You love tribal decks. Edgar is obviously meant to lead a Vampire army into battle. If you're interested in tribal synergies and shenanigans, this might be the commander for you.
You don't want to depend too much on casting your general. Edgar's Eminence ability triggers from the command zone, meaning you can play an entire game without even needing to cast him in order to feel his majestic presence. While some decks rely on casting their general to win, this isn't one of those decks, and it's a good thing in my opinion. And when you do feel the need to cast it, there he is, with haste and first strike, buffing your entire team. What's not to like?
You like decks that have multiple ways of winning. Edgar's ability generates tokens. This is the basis of the deck, sure, but from there we can take it in so many directions depending on our draws and our opponent's weaknesses.
You like having fun most of all. Despite having many tutors and fileting, this isn't what I'd call a fast deck. If you don't mind long games, or accept playing combos where your opponents can interact with your deck, this might be the deck for you.
Why not to play this Edgar Markov list?
He puts a serious restriction on what to include in the deck. Edgar Markov can pretty much only work as a Vampire tribal general. If you like Mardu colors but don't want to play tribal, there are other very interesting options to consider such as Alesha, Who Smiles at Death or Queen Marchesa. It's worth noting that this migt be an upside though, as some mignt, like me, enjoy the deck bulding challenge.
You dislike creature-based decks. This deck, despite having some answers to your opponent's threats and tutors to get them if needed, depends entirely on having lots of creatures on the board. If you'd rather play pillow fort or control, Edgar is probably not your guy. Same if your meta is flowing with wraths and other similar pleasant spells.Note: There are solutions to a meta full of board clears, such as Boros Charm or Teferi's Protection, the latter being included in the deck.
You want a fast combo deck with a straightforward game plan. This deck's infinite combo is slow and requires many pieces to assemble. If you play this deck, you're in it for the long run. Fortunately, this also means you have tons of useful creatures and spells to stay in the game long enough to get there eventually. This is by no means a Mimeoplasm or Boonweaver competitive combo deck.
Alternatively, you swore a sacred oath never to play a deck with an infinite combo in it. While this list doesn't only rely on its combo to win games, it's definitely there and your opponents will be aware of it if they know you're playing this deck.
Note: This isn't a budget list. If I end up working on this deck more, I will take time to make a budget version of this deck with replacement options.
Card Analysis & Discussion
Card choices
This section is dedicated to a card-by-card overview of the deck. It's quite long, and detailed, so I put it under spoiler tags in order to keep the post cleaner and make it look shorter.
This deck needs a good amount of cheap vampires to create early board presence, making good use of Edgar's token-generating ability. This also guarantees you can get some value out of the first sac engine you get on the field as soon as it gets there.
Bold Impaler: The only reason why such an ordinary looking card is in the deck is because it's the only 1-drop that has both the Vampire and Knight creature types, allowing it to be resurrected by Haakon and create a token with Edgar. He is part of the infinite combo described below.
Blood Artist: This card is incredible in this deck. It relies on tokens and sacrifice for value, and this is exactly the kind of deck he shines in. I absolutely love this card and there is no reason it shouldn't be included (Shameless plug: I even reprinted it in my art-themed custom set Aenyr!)
Blood Seeker: Another cheap vampire with a useful ability against token heavy decks such as The Locust God. I'm aware it's not a super good card, but I have a foil one and I want to give it a try before cutting it for something that could be more useful.
Bloodcrazed Paladin: A 2 drop vampire knight. It doesn't create infinite mana with our combo like Bold Impaler does, but it can become infinitely large as we can cast it back forever. Being a cheap vampire with flash, and a knight as well, makes this card a good fit for this deck.
Bloodghast: An obvious vampire to include in any sacrifice themed deck. It's a shame its landfall ability doesn't trigger Edgar's Eminence, but it's not a reason not to add it to the deck. (Note: This card is currently being replaced by Falkenrath Noble until I buy a copy when Iconic Masters is released.)
Bloodline Keeper: This vampire can be flipped very easily in this deck. Having five vampires on the battlefield at the same time would be something quite hard to do, but Edgar's Eminence ability takes care of that. the Keeper can even create tokens of its own and buff your entire team if you want to go all in for a classic attack kill. What's not to like?
Captivating Vampire: Both abilities are useful here. First, he pumps your team, which is always good in token based decks. Its second ability is also incredibly powerful in this deck considering how easy it is to have five vampires on the battlefield. If you can play this on curve after 2 other vampires, it becomes an immediate threat to deal with for you can steal any creature at instant speed, making it a vampire in the process! There has to be some sort of combo with this guy that allows you to steal all your opponent's creatures, but I have yet to find it.
Changeling Berserker: Another Vampire Knight that works well with vampires with enters the battlefield triggers we might want to re-use again. It can go infinite with Bloodline Necromancer, as explained below.
Falkenrath Gorger: A cool one drop with an ability that becomes very useful in a deck with lots of ways to discard its own cards for value such as this one. You still "cast" a card for its madness cost, so it doesn't take away Edgar's ability, which is a cool bonus. Also, don't forget that with a discard outlet, this basically gives all your vampires flash!
Indulgent Aristocrat: Another one drop that can be useful late in the game. Buffing an entire team permanently like that isn't neglectable. It also messes with combat math as long as you have any untapped lands, because your opponents will always need to think about what's going to happen if you decide to activate this guy's ability.
Insolent Neonate: This amazing little common does everything we need. It can discard you a card if you need it, it's not completely useless on its own due to its menace ability and our various pump effects, and it's a one drop that gives you an easy token with Edgar!
Kalastria Highborn: This is our second Blood Artist. It's a shame its ability costs mana, but it would be soooooo good otherwise. And it's still a pretty good card in this deck!
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: Is there anything Kalitas doesn't do? He prevents your opponent's sacrifice shenanigans while creating you (non-vampire) tokens in the process AND he can be used as a sac engine.
Malakir Bloodwitch: Our own little vampire Gray Merchant! We can often have enough vampires on the board so that it drains 4-6 life to each opponent, making it a very very useful card to survive longer and kill them without even needing to attack. We also have means to sacrifice it and bring it back, draining more and more life in the process.
Mirror Entity: In decks where you can go wide and have a large army such as this one, Mirror Entity is a super useful card. It's also both a Vampire and a Knight, meaning you can bring it back with Haakon and get a token in the process. I've also already used this guy's ability to pay 0 in order to sacrifice my entire board, protecting myself from mass exile such as Ugin.
Olivia, Mobilized for War: She is also a vampire knight! And she has a discard ability, which can be useful. And she gives haste to your guys, which is relevant.
Patron of the Vein: Despite its high cost, this vampire is very useful because if its good enters the battlefield trigger combined with a mass buff ability. I think it's worth including in the deck.
Sanctum Seeker: This card is incredible. It affects all opponents and gains us life with our tokens, making it a large threat to deal with for our opponents. And it's a knight, so even when thet manage to get rid of it, it will likely come back to annoy them even more.
Stromkirk Captain: Another auto include vampire lord. First strike is a very good ability, especially on a huge amount of tokens when you're on the defensive.
Stromkirk Condemned: This cheap vampire offers you the possibility to discard a big reanimation target if you need to. The team buff is, again, useful to mess up with your opponents's minds: will you use it? Will you not?
Tithe Drinker: I actually trust this little guy more than Sangromancer to gain life. I love the extort ability, and lifelink is also a bonus.
Vampire Nighthawk: This one has three very good abilities and it's a super useful blocker. I might need to cut it for a card with more board impact though, I'm not sure.
Viscera Seer: This incredible sac outlet also happens to be a vampire, which is very good for our deck. It's a must include.
Voldaren Pariah: This card plays well in both our discard and sacrifice themes.
Yahenni, Undying Partisan: The indestructible and haste are both big deals here. I didn't get to test them yet, so I don't know how it will play, but I'm fairly confident.
Since this deck has a combo and a reanimation theme, we need some good tutors in order to find the right cards when we need them.
Buried Alive: The ultimate graveyard tutor for commander. It usually brings Haakon, Bold Impaler and another big creature such as Razaketh. It's also possible to go another way and search for Sheoldred and other big creatures to get one per upkeep.
Demonic Tutor: The ultimate universal tutor. It can get anything we need just when we need it, nothing more to say here.
Diabolic Intent: Considering the amount of tokens we have in this deck, this is basically our second copy of Demonic Tutor.
Entomb: Very useful card in this deck. It can get us the combo piece we need in the graveyard if it's Haakon or Impaler. It can be a reanimate spell if you need due to Dread Return and Unburial Rites having Flashback. If you control Haakon, it's also a good way to start the Crib Swap and Nameless Inversion fun.
Faithless Looting: One mana draw two discard two is super good. As much as a design failure this spell is when you consider red's part of the color pie (it should discard before because red is impulsive), I love that this spell exists for the purpose of this deck. It makes you discard Haakon or the big dudes you can't afford to cast, or it can get rid of lands you don't want when you get flooded.
Gamble: Another tutor. In this deck, we don't care much about what we discard (unless it's something like Animate Dead). Choosing when to cast Gamble is important, but it's very worth it.
Nahiri, the Harbinger: Super useful planeswalker, all three abilities matter here and it's not hard to see how. It's a lore fail because she hates vampires in the story because of Sorin, but oh well.
Painful Truths: Very efficient draw spell in black. We would run Necropotence if it wasn't for the discard clause, which doesn't really work in this deck. I'm not sure if I even need it at this point, but lets start by including it in the deck and see where it goes from there.
Razaketh, the Foulblooded: This is probably the most important card of the deck. With the large amount of tokens we can easily generate, it can search for exactly the card you need exactly when you need it. It helps assembling your combo faster, search for more vampires to create more tokens: the possibilities are endless.
Skullclamp: Probably the most broken equipment ever printed. It obviously deserves a slot in this deck because of all our free 1/1s to sacrifice for more card draw!
Syphon Mind: Another draw spell I'm not sure I need...
Tormenting Voice: This is better than Cathartic Reunion in this deck. Discarding only one card instead of two is a big deal. Wild Guess could act as a second copy of Tormenting Voice if need be.
Tortured Existence: This is a very useful card. It discards your bigger creatures to recover your smallest ones and cast them again. I use it like a poor man's Survival of the Fittest in black that gets cards from your graveyard instead of your library.
Wheel of FortuneVery useful draw spell that also disrupts your opponents, which is a good bonus. I happened to have one lying there in my binder, so I put it in the deck. I don't think it can be bad!
This includes both reanimation spells and big, impactful creatures to target with those spells.
Animate Dead: Despite its incredibly complicated text, this is probably the most intuitive reanimation spell ever. The fact that it can target creatures in any graveyard is a very sweet bonus that can lead to interesting surprises for your opponents.
Beacon of Unrest: Another reanimation spell that also hits artifacts and cards from opponent's graveyards, which is a cool bonus. The reshuffle part means that we can get it back with tutors such as Razaketh and keep casting it as long as we have mana.
Dread Return: This is probably my favorite reanimation spell. The flashback ability is just so good in this deck, it's like it was meant to be.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: This buffs our huge team of vampire tokens while also disrupting opponents in a big, big way.
Haakon, Stromgald Scourge: This probably looks like a weird card choice for this deck, but this Knight lord enables a ton of cool interactions that would otherwise be impossible. It's there for the combo, sure, but it also works well because of the small amount of Vampire Knights we have in our decks and the Tribal instants Crib Swap and Nameless Inversion, for example.
Necromancy: I love the instant speed option on this card. Casting this on Razaketh and searching for your combo at instant speed before your turn can be a very big surprise for your opponents.
Sheoldred, Whispering One: Praetors are definitely very good reanimation targets and Sheoldred is definitely no exception. Reanimating one creature per turn while also making your opponents sacrifice theirs is very, very cool.
Void Winnower: I don't want to play Iona, Shield of Emeria, but I'm fine with this card for disruptive purposes. Reanimating it early can slow down a good amount of decks that will have to deal with it in ordrer to cast their good spells. Also, the all generic cost makes it more appealing for this deck than the trple white mana.
Victimize: Last but not least of our reanimating spells, Victimize is, again, super good in this deck because of the tokens we have and the good targets we can return from the graveyard.
Even if this is not a control deck, we still need some tools in order to prevent our opponents from winning too fast or flooding the board with creatures that are stronger than our Vampires.
Chaos Warp: This spell can get rid of any annoying permanent at instant speed. While the random factor in it might bother some, I really enjoy it on such a powerful effect. One time, I actually warped my opponent's Avacyn only to see her come right back after the shuffling!
Crib Swap: Permanent exile is good. Exile that creates a Vampire token with Edgar's help is better. Exile that can be cast from your graveyard again and again with Haakon is even cooler!
