Yeah, thats true. Thing is in my meta the group was scared of Markov, so many times they where banging me up as a 3v1 from the start until i was at 10-15 or something so that i could not pay much life for card draw. So i was leaning to try some lifelinkers that are in reality fuel for card draw.
I haven't played it in a while now... maybe it's time to see if they remember.
Great to see you again ISBPathfinder, i'm following a couple of your decks. Thanks.
I am mostly active on MTGNexus these days. I come back here rarely to check on my old lists but I haven't been updating other than responding to people who inquire about my old lists when I do rarely check in.
Ok, so last night i played two games with Uncle Edgar.
First one, the group ended me first. Deck was moving smooth and fast, sadly i flooded a little at mid/end game and couldn't finish it so the 3v1 got me. Second game they gave me some space at the beginning and ended up winning.
As for the lifelinkers inclutions i mentioned, the only one that felt relevant was Tithe Drinker altought it was a fringe case i think, since i was flooding i dumped the excess mana in extort, in fact she ate a removal spell. I guess she stays in my list for the moment, maybe my group wastes another removal spell in her. They tend to hold grudges.
What you guys think about the new "dual" land cycle? I'm considering Brightclimb Pathway Since black is the primary color in the deck, i like this one because the only one drop i think makes a huge differece on turn one is Serra Ascendant In fact the only fetchland i have is Marsh Flats for the same reason.
I ran Tithe Drinker in the past. I think its probably one of the more reasonable lifelinkers but even with that I will say that when things are going well, I kind of never used its extort effect which is why I stopped playing it. I do think of the options to have some lifegain its probably one of the more reasonable options to run.
I have seen a lot of edgar lists run Gifted Aetherborn and that is one of those lifelinkers I have never been able to get behind.
Brightclimb Pathway - I think its ok but the question is what would you bring it in for? I am down to like 5 or 6 basics tops and while I think cutting a swamp could probably be ok I don't know that I like it over much else.
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 think Brightclimb Pathway and this cycle it's fine in a "budget" mana base list with no fetches or true duals. I also replaced those with City of Brass, painlands, basics and Luxury Suite (it appears this cycle is going to be completed in Commander Legends yay!)
Ok so i have been an avid edgar player since his release with a list decently close too the ones discussed here and even though this thread is old and dead i wanted to throw my hat in the ring of discussion if anyone sees this and bring up some cards i have found to preform every well that i haven't noticed discussed:
Underworld Breach: ok so i have always had the mind that considering how cheap stuff is, and edgers eminence needs cast, rebuilding from a boardwipe via recasting is way better than something like command the dreadhorde, and this allows for said cats triggers while rebuilding at a low initial cost of just 2 mana. the obvious downside is being red, being worthless in many other board states and fueling escape can be hard, but even with just regular aristocrat shenanigans it can put in work. def a card that gets better the most madness, sacrifice and fetches but give the first two are sub themes/synergies of the deck and the third is just a mana base staple it isn't that and, plus discard outlets like stromkirk condemned make occasionally dead cards like it have a use.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den: my current list runs 38 spells lurrus can cast from the yard, which yes is probably very much on the high end but it fuels the aristocrat shenanigans and board wipe rebuilding very well. having lifeline isn't inconsequential either and lures can get back key non-creature pieces that this deck otherwise wouldn't be able to get back one destroyed or discarded such as skullclamp, underworld breach, goblin bombardment, etc. it is slow at only one a turn but allowing for cast gets the tokens back again similarly to athreos (another card i enjoy because unless something when horribly awry there should be one opponent to bully with him)
Species Specialist: yeah it is expensive at 4 cmc for a non vampire but it is a baordwipe rattlesnake that also rewards aristocrat shenanigans very well with ever important card draw. it also in a way helps get creature through because opponents don't want to kill my tokens with their blockers and just let them through instead of letting me draw to make more.
