MTG Salvation

Have you thought about running Manabarbs since you went the low curve route? With some ok to decent life gain it really shines.

Quote from Jund4Life »

Have you thought about running Manabarbs since you went the low curve route? With some ok to decent life gain it really shines.

Running Stax / Stasis / MLD / Manabarbs tactics would all go down the direction of trying to set up early and then establish something to cut players off behind it. Its not how I am trying to specifically build as I am attempting to keep draw moving and I actually find myself using up a LOT of mana myself on a turn to turn basis. Its something that could be considered but I kind of categorize it with several of the other effects because if you keep drawing cards its actually kind of dangerous to this deck.

I think the tutors are a lot more relevant to go for card draw or specific answers. I don't think there is going to be a lot of time where I tutor for a vampire because I have so much redundancy in what they do. Its possible I might tutor for evasion or something as well but I think of them as potential wildcards for cards I have trouble running in real numbers like some of the quality repeatable / tempo draw. This kind of deck its really hard to run a high number of answers because you dont want to get flooded with them, you want to use them when you absolutely must have an answer and other than that its better to move forward with your primary goal of killing people and swarming.

Lands - I still am not certain on my count. I feel that I fairly consistantly get to 3 or 4 lands but sometimes I flounder past that unless I get a good draw engine up. The reason to run less of them is mostly to increase your action vs lands play and if and when you get drawing well you don't want to be swimming in lands. If you want to play with your count I would do it slowly (1-2 at a time). It also depends on what the average mana per card you run is as well.

I have been getting more and more picky when it comes to things that are not a creature as I feel like as long as I am in creatures and have the mana to play them I am in the good. Its when I don't find myself doing that that problems seem to arise.

Yea, I agree I have to be watching my vamp count. Some of my non vamps have been doing less good so I guess I can push up my vamp count again. I just find a lot of the non vampire stuff to be far more situational on what my board is and when I draw it as well as what my opponent are doing.

DECK CHANGE:

• Impact Tremors -> Guul Draz Vampire Impact Tremors was good.... if I could curve it and stick it but if you would draw it later it was awkward if you didn't still have a ton of bodies to push in behind it. It also took up my turn 2 without really doing much for itself. It really needed to hit play and then have another bunch of tokens to flood with behind it which was tricky. More cheap vampires means more resources to work with. I value the fact that this vamp is black over Bold Impaler who technically has better stats because I have given a priority to black in my landbase given how many vampires are black.
• Shared Animosity -> Guul Draz Assassin I had an issue with Shared Animosity in that it was a non creature and required me to be doing relatively great for me to justify playing it. I saw it a few times and it never seemed to work for me as you cant just casually cast it and give your creatures +3 power attacking or something like that because the card draw wayyyyy too much attention. To me it felt like it needed to almost win me the game for it to be something I wanted to do. I also recently added a lot more anthems in vampires as well as in the planeswalkers I am toying with. I just.... didnt like it and there was never a case where it worked for me so out it goes for more vamp fuel. I have very little expectations of actually leveling up Guul Draz Assassin but its something that I could do if I am left to that. I am really including it because it is a cheap black vampire and I have put a priority towards black which is why I value it over Bold Impaler (the only one drop vampire I am not yet running at this time).
• Dusk // Dawn -> Malakir Bloodwitch I like the theory of Dusk // Dawn but we have been talking more and more about wraths and removal and I just dont think its what I need. It doesnt sweep the small multiple blockers that really worry me here. I am bringing in a five drop which is something I was trying to avoid playing much of but it really does play well to swarm tactics and it itself is a vampire. It reminds me kind of a lot of Sanctum Seeker which has been really strong for me (and it never lives a turn anyways). I was a bit hesitant to add more 5 drops but I am cutting a 4 drop for it which in some ways feels less concerning especially as these changes as it stands still lowers the mana of my deck by 2(now 4) overall even with this stepping up one. What I really like about the bloodwitch though is that while it is kind of at the top of my curve, it is also something that you play after you have a board for essentially immediate impact. It is also a vampire with fairly good stats and it comes with a friend. Really I just don't want to play it without having 3+ vamps in play already but this could be a very big life siphon effect especially given how wide I have been focusing of late.
• EDIT: Falkenrath Noble -> Blood Seeker I gave it a little more thought and I just felt that the Noble was a little clunky and slow. I am not really running all that many sac outlets anymore and what it does seems kind of dependent on what my opponents are doing given what it costs for me to play it. With all of the extra anthem inclusions I have been feeling less good about the noble as it has just felt a little clunky. Blood Seeker speeds me up and cuts some mana off the curve and I think the life loss to opponents on it while unpredictable is still good not to mention that being a lower cost lets me swarm a little better. I think that Blood Artist is still worth keeping, it was more that I was paying 4 mana instead of 2 for a 2/2 flyer instead of a 0/1. The 0/1 can pick up buffs on tribe still and just moves a lot smoother for me.