Hide // Seek: I had one lying around in my binder and I said why not. This is a super versatile card and both sides can be relevant, whether it's for noncreature removal or to prevent a combo player from having too much fun.
New Blood: As soon as that card got spoiled, I got super excited. Stealing a creature for 4? Not an enchantment? In mono black? It changes not only the type like Captivating Vampire but also the text? I once stole The Ur-Dragon with this before attacking with a bunch of tokens, let me tell you, it was incredibly pleasant.
Phyrexian Altar: The ultimate sacrifice engine. It turns our tokens into mana, which is amazing. Most players know how good it is though, so make sure to play it only when you can either start your infinite combo immediately or get a great deal of value out of it right away, because it's very unlikely to make it to your next turn.
Swords to Plowshares: I believe having cheap removal is important for those super annoying cheap commanders such as Edric or Selvala, who need to be dealt with immediately before things snowball out of control for them.
Teferi's Protection: This is another card I was super excited about when it got spoiled. It's the ultimate protection spell and I believe every white deck should play it. It has so many uses: Fog, conditional Counterspell, Heroic Intervention, and MORE, all on one amazing card. And it protects you and your board until your next turn, which is really, really sweet.
Terminate: Another cheap removal spell. I could replace it for Path to Exile but I don't live giving ramp to an opponent in a format where it's so important.
Wrath of God: The staple board wipe spell. This doesn't look like the kind of deck who would want to cast such a spell, but sometimes it's necessary. Also why isn't it named Wrath of the Gods? It bothers me a lot.
While the signets and sol ring are pretty self explanatory, some choices are worth discussing.
Legion's Landing: I put this card under ramp because it can turn into a land as soon as turn three in most games. It's our own white Rampant Growth that also creates us a token. The land it becomes isn't half bad too!
Sword of the Animist: Ramp in Mardu colors are hard to come by, and this equipment is very useful in a deck full of tokens where you're almost guaranteed an easy swing each combat.
Some land choices are worth discussing here.
Bojuka Bog: This incredible land is an auto include in every black deck in my opinion. It prevents your opponents from having as much fun with their graveyard as you're having with yours. If you have to play it early for mana, you can always return it to your hand with Rakdos Carnarium or Orzhov Basilica and play it again!
Cavern of Souls: An unavoidable land for any tribal deck in my opinion.
Geier Reach Sanitarium: This allows you to discard the big creatures you want in your graveyard instead of in your hand.
Mutavault: I figured this land, being a vampire, would be good in this deck. It can also be used to transform itself and sacrificed if you really need it. It also gets bigger and bigger with counters if you transform it before attacking with Edgar or sacrificing a creature with Indulgent Aristocrat.
Path of Ancestry: Super good land in a tribal deck, it basically scries every turn. It also works with Haakon since it checks the card types of your general, and Edgar happens to also be a knight!
Phyrexian Tower: Turning your tokens into mana is somethig you'll often want to do with this deck, so that land seemed like a perfect addition.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Most spells in the deck have BB in their cost, so turning all of our lands into swamps can't be a bad thing.
Unincluded Cards
This is a list of cards that currently aren't included in the deck. Since this deck is still young, it's very possible that those cards end up in there, replacing some others that haven't performed well. They are presented in categories, but in no particular order in those categories.
Note: I'll try to keep this section up to date as I make changes to the deck and discover new cards that could be included.
Vampires & Other creatures
Shadow Alley Denizen: Cheap vampire that makes your army very hard to block. The tokens make its ability trigger, so that's also cool.
Filth: Since I have Urborg in the deck, having Filth in my graveyard would make my army of vampires unblockable. Would that be worth it? I don't know yet.
Anger: As I previously mentioned, this could be a very interesting addition to the deck to make our infinite vampire tokens gain haste and swing for the kill immediately. Filth and Anger are also interesting choices because we have many, many ways of putting them into the graveyard very easily.
Bloodthrone Vampire: As we've seen with Viscera Seer, a vampire that sacrifices creatures can be really useful. This little dude is probably no exception.
Olivia's Dragoon: If Stromkirk Condemned isn't enough as a two drop that discards, maybe this could be added to the deck. Overall I think condemned is just better at what it does even if it has a once per turn restriction.
Vampire Hexmage: Marit Lage summoner, Planeswalker killer, this vampire is very well known and can be very useful, but I don't think we need it in the deck.
Drana, Liberator of Malakir: This is a card that might replace Vampire Nighthawk in the future. I don't have one in my collection yet, but she fits very well in what we want this deck to do.
Kheru Mind-Eater: I think this card looks cooler than it actually is. Sure, the menace is nice, but your opponent gets to choose the card, you have to pay the appropriate colors of mana to cast it (which means you can't cast green or blue cards) and you can only cast the exiled cards for as long as you control the same Mind-Eater that exiled them.
Stensia Masquerade: I can't decide whether to make room for this card or not in the deck. It's a super good card that does all kinds of things we want it to do, and it has madness which is a nice bonus. I'm just unsure because it's not a vampire itself and has no impact whatsoever if you're behind, which isn't something that makes me want to play a card in multiplayer.
Stromkirk Occultist: I almost ended up including this card, but then I thought: What if it exiles Haakon or Razaketh and I lose them forever, not being able to cast them? I don't want to take that chance.
Bloodsworn Steward: Sure, this is a vampire knight with a strong body, but a 4 drop that buffs Edgar isn't something that's extremely important to us. And what's up with haste? Edgar already has haste. This card should have been a Dragon.
Driver of the Dead: I'm already very close to giving this card a try. It seems to be a very good fit for the deck.
Olivia Voldaren: More creature stealing. I don't know if that's enough to make her fit in the deck...
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Sorin Markov: I don't have them in my collection for now and that's the only reason I didn't try them. They all could fit in the deck somehow if I can find something to cut. Obviously I wouldn't include all four, but they're worth considering.
Voldaren Pariah: Madness + sacrifice might be enough to make this card fit in the deck. The transformed side can do some serious damage against some decks. It's a shame it's not "all opponents" though, otherwise it would have been an auto include. It might still be worth considering though. Madness makes it very interesting.
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter: I keep going back and forth with this one. It's cool with all the tokens we can sacrifice and it's a vampire so it seems to fit. Would it be an impactful enough reanimation target compared to Elesh Norn?
The Reveillark + Karmic Guide super-duo: Those two cards can create infinite loops due to Reveillark being able to recur the Guide + one creature everytime. By chaining the abilities and sacrificing them repeatedly, they can go infinite pretty fast. I voluntarily chose not to include them in the deck.
There are of course a lot of other Vampires I didn't mention, and that's because I didn't really consider them for this deck. Let me know if you think I'm wrong. I'm also probably forgetting about a ton of cool non-vampire creatures.
Tutors, Draw & Discard
Vampiric Tutor: I don't have one in my collection but it's certainly in my wishlist. It would be an awesome inclusion in this deck.
Call the Bloodline: This is a nice discard outlet that creates vampires, sure, but it's no Necromancer's Stockpile. Sure, the 1/1 lifelink vampire token is nice, combined to the fact that we can discard our big creatures we want in the graveyard or Haakon to create it, but I'm not sure if it's enough to make it fit in the deck...
Dark Prophecy: Could very well replace Painful Truths. We have access to some life gain in our deck via Blood Artist or Malakir Bloodwitch, so the life loss isn't such a downside. We have access to so many creatures and tokens that this card might very well end up in the deck at some point.
Reanimation Package
Kokusho, the Evening Star: More mass life drain can't be a bad thing in this deck. I also have lots of ways to sacrifice it, forcing its ability to trigger.
Iona, Shield of Emeria: Use that card as a reanimate target if you're evil. I wouldn't personally do it and the closer I can get to playing that card without feeling guilty is Void Winnower.
ReanimateThis would also be a very good card to include in this deck if I had one in my collection!
Beacon of Unrest: I'm considering to add that card to the mix because it can grab artifacts as well as cards from your opponent's graveyards like Animate Dead. An additional bonus is the reshuffle part, meaning we can grab it back immediately with Razaketh!
Removal & Utility
Ashes of the Fallen: Name "Knight" and have fun with Haakon. It's not a super cool card to draw on its own, though...
More mana ramp: Signets, Commander's Sphere, Fellwar Stone, etc.: As I said, this is the first version of the deck. I want to try it out without those cards at first and see how it does, using my reanimation cards to play my higher cost cards more easily.
Whip of Erebos: Useful card but it exiles after. The one time use makes me wary of using it in this deck.
Profane Command: This could be a good finisher with the infinite mana combo. Even without that, casting it with X=5+ and making a bunch of vampires practically unblockable and dealing lots of damage can be a very good finisher.
Infernal Offering: This costs a lot of mana but it also does lots of things we want our deck to do. It might be worth thinking about...
Pull from Eternity: That could be some sweet sweet tech against those who want to ruin your fun, i.e. those who will exile cards from your graveyard.
Proclamation of Rebirth: I have a generous amount of 1 drops in the deck, but I don't think that's enough to add this card to the deck. And it wouldn't even create extra tokens...
Boros Charm: This card is wonderful and versatile. It's so useful against nasty boardwipes. I think Teferi's Protection is enough for a first draft, but I might need to add Boros Charm as well to protect my precious Vampires.
Mistveil Plains: This land is an auto-include in any white deck I have. It's just so amazingly useful. In this deck, it could return any card from your graveyard to your hand when combined to Razaketh. The problem is I'm just not sure if I'm running enough white permanents to be able to reliably activate it when I need to, unfortunately
Cloudstone Curio: This could help me repeatedly cast cheap vampires to get tokens out really fast. However, I feel like Curio belongs more in a deck with lots of Enters the battlefield triggers to abuse, and this isn't such a deck unfortunately. I might be wrong about that, though?
Leave // Chance: This could also be an interesting way to protect our vampires from nasty boardwipes. The fact that we can cast them again is cool, and the aftermath version is costly but useful as well. Is it worth a shot instead of Boros Charm? Hmmmmhmhmmm.
Goblin Bombardment: A sac outlet that also deals lots of damage, and it can target creature. It's very useful and I could see this fitting into the deck.
Living Death: Swapping battlefield and graveyard is something I might want to try out here. It could be super good in this deck.
Waves of Aggression: This could be useful as a pseudo extra turn if we only need one more combat phase to win. It can also be entombed, which is cool.
Lands
Westvale Abbey: The fact that we're able to produce lots of tokens with this deck might make this land a very good addition to it.
From Ixalan
Bloodcrazed Paladin: Flash, 2 cost, Vampire Knight, bonus when things die: I think I'll make room in the deck for this guy!
Bishop of Rebirth: Sun Titan is an incredible card, and this is just another example of that fact. It's just not good enough unfortunately.
Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle: Is... is that it? Am I missing something or could this almost be an uncommon?
Sanctum Seeker: Another card that I'll definitely need to playtest. The fact that it hits every opponent is very, very interesting. And it's a knight!
Call to the Feast: Also cool effect, and also probably not good enough. Lingering Souls would just be better and the tokens aren't even vampires.
Vona, Butcher of Magan: Now this is definitely an interesting piece of cardboard. It's worth testing at least, the ability to deal with any permanent is super interesting. And it's a knight. 7 life isn't small though, especially in a deck that already runs Razaketh.
Legion's Landing: I think I'll find room for this card in this deck. It's a 1 drop vampire + a ramp spell that gives you an incredibly good land. The transform condition hard at all to fulfill in this deck.
Vanquisher's Banner: This adds infinite draw to the combo. It's also just a very good ability in general. Still, I'm not sure I need another anthem effect in the deck and I have lots of ways to search for the cards I need. I don't think this will make the cut.
Deathless Ancient: Maybe there is something to do with him I haven't seen yet due to all our discad outlets.
He could be our own vampiric Squee, maybe? The interaction with Tortured Existence is also very interesting...
Asylum Visitor: This just does not enough. It was one of the most useless vampires.
Cathartic Reunion: Discarding two cards, just too much. Nahiri does a better job at filtering.
Sire of Insanity: Not fun enough. Discarding my own hand isn't worth ruining everyone's enjoyment of Magic.
Sangromancer: Not impactful enough. Sure, given the right circumstances it can gain me a bunch of life, but more often than not it's just a 3/3 flying for 4.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier: Razaketh is just better in this deck, and I already have lots of other tutor effects to compensate for losing Sidisi.
Butcher of Malakir: Grave Pact with a body, and a vampire body. It costs a lot though, and for that price, we'd rather have Razaketh or Elesh Norn.
Sun Titan: Has been replaced by Beacon of Unrest. Our usual reanimation targets are larger, and he fact that it reshuffles itself in the deck is really cool with tutors.
Dusk // Dawn: Not hitting small dudes is a big deal and isn't worth the possible reanimation of our own. It got cut in favor of more specific removal, Hide // Seek.