Agadeem's Awakening: this just placed a swamp in my mind. yes i did rant twicee about why casting is better than cheating into play without casting but when it is just on the backside of what is effectively a swamp it is better than not having that effect, even if the extra potential burn on ad nauseam and dark confidant and needing 3 health on etc but all that sis minor compared to the times when it is super useful on the spell side. it is rare i will draw it and wish it was a swamp instead, but far more common it would help in a situation a swamp would be worthless.
also, not worth making a mini rant about but vampiric fury and rally the peasants seem like they should be in a lot more lists. granted bait win more but also both are very useful with he first being absurdly cheap for effect and the latter being patchable to madness and the like yet still usable later.
Ok so i have been an avid edgar player since his release with a list decently close too the ones discussed here and even though this thread is old and dead i wanted to throw my hat in the ring of discussion if anyone sees this and bring up some cards i have found to preform every well that i haven't noticed discussed:
Underworld Breach: ok so i have always had the mind that considering how cheap stuff is, and edgers eminence needs cast, rebuilding from a boardwipe via recasting is way better than something like command the dreadhorde, and this allows for said cats triggers while rebuilding at a low initial cost of just 2 mana. the obvious downside is being red, being worthless in many other board states and fueling escape can be hard, but even with just regular aristocrat shenanigans it can put in work. def a card that gets better the most madness, sacrifice and fetches but give the first two are sub themes/synergies of the deck and the third is just a mana base staple it isn't that and, plus discard outlets like stromkirk condemned make occasionally dead cards like it have a use.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den: my current list runs 38 spells lurrus can cast from the yard, which yes is probably very much on the high end but it fuels the aristocrat shenanigans and board wipe rebuilding very well. having lifeline isn't inconsequential either and lures can get back key non-creature pieces that this deck otherwise wouldn't be able to get back one destroyed or discarded such as skullclamp, underworld breach, goblin bombardment, etc. it is slow at only one a turn but allowing for cast gets the tokens back again similarly to athreos (another card i enjoy because unless something when horribly awry there should be one opponent to bully with him)
Species Specialist: yeah it is expensive at 4 cmc for a non vampire but it is a baordwipe rattlesnake that also rewards aristocrat shenanigans very well with ever important card draw. it also in a way helps get creature through because opponents don't want to kill my tokens with their blockers and just let them through instead of letting me draw to make more.
Agadeem's Awakening: this just placed a swamp in my mind. yes i did rant twicee about why casting is better than cheating into play without casting but when it is just on the backside of what is effectively a swamp it is better than not having that effect, even if the extra potential burn on ad nauseam and dark confidant and needing 3 health on etc but all that sis minor compared to the times when it is super useful on the spell side. it is rare i will draw it and wish it was a swamp instead, but far more common it would help in a situation a swamp would be worthless.
also, not worth making a mini rant about but vampiric fury and rally the peasants seem like they should be in a lot more lists. granted bait win more but also both are very useful with he first being absurdly cheap for effect and the latter being patchable to madness and the like yet still usable later.
Underworld Breach - I am not sure that I would play it over Yawgmoth's Will and I don't play Yawgmoth's. Sure, it saves you one mana in the cost but it seems like it would be hard to chain a bunch of one mana creatures with an added on exile three card requirement. Personally I don't like running any graveyard recursion tactics because they are very responsive and subjective to what your opponents are doing. For the most part they feel like they are counter play to only wraths and don't take into account how drawing cards is usually stronger than playing for recovery. I don't think its terrible but I avoided recursion tactics in general because drawing more cards plays a more proactive game against a lot more tactics than trying to be sticky. I think Breach is a fine card as far as recursion goes and it likely would be one I would at least consider, I just think its better to not play a recursive game. The effects do nothing until you get swept but what if you get in a situation where your creatures are irrelivant or are not surviving passively due to an effect in play like say Pestilence / Ghostly Prison / Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite? Recursion felt too much like it was only an answer to traditional wraths to me so I opted not to run it at all. Card draw can find you tutors or answers to those problems so rather than trying to respond to a problem with a narrow response I opted to push for draw and tutors instead because I felt like they were more generically viable to get me out of numerous issues.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den - Same issue as above. I also don't like that Lurrus only lets you recur one thing a turn. Its possible I might value him more in a sac based concept as well but as it stands I don't see why I would run Lurrus in this list. He is extremely slow in comparison to a good card engine and primarily in my list would require him to be played after a sweeper which feels like not the angle I would want.
