested) ideas (some of which actually can be found in WizardMN's deck, who certainly knows a lot more than I do since he actually built and played a markov deck):
Mentor of the meek might be a funny draw engine with all those tokens (unfortunately, he isn't a vampire himself), vampiric rites is another possibility with a fitting name, but might be a bit too durdly and mana intensive for one's tastes (and it doesn't do anything on an empty board), asylum visitor could be nice but I don't think it would trigger very often (emptying your own hand sounds risky and might not even be possible if you keep drawing lands), still a cheap vampire though. There's also the usual black enchantments... necropotence (if the 3 black mana aren't too hard on your manabase), phyrexian arena, maybe underworld connections, greed or erebos, god of the dead are all possible draw engines, those might a bit too slow or expensive though (card draw should be fairly expensive after all). Since you play howling mine you may also be interested in temple bell if it's doing great for you. Twilight Prophet is a draw engine embedded on a vampire, it's a bit slow and reveals cards it "draws" you though. Champion of Dusk may draw you a bunch of cards as soon as it enters the battlefield, but is a bit underwhelming on an empty board so he might not the best way to recover from a wrath (well, if you can play a cheap vampire before him, that's still 4 cards thanks to Markov, I've seen a lot worse). Skullclamp looks disgustingly good with those vampire tokens… as long as you don't have anthem effects at least.
drana, liberator of malakir looks pretty strong in a markov commander, I think it's a moderately expensive card though and it has no immediate impact. purphoros, god of the forge could be an interesting win condition, pinging each opponent for 4 whenever you cast a vampire certainly sounds strong. gatekeeper of malakir seems like a pretty good fit, the 3 black pips may be hard on the manabase though legion lieutenant probably is the cheapest vampire lord there is. bloodhusk ritualist can be interesting, it's sad it can't target multiple opponents, but emptying someone's hand is pretty strong and you can choose how much mana you dump into it. forerunner of the legion may help you if you regularly feel the need to fetch a particular vampire (e.g. captivating vampire or butcher of malakir), I'm not sure he's worth it in an agro deck though Falkenrath exterminator looks funny, but I'm not sure it's really worth it, you'd need to give him +1/+1 counters (feasible with markov, his own ability, and perhaps a couple other cards, but not trivial) and dump mana into him rather than playing other vampires... at the very least, it's still a cheap vampire
Also, nameless inversion and crib swap get you vampires! But I'm not sure that's relevant enough to run otherwise questionable spot removal.
In addition to WizardMN's earlier remarks, and while I don't necessarily think those are particularly bad cards, I'm slightly surprised to see darkness, painful quandary and black vise there. I also wonder if the whip is worth it (well, lifelink is nice, and recursion is always interesting, but I'm not sure there are enough creatures with immediate impact for its ability to be worthwhile).
Cryptic Gateway is a card I always find interesting for tribal decks, but I'm not sure it belongs to a Markov commander since you won't get tokens out of it and it may not save that much mana if most of your vampires are relatively cheap (it currently isn't the case though). Never got to test it though, so maybe it's still strong and worth the inclusion (flashing creatures for free certainly is appealing).
I appreciate all of the response you guys gave to me! I truly love all of these cards, and like I said this deck I'm going to be working on for a while so atm I don't have a budget. My golden birthday is coming up this month, 20 on the 20th haha. I've been playing since I was 7, but like I previously stated I'm not too sure on what cards I would even need to take out for the flow of a Commander deck to pop off in a pod while still being able to do well in a 1v1. Are there any certain cards you guys see that I could swap out in the future, and don't worry about pricing, that I could make the deck a more tribal heavy/threatening deck? ATM I have already taken out Vein Drinker to make it the 99 + 1 for the General, but what cards seem the worthwhile to be taking out to change? Including lands. Thanks again for everything so far you guys! It means a lot hearing feedback from the community
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Commander:
Edgar Markov
Creatures:
Marven Fein, Dusk Apostle
Vampire Cutthroat
Olivia Voldaren
Blood Artist
Dark Imposter
Indulgent Aristocrat
Skeletal Vampire
Blood Seeker
Nirkana Revenant
Balthor the Defiled
Falkenrath Aristocrat
Vampire Nocturnus
Yahenni, Undying Parisan
Sanctum Seeker
Skirsdag High Priest
Olivia's Bloodsworn
Captivating Vampire
Malakir Bloodwitch
Bloodline Kepper
Drana's Emissary
Stromkirk Captain
Bishop of Rebirth
Vampire Nighthawk
Blood Baron of Vizkopa
Gifted Aetherborn
Viscera Seer
Olivia, Mobilized for War
Butcher of Malakir
Vein Drinker
Vona, Butcher of Magan
Spells:
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Sorin Markov
