I could see it in the list for its CMC. The sac outlet is less useful, but not entirely redundant. I guess if you have Zulaport Cutthroat out and wanna bring your life total up or bleed the table out it could be useful.
Will you add the m19 Vampire neonate to your list?
Personally, I think the fact that it requires buffs to swing for anything makes it a sub-par choice. The bleed effect is a cherry on top, but having to pay to activate it is not what I want to be spending my mana on, either. To be fair though, all it would take is 1 power for me to play it.
I think the Obelisk of Urd might be a good idea since it can be cast for basically 0, negating the fact that it's a 6 costed spell. If you tap 6 vampires to spend no mana on it, you're seriously pumping the rest of your vampires. So those 6 1/1's end up providing higher amounts of combat damage than just having them as 1/1's in combat than 1/1's tapped while the other available vampires get +2/+2 each.
Putting it this way it does make sense as a feasible add. The convoke cost allows those ~6 creatures to count for more than they would in combat. I like that logic. Definitely worth testing.
As for Scapegoat, every time I had it in my hand it did nothing. We have quite a lot of ways to bounce back after mass removal so waiting for it to happen is worse than casting one more offensive vampire dork. With Edgar it's fast combo decks we should fear the most. We may be able to kill one before it goes off but if there are more we are in trouble. I would exchange Scapegoat for another piece of removal which could also help against midrange and another aggro decks.
It does seem a fairly conditional card. It's good if you:
1. Have a full board.
2. Have a small hand.
3. Face down a board sweep.
4. Have spare W outside of your turn and a dork free.
5. Are comfortable with a reasonably empty board once it resolves.
That's a lot of conditions to make it valid. Otherwise, in terms of filling my hand, I'd almost always prefer some of the standard draw we run here like Necropotence (obvs), Minions' Murmurs or Ad Nauseam. It seems like half of the point of a tempo build is accepting that it doesn't matter if your creatures die so long as you have a full grip to replenish the board, so returning them to hand seems a little redundant.
I've recently cut it from the list I run for this deck. I finally acquired a Yawgmoth's Will via a trade yesterday and I'm interested to see if it is a viable recovery option.
Has anyone tried it out? Experiences with running it in Edgar?
thanks,
theCreecH
There's no way I can afford it, but I can see it being a strong recovery option. The only downside I'd see is being a one off effect, so timing would be key. But I guess that'd be the reason to run incremental recursion like Sword of Light and Shadow or Volrath's Stronghold, for redundancy against sweeps.
What does everyone think of Athrwos, god of passage as a recursion option for the deck? Ive been thinking it over in the last few days and it does force a tough choice for opponents, considering our curve allows easy recast.
I believe ISBPathfinder originally had it in his build and then cut it. I don't recall the reason but it is buried somewhere in this thread.
I did have it in my list originally. My issue was taking the time to get it set up when its really only something of a card advantage engine but its responsive in how it works. If you are constantly getting wrathed it can be decent but its still just going to function like draw at best and it is reactive to opponents in when you get that "draw". If you are swimming in draw they will let you have it and it wont do much. My issue is that it was really responsive to what opponents are doing but it also was kind of expensive at a three mana card that might do actually nothing for several turns. It is nice in that you can pick on one player with it but if you get it early its going to be kind of junk in that they still have HP and you probably need actual draw still at that point of the game.
It gives a lot of options to opponents and while there are times it can be good. I also found several times where it was not so good. I just found it a little lacking given its a 3 mana card that might not have much of anything happen anytime soon after you play it. Its the kind of card you want to draw in the mid to late game when you have a bunch of things in play, opponents are getting low, and you don't have draw. I think that is kind of a niche area for when its good.
Ah yes, fair enough. There's so many pages to roll through now. Fair enough, and this was my concern with it too - it's very conditional, and puts too much choice in the hands of our opponents. The problem is all of our recursion options are a little too specific, unreliable, or mana hungry. Oversold Cemetery is my favourite to date, but even then its conditional. Ravos, Soultender is what we're after, but he's too expensive to cast. Oh well.
What does everyone think of Athrwos, god of passage as a recursion option for the deck? Ive been thinking it over in the last few days and it does force a tough choice for opponents, considering our curve allows easy recast.
I agree Ascend is easy to hit, I just don't think her ability is bonkers. It's a slightly better Dark Confidant effect. The extra draw is good, don't get me wrong. I just don't ever expect to have an opponent lose more than 2-3 life from the reveal, likewise with the gain. And that's simply because of the curve here, most of our vamps are bargain basement CMC.
The best case scenario for life gain/loss ability is Malakir Bloodwitch, but it's also worst case scenario in another aspect. Great card to hit, but the last thing I want to do is reveal that I have it in hand, because it's totally capable of ending the game on the spot. I definitely don't want to give anyone an opportunity to counter it.