Species Specialist - I like the effect but four mana on a non vampire is sort of high for me. The card draw from it also feels like something I can't control very well. I think its ok, I just think it fits better in a sac build. Its a bit similar to Liliana, Dreadhorde General whom I do run but I think the fact that she comes with a Barter in Blood effect that opponents likely won't be expecting also pushes her a bit further for me. Given how similar it is to Liliana I really can't say its half bad but I also wish it had something more, was on tribe, or cost less. I also didn't really get to put a lot of testing in with Liliana to really stand behind that card with a lot of confidence.
Agadeem's Awakening - Yea I think this card is great and I would do that. I am not really playing my list anymore but I think this is a good way to add some recursion to the list. I would totally add this to the list for a swamp.
Vampiric Fury / Rally the Peasants - I guess my issue with these type of cards is that they don't add that much power or sustain. They are one turn effects and while they might make you kill someone in one shot or make some bad blocks into good ones, they don't feel like they add enough punch or sustainability to the deck. If I am pushing for a big attack I don't really need to save my mana so the low cost of Vampiric Fury doesn't make a lot of sense to me since I don't run a lot of mass haste its unlikely that I play a bunch of things before hand and then need a cheap buff to follow it up. I could for instance run Tears of Rage if I wanted a strong punch one shot effect which I would be a lot more prone to running than either of these cards. A big reason that I don't run a lot of anthems with Edgar though is that Edgar Markov himself is an anthem and I always have access to him. For me that means that I only really want super efficient buffs or ones that fit the theme well enough that I would cast them even outside of me going in for a last attack situation. My goal with this deck is largely to have a high consistency of low cost bodies to abuse with Edgar's free token as well as a high abundance of large tempo draw effects. If I can keep drawing cards and casting cheap creatures I can almost always rely on Edgar Markov himself as an anthem. I would be far more likely to get into tempo ramp tactics such as Dark Ritual / Culling the Weak / Mana Vault / Grim Monolith / Jeweled Lotus to get Edgar out faster than I would allocate more slots to other anthems.
In the past I probably should have looked more at the tempo ramp into Edgar more than I did. Try to keep the consistency of the deck high though and to do that you want to keep your density of cheap drop creatures and draw high. Its possible I should have cut more of the anthems from the list and turned them into tempo ramp though to push for Edgar more and other anthems less. Jeweled Lotus looks literally really interesting for this type of deck.
Thoughts on Wheel of Misfortune? Seems like another great mass-refuel card (or at least forces an opponent to take a big chunk of life). Court of Ambition is also interesting to me. Relatively easy to defend the monarchy for at least a turn or 2 with all the chump blockers we have, while grinding down opponents' resources and/or life.
I'm surely going to try Wheel of Misfortune since Wheel of Fortune is so damn expensive. Is not nearly as good ofc, since all we really care about is a new hand, but still. I guess it requires some knowledge of your playgroup so you can always get the new hand.
I never really tried the other slower wheel effects like Magus of the Wheel or Wheel of Fate because they are just to slow. But this new one... could be really good.
Wheel of Misfortune is worse than Wheel of Fortune but it might still be relevant in place alongside it or in place of for budget reasons. I think every meta is going to sort of have a different norm on how much life is paid but I would be surprised if the average second lowest is more than 3-5 I think that the choice of 0-8 life will probably be fairly normal (I haven't played with or against this card yet).
One of the big reasons that I think the card will be inferior to Wheel of Fortune is the options it gives to opponents. If an opponent has a suck counter to our deck in their hand its far more likely that they refuse to wheel. Taking options away from opponents is part of why Wheel of Fortune is so good. Adding in the option to keep a fantastic hand or trying to go to a new one is vastly inferior as far as disrupting opponents goes. It increases the chance that you run into answers from your opponents and that is why I really can't just blindly say that it will be a good card in here.
I don't have a definite answer on how the card would work out here because I haven't played with it. I guess this is just my word of warning more than anything. I think the price tag to obtain it is fairly reasonable but I also would not consider it to be anywhere near as powerful as Wheel of Fortune due to the options that it gives your opponents. The life loss effect is cool, I just don't think that on average it will amount to much in comparison to the option to keep a good hand or get a new one.
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.