Guul Draz Assassin: I never spent mana to level up this guy, I always had something better to do. It was only useful because it was a 1 drop, not because of what it did.
Mathas, Fiend Seeker: I disliked the fact that the card draw was delayed and that it also gave cards to your opponents.
Pawn of Ulamog: It had something to do with sacrifice, but I disliked the fact that it didn't produce vampires. Also, one of our sac engines already produces mana, so I don't feel so bad cutting this vampire.
Playing the Deck
Note: Content will eventually be added to this section as I playtest the deck more.
Card Synergies & Interactions
The Infinite Combo
+ +
Note: It's also possible to follow the same steps with Oathsworn Vampire instead of Bold Impaler. It doesn't produce infinite mana or infinite tokens, but it still works with Blood Artist for infinite death triggers, and can still win through infinite life drain with it or Malakir Bloodwitch.
One of this deck's ways to win is an infinite combo. I haven't seen an Edgar list with that particular combo in it yet, so let's see how it works.
1. Have Haakon, Bold Impaler and Phyrexian Altar in play. 2. Sacrifice Bold Impaler to the Altar to add R to your mana pool. 3. Spend that mana to cast the Impaler back from your graveyard. You can do that due to Haakon's ability, because the Impaler is a Knight. 4. When you cast the Impaler from your graveyard, Edgar's Eminince ability triggers, creating a token. 5. Keep sacrificing and recasting the Impaler until you have infinite tokens, which can also be sacrificed to generate infinite mana of any color with the Altar.
From there, you can probably find a way to win with the other cards in the deck, the simplest way being the Combo + [Blood Artist, Tithe Drinker or Malakir Bloodwitch], resulting in infinite life drain. The combo + Skullclamp also draws the whole deck.
I'm also considering to add Anger to the deck, so that a single Buried Alive can find it with Haakon and the Impaler. From there, we can combo and attack with our thirteen quadrillion tokens right away instead of waiting for an opponent to massacre them all.
This combo is hard to assemble, and it is intended that way. I don't like it when it's too easy. My playgroup dislikes infinite combos when they are ridiculously easy to assemble, but they can get to respect them when it takes some work and they can be prevented/interacted with (in this case, with graveyard hate or instant speed removal of the altar.
Haakon's Changelings
+ or
Haakon combined with a Changeling removal spell makes it repeatable. Since they have every creature type and Haakon allows you to cast Knights from your graveyard, you can cast one of those spells, let it resolve and return to the graveyard, then cast it again for as long as you have mana. Edgar's Eminence ability will also trigger every time, giving you a token, because those spells are also Vampires! V-A-L-U-E. This Crib Swap + Haakon duo is very well known to my playgroup since I first presented it to them in my casual Knights deck as soon as Lorwyn was released, and I'm proud of having thought of it on my own back when I didn't spend as much time on the internet
Each time I remove and add new cards to the deck list posted in the original post, I'll list them here as well as in a new post in the thread. If the changes aren't explained here, they probably will be in the post.
In
+ Beacon of Unrest: Another reanimation spell that can be re-tutored for if needed.
+ Falkenrath Noble: Our second Blood Artist. It's there until I buy a Bloodghast.
+ Pawn of Ulamog: Replaces Commander's Sphere as a "ramp" source. Will likely be replaced with Legion's Landing when Ixalan is released, but maybe not.
+ Voldaren Pariah: Time to give this creature a try, I feel like it has a lot of potential in this deck.
+ Urabrask, the Hidden: Still waiting to get an Anger, which would be very good for this deck. In the meantime, have a nice Praetor.
+ Hide // Seek: Versatile removal for annoying noncreatures on the board or combo pieces in the deck. I feel like this could be very useful and I'll give it a try before putting in a Damnation to replace Dusk // Dawn.
Out
- Urabrask the Hidden (After thinking about it, that card doesn't feel right for this deck. I drew some sample hands and did some testing and I was never happy drawing that card.)
- Syphon Mind (4 mana for varying card draw isn't something I like that much. I might regret this but for now I'd like to give the Necro and Changeling interaction a try.)
Playtesting reports are detailed summaries of games I've played with the deck along with cards that performed well, cards that performed poorly and cards that are on my watchlist. I will post them in this thread when I feel like it, probably not every week.
I, too, am working on building an Edgar deck. I love Vampires, and I was delighted to get a Mardu option for them in the last Commander set. Edgar is great, and I have enjoyed him every time I played. I think your list looks fun, too, especially if you don't mind the out of tribe interactions. I am quite taken with Haakon, and I was thinking of adding him to a Knight tribal deck with the new Vona from Ixalan.
What other Ixalan cards are you considering, aside from Legion's Landing?
I feel like the difficulty of setting up the cards in your combo is just.... a little bit unreasonable. Here are my issues with this plan:
This combo needs 3 specific cards. That's not the end of the world but one of these cards needs to make its way to the graveyard as well and a second piece can be played from graveyard. To me, this combo REQUIRES Buried Alive especially if you add Anger to let you win on the spot. This means that essentially you need cast two tutors and then Buried Alive and then you need to execute the combo. That's a lot of mana even if you spread it over two turns. Its possible to play this combo without Buried Alive but it requires you to acquire 3 cards then and still get Haakon to grave.
This combo does not currently win you the game on the spot if you execute it. If you are going to continue to run this please add Anger.
I feel like Haakon feels terribly out of place outside of the specific combo. I looked over your list and while I agree that Nameless Inversion and Crib Swap with Haakon are super spicy, you only have 3 other vamps of which I really feel only Mirror Entity is really all that good if you were not running Haakon. You have this big discard setup which I feel is kind of there because Haakon is in your list and I just dont see Haakon being all that good if you cant execute the combo.
All in all, I feel like you have really forced your list to try to push this combo that I dont even see as being all that powerful. It takes too many cards that are difficult to acquire together and the time to tutor for them is also going to be a liability. Even if you assemble the combo its still vulnerable to creature or artifact spot removal to stall you out. I just feel like you put all of this focus into this one combo that just doesnt feel like its going to be efficient enough to justify running it over just running like.... a stronger tribal deck.
I think its cool that you are trying to think up a new combo using the new commander but as it stands, its just too many parts and the parts are too hard to get together at the same time in the correct way. The best combos use as few pieces as possible and are as hard to remove as possible and it feels to me like you build a list around this combo but the combo is just a little too wonky if you ask me. The best combos need very little support and leave the deck to function well if it goes wrong. I feel like this combo is vulnerable to a ton of types of disruption and the deck feels like its been adjusted to enable it in a way I don't really feel makes for a great deck outside of the combo.
Sorry to be blunt. I just thought I would sum up some issues I see.
Private Mod Note
():
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, too, am working on building an Edgar deck. I love Vampires, and I was delighted to get a Mardu option for them in the last Commander set. Edgar is great, and I have enjoyed him every time I played. I think your list looks fun, too, especially if you don't mind the out of tribe interactions. I am quite taken with Haakon, and I was thinking of adding him to a Knight tribal deck with the new Vona from Ixalan.
What other Ixalan cards are you considering, aside from Legion's Landing?
Thanks for the comment!
The other Ixalan cards I'm considering are mainly Bloodcrazed Paladin and Sanctum Seeker. Both of those are Vampire Knights, which is great, and work well with the gameplan I have for this deck.
Maybe also Deathless Ancient, but I'm not so sure about this one. I'd have to find some way of abusing his recurring ability with card like Call the Bloodline, maybe?
I feel like the difficulty of setting up the cards in your combo is just.... a little bit unreasonable. Here are my issues with this plan:
This combo needs 3 specific cards. That's not the end of the world but one of these cards needs to make its way to the graveyard as well and a second piece can be played from graveyard. To me, this combo REQUIRES Buried Alive especially if you add Anger to let you win on the spot. This means that essentially you need cast two tutors and then Buried Alive and then you need to execute the combo. That's a lot of mana even if you spread it over two turns. Its possible to play this combo without Buried Alive but it requires you to acquire 3 cards then and still get Haakon to grave.
This combo does not currently win you the game on the spot if you execute it. If you are going to continue to run this please add Anger.
I feel like Haakon feels terribly out of place outside of the specific combo. I looked over your list and while I agree that Nameless Inversion and Crib Swap with Haakon are super spicy, you only have 3 other vamps of which I really feel only Mirror Entity is really all that good if you were not running Haakon. You have this big discard setup which I feel is kind of there because Haakon is in your list and I just dont see Haakon being all that good if you cant execute the combo.
All in all, I feel like you have really forced your list to try to push this combo that I dont even see as being all that powerful. It takes too many cards that are difficult to acquire together and the time to tutor for them is also going to be a liability. Even if you assemble the combo its still vulnerable to creature or artifact spot removal to stall you out. I just feel like you put all of this focus into this one combo that just doesnt feel like its going to be efficient enough to justify running it over just running like.... a stronger tribal deck.
I think its cool that you are trying to think up a new combo using the new commander but as it stands, its just too many parts and the parts are too hard to get together at the same time in the correct way. The best combos use as few pieces as possible and are as hard to remove as possible and it feels to me like you build a list around this combo but the combo is just a little too wonky if you ask me. The best combos need very little support and leave the deck to function well if it goes wrong. I feel like this combo is vulnerable to a ton of types of disruption and the deck feels like its been adjusted to enable it in a way I don't really feel makes for a great deck outside of the combo.
Sorry to be blunt. I just thought I would sum up some issues I see.
Hi and thanks for taking the time to write this!
As I said in the original post, the infinite combo is hard to assemble on purpose. I'm up for the challenge here and will do what it takes to make it work at least once. The deck hasn't been playtested enough for me to really say how it performs yet, but I'll definitely keep your criticism in mind while I do and see if it's indeed too hard to achieve.
One thing you didn't take into consideration though is Razaketh. Having this guy in play, only if it's with like 2-3 other vampires, it amazingly efficient to get me the cards I need. Of course, he doesn't solve all of the other very real problems you're mentioning, but I think it's worth pointing him out.
About Haakon: I actually put him in the list after taking a second look and seeing how many discard outlets and graveyard tutors I have in the deck. The added synergy he adds is just something I like very, very much and I feel like I'm not done exploring the possibilities. Just yesterday I realized I can cast New Blood on my own Haakon to be able to cast all my vampires from my graveyard, which is very unlikely to happen but also very interesting.
About the deck feeling as if I'm pushing the combo too much: I think this is because I haven't played with the deck that much yet. Oh, and adding Anger to the list to make it work better is definitely something worth trying, glad you think so too. I disagree about the deck not being great outside the combo, but that's something playtesting will tell I guess.
I also don't want this to be a straight up tribal deck because I don't think vampires have what it takes yet to make for an interesting multiplayer tribal deck, even with Edgar as their commander. They have been taken in too many mechanical directions depending on which plane they're from (life drain? discard? tokens + sacrifice?). For this deck, I decided to focus on both the discard and sacrifice elements because they have one thing in common: graveyard synergy. From there, I added Haakon, the combo, more discard outlets and Razaketh. I hope this clarifies what I have in mind for how the deck is going to play out.
Anyway, thanks for the great feedback. It's okay to be blunt when it's constructive. I'm supposed to be playing tomorrow, so I'll let you know how it went and what I can change to improve the deck!
Sounds good. I just got my own list up and intend to try to play it tonight. I went with kind of an ETB / Death based creatures plan with mine using things like Purphoros, God of the Forge / Blood Artist / Goblin Bombardment and going wide. Mine is kind of a swarm / anthem build but accepting that people will probably wrath me and trying to make the most of that.
Goblin Bombardment: Really good card I hadn't considered. I think I'll add it to my "to be playtested" list. I feel like even in a deck with less creatures such as mine, it could be a really cool card to try out.
Tithe Drinker: You're probably right, this card is there because of my fondness for the Extort mechanic. An almost strictly better Child of Night is a very sweet card but, but maybe it's not good enough. Note that it's also a way to win with my combo though, since I get infinite mana and infinite casts of Bold Impaler, meaning infinite extort as well.
Guul Draz Assassin: I want to test this card before cutting it. I have absolutely no idea how it's going to play because I never used the level up mechanic before, hehe. If I replace it, it's going to be either for Falkenrath Aristocrat or Drana.
I'm also super weary of people wrathing me all the time, which is why I run Dusk // Dawn as a recursion card for my small vampires and Teferi's Protection. Boros Charm might end up here as well for additional protection. Blood Artist and Falkenrath Aristocrat are also super good against wraths, especially in multiplayer, because of how many life you can drain if a lot of creature die at the same time.
My issue with the protection plan is a few things:
You have to draw these cards and then sit and wait with them.
You have to keep the mana up to cast them not knowing when you might need them.