This change has cut 4 mana off of my cards which is always something I like to see. So, at this point I am down to only one vampire that costs one mana that I am not running (Bold Impaler). There are still some two drops I could also consider but a lot of them at this point are BB to cast which feels a lot more restrictive to me. I guess we will likely see more vamps in Rivals of Ixalan which doesn't come out until mid January but on the upside we will very likely get access to more toys then.

I'm switching my build to be more like yours. I've found that a standard list falls into the trap of traditional aggro but doesn't have the resiliency of Marchesa, the Black Rose's ability and I've got 3 opponents who can Wrath. This has made me go through your list. I don't think I'll go as low with the low cost build, but definitely a meaner, leaner deck.

One of the cards that surprised me in your lack of inclusion is Smuggler's Copter. Is there a particular reason why? It's superb filtering.

Edit: Oh yeah, I came across a neat card in the wild. Give Scapegoat a consideration.

hi ISBPathfinder,
have you consider teysa orzhov scion? think she is good utility ,sac outlet and can convert the dead vampire tokens to spirit, your thoughts?

Sorry about the delay in responding. I had some travel this last week and I was trying to weigh some ideas and card changes that took me a while to square away.

Quote from Tev »

I'm switching my build to be more like yours. I've found that a standard list falls into the trap of traditional aggro but doesn't have the resiliency of Marchesa, the Black Rose's ability and I've got 3 opponents who can Wrath. This has made me go through your list. I don't think I'll go as low with the low cost build, but definitely a meaner, leaner deck.

One of the cards that surprised me in your lack of inclusion is Smuggler's Copter. Is there a particular reason why? It's superb filtering.

Edit: Oh yeah, I came across a neat card in the wild. Give Scapegoat a consideration.

Wraths can be an issue. It really varies from meta to meta as to how many wraths and what type of wraths they use. Generally speaking having good draw and feeling out how far you can extend and how much is too much.

Smuggler's Copter - I actually prefer this sort of effect more in a deck that is using recursion tactics, cards they don't want in hand, and more of ETB style of creatures. Given I am more of a swarm approach its just sort of ok here if you ask me. It could be used to throw out excess lands if you were swimming in it or possibly throw out situational cards but this deck doesn't really run much that I would feel that it has synergy with here if you ask me. I ran it in my rebel deck for instance because I could throw away rebels and use Lin Sivvi to tuck them again. In that case the point of the card was to move cards that were somewhat bad to draw into other cards.

Scapegoat - Seems kind of fun. I will keep it in mind and if I can ever find a time to try it out I will see what I can do. I think its a card that makes more sense if wraths are giving you problems but I do like the idea behind it. You could theoretically chump block and save the blockers with this. It might still be a little narrow though but I think its cool.

Quote from dachivale »

@Tev - I don't think Scapegoat is worth it... We run quite a few creatures to keep the gas going, having something to keep in hand vs sweepers really overall doesn't work so wel... you might also draw it when you already have had a sweeper used against you, making it somewhat a dead draw. Which we really need to have as little as possible chance to have it happen I think at least...