If you have enough vamps in play you can also use pact to kill an opponent.
Actually untrue. Pact will not unless they are playing a tribal deck and you choose their tribe. The reason I'm saying this is the tag on pact of "creatures they control" meaning creatures your opponent controls. Still good draw for this deck regardless since its a very small CC deck. Nice theoretical win con against tribal opponents like elves or goblins and the like if need be as well.
The newly spoiled Breena, the Demagogue seems like a pretty strong consideration. It is like a mini-Tymna that also buffs your board. If you get in for chip damage on someone on turn 2, then you can drop Breena on turn 3 and draw 2 cards and get 4 +1/+1 counters.
So there are several reasons why I don't think Breena is a good card for this deck:
1. It's not a vampire (doesn't trigger eminence)
2. It's conditional card draw that only triggers once. It doesn't matter how many creatures you attack with, you're only getting 1 card total for the entire attack step. The 2 +1/+1 counters are whatever, barely anything to write home about.
3. Giving our opponents an opportunity to gain value with our own Breena sounds silly and not something we want to encourage, even if they are helping chip away at life totals.
Try reading the Breena again, I think you misunderstood some things
Try reading the Breena again, I think you misunderstood some things
Seems correct to me, Breena can trigger multiple times if you are attacking multiple players at once and none of them has the lowest life.
I also think this card can do some work in an Edgar Markov deck. I don't think it not being a vampire is a downside if the card is strong enough. And with a low to the ground aggro deck you should be able to pressure opponents in the early game, where they should not be able to benefit from Breena as much as yourself. So much for the theory, I am going to try it out at least and see how it performs.
how many board wipe slots are you guys running and what options are you using for them? i have shifted my list to be able to use ancient ziggurat and thus i have found selfless spirit to be very useful. The only other wipe protection i run rn is teferi's protection but i am considering swapping it for the next selfless glyphweaver, partially because of ziggurat and also partially because having the utility of a emergency board wipe is nice for emergencies but it shares a slot with a card i actually want so it is not really any opportunity cost lost. not the even mention that any wipe protection that is also a creature can go into the red zone and help contribute to the wincon of reducing all enemy life totals to zero via both combat and aristocrat triggers.
I have actually cut more and more board wipe protections over time. The issue I had with with these effects was that they are pretty much useless draws most of the game and you need to have the mana open in case someone casts a board wipe. 2 mana was okay but for 3 mana protections I mostly had to keep the mana open and not play anything else and if no one wiped the board I wasted one rotation doing nothing.
Instead I now play some more card draw and recursion effects, they help rebuild the board after a board wipe and drawing them during any point of the game almost never feels bad. But as you already mentioned, the best option are definitely creatures for board protection, you can just play them out and pop them if needed. No useless cards sitting in hand and the need to keep mana open.
I don't like Callous Bloodmage. The pest token doesn't do a lot, so most of the time one will choose to draw a card and then it is a Dusk Legion Zealot that costs one mana more. The graveyard hate can be good in sometimes but I would rather play a 3 drop with more impact on the board and keep to Dusk Legion Zealot.
Esper Sentinel is definitely good enough to an include even without the vampire type.
As for MID, I currently have the following 3 cards in mind that might find a place in my deck:
Falkenrath Pit Fighter seems like a good 1 drop as 2/1 and can later on convert bad draws and the extra vampire tokens into new gas without too much mana cost. We want to have quite some 1 drops anyway, seems like a good inclusion.
Florian, Voldaren Scion life loss condition should be easy to trigger and provides card advantage without too much investment. With bigger X values one can also look at quite a lot of cards before deciding for one to pick, making it easier to get the right cards for the current situation. I will try him out in my deck.
Vampire Socialite: Currently I am playing Metallic Mimic in my deck and Vampire Socialite is a flat out upgrade. You need to trigger its life loss ability to work but this should not be an issue with this deck. While Metallic Mimic is a real bad topdeck later on and does nothing for the vampires on the board, Vampire Socialite can buff the whole board. Definitely an auto include for me.
I am not playing anymore but I will still chime in with my thoughts on the new cards mentioned.