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Disentomb
Merciless Eviction
Vindicate
Blood Tribute
New Blood
Diabolic Revelation
Teferi's Protection
Swords to Plowshares
Go for the Throat
Fated Return
Darkness
Dash Hopes
Mortify
Crackling Doom
Radiant Purge
Anguished Unmaking
Painful Quandary
Sanguine Bond
Exquisite Blood
Animate Dead
Whip of Erebos
Cathars' Crusade
Sol Ring
Rakdos Signet
Cryptic Gateway
Boros Signet
Door of Destinies
Black Vise
Orzhov Signet
Howling Mine
Lands:
Westvale Abbey
Command Tower
Clifftop Retreat
Godless Shrine
Battlefield Forge
Rakdos Carnarium
Orzhov Basilica
Temple of Triumph
Evolving Wilds
Bojuka Bog
Opal Palace
Nomad Outpost
Terramorphic Expanse
Smoldering Marsh
Sulfurous Springs
Path of Ancestry
Dragonskull Summit
Cave of Koilos
Isolated Chapel
Strip Mine
Vault of the Archangel
Graven Cairns
Boros Garrison
7x Swamp
3x Plains
4x Mountains
Sorry for the long list but any tips on what cards need to come out and what need to go in would be greatly appreciated! ^~^
1) Put your deck in a deck tag so the cards are all linked. Not everyone knows what every card does
a) Note that the card names need to be correct in order to work. I notices you have 7 typos in your list above.
2) Organize them in some way so it is easier to follow along with the card choices. That is, group them in categories (lands, enchantments, etc.) and then sort them. The most common sort methods are Alphabetical and by CMC. I prefer alphabetical.
3) It is generally best to provide a summary of what you want to do. With Edgar, do you want to spit out tons of low cost creatures or are you going for big, scary creatures? Or, somewhere in between?
4) What is your budget? Can you afford OG duals and things like Phyrexian Tower or Volrath's Stronghold?
5) There is a dedicated forum for Commander decks so you will want to put future posts in there to get the "right" visibility to your questions.
So, here is your cards in a deck tag and organized as mentioned. Feel free to "quote" my post to see how the tag works: (I will provide help in the next post as this one is kind of long and I don't want to muddle help with the deck)
1 Edgar Markov
Lands
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Boros Garrison
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Clifftop Retreat
1 Command Tower
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Godless Shrine
1 Graven Cairns
1 Isolated Chapel
4 Mountain
1 Nomad Outpost
1 Opal Palace
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Path of Ancestry
3 Plains
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Strip Mine
1 Sulfurous Springs
7 Swamp
1 Temple of Triumph
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Westvale Abbey
Instants
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Crackling Doom
1 Darkness
1 Dash Hopes
1 Fated Return
1 Go for the Throat
1 Mortify
1 Radiant Purge
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Teferi's Protection
1 Balthor the Defiled
1 Bishop of Rebirth
1 Blood Artist
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Blood Seeker
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Captivating Vampire
1 Dark Impostor
1 Drana's Emissary
1 Falkenrath Aristocrat
1 Gifted Aetherborn
1 Indulgent Aristocrat
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
1 Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
1 Nirkana Revenant
1 Olivia Voldaren
1 Olivia, Mobilized for War
1 Olivia's Bloodsworn
1 Sanctum Seeker
1 Skeletal Vampire
1 Skirsdag High Priest
1 Stromkirk Captain
1 Vampire Cutthroat
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Vampire Nocturnus
1 Vein Drinker
1 Viscera Seer
1 Vona, Butcher of Magan
1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
1 Blood Tribute
1 Diabolic Revelation
1 Disentomb
1 Merciless Eviction
1 New Blood
1 Vindicate
Artifacts
1 Black Vise
1 Boros Signet
1 Cryptic Gateway
1 Door of Destinies
1 Howling Mine
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Sol Ring
1 Whip of Erebos
Enchantments
1 Animate Dead
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Exquisite Blood
1 Painful Quandary
1 Sanguine Bond
Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Sorin Markov
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Your land count seems fine especially with the mana rocks you have included so there are no real problems there.
If your group is fine with infinite combos, I can see the value in keeping the Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo. But, not every group is ok with them so I figured I would call it out.
Your overall curve is fairly high for an Edgar deck. Due to Edgar's ability, you usually want to keep things low to get more value out of him. I would look at cutting the following for either being too high on the curve or not impactful enough overall:
Vein Drinker - I had this in one of my Vampire decks and I never really liked it. It just did very little when I am already trying to go wide and "swarm" the board
Blood Baron of Vizkopa - Maybe this is alright but in most cases, this is going to be a 4/4 for 5 with Pro White and Black. Once an opponent gets below 10 life, they will probably die soon which turns Blood Baron back into a 4/4. I could be wrong, but it is my initial impression.