I dunno, I don't think you always plan around worst case scenarios, but I also don't think it's the greatest card available for the deck. I may be overthinking it, but I'm still quite happy to wait for a drop in price before I grab it myself.
How are you finding Twilight Prophet? It's very expensive at present, trying my best to justify not paying for it. I mean it seems an additional draw per turn, not much more.
I can definitely see a place for haste here. Anger is a solid choice. I run Hammer of Purphoros predominantly because I don't have a copy of the aforementioned.
I don't toc, but I actually like your Vizkopa Guildmage idea. Sure, it's not a vampire, but it is low cmc with an awesome 2nd ability. I have 9 life gainers in my version, not counting Vizkopa or Crypt Ghast, which i probably should have in the deck anyways; and then if we include the 1-drop Children of Korlis (which is also a non-vampire, lol) we have an awesome game-ender using Necropotence. Just thinking outside the box guys.
Yeah, it has possibilities. I haven't played the deck in a while, so I'm not sure how often a massive lifegain happens in my current iteration. If it's often, there might be a slot free. Otherwise, I might be happy to entertain some of the life loss instant/sorceries we've discussed to date. Gruesome Fate I can see ending games out of nowhere, although I'd be happier if it were instant speed.
But the card I really wanted to mention is Fervent Charge. I don't remember seeing this in our discussion before. Since we've pretty much discounted all the other non-creature permanent buffs, and even Homura is too unwieldy for me, I thought this might fit the curve. I haven't played it yet, so I'm not sure. I would guess you'd have to have a good manabase to be able to color fix for it though.
It's not bad. I don't like the mana cost, but then my manabase is nowhere near as tuned as ISB's. I can see it fitting in some builds, just probably not mine.
Foul-Tongue Shriek might also be used for similar purposes.. though dependent on the amount of attackers and again only single target.. you can swing one player and hit another with this.. also it's on attack, so don't need to connect either.. ^^
Could potentially be useful - only B to play and it's an instant. Not the worst option, definitely better than the Bishop.
It does have the downsides of not generating a vampire, a creature, instant, or easily recurrable. I guess it depends how badly you want another iteration of that Malakir Bloodwitch trigger.
Edit: out of interest, I searched for other iterations of this kind of effect. There's nothing on a creature, let alone a vampire. There is: Harsh sustenance Massive Raid Mob Justice Battle Hymn...I guess. R is probably less useful than B here anyway.
I've been thinking this over too. Really just mulling over the idea, as Malakir Bloodwitch is a strong ETB trigger and it'd be nice to have other variations of this ability at hand that are reasonably priced or on curve. It's not a vampire, but what are your thoughts around Vizkopa Guildmage? If it were a vampire, it'd be a shoe in, but even as is, it does synergize quite well with a lot of the cards you're running here: Pros
-Following Malakir Bloodwitch in the same turn, its second ability will win you the game.
-Following a sweeper or Goblin Bombardment with Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat in play, its a heavy gouging for your opponents.
-Early game Serra Ascendant?
-Swinging with Sanctum Seeker and stacking the second ability.
-Hasty abilities
-You can stack the abilities up as a mana sink.
-Cheap to cast. Cons
-Not a vampire.
-Mana we'd otherwise use for casting vamps, I guess.
I think it's worthy of consideration personally, I'll probably try him in my list. This guy could win games out of nowhere.
I would probably have to try to play Gary in here to have a better feel for it but I often use Malakir Bloodwitch in the 6-10 vamp count range and the fact that it counts for two itself has been fairly huge. Most of the vampires in here are black but I won't get any gary value off of tokens and there are still nonblack cards in this deck that won't count as any devotion. Traditionally Gary is played a little more in reanimator decks where the chance to Corpse Dance loop him or some other terrible thing can occur as well. Overall I guess I feel like 4-5 devotion would be about where he would probably fall more frequently for this deck. In most cases I think its probably still a bit optimistic to assume he might be as strong as Zulaport Cutthroat (who is a 2 drop).
Vizkopa Guildmage - if it was a vampire I think I would rate it as kind of weak card to include. I think its abilities are ultimately kind of weak for this deck and mostly the only thing I would try to do would be to use the second ability paired with Malakir Bloodwitch. I think that paying an extra three mana on top of Malakir Bloodwitch is already asking a lot which is why I think it would be a little questionable. It would be a 2/2 vamp for BW that lacks evasion and I would primarily treat it as a vanilla vampire 95% of the time. It would be tempting but the times in which it might be good would be winmore and outside of those times its not a very good card.