Lolth, Spider Queen - The objective of this card seems almost entirely for the ult in this deck. The other two modes just aren't worth the mana investment. I think given this I would want to be somewhat heavy on sac outlets as a focus to go in on this. The other problem I see with this card is if you play her and sac a bunch of creatures then suddenly you have less creatures to use in the ult as her ult is combat focused. Sacing half your army for a buff that only helps your creatures when they actually connect is... I don't know.... awkward. If it helped them also be better vs blockers it might be different but I personally don't have much interest in this effect for this deck.
Callous Bloodmage - I feel like 90% of the time the draw is the mode that would be chosen. Three mana for a vamp is a ton especially given it has no evasion or size. I don't think its wrong to play it, I just don't think I would be excited for it. If you have good draw then its going to rot in your hand but maybe thats fine.
Esper Sentinel - I might be odd here but..... I don't actually like this card. Hear me out when I say this but this card in my opinion transitions to commander extremely poorly. I say this because life totals are higher, and deck consistancy is lower. In a 60 card format like say modern you have a 60 card deck and can run four copies of a card. That means that you are going to consistently see those cards sooner and in higher density. A card like Esper Sentinel is a card that gets a lot worse as the game goes on so its frontloaded in when you want to draw it. Beyond that a 1/1 in this format just has almost no impact on someone's life on its own. You have three opponents with 40 life each. I think the best comparison I can make is that Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage, and Vendillion Clique see a lot less play in this format in part because the pressure they put on life totals is mitigated. I think this card is actually very very poor in commander without some large advantage in some sort of tribal or artificer reason to run it. He isn't good pressure, he isn't good draw, and he gets a lot worse when drawn later.
Falkenrath Pit Fighter - Seems beyond good. We definitely have worse one drops it could easily replace.
Florian, Voldaren Scion - Its probably good enough to test at least. My concern is that its not actually draw so the turn you play it you will be down three mana and unlikely to be able to play much on curve. It gets better off curve but I think its important to notice how its not one you necessarily want to tap out to play. I don't think this is a slam dunk but without playing it myself I just see a bit of a gray area on where it stands. Worth testing out if you can afford to test stuff but I don't know personally without seeing it in action.
Vampire Socialite - Seems crazy good. I would be surprised if it isn't an ideal card for the deck.
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 haven't played Eddy in quite a while, but wanted to chime in on two cards being discussed.
I run Esper Sentinel in my Queen Marchesa deck, and it's ranges from mediocre to fantastic depending upon how early it comes down, and whether or not I can increase its power. In this deck, I don't think I'd run it, since it has 0 synergy with anything else, and is unlikely to get pumped. That aside, The real closest comparisons to this card are Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora, two AMAZING cards. And while this isn't quite as good as either, it's still super strong in my experience. I wouldn't sleep on this.
Florian I've tested a little on Brawl both as the commander of a deck and in the 99. While he's not stellar to drop on turn 3 after playing a land, if you can drop him before making your land for the turn, it's almost always a land fetch unless you see something else playable. After that, he sees a TREMENDOUS number of cards. Blue players have been playing cards that look at the top X of the library and put 1 or 2 in their hand for a long time, and are generally paying 2-7 mana for the effect. This is a 3/3 First Strike with synergy that can look at a larger selection of cards every turn. For a deck that wants to be aggressive and keep generating card advantage, this seems like it would be a great fit.
I am a fan of the Gatekeeper as it has a very real chance of being a 2-mana Zozu with a better (for combat) body at many 4-player tables if it hits a fetch, which is amazing for a deck with such a low curve. This card can also spontaneously turn off several decks by accident (such as messing with landfall decks, Jhoira eggs, or storm-esque decks) and even the non-targeted graveyard removal can come in handy once in a blue moon.