A deck like this needs to keep moving forward. Drawing a defensive card that may be helpful in the next few turns is awkward sometimes. If you dont have enough pressure to kill someone / force a wrath in the next few turns thats like having a dead draw.
I do play some wrath protection in my Abzan deck but that deck has a lot more draw and ramp to it. If you are not pushing draw and ramp it can be troublesome to keep protection up not to mention the discussion of how long that card is going to sit in your hand and you are going to allocate that mana for the protection. Its something to keep in mind at least. In some ways rez can be chalked up to the same discussion especially mass rez (which I am running some of).
Private Mod Note
():
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 really like that you've made the madness mechanic do some work for you, it's a solid idea, likewise with changeling. Have been looking for areas to take Edgar into myself, and I may have to take some inspiration.
Really don't have much to add otherwise, but will definitely keep an eye on how this deck develops.
My issue with the protection plan is a few things:
You have to draw these cards and then sit and wait with them.
You have to keep the mana up to cast them not knowing when you might need them.
A deck like this needs to keep moving forward. Drawing a defensive card that may be helpful in the next few turns is awkward sometimes. If you dont have enough pressure to kill someone / force a wrath in the next few turns thats like having a dead draw.
I do play some wrath protection in my Abzan deck but that deck has a lot more draw and ramp to it. If you are not pushing draw and ramp it can be troublesome to keep protection up not to mention the discussion of how long that card is going to sit in your hand and you are going to allocate that mana for the protection. Its something to keep in mind at least. In some ways rez can be chalked up to the same discussion especially mass rez (which I am running some of).
Yeah, I have the same problems with protection spells. In the case of Dusk // Dawn at least I can also use it as a wrath. As of Teferi's Protection, I don't see any reason why not to run that card. It does everything and I think you're pretty much assured to have a good use for it when it's in your hand. In my case for example, I can set up half of the combo, phase out my board and win next turn.
I really like that you've made the madness mechanic do some work for you, it's a solid idea, likewise with changeling. Have been looking for areas to take Edgar into myself, and I may have to take some inspiration.
Really don't have much to add otherwise, but will definitely keep an eye on how this deck develops.
Thanks for the comment, glad you like the list! My goal was to create something that looks as interesting as it's fun to play. As I said in a previous post, I didn't go into the lifegain theme some vampires share because I think discard/sacrifice have more potential when played together because they share a common theme, which is the graveyard. It also explains the relevance of the reanimate subtheme of the deck.
I'm going to play the deck for the first time as the version listed in the original post tomorrow, and I'll do a follow-up within the next few days. I hope it will help me figure out which card(s) to cut and which card I want to try next.
Thanks for the comment, glad you like the list! My goal was to create something that looks as interesting as it's fun to play. As I said in a previous post, I didn't go into the lifegain theme some vampires share because I think discard/sacrifice have more potential when played together because they share a common theme, which is the graveyard. It also explains the relevance of the reanimate subtheme of the deck.
I'm going to play the deck for the first time as the version listed in the original post tomorrow, and I'll do a follow-up within the next few days. I hope it will help me figure out which card(s) to cut and which card I want to try next.
So, tonight I got to play with this version of the deck for the first time, two very interesting and fun games. I don't know if I will do reports like this every time because it's quite long to write, but this time I'll do it because I have time!
Preliminary note: When I say "this version of the deck", note that three changes have been made from the original list due to me not having the cards yet:
I got an interesting start in this game with Skullclamp in my opening hand. However, I could only draw two cards from it and cheap vampires before the Wanderer player destroyed it with Acidic Slime. While everyone was starting to consolidate their position on the board, the Ur-Dragon player and the Wanderer player were starting to have huge armies of gigantic creatures. Since they were the most threatening, nobody paid much attention to me and I was able to assemble my combo in one turn with Buried Alive searching for Haakon, Bold Impaler and Malakir Bloodwitch after I topdecked Phyrexian Altar. I had Animate Dead in hand, so I animated the bloodwitch after creating ten gazilion tokens. I took them all by surprise and won that game while way behind on board. I know this is very unlikely to happen in the future though, because I had the element of surprise then. Now they will know what to expect and I won't be able to combo off by surprise like this so easily.
That game started very well for the Selvala and Momir Vig players. While the first was able to ramp really fast, the second got a Trygon Predator out very early and proceeded to destroy two of the Mairsil Player's mana rocks and my Skullclamp, which I had previously Demonic Tutored for early card draw. The Mairsil player was left with only 4 lands for a very long part of the game, making him pretty much useless for as long as it lasted. The Selvala player then proceeded to vomit some huge threats. One of those threats was Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, who exiled two of Momir Vig's permanents on cast (I don't remember which ones but it crippled him a lot). I tried my best to lookthroughmy deck for Swords to Plowshares or Crib Swap to prevent the indestructible Ulamog to swing me, but I failed. So I build a small board of vampires to block since I knew the attack was coming my way. I had previously cast a Malakir Bloodwitch, so I had lots of life anyway. The Selvala player managed to swing me twice with Ulamog nonetheless, exiling 40 cards from my deck, including Phyrexian Altar and Haakon. I had no chance of winning that game through my combo anymore, so I started building a small army of vampires and I even cast the patriarch, Edgar himself, making them grow bigger over a few turns. We had forgotten about the Mairsil player though, who had managed to cage Tree of Perdition. He could put any player to 4 life in response because Mairsil had haste due to Anger being in his graveyard. I attacked the Selvala with my Bloodwitch and Mairsil swaped his toughness to his life total, lowering it to 4. The attack would have killed him if he hadn't turned his Blinkmoth Nexus we had all forgotten about into a blocker, saving his life. He sought revenge against the Mairsil player after, forgetting about the growing threat of my counltless vampires among which were Kalastria Highborn and Falkenrath Aristocrat. The Mairsil player died under the Selvala player's attack next turn, and I had a big enough army to finish off the two others in one swing. I don't think I would have won if the Mairsil player and the Selvala player didn't start this little war among themselves. Ah, the joy of multiplayer games
Card analysis and commentary
Cards that performed surprisingly well:
Those are cards I didn't expect to be as good or fun as they turned out to be.
Stromkirk Condemned: I didn't expect that card to be as interesting as it was. The threat of giving 4-5 vampires +1/+1 by discarding a huge reanimation target was very real, and it even messed with the Ur-Dragon player when he tried to kill the condemned with only 2 damage of Dragonlord Atarka.
Wheel of Fortune: I only included this in the deck because I had one lying around in my binder, but it turned out to be a very, very good addition to the deck. I don't see any downside to that card because the fact that it makes the opponents discard their hands is a big deal. I made the Wanderer player discard a Blatant Thievery he was about to cast next turn, stealing The Ur-Dragon and my only untapped blocker...
Bloodline Keeper: Turns out a +2/+2 anthem that pops a 4/4 flyer every turn is really good. Who could have guessed?
Olivia, Mobilized for War: The fact that she's a knight that's also a discard outlet is a big deal. It means my Buried Alive can also make me discard the big guy I want to reanimate later.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: This guy is a real threat as soon as he hits the board. Any opponent will not be wary of wrath effects because it could give me a lot of zombie tokens. I really liked this guy.
Cards that performed poorly:
Those cards will definitely be removed from the deck, they simply don't belong. Sometimes you can spend hours creating a deck, but only playtesting it can tell.
Dusk // Dawn: Not being able to wrath my opponent's small dudes is a big deal. I think I'll replace that card with Damnation or Decree of Pain.
Butcher of Malakir: I don't think I'll ever want to spend a reanimate spell on that. I know it's a vampire and the effect can be kind of cool in this deck, but it's not cool enough.
Bloodline Necromancer: I really like this card and I wish it would fit into this deck, but it doesn't. The cards I want to bring from my graveyard to the battlefield aren't my vampires, it's my huge reanimate targets such as Razaketh or Void Winnower.
Cards on my "potentially-to-be-removed" watchlist:
I won't remove those cards from the deck just yet, but those are the cards I wasn't super happy to draw or that I chose not to play when I had the chance to in order to play something that was "better" in the circumstances.
Mathas, Fiend Seeker: Card draw is cool, but it's less cool when it's not immediate and also benefits your opponents. It's also anti-synergistic with Kalitas... but I didn't get to actually cast it so I want to at least give him a chance.
Tortured Existence: I just didn't like having it in my hand. I ended up discarding it to Tormenting Voice. It might be because I didn't have good cards to discard or not enough cards in my graveyard. I still believe it could be useful, so I'll keep it in the deck for the next few games.
Patron of the Vein: 6 mana is a lot to exile a creature, but this guy also pumps the whole team, so I want to give him a chance to shine. And the art is so cool.
Syphon Mind: I didn't get to play that card, but I got to play Painful Truths. Drawing three cards for three mana was fun, but I feel like drawing three cards for 4 might be a little too much mana... and it varies depending of the number of opponents. I want to play it at least once before cutting it, but I'm pretty sure it will end up removed.
Guul Draz Assassin: I got to play that card and I didn't want to spend mana to level it up. It was just not worth it. Maybe it was because of the stage of the game where I finally got to play him though, which was pretty late. I'll give him one last chance to redeem himself but I feel like I'll have to remove him from the deck.
Additional notes
I really enjoyed those games and I think they both helped giving me a better idea of how to pilot this deck and how it works. Of course, I'll have to play it a lot more than that, but it's a really good start. The fact that the combo can come out of nowhere due to Buried Alive or a well placed tutor to find the missing piece is really neat. What I also liked is that I got to win the second game without even being able to cast my combo. One other thing:
I noticed that this deck can both have a strong board presence early on while keeping the search for combo pieces / protection / removal very active through filtering, tutors and draw. I felt like I was playing two games at once, and I really enjoyed that.
What I might need to work on is the "toolbox" aspect of my answers. Since I have lots of tutors and my combo can't be assembled by only one of them, sometimes I need to buy myself some time in order to survive long enough to either assemble it or have a large army and swing for the win. This is why I might need to add cards such as darkness to keep me alive. Also, while Bojuka Bog is great as graveyard hate, I feel like I might need at least one more graveyard hate card since graveyard synergies are very well known in my playgroup. Maybe Crypt Incursion?
Conclusion
I will update the original post with a link to this post and I'll spend the next few days searching for cards to replace those I need to remove. In the meantime, I'm still opened to any suggestion on how to improve the deck!
In
+ Beacon of Unrest: Another reanimation spell that can be re-tutored for if needed.
+ Falkenrath Noble: Our second Blood Artist. It's there until I buy a Bloodghast.
+ Pawn of Ulamog: Replaces Commander's Sphere as a "ramp" source. Will likely be replaced with Legion's Landing when Ixalan is released, but maybe not.
+ Voldaren Pariah: Time to give this creature a try, I feel like it has a lot of potential in this deck.
+ Urabrask, the Hidden: Still waiting to get an Anger, which would be very good for this deck. In the meantime, have a nice Praetor.
+ Hide // Seek: Versatile removal for annoying noncreatures on the board or combo pieces in the deck. I feel like this could be very useful and I'll give it a try before putting in a Damnation to replace Dusk // Dawn.
I've been giving this a little more thought, and before tomorrow's games I included the interaction I mentioned in the previous post. I'll be giving Bloodline Necromancer a second chance, alongside Changeling Berserker. Which means:
Out
- Urabrask the Hidden (After thinking about it, that card doesn't feel right for this deck. I drew some sample hands and did some testing and I was never happy drawing that card.)
- Syphon Mind (4 mana for varying card draw isn't something I like that much. I might regret this but for now I'd like to give the Necro and Changeling interaction a try.)
This game hasn't been great. I have been able to drop a few vampires early, but the Mairsil player used Toxic Deluge to wipe them all really quickly. I then had poor draws and my hand was only reanimation spells and noncreatures, making me pretty much useless for the rest of the game. The Inalla player ended up winning with Anathemancer, one shoting the Mairsil player, then dropping a Wanderwine Prophets on a board with no blockers. So, for me, this hasn't been a good game. Those happen!
On the other hand, this has been my best and most interesting game with the deck yet. My opening hand was phenomenal: 2 lands, Entomb, Animate Dead, Insolent Neonate, Guul Draz Assassin and one other card I don't remember. The first turns went like this:
1. Land, Insolent Neonate (+ Edgar's token).
2. Land, Guul Draz Assasin (+Edgar's token). I EntombedRazaketh before end of turn.
3. Cast Animate Dead on Razaketh.
From there, I pretty much had everything I wanted the moment I wanted it and I managed to win with my Haakon + Bold Impaler + Phyrexian Altar (+ Blood Artist) combo. I knew the Inalla player had a counterspell in hand so I had to use Wheel of Fortune before to get rid of it. Then I won the game with the combo.