Fated Return - This is a very high cost for this effect and one you could do more efficiently with other cards. I personally would just go with Patriarch's Bidding or [/c]Living Death[/c]. Neither are instants but they do so much more.
Elspeth,Sun's Champion - I understand you are probably wanting her for her Emblem but it takes work to get there. I would rather see Eldrazi Monument here as it is cheaper, gives Indestructible, and you have plenty of fodder to sacrifice to it.
Dash Hopes - This is a bad card, especially in Commander. Rarely will you get anything worth countering because most of the time it either isn't powerful enough to be countering or, more likely, the player will just pay the 5 life. And there are better ways to get players to lose 5 life.
Disentomb - Either play Reanimate or Phyrexian Reclamation. A one shot effect like this is not really worth the slot.
I see you are missing staple removal spells like Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile. I also don't see much in the way of card draw so you can try Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, and Magus of the Wheel for Wheel effects and Read the Bones and Painful Truths for card draw.
In my Edgar build, card draw was the biggest issue with keeping the deck going. If I ran out of cards in hand, I never felt that I could realistically stay in the game no matter what my board state was.
Karn is expensive for this type of deck so I would shy away from including him.
In regards of what to include, feel free to review this deck list to see what mine ended up being. I am not suggesting this was the best it could be, but it might give some ideas on things to include:
Edgar Markov Deck
Mentor of the meek might be a funny draw engine with all those tokens (unfortunately, he isn't a vampire himself), vampiric rites is another possibility with a fitting name, but might be a bit too durdly and mana intensive for one's tastes (and it doesn't do anything on an empty board), asylum visitor could be nice but I don't think it would trigger very often (emptying your own hand sounds risky and might not even be possible if you keep drawing lands), still a cheap vampire though. There's also the usual black enchantments... necropotence (if the 3 black mana aren't too hard on your manabase), phyrexian arena, maybe underworld connections, greed or erebos, god of the dead are all possible draw engines, those might a bit too slow or expensive though (card draw should be fairly expensive after all). Since you play howling mine you may also be interested in temple bell if it's doing great for you. Twilight Prophet is a draw engine embedded on a vampire, it's a bit slow and reveals cards it "draws" you though. Champion of Dusk may draw you a bunch of cards as soon as it enters the battlefield, but is a bit underwhelming on an empty board so he might not the best way to recover from a wrath (well, if you can play a cheap vampire before him, that's still 4 cards thanks to Markov, I've seen a lot worse).
Skullclamp looks disgustingly good with those vampire tokens… as long as you don't have anthem effects at least.
drana, liberator of malakir looks pretty strong in a markov commander, I think it's a moderately expensive card though and it has no immediate impact.
purphoros, god of the forge could be an interesting win condition, pinging each opponent for 4 whenever you cast a vampire certainly sounds strong.
gatekeeper of malakir seems like a pretty good fit, the 3 black pips may be hard on the manabase though
legion lieutenant probably is the cheapest vampire lord there is.
bloodhusk ritualist can be interesting, it's sad it can't target multiple opponents, but emptying someone's hand is pretty strong and you can choose how much mana you dump into it.
forerunner of the legion may help you if you regularly feel the need to fetch a particular vampire (e.g. captivating vampire or butcher of malakir), I'm not sure he's worth it in an agro deck though
Falkenrath exterminator looks funny, but I'm not sure it's really worth it, you'd need to give him +1/+1 counters (feasible with markov, his own ability, and perhaps a couple other cards, but not trivial) and dump mana into him rather than playing other vampires... at the very least, it's still a cheap vampire
Also, nameless inversion and crib swap get you vampires! But I'm not sure that's relevant enough to run otherwise questionable spot removal.
In addition to WizardMN's earlier remarks, and while I don't necessarily think those are particularly bad cards, I'm slightly surprised to see darkness, painful quandary and black vise there. I also wonder if the whip is worth it (well, lifelink is nice, and recursion is always interesting, but I'm not sure there are enough creatures with immediate impact for its ability to be worthwhile).
Cryptic Gateway is a card I always find interesting for tribal decks, but I'm not sure it belongs to a Markov commander since you won't get tokens out of it and it may not save that much mana if most of your vampires are relatively cheap (it currently isn't the case though). Never got to test it though, so maybe it's still strong and worth the inclusion (flashing creatures for free certainly is appealing).