things i am testing from vow: voldaren epicure: great one drop to help dig for the few lands if needed and enable pit-fighter and florian voldaren bloodcaster: strictly better interloper with mild board wipe insurance. likely won't flip often but good if it does voldaren estate: no explanation needed welcoming vampire: the once a turn clause sucks but a vamp mentor of the meek mommy of the meek we don't have to waste mana on is still nice plus the evasion helps with beats cemetery gatekeeper: i anticipate this putting in about as much damage work as the avg lord does, plus coming with first strike and exiling a card can both be relevant, especially since it can be tutored easily with recruiter and forerunner bloodtithe harvester: this is easily the one with the weakest case but i think it is basically a better adapt vanguard. it is the right color for nocturnus, it can help for fuel or lands with blood, and while the activated ability being sorcery speed sucks having to activate vanguard's ability also sucks
if i had to list which i am most optimistic about staying in long term:
1. estate,
2. bloodcaster,
3. epicure
4. welcoming
5. gatekeeper
6. bloodthithe
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I am mostly active on MTGNexus these days. I come back here rarely to check on my old lists but I haven't been updating other than responding to people who inquire about my old lists when I do rarely check in.
I ran Tithe Drinker in the past. I think its probably one of the more reasonable lifelinkers but even with that I will say that when things are going well, I kind of never used its extort effect which is why I stopped playing it. I do think of the options to have some lifegain its probably one of the more reasonable options to run.
I have seen a lot of edgar lists run Gifted Aetherborn and that is one of those lifelinkers I have never been able to get behind.
Brightclimb Pathway - I think its ok but the question is what would you bring it in for? I am down to like 5 or 6 basics tops and while I think cutting a swamp could probably be ok I don't know that I like it over much else.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Underworld Breach: ok so i have always had the mind that considering how cheap stuff is, and edgers eminence needs cast, rebuilding from a boardwipe via recasting is way better than something like command the dreadhorde, and this allows for said cats triggers while rebuilding at a low initial cost of just 2 mana. the obvious downside is being red, being worthless in many other board states and fueling escape can be hard, but even with just regular aristocrat shenanigans it can put in work. def a card that gets better the most madness, sacrifice and fetches but give the first two are sub themes/synergies of the deck and the third is just a mana base staple it isn't that and, plus discard outlets like stromkirk condemned make occasionally dead cards like it have a use.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den: my current list runs 38 spells lurrus can cast from the yard, which yes is probably very much on the high end but it fuels the aristocrat shenanigans and board wipe rebuilding very well. having lifeline isn't inconsequential either and lures can get back key non-creature pieces that this deck otherwise wouldn't be able to get back one destroyed or discarded such as skullclamp, underworld breach, goblin bombardment, etc. it is slow at only one a turn but allowing for cast gets the tokens back again similarly to athreos (another card i enjoy because unless something when horribly awry there should be one opponent to bully with him)
Species Specialist: yeah it is expensive at 4 cmc for a non vampire but it is a baordwipe rattlesnake that also rewards aristocrat shenanigans very well with ever important card draw. it also in a way helps get creature through because opponents don't want to kill my tokens with their blockers and just let them through instead of letting me draw to make more.
Agadeem's Awakening: this just placed a swamp in my mind. yes i did rant twicee about why casting is better than cheating into play without casting but when it is just on the backside of what is effectively a swamp it is better than not having that effect, even if the extra potential burn on ad nauseam and dark confidant and needing 3 health on etc but all that sis minor compared to the times when it is super useful on the spell side. it is rare i will draw it and wish it was a swamp instead, but far more common it would help in a situation a swamp would be worthless.
also, not worth making a mini rant about but vampiric fury and rally the peasants seem like they should be in a lot more lists. granted bait win more but also both are very useful with he first being absurdly cheap for effect and the latter being patchable to madness and the like yet still usable later.
Underworld Breach - I am not sure that I would play it over Yawgmoth's Will and I don't play Yawgmoth's. Sure, it saves you one mana in the cost but it seems like it would be hard to chain a bunch of one mana creatures with an added on exile three card requirement. Personally I don't like running any graveyard recursion tactics because they are very responsive and subjective to what your opponents are doing. For the most part they feel like they are counter play to only wraths and don't take into account how drawing cards is usually stronger than playing for recovery. I don't think its terrible but I avoided recursion tactics in general because drawing more cards plays a more proactive game against a lot more tactics than trying to be sticky. I think Breach is a fine card as far as recursion goes and it likely would be one I would at least consider, I just think its better to not play a recursive game. The effects do nothing until you get swept but what if you get in a situation where your creatures are irrelivant or are not surviving passively due to an effect in play like say Pestilence / Ghostly Prison / Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite? Recursion felt too much like it was only an answer to traditional wraths to me so I opted not to run it at all. Card draw can find you tutors or answers to those problems so rather than trying to respond to a problem with a narrow response I opted to push for draw and tutors instead because I felt like they were more generically viable to get me out of numerous issues.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den - Same issue as above. I also don't like that Lurrus only lets you recur one thing a turn. Its possible I might value him more in a sac based concept as well but as it stands I don't see why I would run Lurrus in this list. He is extremely slow in comparison to a good card engine and primarily in my list would require him to be played after a sweeper which feels like not the angle I would want.