Card analysis and commentary
Cards that performed surprisingly well:
Those are cards I didn't expect to be as good or fun as they turned out to be.
Razaketh, the Foulblooded: This card was simply amazing. As soon as it hit the field and I had 2-3 vampires out, I could have everything I needed in hand as soon as I needed it. The most interesting thing is that as long as I had mana opened, it was as if I had every single of my deck's answers in my hand!
Insolent Neonate: I used it in both games to discard something I really needed in my graveyard such as Haakon.
Voldaren Pariah: So, I didn't end up casting it in game two but the madness cost of 3 and the fact I could cast it at instant speed (discard to the Neonate) and transform it by sacrificing three tokens is really useful. I'm really looking forward to play with that card more!
Entomb: Having this in the opening hand (especially with Animate Dead) is so useful.
Crib Swap: It costs 3, but it exiles, gives me a token and is re-castable with Haakon. I've played with those cards together in the past, and they still didn't fail me in this deck!
Cards that performed poorly:
Those cards will definitely be removed from the deck, they simply don't belong. Only two cards this week.
Guul Draz Assassin: In four games, I got to cast this guy three times and I never "wasted" mana into its level up ability. It's cool in theory, but in practice it gets overshadowed by every other 1 drop in the deck. This is what I think I'll cut for Legion's Landing.
Mathas, Fiend Seeker: I don't feel like I'll ever be super interested in casting this guy. The fact that the draw isn't immediate bothers me a lot, AND it helps opponents as well... I'll probably replace it with another of the Ixalan vampires I want to try (Bloodcrazed Paladin and Sanctum Seeker).
Cards on my "potentially-to-be-removed" watchlist:
I won't remove those cards from the deck just yet, but those are the cards I wasn't super happy to draw or that I chose not to play when I had the chance to in order to play something that was "better" in the circumstances.
Vampire Nighthawk: I don't know why, I just feel "meh" when I have this vampire in my hand. It's not as impactful as Captivating Vampire, or as fitting with out strategy as Stromkirk Condemned. It's just there because it's a "good vampire", not because it fits in the deck per se.
Hide // Seek: I know I just added that card so it's why I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. I just feel like I want this deck to be more proactive than reactive, so having that kind of answer might not be what I really want. I'd still like to cast it at least once though.
New Blood: I know I was super excited about this card but this week I got stuck with it in hand and no vampires on the board and I felt that maybe it was a bit win more... I'll still give it more time to shine, maybe.
Victimize: Same as New Blood, I got stuck witht his in hand with no creatures on the board and it really wasn't super interesting.
Additional notes
I feel like this week's two games were at the two extremes: during the first one I didn't do much and felt kind of powerless all along, and during the second one I had the perfect opening hand and had the chance to witness Razaketh's power in this deck. I had so much fun during that game.
The people of my playgroup might not have enjoyed watching me search through my deck like this all the time though. They said they didn't have as much fun during that game as they did during the other games (we had other games during which I player my other decks, plus the first game with that deck).
Other note: That second game made me realize that Razaketh makes this deck a lot more consistent as it might look. I have been worried about the following comment from earlier:
All in all, I feel like you have really forced your list to try to push this combo that I dont even see as being all that powerful. It takes too many cards that are difficult to acquire together and the time to tutor for them is also going to be a liability. Even if you assemble the combo its still vulnerable to creature or artifact spot removal to stall you out. I just feel like you put all of this focus into this one combo that just doesnt feel like its going to be efficient enough to justify running it over just running like.... a stronger tribal deck.
I think its cool that you are trying to think up a new combo using the new commander but as it stands, its just too many parts and the parts are too hard to get together at the same time in the correct way. The best combos use as few pieces as possible and are as hard to remove as possible and it feels to me like you build a list around this combo but the combo is just a little too wonky if you ask me. The best combos need very little support and leave the deck to function well if it goes wrong. I feel like this combo is vulnerable to a ton of types of disruption and the deck feels like its been adjusted to enable it in a way I don't really feel makes for a great deck outside of the combo.
So, the combo being vulnerable to removal is intentional because unanswerable / super strong combos are frowned upon in my playgroup.
However, the fact that the combo has that many parts isn't that much of a problem. Like I said in a previous post, it's as if I'm playing two different games at the same time with this deck: I build an early board presence with cheap Vampires while I'm also trying to assemble the right tools to get a worthy reanimation target out through filtering, draws and tutors.
While I really enjoy this "duality" of goals, I know it might feel like a turn off to some people who would rather have one goal to entirely focus on, especially in a deck that has an infinite combo in it.
Conclusion
So, those games were both insightful in their own way, and comparing them has been very helpful for me to see the direction I want to take this deck in. I'd like to work on the "two game plans at once" idea I got to experience during those four games. The games I've played so far have all been very interesting and I'm looking forward to test the deck more.
Its cool to see your insight on Razaketh, the Foulblooded. I considered adding it a few times but I don't really have any single target reanimator to my deck so I kept not doing it because in my list it would be me casting him for full cost which felt slow to me. Pawn of Ulamog has been doing good for me but I care more about just bodies moving through play than your list does so I can see it being less good for you.
Vampire Nighthawk - I cam to the consensus myself that it wasnt a very good attacker. If you find yourself attacked by big flying creatures by other aggro decks its not half bad but I also felt that it was a little too situational when I was going to like it. I haven't run the card myself due to that.
New Blood - you could try out Recruiter of the Guard / Imperial Recruiter possibly as a tutor for Captivating Vampire or whatever else you need. I recently put in both Recruiter cards in an attempt to be a little more flexible as well as get some of my higher priority targets to hand. They are cheapish to cast and for my deck at least it gives another ETB / Death I can push through other things. I can see them possibly being a little stronger for me since bodies all matter in some way but I still think considering them could possibly be worthwile for you.
As for the new cards:
Legion's Landing - I honestly am just completely underwhelmed by this card. Getting a single 1/1 for W isnt very good when any one drop vamp does that. I also don't think I am ever going to be excited to pay 4 mana to get a token in an aggro deck. Even though it fits the theme.... I just dont see a situation I am ever happy with this card (possibly like if I run out of draw but then why don't I put draw in instead of this card and thats kind of what I did). I guess as sort of a land ramp that gives you an on theme token its ok but I have really almost given up on this card entirely.
Sanctum Seeker - It has been..... really really good for me so far. I went through my list of vampires and tried grading them into three categories of how satisfied I was with them and this was one of the 9 vamps I put in my highest tier. Being that I am kind of focused on some life syphoning though it makes a little more sense for me as well but I just thought I would say I have really appreciated the fact that it takes a life from each opponent per attack.
Bloodcrazed Paladin - I get testing new cards but if you want a big vamp why not Taurean Mauler instead? This vamp reminds me of like... Boros Charm with a worse outcome. I guess it has the redeeming value that its a knight and you have a knights matter subtheme but I still find it a little underwhelming. Taurean Mauler is also a knight for what its worth.
Its cool to see your insight on Razaketh, the Foulblooded. I considered adding it a few times but I don't really have any single target reanimator to my deck so I kept not doing it because in my list it would be me casting him for full cost which felt slow to me. Pawn of Ulamog has been doing good for me but I care more about just bodies moving through play than your list does so I can see it being less good for you.
Vampire Nighthawk - I cam to the consensus myself that it wasnt a very good attacker. If you find yourself attacked by big flying creatures by other aggro decks its not half bad but I also felt that it was a little too situational when I was going to like it. I haven't run the card myself due to that.
New Blood - you could try out Recruiter of the Guard / Imperial Recruiter possibly as a tutor for Captivating Vampire or whatever else you need. I recently put in both Recruiter cards in an attempt to be a little more flexible as well as get some of my higher priority targets to hand. They are cheapish to cast and for my deck at least it gives another ETB / Death I can push through other things. I can see them possibly being a little stronger for me since bodies all matter in some way but I still think considering them could possibly be worthwile for you.
As for the new cards:
Legion's Landing - I honestly am just completely underwhelmed by this card. Getting a single 1/1 for W isnt very good when any one drop vamp does that. I also don't think I am ever going to be excited to pay 4 mana to get a token in an aggro deck. Even though it fits the theme.... I just dont see a situation I am ever happy with this card (possibly like if I run out of draw but then why don't I put draw in instead of this card and thats kind of what I did). I guess as sort of a land ramp that gives you an on theme token its ok but I have really almost given up on this card entirely.
Sanctum Seeker - It has been..... really really good for me so far. I went through my list of vampires and tried grading them into three categories of how satisfied I was with them and this was one of the 9 vamps I put in my highest tier. Being that I am kind of focused on some life syphoning though it makes a little more sense for me as well but I just thought I would say I have really appreciated the fact that it takes a life from each opponent per attack.
Bloodcrazed Paladin - I get testing new cards but if you want a big vamp why not Taurean Mauler instead? This vamp reminds me of like... Boros Charm with a worse outcome. I guess it has the redeeming value that its a knight and you have a knights matter subtheme but I still find it a little underwhelming. Taurean Mauler is also a knight for what its worth.
Always nice to read your comments!
Nighthawk - I think this is the vampire I'll change for Bloodghast when I get a copy instead of Falkenrath Noble, because a second Blood Artist is very very useful in this list.
The Recruiters - I alreay run lots of tutors in this deck. I looked at your list and I definitely see them being useful there, but I don't feel the need of including them in mine yet. The next tutor I'll include will probably be Enlightened Tutor because I have one waiting o be played in my binder and I don't have a Vampiric Tutor yet.
I also want to keep New Blood in for now. It hasn't been as good as I hoped, but I still want to give it a chance.
Legion's Landing - I still feel pretty confident about that card usefulness, if only as cheap ramp. I need some in the deck and I think it fits nicely there. I might be wrong though, I didn't get to play with it yet.
Sanctum Seeker - Glad it worked well for you! I really think it's also going to be great in this list. The fact that it's a knight is also a very good thing for my deck I'm curious though, what are your 9 highest tier vampires?
Bloodcrazed Paladin - Being a cheap vampire knight with flash is enough to make it fit in my deck I think. The +1/+1 counters thing is only a nice bonus. With Haakon + Phyrexian Altar, I can also have an infinite/infinite vampire on the field before my turn starts, which can be cool.
Bloodcrazed Paladin - Being a cheap vampire knight with flash is enough to make it fit in my deck I think. The +1/+1 counters thing is only a nice bonus. With Haakon + Phyrexian Altar, I can also have an infinite/infinite vampire on the field before my turn starts, which can be cool.
Thanks again for the feedback!
Thanks, I am coming from a very different sytle of meta and game play so I always try to take into account how others are trying to play too but I have a harder time wrapping my head around playing combo vs combo so sometimes my suggestions are bad lol.
Bloodcrazed Paladin - thats fair, I didn't think of it as a loop enabler and so I guess a Phyrexian Altar makes this guy into an infinite stat monster.
Private Mod Note
():
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.
This was a super quick game I won without the infinite combo. Here is how the first few turns went for me:
1. Land, Sol Ring
2. Land, Bloodline Keeper
3. Land, Sanctum Seeker, tap the Bloodline Keeper to create a 2/2, tap the remaining land to transform it (I had 5 vampires thanks to Edgar's eminence trigger).
4. Cast Edgar and start swigning. They didn't have any boardwipes, so I just kept creating tokens, casting cheap vampires, and stealing tons of life with Sanctum Seeker!
I have to admit that I was a bit lucky they didn't have any boardwipes as it would have slowed me way down. I did have Insolent Neonate to discard Haakon and start reanimating the Sanctum Seeker, so I wouldn't have been totally screwed.
Card analysis and commentary
Cards that performed surprisingly well:
Those are cards I didn't expect to be as good or fun as they turned out to be.
Bloodline Keeper: Again, this card has proven itself to be super powerful. I really love it. Turn 2 with Sol Ring, it's completely insane.
Sanctum Seeker: I have to say that this card was amazing, much like ISBPathfinder noticed himself. Definitely a top tier vampire for this deck when I go wide rather than using the combo to win.
Chaos Warp: Super good removal I got to use to remove a key blocker when I needed it. I love the randomness of it and it creates so much suspense.
Cards that performed poorly:
Those cards will definitely be removed from the deck, they simply don't belong. Only one card this week.
Vampire Nighthawk: Super meh 3-drop. It's okay for defense but whether we go wide, with combo or with reanimate, it's not super useful for this deck. This is the card I might end up cutting for Bloodghast instead of the much more useful Falkenrath Noble.
Cards on my "potentially-to-be-removed" watchlist:
I won't remove those cards from the deck just yet, but those are the cards I wasn't super happy to draw or that I chose not to play when I had the chance to in order to play something that was "better" in the circumstances.