Smuggler's Copter is indeed a nice card, I don't know for sure if it fits the deck and if its needed at all.. I don't own a copy, but I would at least consider it if I did.. ^^

The lower you go on the curve overall the better I would say.. Also the more the merrier generally speaking, I have increased the number of vampires and lowered the curve in the last weeks overall and it has worked quite wel for me... (my list is probably nowhere near optimal) But yeah, so far low curve and high creature density does wel... ^^

@ ISBP - I don't know if that is the right direction to go with all the card choices, but definitely it's lowering your curve and improving your creature density so can't be completely wrong I think... Not to sure on cutting Shared Animosity that card has been really nuts for me when I drew it... ^^

Malakir Bloodwitch might be worth it as the high end creature, not so sure how wel it wil do, cause we might have been hit by a sweeper before hitting it, but then again other cards that are in the 5+ mana spot in most cases are either hit or mis I feel.. (Coat of Arms for example has the same issue a lot of times.. though I almost never lost when I did draw it..)

Also I never played the Falkenrath Noble to begin with, always thought he was lackluster for it's manacost..

Shared Animosity - I had a lot of issues with boards getting conjested is my issue. It gave no evasion so I would usually have to commit my entire board still to attacking one player to try to kill them and they might still kill half of my tokens. I really did not have a good experience with it. I am finding more and more that I want my vampires to do the buffing when I can so I am more looking at evasion as a priority for my non vamp anthems.

Malakir Bloodwitch - I think it has some good synergy with what we do here. Because it has immediate impact it kind of reminds me of Sanctum Seeker in a lot of ways which I have had some success with. It also gives me a lot more life too. I did tutor for it to end a game last week and taking another 8-10 off everyone's life total can be huge. I guess where I am at right now.... it has been good so far and I intend to keep testing it.

Falkenrath Noble - It had more synergy with my previous build which was more oriented towards just moving as many bodies as I could. I didn't realize as I shifted that it fell off some until more recently. I still like this effect and its size but really its cost is what got me to ship it on.

Quote from yeedeehege »

hi ISBPathfinder,
have you consider teysa orzhov scion? think she is good utility ,sac outlet and can convert the dead vampire tokens to spirit, your thoughts?

I had her in my build as I moved to a faster curve early in this new build. I found that I didn't really have the sac outlets to feel like I could control her given most of my list is not white creatures. This was early in my rebuild when I had less cheap drops than I do now so its possible that with the added cheap creatures she might be better but I still think I would probably want to push up the sac outlets too if I were to run her (probably add Falkenrath Aristocrat back in at the least). I think I am only at like... 4 repeatable free to use sac outlets right now and I would probably want to move back to something like 6+ or so to feel more confident in that number before I would really go back to playing her myself. If she could sacrifice any colored creatures (just even in general) or even just as a sac 3 creatures to exile something it would be a different story but so little of my stuff is white by default here that I just felt like I didn't have control of her when I was playing her last.

---

Ok, I thought long and hard about some changes I wanted to try out. This is part of what took me so long because the list is getting so lean that its getting hard to really pick through new cards.

DECK CHANGES:

• Relic Seeker -> Gamble I drew the seeker in an opening hand last week along with Stoneforge Mystic and I ended up ditching him to Gemstone Caverns and taking the ETB over a question of if I could trigger him even then. Skullclamp has actually been getting a little worse as I added more and more anthems to the deck because I don't run as many sac outlets. I am not entirely sure that Gamble is the right direction for me to move to but it is more flexible and if I could get it to tutor me into one of my stronger card draw engines I think its worth a little bit of a risk. The only concern is that I need to not tempo out my entire hand and be left with just Gamble left in hand. I did think quite a bit about some other draw options and I kept circling back to most of the remaining draw I could come up with feeling too slow as far as how much I got to draw and for how much mana. I considered some cards like Greed, Night's Whisper, Painful Truths, and Promise of Power and in the end I just didnt like the balance of any of those cards with how I am trying to be a tempo deck it just ended up with me paying too much mana per card drawn. What I really would prefer is a cheap tutor that can get me a T4 Necropotence / Dark Prophecy and just curve it in behind having played a couple of vamps and use that to keep me moving forward.
• Gideon, Ally of Zendikar -> Tangle Wire I did manage to see Sorin, Lord of Innistrad in a hand where I got to and passed the mana I needed to cast him. My issue was that he just didnt feel impactful enough. I want my buffs on creatures and I want my noncreatures to disrupt my opponents game and get me through while taking advantage of the tempo of this deck. Tangle Wire feels like the card that might fit the bill in this case as I can tap down cheap vampires and it should disrupt my opponents gameplan while buying me time to advance mine.
• Sorin, Lord of Innistrad -> Cover of Darkness same issues I had above. I didn't originally like Cover of Darkness but I have been adding more and more cheap vampires and realizing that my issue is more and more swarm and ETB tactics that I would prefer ways to get past multiple blockers and I like the mana efficiency of Cover of Darkness plus it gets me past the numbers in a lot of cases.
• Chaos Warp -> Grasp of Fate this is a little more experimental for me to be honest. Being that I am somewhat of a tempo deck I usually don't move to answers until I have to but I think that Grasp of Fate actually has more tempo to it than Chaos Warp but the problem is that it is vulnerable to removal (especially sweepers). Being we are a go wide we are already vulnerable to that style of answer but I think it might be worth it to gain the tempo in our answer. This is a little bit experimental for me but I think it has potential because I am never really passing turn with 3 mana up anyways unless I am committed to using Chaos Warp so I figure I will see how Grasp of Fate compares.

So, I dont think my changes are perfect by any means. I did struggle with quite a few card options when I was looking to make this change and some of these cards came up in my search and some of them I have been kicking around for a bit.

Considering you want efficient Anthems, tied to bodies, I remembered Soltari Champion. Unlike every other Anthem, it can't be gang blocked to death but still pumps the team. It's also Creature-type agnostic which matters more in my build than yours.

Quote from Tev »

Considering you want efficient Anthems, tied to bodies, I remembered Soltari Champion. Unlike every other Anthem, it can't be gang blocked to death but still pumps the team. It's also Creature-type agnostic which matters more in my build than yours.

If it was a vampire I probably would run it. There is something to be said about paying 3 mana for a pair of 2/2s as well as buffing the rest of what you already played though. Really, if he was a vampire I probably would put him in but losing out on other buffs as well as not getting that free token really loses out on a lot I suspect.

I got a Possibility Storm out yesterday and I'm not too sure if it would be good for your build. My build is not as lean, so that meant that I could cast a one or two drop Vampire but get a three drop, so I felt like it was a massive upswing in utility. The amount of bodies it spewed out was also fantastic, it got to the point where I just mass gang blocked an opposing Inferno Titan because it was shooting down my team. What was also fantastic was the protection it gave by messing with my opponent's ability to play out their gameplan. I did become the archenemy and I did die, but that was mostly due to a misplay where I forgot someone landed a Blind Obedience so I needed to keep more Vampires back than I originally thought (I had 8 poison and an opponent had Skittles, I forgot to leave back a flying blocker). If I hadn't screwed up, I would still be in the game and quite possibly eliminate one player on my next turn while fighting the other two.

Another thing I noted from your deck is Null Profusion. I know it draws off of any card cast, but the hand size of two just screams trouble to me. If someone ever hits with Unnerve, you're done. Instead, I would recommend Vanquisher's Banner. It is colorless, which may or may not matter, but it does cost one less which always helps an aggro deck. Whenever you play a Vampire, you would draw a card but it is also an Anthem. Plus it synergizes with Possibility Storm.

Edit: Oh yeah, on your OP, Fire Covenant is listed in the Sorcery section when it is an Instant.

My goodness, there is a lot of good content here, and I haven't even had time to finish reading the first page.

Thanks for another great thread ISBPathfinder. I noticed you have been on these boards for going on 7 years. Seems like just the other day, and to think that I have been here for over 11 takes me back.

We finally got our hands on Commander 2017 in Lima, Peru about a month ago and I jumped all over Edgar Markov. The wife called dibbs on Wizards and my best friend got Dragons. I had to go seraching for good content about Grandpa Munster, and this is a great landing point.

I must say that after all I have read thus far, you are running into the classic recurring problems which have been addressed and solved from magic's past.

