MTG Salvation

Quote from NZB2323 »

Has anyone play tested smuggler’s copter in this list? The deck should always have a vamp token that can crew it, and a 3/3 flyer that loots seems good for the deck. It also creatures CA with Bloodghast, Oathsworn Vampire, Falkenrath Gorger, and Asylum Visitor.

EDIT: also, are Magnus of the wheel and wheel of fate good budget replacements for wheel of fortune?

I run Copter in my build but it is less flat than ISB's and what makes it unique is agnostic token spam. I'll use anything that spews out bodies, which means there some Vampire Synergy I might be missing out on. Copter is solid just to have something on board after a Wrath. I would never think of relying on it as a Madness outlet, if I wanted that I would go with Tortured Existence.

Here's the thing about Wheel: It's too damned good to try to replace it. If you have a Wheel, great; if not, you'll need to change your deck up. Prior to accumulating a collection, I ran a *****loard more draw engines because I couldn't guarantee a steady supply of card advantage. With getting all of my Tutors, I've cut back on draw engines because I now Tutor for the best: Necropotence. Luckily, that is relatively cheap but other draw engines I run/ran are:

- Smuggler's Copter
- Skullclamp
- Heirloom Blade
- Herald's Horn
- Phyrexian Arena
- Minions' Murmurs
- Twilight Prophet
- Outpost Siege
- Vanquisher's Banner
- Stromkirk Occultist
- Dark Tutelage (Ruin Raider would probably be better)
- Dark Prophecy
- Tymna the Weaver

I haven't tested but I think Midnight Reaper would be good and therefore by extension Grim Haruspex.

For any players who can't afford the expensive tutors and draw, you might consider necrologia. It has the huge downside of being uncastable when you expect a counter, but it helps you draw a ton of cards more consistently which is important for low curve builds.

It is also possible to go deeper on an equipment plan as a card advantage plan. Stoneforge Mystic, Steelshaper's Gift, and Open the Armory could all be tutors for Skullclamp so if you can get up to 3ish+ equipment to have some backup tutor targets I think you could possibly go deeper on tutor for clamp as a plan. Its not as optimal as the good tutors for necropotence but most of those are somewhat affordable.

Heirloom Blade can be an ok budget card advantage source especially if you pair it with Skullclamp. I really cut it only because it wasn't as efficient as tutors for necro lol.

What do you think about throne of the god pharoh?

I am not ISB, but Throne of the God-Pharaoh has been good for me. Sometimes it can be hard as an aggro deck to take out multiple opponents, but cards like Throne and Sanctum Seeker can help.

Throne of the God-Pharaoh has been a tempting card for me as well, but I've yet to sleeve it up. Thing for me is that it does little when you are behind on board, as you need your creatures tapped and thus they need to survive attacking. So Sanctum Seeker is pretty much better in that spot, as you'll get the extra damage in and is a vampire on top. Where as Throne feels more like a win more/quicker card in that aspect.

These are the changes I’m considering:

Out:

• Vindicate
  
• Anguished unmaking

In:

• Impact tremors
  
• Throne of the god-pharaoh

I like how Vindicate and AU can answer just about everything, and they’re a flavor win with the deck, but as an aggro deck I think I’m better off with cards that cost less mana that damage all my opponents every turn. The vast majority of the time Vindicate and AU just sit in my hand with no great targets.

Also, throne is good in my list with these cards allowing me to turn my creatures:

• Smuggler’s copter
  
• Captivating vampire
  
• Obilisk of urd

He’s not a vampire, but would Rix Maadi Reveler have a place in this build?

Quote from NZB2323 »

He’s not a vampire, but would Rix Maadi Reveler have a place in this build?

I think its still a ways away from being all that playable here. My issue is that its 4 mana discacard your hand to draw 3 on a non vampire and you need to hurt an opponent for it to even be that. I think this is still probably just a really bad Painful Truths and I am not running that card yet so I would probably recommend running Painful Truths over this.

Keep in mind that the discard your hand portion of this is going to be kind of narrow when you are going to want to do that. If this was a vampire...... I think it would possibly change the dynamics of this card but as it is being a non vampire makes us lose out on a token as well as the tribal buff synergy. The actual draw power of this card isn't high enough for this deck.