Painful Truths: Good card draw, but is it good enough? I recently acquired a Dark Prophecy and I think I'll give it a try instead of this card. I'm still unsure though, because Painful Truths is 3 cards right now, while Dark Prophecy needs a sac outlet to give immediate value. I do have those in the deck though...
Conclusion
I really really liked how this game felt more like a traditional Edgar Markov game, meaning that I can indeed have multiple viable game plans to win. While I had an explosive game with a comborrific win last week, this time I went all in and flooded the board with vampires that kept getting bigger and bigger with Edgar and Bloodline Keeper.
The duality of gameplans is something I like very much about this deck, and what makes it different from other Edgar lists in my opinion.
It's worth noting that a well placed board wipe would have slowed me way way down. What's cool though is that if that happened, I still had a quick way to recover through tutors and the combo for a surprising / unexpected win. I'm really starting to like how this deck is shaping up!
Cards I still need to see in action
This is a list of cards I never got to draw or cast yet, so I need more games to figure out if they are really needed in the deck.
lol, nice win but probably a little bit of an outlier from the expected. I still have yet to see my own Bloodline Keeper but I suspect that anytime you can flip him and not get blown the hell up its probably going to be a good game.
Draw - its something I have struggled with a bit myself. I recently added Painful Truths to my list and I have been running Dark Prophecy since I got my physical list together. Dark Prophecy is currently probably my third best draw engine for the deck behind necro and skullclamp as it does kind of want a sac outlet. It has been very strong for me though. I do however see some issues with the cheap draw stuff because it can be very hard to find time to play that stuff potentially. I have yet to play a game with any of my cheap one shot draw so I cant comment really further but I do know what you mean on your concerns.
Vampire Nighthawk, New Blood, Victimize - personally I think all three of them could be cut. I think you are totally correct on Nighthawk. New Blood is going to end up being kind of a situational spot removal where you could just run a cheap spot removal instead. Victimize I like but really its a recovery tool and recovery tools always have the same problem that they don't do anything until you get blown away. If this deck was more ETB / Death focused I think I would like Victimize more but being that a lot of the vampires are more like... value from their presence in play it makes sacrificing creatures to do plays like victimize a lot worse. If instead we were playing an ETB deck and we had something like say Solemn Simulacrum and other creatures like that... you could sacrifice some of them and then Victimize to generate value rather than in this deck Victimize is almost solely a recovery from getting blown up tool.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - I know you listed this in your untested, I just wanted to point out the potential disaster potential of if she is stolen from something like a Bribery / Gilded Drake for instance. Someone played her against me which caused a loss for me recently and she has a ton of potential to murder this deck. You are combo so it might not hit you as bad but a LOT of valuable vampires just super die from this card being in play. Her potential to backfire is a lot of the reason I do not personally run her.
Private Mod Note
():
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.
Win - Yeah I agree that I won't be having quick wins like that all the time. Sol Ring was obviously the true MVP of that game.
Draw - I could cut something else for Dark Prophecy and keep Painful Truths. 3 cards for 3 is always nice and nothing says I can't have both.
Nighthawk, New Blood, Victimize - I can see Anger replacing Victimize, I think it would be much more useful here. I also just realized I never got to cast victimize even if I drew it in 2-3 games, it was just not that worth it... about New Blood, I still like that card very much even if it's slow, and I don't want to cut it yet.
Elesh Norn - I didn't think about the backfiring power and my playgroup does play some Bribery / steal effects... I'll keep a close eye on that one, thanks for the heads up. I do have some sac outlets in the deck to prevent her from being stolen though, so I guess Bribery is the true enemy here. I really want to test here though, Bloodline Keeper made me see how a global +2/+2 effect on your team can win a game.
No playtesting report this week, I only played one game with the deck and it didn't go super well, bad draws... it happens.
It had some good moments though, like when I got to use Captivating Vampire, and that was awesome.
Here are some cards I'd like to include in the deck shortly:
+ Dark Prophecy. More card draw is always welcome in a creature deck.
+ Boros Charm. There are a lot of wrath effects that run in my playgroup and I think this card would be very useful against those.
+ Maybe Archfiend of Ifnir. It discards itself to be reanimated, and I have lots of discard effects myself to benefit from its ability to wipe my opponent's creatures.
+ I could replace Elesh Norn by Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter. It doesn't have the same huge backfire potential, it's a Vampire itself so Bloodline Necromancer can reanimate it, and it's also a sac outlet and a huge lifelink/flyer creature, which can also be useful.
This is it for now, no changes but a lot of options I'm considering to improve the deck!
My playgroup plays a lot of graveyard hate (like Bojuka Bog, etc) so cards in graveyards are not safe.
Although, I am still tempted to try adding Haakon, Stromgald Scourge to my deck.
Also, I found that with a few vampire lord effects, my vampire tokens do not die when equiping Skullclamp, and require a sac outlet. And my opponents love stealing/killing my sac outlets.
I initially planned to replace Well of Lost Dreams from the pre-con, but it has drew me a lot of cards. So I really like it now.
My playgroup plays a lot of graveyard hate (like Bojuka Bog, etc) so cards in graveyards are not safe.
Although, I am still tempted to try adding Haakon, Stromgald Scourge to my deck.
Also, I found that with a few vampire lord effects, my vampire tokens do not die when equiping Skullclamp, and require a sac outlet. And my opponents love stealing/killing my sac outlets.
I initially planned to replace Well of Lost Dreams from the pre-con, but it has drew me a lot of cards. So I really like it now.
My playgroup also plays lots of graveyard hate, so I must choose wisely when I use my Buried Alive / Entomb / Discard effects in order to benefit from them before I get my cards exiled.
Haakon is one of my favorite cards, but including him requires some particular deck building choices in order to make him work and not be a dead draw, so you have to be careful about that.
Skullclamp is just too good for me not to include it, even if it gets canceled by my lord effects. It's one of the best card draw effects ever, and it goes so well with Edgar's Eminence ability.
Well of Lost Dreams: I can see it being very good in some lists that focus on lifegain more than mine does. I went more for the discard/sac effects that vampires have, rather than lifegain.
Thanks for your interest in the post
Also, I made some small changes (Original post not edited yet):
Why play this Edgar Markov list?
- You love tribal decks. Edgar is obviously meant to lead a Vampire army into battle. If you're interested in tribal synergies and shenanigans, this might be the commander for you.
- You don't want to depend too much on casting your general. Edgar's Eminence ability triggers from the command zone, meaning you can play an entire game without even needing to cast him in order to feel his majestic presence. While some decks rely on casting their general to win, this isn't one of those decks, and it's a good thing in my opinion. And when you do feel the need to cast it, there he is, with haste and first strike, buffing your entire team. What's not to like?
- You like decks that have multiple ways of winning. Edgar's ability generates tokens. This is the basis of the deck, sure, but from there we can take it in so many directions depending on our draws and our opponent's weaknesses.
- You like having fun most of all. Despite having many tutors and fileting, this isn't what I'd call a fast deck. If you don't mind long games, or accept playing combos where your opponents can interact with your deck, this might be the deck for you.
Why not to play this Edgar Markov list?1 Edgar Markov
Artifact
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
Creature
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Vampire Lacerator
1 Blood Seeker
1 Voldaren Pariah
1 Guul Draz Assassin
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Pulse Tracker
1 Blood Artist
1 Legion Lieutenant
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Forerunner of the Legion
1 Razaketh, the Foulblooded
1 Shadow Alley Denizen
1 Skymarcher Aspirant
1 Stromkirk Captain
1 Indulgent Aristocrat
1 Tithe Drinker
1 Stromkirk Condemned
1 Bold Impaler
1 Duskborne Skymarcher
1 Vicious Conquistador
1 Insolent Neonate
1 Bloodghast
1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
1 Dusk Legion Zealot
1 Champion of Dusk
1 Falkenrath Gorger
1 Patron of the Vein
1 Oathsworn Vampire
1 Captivating Vampire
1 Kalastria Highborn
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
1 Sanctum Seeker
1 Viscera Seer
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Bloodthrone Vampire
1 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
1 Heir of Falkenrath
1 Olivia's Bloodsworn
1 Necropotence
1 Legion's Landing
1 Animate Dead
1 Necromancy
1 Possibility Storm
1 Tortured Existence
Instant
1 Fire Covenant
1 Crib Swap
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Chaos Warp
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Entomb
Sorcery
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Dread Return
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Dusk // Dawn
1 Minions' Murmurs
1 Buried Alive
1 Gamble
1 New Blood
1 Faithless Looting
Land
9 Swamp
1 Luxury Suite
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Polluted Delta
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Nomad Outpost
2 Mountain
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Godless Shrine
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
1 Blood Crypt
1 Mutavault
1 Marsh Flats
1 Scrubland
1 Command Tower
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Plains
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Flooded Strand
1 Fetid Heath
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Sacred Foundry
Note: This isn't a budget list. If I end up working on this deck more, I will take time to make a budget version of this deck with replacement options.
This section is dedicated to a card-by-card overview of the deck. It's quite long, and detailed, so I put it under spoiler tags in order to keep the post cleaner and make it look shorter.
This is a list of cards that currently aren't included in the deck. Since this deck is still young, it's very possible that those cards end up in there, replacing some others that haven't performed well. They are presented in categories, but in no particular order in those categories.
Note: I'll try to keep this section up to date as I make changes to the deck and discover new cards that could be included.
Tutors, Draw & Discard
Reanimation Package
Removal & Utility
Lands
From Ixalan
Asylum Visitor: This just does not enough. It was one of the most useless vampires.Cathartic Reunion: Discarding two cards, just too much. Nahiri does a better job at filtering.Sire of Insanity: Not fun enough. Discarding my own hand isn't worth ruining everyone's enjoyment of Magic.Sangromancer: Not impactful enough. Sure, given the right circumstances it can gain me a bunch of life, but more often than not it's just a 3/3 flying for 4.Sidisi, Undead Vizier: Razaketh is just better in this deck, and I already have lots of other tutor effects to compensate for losing Sidisi.Butcher of Malakir: Grave Pact with a body, and a vampire body. It costs a lot though, and for that price, we'd rather have Razaketh or Elesh Norn.Sun Titan: Has been replaced by Beacon of Unrest. Our usual reanimation targets are larger, and he fact that it reshuffles itself in the deck is really cool with tutors.Dusk // Dawn: Not hitting small dudes is a big deal and isn't worth the possible reanimation of our own. It got cut in favor of more specific removal, Hide // Seek.Guul Draz Assassin: I never spent mana to level up this guy, I always had something better to do. It was only useful because it was a 1 drop, not because of what it did.Mathas, Fiend Seeker: I disliked the fact that the card draw was delayed and that it also gave cards to your opponents.Pawn of Ulamog: It had something to do with sacrifice, but I disliked the fact that it didn't produce vampires. Also, one of our sac engines already produces mana, so I don't feel so bad cutting this vampire.Note: Content will eventually be added to this section as I playtest the deck more.
2. Sacrifice Bold Impaler to the Altar to add R to your mana pool.
3. Spend that mana to cast the Impaler back from your graveyard. You can do that due to Haakon's ability, because the Impaler is a Knight.
4. When you cast the Impaler from your graveyard, Edgar's Eminince ability triggers, creating a token.
5. Keep sacrificing and recasting the Impaler until you have infinite tokens, which can also be sacrificed to generate infinite mana of any color with the Altar.
From there, you can probably find a way to win with the other cards in the deck, the simplest way being the Combo + [Blood Artist, Tithe Drinker or Malakir Bloodwitch], resulting in infinite life drain. The combo + Skullclamp also draws the whole deck.
I'm also considering to add Anger to the deck, so that a single Buried Alive can find it with Haakon and the Impaler. From there, we can combo and attack with our thirteen quadrillion tokens right away instead of waiting for an opponent to massacre them all.
This combo is hard to assemble, and it is intended that way. I don't like it when it's too easy. My playgroup dislikes infinite combos when they are ridiculously easy to assemble, but they can get to respect them when it takes some work and they can be prevented/interacted with (in this case, with graveyard hate or instant speed removal of the altar.
Haakon combined with a Changeling removal spell makes it repeatable. Since they have every creature type and Haakon allows you to cast Knights from your graveyard, you can cast one of those spells, let it resolve and return to the graveyard, then cast it again for as long as you have mana. Edgar's Eminence ability will also trigger every time, giving you a token, because those spells are also Vampires! V-A-L-U-E. This Crib Swap + Haakon duo is very well known to my playgroup since I first presented it to them in my casual Knights deck as soon as Lorwyn was released, and I'm proud of having thought of it on my own back when I didn't spend as much time on the internet
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
Each time I remove and add new cards to the deck list posted in the original post, I'll list them here as well as in a new post in the thread. If the changes aren't explained here, they probably will be in the post.