Completely unrelated.... I was eying Burn at the Stake as an interesting card in that it offers a very explosive hit to someone's face. It is really hard to interact with as you tap the creatures as part of casting it so there is no real room for any removal other than counterspells or some really niche redirect / protect effect to stop it. The flip side argument though is that it does not interact very well with any of the buffs and it competes in a similar mana slot as the commander and I really don't like this card until you approach or pass 10 creatures in play at which point you can really bully people with a lot of different cards including Edgar Markov. It could be an interesting means to get past a swarm of guys or Propaganda effects but ultimately I think I would still say that its too niche.
I agree regarding Gary. Your devotion is anything but certain, and 3BB is a lot to pay for something that's not a sure thing. Vizkopa yeah I guess is fairly conditional too. It's not necessarily something this deck is built to do, it's merely something that takes advantage of coincidental card choices. And the price of 1BW per activation is a little steep for the deck. Would you consider something like Gruesome Fate instead? Again, it could be winmore and could completely flop. The fact that it takes advantage of your swarm and affects each opponent could make it of reasonable value though. Could be helpful if combat doesn't look favourable.
Burn at the Stake is pretty explosive. I can't see playing it myself. Sure, you take one opponent out decisively - there's no point playing the card otherwise. It also leaves you open to other opponents though. 2RRR plus tapping your creatures is a difficult cost to stomach to my mind.
Personally, I think the fact that it requires buffs to swing for anything makes it a sub-par choice. The bleed effect is a cherry on top, but having to pay to activate it is not what I want to be spending my mana on, either. To be fair though, all it would take is 1 power for me to play it.
Putting it this way it does make sense as a feasible add. The convoke cost allows those ~6 creatures to count for more than they would in combat. I like that logic. Definitely worth testing.
It does seem a fairly conditional card. It's good if you:
1. Have a full board.
2. Have a small hand.
3. Face down a board sweep.
4. Have spare W outside of your turn and a dork free.
5. Are comfortable with a reasonably empty board once it resolves.
That's a lot of conditions to make it valid. Otherwise, in terms of filling my hand, I'd almost always prefer some of the standard draw we run here like Necropotence (obvs), Minions' Murmurs or Ad Nauseam. It seems like half of the point of a tempo build is accepting that it doesn't matter if your creatures die so long as you have a full grip to replenish the board, so returning them to hand seems a little redundant.
There's no way I can afford it, but I can see it being a strong recovery option. The only downside I'd see is being a one off effect, so timing would be key. But I guess that'd be the reason to run incremental recursion like Sword of Light and Shadow or Volrath's Stronghold, for redundancy against sweeps.
Ah yes, fair enough. There's so many pages to roll through now. Fair enough, and this was my concern with it too - it's very conditional, and puts too much choice in the hands of our opponents. The problem is all of our recursion options are a little too specific, unreliable, or mana hungry. Oversold Cemetery is my favourite to date, but even then its conditional. Ravos, Soultender is what we're after, but he's too expensive to cast. Oh well.
The best case scenario for life gain/loss ability is Malakir Bloodwitch, but it's also worst case scenario in another aspect. Great card to hit, but the last thing I want to do is reveal that I have it in hand, because it's totally capable of ending the game on the spot. I definitely don't want to give anyone an opportunity to counter it.
I dunno, I don't think you always plan around worst case scenarios, but I also don't think it's the greatest card available for the deck. I may be overthinking it, but I'm still quite happy to wait for a drop in price before I grab it myself.
Yeah, it has possibilities. I haven't played the deck in a while, so I'm not sure how often a massive lifegain happens in my current iteration. If it's often, there might be a slot free. Otherwise, I might be happy to entertain some of the life loss instant/sorceries we've discussed to date. Gruesome Fate I can see ending games out of nowhere, although I'd be happier if it were instant speed.
It's not bad. I don't like the mana cost, but then my manabase is nowhere near as tuned as ISB's. I can see it fitting in some builds, just probably not mine.
Could potentially be useful - only B to play and it's an instant. Not the worst option, definitely better than the Bishop.
Edit: out of interest, I searched for other iterations of this kind of effect. There's nothing on a creature, let alone a vampire. There is:
Harsh sustenance
Massive Raid
Mob Justice
Battle Hymn...I guess. R is probably less useful than B here anyway.
I agree regarding Gary. Your devotion is anything but certain, and 3BB is a lot to pay for something that's not a sure thing. Vizkopa yeah I guess is fairly conditional too. It's not necessarily something this deck is built to do, it's merely something that takes advantage of coincidental card choices. And the price of 1BW per activation is a little steep for the deck. Would you consider something like Gruesome Fate instead? Again, it could be winmore and could completely flop. The fact that it takes advantage of your swarm and affects each opponent could make it of reasonable value though. Could be helpful if combat doesn't look favourable.
Burn at the Stake is pretty explosive. I can't see playing it myself. Sure, you take one opponent out decisively - there's no point playing the card otherwise. It also leaves you open to other opponents though. 2RRR plus tapping your creatures is a difficult cost to stomach to my mind.