Species Specialist - I like the effect but four mana on a non vampire is sort of high for me. The card draw from it also feels like something I can't control very well. I think its ok, I just think it fits better in a sac build. Its a bit similar to Liliana, Dreadhorde General whom I do run but I think the fact that she comes with a Barter in Blood effect that opponents likely won't be expecting also pushes her a bit further for me. Given how similar it is to Liliana I really can't say its half bad but I also wish it had something more, was on tribe, or cost less. I also didn't really get to put a lot of testing in with Liliana to really stand behind that card with a lot of confidence.
Agadeem's Awakening - Yea I think this card is great and I would do that. I am not really playing my list anymore but I think this is a good way to add some recursion to the list. I would totally add this to the list for a swamp.
Vampiric Fury / Rally the Peasants - I guess my issue with these type of cards is that they don't add that much power or sustain. They are one turn effects and while they might make you kill someone in one shot or make some bad blocks into good ones, they don't feel like they add enough punch or sustainability to the deck. If I am pushing for a big attack I don't really need to save my mana so the low cost of Vampiric Fury doesn't make a lot of sense to me since I don't run a lot of mass haste its unlikely that I play a bunch of things before hand and then need a cheap buff to follow it up. I could for instance run Tears of Rage if I wanted a strong punch one shot effect which I would be a lot more prone to running than either of these cards. A big reason that I don't run a lot of anthems with Edgar though is that Edgar Markov himself is an anthem and I always have access to him. For me that means that I only really want super efficient buffs or ones that fit the theme well enough that I would cast them even outside of me going in for a last attack situation. My goal with this deck is largely to have a high consistency of low cost bodies to abuse with Edgar's free token as well as a high abundance of large tempo draw effects. If I can keep drawing cards and casting cheap creatures I can almost always rely on Edgar Markov himself as an anthem. I would be far more likely to get into tempo ramp tactics such as Dark Ritual / Culling the Weak / Mana Vault / Grim Monolith / Jeweled Lotus to get Edgar out faster than I would allocate more slots to other anthems.
In the past I probably should have looked more at the tempo ramp into Edgar more than I did. Try to keep the consistency of the deck high though and to do that you want to keep your density of cheap drop creatures and draw high. Its possible I should have cut more of the anthems from the list and turned them into tempo ramp though to push for Edgar more and other anthems less. Jeweled Lotus looks literally really interesting for this type of deck.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I never really tried the other slower wheel effects like Magus of the Wheel or Wheel of Fate because they are just to slow. But this new one... could be really good.
One of the big reasons that I think the card will be inferior to Wheel of Fortune is the options it gives to opponents. If an opponent has a suck counter to our deck in their hand its far more likely that they refuse to wheel. Taking options away from opponents is part of why Wheel of Fortune is so good. Adding in the option to keep a fantastic hand or trying to go to a new one is vastly inferior as far as disrupting opponents goes. It increases the chance that you run into answers from your opponents and that is why I really can't just blindly say that it will be a good card in here.
I don't have a definite answer on how the card would work out here because I haven't played with it. I guess this is just my word of warning more than anything. I think the price tag to obtain it is fairly reasonable but I also would not consider it to be anywhere near as powerful as Wheel of Fortune due to the options that it gives your opponents. The life loss effect is cool, I just don't think that on average it will amount to much in comparison to the option to keep a good hand or get a new one.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
pact of the serpent
One less mana than Minions' Murmurs
Interesting.
If you have enough vamps in play you can also use pact to kill an opponent.