Out
- Asylum Visitor
- Sangromancer
- Pawn of Ulamog
- Cathartic Reunion
- Sire of Insanity
- Sidisi, Undead Vizier
In
+ Orzhov Signet
+ Rakdos Signet
+ Commander's Sphere
+ Sun Titan
+ Sword of the Animist
+ Void Winnower
- Sun Titan
- Bloodghast (This is temporary. I'll wait for Iconic Masters to be released, then I'll buy a Bloodghast.)
- Commander's Sphere (I only have one in my collection for now and it's in my Zedruu deck.)
- Dusk // Dawn
- Butcher of Malakir
- Bloodline Necromancer
In
+ Beacon of Unrest: Another reanimation spell that can be re-tutored for if needed.
+ Falkenrath Noble: Our second Blood Artist. It's there until I buy a Bloodghast.
+ Pawn of Ulamog: Replaces Commander's Sphere as a "ramp" source. Will likely be replaced with Legion's Landing when Ixalan is released, but maybe not.
+ Voldaren Pariah: Time to give this creature a try, I feel like it has a lot of potential in this deck.
+ Urabrask, the Hidden: Still waiting to get an Anger, which would be very good for this deck. In the meantime, have a nice Praetor.
+ Hide // Seek: Versatile removal for annoying noncreatures on the board or combo pieces in the deck. I feel like this could be very useful and I'll give it a try before putting in a Damnation to replace Dusk // Dawn.
- Urabrask the Hidden (After thinking about it, that card doesn't feel right for this deck. I drew some sample hands and did some testing and I was never happy drawing that card.)
- Syphon Mind (4 mana for varying card draw isn't something I like that much. I might regret this but for now I'd like to give the Necro and Changeling interaction a try.)
In
+ Bloodline Necromancer
+ Changeling Berserker
Out
- Pawn of Ulamog
- Guul Draz Assassin
- Mathas, Fiend Seeker
In
+ Legion's Landing
+ Bloodcrazed Paladin
+ Sanctum Seeker
Playtesting reports are detailed summaries of games I've played with the deck along with cards that performed well, cards that performed poorly and cards that are on my watchlist. I will post them in this thread when I feel like it, probably not every week.
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
What other Ixalan cards are you considering, aside from Legion's Landing?
All in all, I feel like you have really forced your list to try to push this combo that I dont even see as being all that powerful. It takes too many cards that are difficult to acquire together and the time to tutor for them is also going to be a liability. Even if you assemble the combo its still vulnerable to creature or artifact spot removal to stall you out. I just feel like you put all of this focus into this one combo that just doesnt feel like its going to be efficient enough to justify running it over just running like.... a stronger tribal deck.
I think its cool that you are trying to think up a new combo using the new commander but as it stands, its just too many parts and the parts are too hard to get together at the same time in the correct way. The best combos use as few pieces as possible and are as hard to remove as possible and it feels to me like you build a list around this combo but the combo is just a little too wonky if you ask me. The best combos need very little support and leave the deck to function well if it goes wrong. I feel like this combo is vulnerable to a ton of types of disruption and the deck feels like its been adjusted to enable it in a way I don't really feel makes for a great deck outside of the combo.
Sorry to be blunt. I just thought I would sum up some issues I see.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
The other Ixalan cards I'm considering are mainly Bloodcrazed Paladin and Sanctum Seeker. Both of those are Vampire Knights, which is great, and work well with the gameplan I have for this deck.
Maybe also Deathless Ancient, but I'm not so sure about this one. I'd have to find some way of abusing his recurring ability with card like Call the Bloodline, maybe?
Hi and thanks for taking the time to write this!
As I said in the original post, the infinite combo is hard to assemble on purpose. I'm up for the challenge here and will do what it takes to make it work at least once. The deck hasn't been playtested enough for me to really say how it performs yet, but I'll definitely keep your criticism in mind while I do and see if it's indeed too hard to achieve.
One thing you didn't take into consideration though is Razaketh. Having this guy in play, only if it's with like 2-3 other vampires, it amazingly efficient to get me the cards I need. Of course, he doesn't solve all of the other very real problems you're mentioning, but I think it's worth pointing him out.
About Haakon: I actually put him in the list after taking a second look and seeing how many discard outlets and graveyard tutors I have in the deck. The added synergy he adds is just something I like very, very much and I feel like I'm not done exploring the possibilities. Just yesterday I realized I can cast New Blood on my own Haakon to be able to cast all my vampires from my graveyard, which is very unlikely to happen but also very interesting.
About the deck feeling as if I'm pushing the combo too much: I think this is because I haven't played with the deck that much yet. Oh, and adding Anger to the list to make it work better is definitely something worth trying, glad you think so too. I disagree about the deck not being great outside the combo, but that's something playtesting will tell I guess.
I also don't want this to be a straight up tribal deck because I don't think vampires have what it takes yet to make for an interesting multiplayer tribal deck, even with Edgar as their commander. They have been taken in too many mechanical directions depending on which plane they're from (life drain? discard? tokens + sacrifice?). For this deck, I decided to focus on both the discard and sacrifice elements because they have one thing in common: graveyard synergy. From there, I added Haakon, the combo, more discard outlets and Razaketh. I hope this clarifies what I have in mind for how the deck is going to play out.
Anyway, thanks for the great feedback. It's okay to be blunt when it's constructive. I'm supposed to be playing tomorrow, so I'll let you know how it went and what I can change to improve the deck!
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
Tithe Drinker and Guul Draz Assassin feel a little weak to me. Falkenrath Noble would give you another option for some life syphoning that seems like it could replace Tithe Drinker in a lot of ways and it fits into your combo for another option to kill players. Olivia Voldaren might be a good replacement for Guul Draz Assassin but I could also see some less expensive options like Drana, Liberator of Malakir and Falkenrath Aristocrat also being good. I just feel like the assassin is really slow and kind of clunky.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Tithe Drinker: You're probably right, this card is there because of my fondness for the Extort mechanic. An almost strictly better Child of Night is a very sweet card but, but maybe it's not good enough. Note that it's also a way to win with my combo though, since I get infinite mana and infinite casts of Bold Impaler, meaning infinite extort as well.
Guul Draz Assassin: I want to test this card before cutting it. I have absolutely no idea how it's going to play because I never used the level up mechanic before, hehe. If I replace it, it's going to be either for Falkenrath Aristocrat or Drana.
I'm also super weary of people wrathing me all the time, which is why I run Dusk // Dawn as a recursion card for my small vampires and Teferi's Protection. Boros Charm might end up here as well for additional protection. Blood Artist and Falkenrath Aristocrat are also super good against wraths, especially in multiplayer, because of how many life you can drain if a lot of creature die at the same time.
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
I do play some wrath protection in my Abzan deck but that deck has a lot more draw and ramp to it. If you are not pushing draw and ramp it can be troublesome to keep protection up not to mention the discussion of how long that card is going to sit in your hand and you are going to allocate that mana for the protection. Its something to keep in mind at least. In some ways rez can be chalked up to the same discussion especially mass rez (which I am running some of).
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I really like that you've made the madness mechanic do some work for you, it's a solid idea, likewise with changeling. Have been looking for areas to take Edgar into myself, and I may have to take some inspiration.
Really don't have much to add otherwise, but will definitely keep an eye on how this deck develops.
Thanks for the comment, glad you like the list! My goal was to create something that looks as interesting as it's fun to play. As I said in a previous post, I didn't go into the lifegain theme some vampires share because I think discard/sacrifice have more potential when played together because they share a common theme, which is the graveyard. It also explains the relevance of the reanimate subtheme of the deck.
I'm going to play the deck for the first time as the version listed in the original post tomorrow, and I'll do a follow-up within the next few days. I hope it will help me figure out which card(s) to cut and which card I want to try next.
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
I look forward to further developments then!
So, tonight I got to play with this version of the deck for the first time, two very interesting and fun games. I don't know if I will do reports like this every time because it's quite long to write, but this time I'll do it because I have time!
Preliminary note: When I say "this version of the deck", note that three changes have been made from the original list due to me not having the cards yet:
I got an interesting start in this game with Skullclamp in my opening hand. However, I could only draw two cards from it and cheap vampires before the Wanderer player destroyed it with Acidic Slime. While everyone was starting to consolidate their position on the board, the Ur-Dragon player and the Wanderer player were starting to have huge armies of gigantic creatures. Since they were the most threatening, nobody paid much attention to me and I was able to assemble my combo in one turn with Buried Alive searching for Haakon, Bold Impaler and Malakir Bloodwitch after I topdecked Phyrexian Altar. I had Animate Dead in hand, so I animated the bloodwitch after creating ten gazilion tokens. I took them all by surprise and won that game while way behind on board. I know this is very unlikely to happen in the future though, because I had the element of surprise then. Now they will know what to expect and I won't be able to combo off by surprise like this so easily.
That game started very well for the Selvala and Momir Vig players. While the first was able to ramp really fast, the second got a Trygon Predator out very early and proceeded to destroy two of the Mairsil Player's mana rocks and my Skullclamp, which I had previously Demonic Tutored for early card draw. The Mairsil player was left with only 4 lands for a very long part of the game, making him pretty much useless for as long as it lasted. The Selvala player then proceeded to vomit some huge threats. One of those threats was Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, who exiled two of Momir Vig's permanents on cast (I don't remember which ones but it crippled him a lot). I tried my best to look through my deck for Swords to Plowshares or Crib Swap to prevent the indestructible Ulamog to swing me, but I failed. So I build a small board of vampires to block since I knew the attack was coming my way. I had previously cast a Malakir Bloodwitch, so I had lots of life anyway. The Selvala player managed to swing me twice with Ulamog nonetheless, exiling 40 cards from my deck, including Phyrexian Altar and Haakon. I had no chance of winning that game through my combo anymore, so I started building a small army of vampires and I even cast the patriarch, Edgar himself, making them grow bigger over a few turns. We had forgotten about the Mairsil player though, who had managed to cage Tree of Perdition. He could put any player to 4 life in response because Mairsil had haste due to Anger being in his graveyard. I attacked the Selvala with my Bloodwitch and Mairsil swaped his toughness to his life total, lowering it to 4. The attack would have killed him if he hadn't turned his Blinkmoth Nexus we had all forgotten about into a blocker, saving his life. He sought revenge against the Mairsil player after, forgetting about the growing threat of my counltless vampires among which were Kalastria Highborn and Falkenrath Aristocrat. The Mairsil player died under the Selvala player's attack next turn, and I had a big enough army to finish off the two others in one swing. I don't think I would have won if the Mairsil player and the Selvala player didn't start this little war among themselves. Ah, the joy of multiplayer games
Those are cards I didn't expect to be as good or fun as they turned out to be.
Those cards will definitely be removed from the deck, they simply don't belong. Sometimes you can spend hours creating a deck, but only playtesting it can tell.
I won't remove those cards from the deck just yet, but those are the cards I wasn't super happy to draw or that I chose not to play when I had the chance to in order to play something that was "better" in the circumstances.
I noticed that this deck can both have a strong board presence early on while keeping the search for combo pieces / protection / removal very active through filtering, tutors and draw. I felt like I was playing two games at once, and I really enjoyed that.
What I might need to work on is the "toolbox" aspect of my answers. Since I have lots of tutors and my combo can't be assembled by only one of them, sometimes I need to buy myself some time in order to survive long enough to either assemble it or have a large army and swing for the win. This is why I might need to add cards such as darkness to keep me alive. Also, while Bojuka Bog is great as graveyard hate, I feel like I might need at least one more graveyard hate card since graveyard synergies are very well known in my playgroup. Maybe Crypt Incursion?
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
Out
- Sun Titan
- Bloodghast (This is temporary. I'll wait for Iconic Masters to be released, then I'll buy a Bloodghast.)
- Commander's Sphere (I only have one in my collection for now and it's in my Zedruu deck.)
- Dusk // Dawn
- Butcher of Malakir
- Bloodline Necromancer
In
+ Beacon of Unrest: Another reanimation spell that can be re-tutored for if needed.
+ Falkenrath Noble: Our second Blood Artist. It's there until I buy a Bloodghast.
+ Pawn of Ulamog: Replaces Commander's Sphere as a "ramp" source. Will likely be replaced with Legion's Landing when Ixalan is released, but maybe not.
+ Voldaren Pariah: Time to give this creature a try, I feel like it has a lot of potential in this deck.
+ Urabrask, the Hidden: Still waiting to get an Anger, which would be very good for this deck. In the meantime, have a nice Praetor.
+ Hide // Seek: Versatile removal for annoying noncreatures on the board or combo pieces in the deck. I feel like this could be very useful and I'll give it a try before putting in a Damnation to replace Dusk // Dawn.
NOTE: I think Bloodline Necromancer could return along with Changeling Berserker + any sac outlet for another infinite combo potential. I will need to playtest that and return with the results!