Markov Blademaster? I ran a search on the thread and didn't see it mentioned, so I wonder if you've at least thought about it. Fits into your aggro style, even with the double R cost, and it can get scary fast.

Quote from ChazA4 »

Markov Blademaster? I ran a search on the thread and didn't see it mentioned, so I wonder if you've at least thought about it. Fits into your aggro style, even with the double R cost, and it can get scary fast.

She's easy to stop while costing three. Why not play two Vampires to get four bodies that require a Wrath to answer rather than any old Bear.

I guess you're right, 'cause it's not like we're in the right colors for ramping and playing a bunch of spells anyway.

But since we're going that route, Oketra's Monument. Even more bodies.

Quote from ChazA4 »

I guess you're right, 'cause it's not like we're in the right colors for ramping and playing a bunch of spells anyway.

But since we're going that route, Oketra's Monument. Even more bodies.

I agree with Tev's assessment that we are more about the buffing of all the creatures. When it comes to Oketra's Monument, I think I would rather a number of other things like perhaps Mardu Ascendancy. Ultimately though there are a LOT of optional cards to buff / do damage / make tokens and ultimately I think all of these cards are somewhat limited in how many you can run. If you can come up with a card that you feel is worse than one of these cards they can work but ultimately I found that pushing draw, tutors, and vamps ends up being the core of what I am looking to run which really just doesn't leave a lot of slots for cool other things that don't fall into one of those categories.

I am going with the agnostic token spam route and I do use both Oketra's Monument and Mardu Ascendancy. They work great for me but I will admit it has made my deck not as competitive as it could be. The dangerous part of piloting Edgar at this point is correct threat assessment that's four turns away. It's easy to see who to kill now, but it is very difficult to kill the right player at the right time. There have been times when someone has been at 1-4 when they killed me, which meant that I needed to just send a bit more damage to them in my first or second waves (Wraths happen).

So I have yet to lose a 1v1 when playing edgar, but have lost the last SIX games when playing three or more opponents as I have had to fight through 1.5 wraths on average. I do my best, mulling for draw effects, gunning for the player most likely to wrath, not overcommitting, keeping draw in hand, praying I draw a purphoros, but wraths keep getting through and my recovery is never quite fast enough. Which of the following anti-sweeper tactics do you guys think are worth a slot in the 99? selfless spirit, empty the catacombs, yawgmoth's will, scapegoat, boros charm, teferi's protection, zulaport cutthroat, eldrazi monument. Or maybe single target discard like thoughtseize?

I can't comment without seeing a list and knowing your budget.

It is also a hard deck to pilot. You shouldn't gun for the guy who's going to Wrath you; instead, you should kill the player that will kill you and afterwards for the Wrath player to Wrath. Or let another player build up so people play their Wraths; in theory, Edgar rebuilds much faster than any other deck.

List is 95% the same as isbp, budget is unlimited. I am even using OG duals, crypt, and an imperial seal. I rarely have trouble recovering. Its just that in the lategame everyone else has bigger flashier plays to make than me and I lose the race. It seems that whether I gun for the best deck at the table or the player who will probably wrath, that player wraths before I can kill anyone as he is worried about me killing him (so I tend to go for him when I get the chance). I find that piloting the deck is pretty straightforward. Although I admit I have never tried playing nothing until a wrath was played. In theory that may work but in practice I think losing our tempo would just result in a loss to mid-late-game- oriented decks.

Another possible anti-wrath card is warping wail. With isbp's manabase roughly 25% of the mana sources can produce colorless so it should work pretty consistently. Probably on par with boros charm, probably better than teferi's protection or other 3cmc anti-wraths

I am really thinking that thoughtseize and friends is the way to go here honestly. Will probably try that out and report back if its successful.