Actually untrue. Pact will not unless they are playing a tribal deck and you choose their tribe. The reason I'm saying this is the tag on pact of "creatures they control" meaning creatures your opponent controls. Still good draw for this deck regardless since its a very small CC deck. Nice theoretical win con against tribal opponents like elves or goblins and the like if need be as well.
1. It's not a vampire (doesn't trigger eminence)
2. It's conditional card draw that only triggers once. It doesn't matter how many creatures you attack with, you're only getting 1 card total for the entire attack step. The 2 +1/+1 counters are whatever, barely anything to write home about.
3. Giving our opponents an opportunity to gain value with our own Breena sounds silly and not something we want to encourage, even if they are helping chip away at life totals.
Try reading the Breena again, I think you misunderstood some things
Seems correct to me, Breena can trigger multiple times if you are attacking multiple players at once and none of them has the lowest life.
I also think this card can do some work in an Edgar Markov deck. I don't think it not being a vampire is a downside if the card is strong enough. And with a low to the ground aggro deck you should be able to pressure opponents in the early game, where they should not be able to benefit from Breena as much as yourself. So much for the theory, I am going to try it out at least and see how it performs.
I am much more higher on this card now that I know that you can draw multiple cards with it in a turn. It is definitely worth testing.
Instead I now play some more card draw and recursion effects, they help rebuild the board after a board wipe and drawing them during any point of the game almost never feels bad. But as you already mentioned, the best option are definitely creatures for board protection, you can just play them out and pop them if needed. No useless cards sitting in hand and the need to keep mana open.
With a return to Innistrad I'd be curious to know what the thoughts are on the newly spoiled vampires.
Card Image Gallery
Lolth, Spider Queen seems like a potentially fun add in place of Liliana.
Callous Bloodmage is lower impact but gives us 2 bodies and a draw.
Esper Sentinel is off theme but seems like a good drop for repeated draw.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
For Florian, Voldaren Scion i'm not sure what i'm taking out, but i want to test it.
My list is almost as the OG, i'm just lacking some lands, imperial seal and mana crypt.
I run Esper Sentinel in my Queen Marchesa deck, and it's ranges from mediocre to fantastic depending upon how early it comes down, and whether or not I can increase its power. In this deck, I don't think I'd run it, since it has 0 synergy with anything else, and is unlikely to get pumped. That aside, The real closest comparisons to this card are Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora, two AMAZING cards. And while this isn't quite as good as either, it's still super strong in my experience. I wouldn't sleep on this.
Florian I've tested a little on Brawl both as the commander of a deck and in the 99. While he's not stellar to drop on turn 3 after playing a land, if you can drop him before making your land for the turn, it's almost always a land fetch unless you see something else playable. After that, he sees a TREMENDOUS number of cards. Blue players have been playing cards that look at the top X of the library and put 1 or 2 in their hand for a long time, and are generally paying 2-7 mana for the effect. This is a 3/3 First Strike with synergy that can look at a larger selection of cards every turn. For a deck that wants to be aggressive and keep generating card advantage, this seems like it would be a great fit.
I liked only this two for the deck.
Voldaren Epicure
Cemetery Gatekeeper
All the others seem slow and awkward with the blood token mechanic.
So sad for the new Uncle Edgar... it's bad.
voldaren epicure: great one drop to help dig for the few lands if needed and enable pit-fighter and florian
voldaren bloodcaster: strictly better interloper with mild board wipe insurance. likely won't flip often but good if it does
voldaren estate: no explanation needed
welcoming vampire: the once a turn clause sucks but a vamp mentor of the meek
mommy of the meekwe don't have to waste mana on is still nice plus the evasion helps with beatscemetery gatekeeper: i anticipate this putting in about as much damage work as the avg lord does, plus coming with first strike and exiling a card can both be relevant, especially since it can be tutored easily with recruiter and forerunner
bloodtithe harvester: this is easily the one with the weakest case but i think it is basically a better adapt vanguard. it is the right color for nocturnus, it can help for fuel or lands with blood, and while the activated ability being sorcery speed sucks having to activate vanguard's ability also sucks
if i had to list which i am most optimistic about staying in long term:
1. estate,
2. bloodcaster,
3. epicure
4. welcoming
5. gatekeeper
6. bloodthithe