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
Out
- Urabrask the Hidden (After thinking about it, that card doesn't feel right for this deck. I drew some sample hands and did some testing and I was never happy drawing that card.)
- Syphon Mind (4 mana for varying card draw isn't something I like that much. I might regret this but for now I'd like to give the Necro and Changeling interaction a try.)
In
+ Bloodline Necromancer
+ Changeling Berserker
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
This is the second playtesting report because I felt like writing a second one. This week's games have been super interesting as well!
This game hasn't been great. I have been able to drop a few vampires early, but the Mairsil player used Toxic Deluge to wipe them all really quickly. I then had poor draws and my hand was only reanimation spells and noncreatures, making me pretty much useless for the rest of the game. The Inalla player ended up winning with Anathemancer, one shoting the Mairsil player, then dropping a Wanderwine Prophets on a board with no blockers. So, for me, this hasn't been a good game. Those happen!
On the other hand, this has been my best and most interesting game with the deck yet. My opening hand was phenomenal: 2 lands, Entomb, Animate Dead, Insolent Neonate, Guul Draz Assassin and one other card I don't remember. The first turns went like this:
1. Land, Insolent Neonate (+ Edgar's token).
2. Land, Guul Draz Assasin (+Edgar's token). I Entombed Razaketh before end of turn.
3. Cast Animate Dead on Razaketh.
From there, I pretty much had everything I wanted the moment I wanted it and I managed to win with my Haakon + Bold Impaler + Phyrexian Altar (+ Blood Artist) combo. I knew the Inalla player had a counterspell in hand so I had to use Wheel of Fortune before to get rid of it. Then I won the game with the combo.
Those are cards I didn't expect to be as good or fun as they turned out to be.
Those cards will definitely be removed from the deck, they simply don't belong. Only two cards this week.
I won't remove those cards from the deck just yet, but those are the cards I wasn't super happy to draw or that I chose not to play when I had the chance to in order to play something that was "better" in the circumstances.
The people of my playgroup might not have enjoyed watching me search through my deck like this all the time though. They said they didn't have as much fun during that game as they did during the other games (we had other games during which I player my other decks, plus the first game with that deck).
Other note: That second game made me realize that Razaketh makes this deck a lot more consistent as it might look. I have been worried about the following comment from earlier: So, the combo being vulnerable to removal is intentional because unanswerable / super strong combos are frowned upon in my playgroup.
However, the fact that the combo has that many parts isn't that much of a problem. Like I said in a previous post, it's as if I'm playing two different games at the same time with this deck: I build an early board presence with cheap Vampires while I'm also trying to assemble the right tools to get a worthy reanimation target out through filtering, draws and tutors.
While I really enjoy this "duality" of goals, I know it might feel like a turn off to some people who would rather have one goal to entirely focus on, especially in a deck that has an infinite combo in it.
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
Out
- Pawn of Ulamog
- Guul Draz Assassin
- Mathas, Fiend Seeker
In
+ Legion's Landing
+ Bloodcrazed Paladin
+ Sanctum Seeker
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
Vampire Nighthawk - I cam to the consensus myself that it wasnt a very good attacker. If you find yourself attacked by big flying creatures by other aggro decks its not half bad but I also felt that it was a little too situational when I was going to like it. I haven't run the card myself due to that.
New Blood - you could try out Recruiter of the Guard / Imperial Recruiter possibly as a tutor for Captivating Vampire or whatever else you need. I recently put in both Recruiter cards in an attempt to be a little more flexible as well as get some of my higher priority targets to hand. They are cheapish to cast and for my deck at least it gives another ETB / Death I can push through other things. I can see them possibly being a little stronger for me since bodies all matter in some way but I still think considering them could possibly be worthwile for you.
As for the new cards:
Legion's Landing - I honestly am just completely underwhelmed by this card. Getting a single 1/1 for W isnt very good when any one drop vamp does that. I also don't think I am ever going to be excited to pay 4 mana to get a token in an aggro deck. Even though it fits the theme.... I just dont see a situation I am ever happy with this card (possibly like if I run out of draw but then why don't I put draw in instead of this card and thats kind of what I did). I guess as sort of a land ramp that gives you an on theme token its ok but I have really almost given up on this card entirely.
Sanctum Seeker - It has been..... really really good for me so far. I went through my list of vampires and tried grading them into three categories of how satisfied I was with them and this was one of the 9 vamps I put in my highest tier. Being that I am kind of focused on some life syphoning though it makes a little more sense for me as well but I just thought I would say I have really appreciated the fact that it takes a life from each opponent per attack.
Bloodcrazed Paladin - I get testing new cards but if you want a big vamp why not Taurean Mauler instead? This vamp reminds me of like... Boros Charm with a worse outcome. I guess it has the redeeming value that its a knight and you have a knights matter subtheme but I still find it a little underwhelming. Taurean Mauler is also a knight for what its worth.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Nighthawk - I think this is the vampire I'll change for Bloodghast when I get a copy instead of Falkenrath Noble, because a second Blood Artist is very very useful in this list.
The Recruiters - I alreay run lots of tutors in this deck. I looked at your list and I definitely see them being useful there, but I don't feel the need of including them in mine yet. The next tutor I'll include will probably be Enlightened Tutor because I have one waiting o be played in my binder and I don't have a Vampiric Tutor yet.
I also want to keep New Blood in for now. It hasn't been as good as I hoped, but I still want to give it a chance.
Legion's Landing - I still feel pretty confident about that card usefulness, if only as cheap ramp. I need some in the deck and I think it fits nicely there. I might be wrong though, I didn't get to play with it yet.
Sanctum Seeker - Glad it worked well for you! I really think it's also going to be great in this list. The fact that it's a knight is also a very good thing for my deck I'm curious though, what are your 9 highest tier vampires?
Bloodcrazed Paladin - Being a cheap vampire knight with flash is enough to make it fit in my deck I think. The +1/+1 counters thing is only a nice bonus. With Haakon + Phyrexian Altar, I can also have an infinite/infinite vampire on the field before my turn starts, which can be cool.
Thanks again for the feedback!
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
Thanks, I am coming from a very different sytle of meta and game play so I always try to take into account how others are trying to play too but I have a harder time wrapping my head around playing combo vs combo so sometimes my suggestions are bad lol.
Bloodcrazed Paladin - thats fair, I didn't think of it as a loop enabler and so I guess a Phyrexian Altar makes this guy into an infinite stat monster.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Only one game this week, because I wanted to test my other decks for which I have no posts on these forums yet.
This was a super quick game I won without the infinite combo. Here is how the first few turns went for me:
1. Land, Sol Ring
2. Land, Bloodline Keeper
3. Land, Sanctum Seeker, tap the Bloodline Keeper to create a 2/2, tap the remaining land to transform it (I had 5 vampires thanks to Edgar's eminence trigger).
4. Cast Edgar and start swigning. They didn't have any boardwipes, so I just kept creating tokens, casting cheap vampires, and stealing tons of life with Sanctum Seeker!
I have to admit that I was a bit lucky they didn't have any boardwipes as it would have slowed me way down. I did have Insolent Neonate to discard Haakon and start reanimating the Sanctum Seeker, so I wouldn't have been totally screwed.
Those are cards I didn't expect to be as good or fun as they turned out to be.
Those cards will definitely be removed from the deck, they simply don't belong. Only one card this week.
I won't remove those cards from the deck just yet, but those are the cards I wasn't super happy to draw or that I chose not to play when I had the chance to in order to play something that was "better" in the circumstances.
I really really liked how this game felt more like a traditional Edgar Markov game, meaning that I can indeed have multiple viable game plans to win. While I had an explosive game with a comborrific win last week, this time I went all in and flooded the board with vampires that kept getting bigger and bigger with Edgar and Bloodline Keeper.
The duality of gameplans is something I like very much about this deck, and what makes it different from other Edgar lists in my opinion.
It's worth noting that a well placed board wipe would have slowed me way way down. What's cool though is that if that happened, I still had a quick way to recover through tutors and the combo for a surprising / unexpected win. I'm really starting to like how this deck is shaping up!
This is a list of cards I never got to draw or cast yet, so I need more games to figure out if they are really needed in the deck.
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
Draw - its something I have struggled with a bit myself. I recently added Painful Truths to my list and I have been running Dark Prophecy since I got my physical list together. Dark Prophecy is currently probably my third best draw engine for the deck behind necro and skullclamp as it does kind of want a sac outlet. It has been very strong for me though. I do however see some issues with the cheap draw stuff because it can be very hard to find time to play that stuff potentially. I have yet to play a game with any of my cheap one shot draw so I cant comment really further but I do know what you mean on your concerns.
Vampire Nighthawk, New Blood, Victimize - personally I think all three of them could be cut. I think you are totally correct on Nighthawk. New Blood is going to end up being kind of a situational spot removal where you could just run a cheap spot removal instead. Victimize I like but really its a recovery tool and recovery tools always have the same problem that they don't do anything until you get blown away. If this deck was more ETB / Death focused I think I would like Victimize more but being that a lot of the vampires are more like... value from their presence in play it makes sacrificing creatures to do plays like victimize a lot worse. If instead we were playing an ETB deck and we had something like say Solemn Simulacrum and other creatures like that... you could sacrifice some of them and then Victimize to generate value rather than in this deck Victimize is almost solely a recovery from getting blown up tool.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - I know you listed this in your untested, I just wanted to point out the potential disaster potential of if she is stolen from something like a Bribery / Gilded Drake for instance. Someone played her against me which caused a loss for me recently and she has a ton of potential to murder this deck. You are combo so it might not hit you as bad but a LOT of valuable vampires just super die from this card being in play. Her potential to backfire is a lot of the reason I do not personally run her.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Draw - I could cut something else for Dark Prophecy and keep Painful Truths. 3 cards for 3 is always nice and nothing says I can't have both.
Nighthawk, New Blood, Victimize - I can see Anger replacing Victimize, I think it would be much more useful here. I also just realized I never got to cast victimize even if I drew it in 2-3 games, it was just not that worth it... about New Blood, I still like that card very much even if it's slow, and I don't want to cut it yet.
Elesh Norn - I didn't think about the backfiring power and my playgroup does play some Bribery / steal effects... I'll keep a close eye on that one, thanks for the heads up. I do have some sac outlets in the deck to prevent her from being stolen though, so I guess Bribery is the true enemy here. I really want to test here though, Bloodline Keeper made me see how a global +2/+2 effect on your team can win a game.
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
It had some good moments though, like when I got to use Captivating Vampire, and that was awesome.
Here are some cards I'd like to include in the deck shortly:
+ Dark Prophecy. More card draw is always welcome in a creature deck.
+ Boros Charm. There are a lot of wrath effects that run in my playgroup and I think this card would be very useful against those.
+ Maybe Archfiend of Ifnir. It discards itself to be reanimated, and I have lots of discard effects myself to benefit from its ability to wipe my opponent's creatures.
+ I could replace Elesh Norn by Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter. It doesn't have the same huge backfire potential, it's a Vampire itself so Bloodline Necromancer can reanimate it, and it's also a sac outlet and a huge lifelink/flyer creature, which can also be useful.
This is it for now, no changes but a lot of options I'm considering to improve the deck!
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan
My playgroup plays a lot of graveyard hate (like Bojuka Bog, etc) so cards in graveyards are not safe.
Although, I am still tempted to try adding Haakon, Stromgald Scourge to my deck.
Also, I found that with a few vampire lord effects, my vampire tokens do not die when equiping Skullclamp, and require a sac outlet. And my opponents love stealing/killing my sac outlets.
I initially planned to replace Well of Lost Dreams from the pre-con, but it has drew me a lot of cards. So I really like it now.
Haakon is one of my favorite cards, but including him requires some particular deck building choices in order to make him work and not be a dead draw, so you have to be careful about that.
Skullclamp is just too good for me not to include it, even if it gets canceled by my lord effects. It's one of the best card draw effects ever, and it goes so well with Edgar's Eminence ability.
Well of Lost Dreams: I can see it being very good in some lists that focus on lifegain more than mine does. I went more for the discard/sac effects that vampires have, rather than lifegain.
Thanks for your interest in the post
Out
- Hide // Seek
- Void Winnower
In
+ Dark Prophecy
+ Archfiend of Ifnir
Custom set projects:
Aenyr: Art is Magic (100% done and fully draftable!)
Elestral: Astronomy, Weather and Duality (Currently in early design.)
Multiplayer commander decks
RGWU Bruse and Thrasios: Enchanted Alliance | BR Grenzo's Jail of Malevolence | RWU Shu Yun's Teachings | B Toshiro Umezawa's Eternal Journey | WU Ephara's City of Wonders
Avatar art by Stephan A. McGowan