Quote from Bitterblossom125 »

So I have yet to lose a 1v1 when playing edgar, but have lost the last SIX games when playing three or more opponents as I have had to fight through 1.5 wraths on average. I do my best, mulling for draw effects, gunning for the player most likely to wrath, not overcommitting, keeping draw in hand, praying I draw a purphoros, but wraths keep getting through and my recovery is never quite fast enough. Which of the following anti-sweeper tactics do you guys think are worth a slot in the 99? selfless spirit, empty the catacombs, yawgmoth's will, scapegoat, boros charm, teferi's protection, zulaport cutthroat, eldrazi monument. Or maybe single target discard like thoughtseize?

Edgar Markov is banned in 1 vs. 1.

I like these cards against a wrath:

• Zulaport Cuttthroat
  
• Blood Artist
  
• Bloodghast
  
• Martyr of Dusk
  
• Oathsworn Vampire
  
• Goblin bombardment
  
• Necropotence
  
• Eldrazi Monument
  
• Ad Naseum

I don’t think you want to hold up mana for something like Teferi’s Protection when we want to be the aggressor. I also think that thoughtseize is terrible as it only hits 1 opponent and I would much rather cast a 1 drop vampire. Also, cards like

• Purphurous, God of the Forge
  
• Impact Tremors
  
• Throne of the God-Pharoh

Allow your creatures to deal damage before they get wrathed.

I think our single best card against wraths is Necropotence. Tutoring for that card and using it early and often allows us to withstand wraths.

Also, I know ISB doesn’t run Kalitas, but I had Kalitas and Purphurous on the board one game and my opponent played a board wipe, which gave me 12 2/2 zombies and dealt 24 damage to each of my opponents.

Pitiless Pontiff?

I could see it in the list for its CMC. The sac outlet is less useful, but not entirely redundant. I guess if you have Zulaport Cutthroat out and wanna bring your life total up or bleed the table out it could be useful.

Quote from DementedKirby »

Pitiless Pontiff?

I think its far from a slam dunk given that its sacrifice still has a cost but 2 mana vampires tend to be good options still. I might replace Metallic Mimic or Oathsworn Vampire with it but I think its fairly low among the maybe playable 2 drop vampires offhand. Really my only complaints are that it costs mana to activate its sac otherwise I think it seems solid. I would have taken a sac outlet that costs nothing and does nothing over it though.

I just realized that it might be possible to consider Judith, the Scourge Diva kind of in the same thought that Adaptive Automaton can kind of be a consideration here. She buffs all of our tokens (albeit only power) but on the flip side she gives better sweeper protection in that she can shoot for damage where Adaptive Automaton instead gives a little more survivability to our creatures.

In general she will probably end up being a bit better against decks where your concern is being swept and worse against situations where creatures trading with yours might be a problem. I don't know if she will make the list I just thought there was merit to pointing out that she really isn't too bad here despite not being a vampire.

So I've been playing and fine tuning Edgar for a bit, and while I do push combat with him, I've found that an aristricrat style works well for me; punishing people when they board wipe.

With that in mind, I'm curious on everyone's thoughts on Kyren Negotiations? I haven't seen this card in any Edgar lists, but it looks to provide so much value.

It seems so versatile, letting you push damage in with summoning sickness, chump blockers, and when your locked out of combat from a pillow forter.

Also another vampire I don't see in lists often is Stromkirk Occultist. I've been playtesting her a bit as a source of card draw on a vamp and I've been pleased with her so far.

Apologies for not properly linking cards as I'm new to these forums.

Vindictive Vampire costs twice as much as Zulaport Cutthroat, but is a vampire with a bigger body. However, 4 mana is a lot for this deck. Does she make the cut?

Vindictive Vampire seems good enough to make the list. Its 4 mana Zulaport Cutthroat and is a vampire which is exactly the creature type we care about. I will get a copy and test it out at the very least. It seems like a good top curve kind of vampire that makes it harder to wrath you and or giving us more reach.

Four mana is kind of high for vampires but it has an effect that is good on top of having already played a bunch of vampires beforehand.

@Cruel Moose - I don't think there is anything wrong with pushing aristocrats. Most of what we have been pushing is to lower the curve and cost of the deck and increase draw. The big thing to make a shift to aristocrats from my list would be adding more sac outlets and obviously a few more aristocrats.