You talk about needing more card draw, complaining about how little ramp you run, unsure what to do with removal, and uncertain hiw useful or useless things like coat of arms and Cauldron of Souls are or are not.

I do not claim to be the holder of sacred knowledge, but in my nearly 13 years of playing this game, I notice the old addage is true: the more things change, the more they stay the same. That is to say, this is still a turn based game based around math, percentages, turn order, resource management, probabilities and so forth.

Look, the best decks look to combo out on turn 4 if they can. Mayne sooner. I don't think we care about fighting against those deck with Edgar Markov. I think we are expecting our games to turn 10 or beyond, and in those games, building a resilient deck is important.

In a 4 or 5 player game, that means we are facing 120-160 points of life to chew through, and our commander is designed to win innthe red zone rather than just dropping some combo and making the table scoop.

If someone wants to put combos in our Vigo the Carpathian deck, then more power to you. I am more interested in battles of attrition and grinding out victory with this deck.

You see, my best non-combo decks tend to have the same things in common, and it is echoed by many other players like on the podcast "The Command Zone." We want 10-14 forms of card draw and maybe tutors. We want 35 or so lands with 10 or so forms of ramp.

In magic, we are limited to one land drop per turn, and bending that ruke with ramp puts us ahead of the curve. As our opponents are trying to do the same, it also allows us to keep up with mana production.

The same is true about card draw. As we cast ramp and action spells, how hand disappears.a sizeable portion of card draw will refill our hand after an early resource dump, keep us from running out of gas as the game goes along, and give us a ton of options.

There was a great thread on the WotC forms years ago showing how decks with this much ramp and card draw had significantly more mana available to cast action spells by turn 10 (than a deck without any), as well as having access to more action spells. Remember, "action spells" are anything which is not ramp, lands, or card draw.

You cannot skimp on this stuff.

Next, remeber WHY we are in red black and white. The big reason we are running white, as opposed to Oliva as our commander, is access to disenchant effects. We can kill creature in blacl no problem. We can shatter artifacts withthe help of red. We can kill planeswalkers, reanimate creaturea, draw cards, and cast board wipes all without white. We are playing white so we can run Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Return to Dust and other such removal. Do not under estimate Utter End, and if you have to cut it, make sure you still have about 8+ forms of quality removal in the deck. Okay... that and Sorin Planeswalkers.

In my time with the deck out of the box, it is surprising how quickly it can build an army from nothing, and rebuild after a board wipe.

I personally like having quality vampires over a high quantity of them. I don't want a bunch of terrible 1 and 2 drops over some quality 3-6 drops.

Another old piece of advice is understamding who the beat down is and only casting the cards you need to help you win. It is so important to be conservative and no over extend your hand. Several of the vampires which come in the deck have the ability to take over the game, and when I play, they tend to bait a lot of mass removal. That is fine with me, as they are eventually going to run out and won't be able to answer the final push. That is also why we bait with our weakest win conditions and make life more ajd more miserable every time it comes back to our turn.

Far too often people talk about not even casting Edgar and waiting until he can pump a swarm of creatures, and they seem to forget what kind of pressure he puts on our opponents. First strike is an underrated combat ability until you have to figure out blocks. What's worse is how he grows on each attack.

Opponets who are not staring down the fangs of Edgar Markov are often happy to let him strike down our common foe. Those who have become the unfortunate target hate to burn up spot removal against a commander, because even Swords to Plowshares starts to feel like unsummon when the commander is sent back to the command zone.

This meams that We oftem bait mass removal or force ineffecient plays, which grants us the advantage.

I can't wait to keep reading later. I hope this was a worthwhile read.

Nice deck, can't wait to see the reports. Have you considered grave pact? It may provide a form of evasion stopping your opponent from blocking if they do not want to sac a creature. Also, if you are lucky enough to have grave pact with skullclamp the card advantage will be unreal lol

I showed up last week and we had a small turnout. I felt bad enough about running my fast decks so I avoided playing vamps and tried sticking more to my mono white decks. I still 3/0ed the games last week so I felt a little bad. Hopefully we get at least four people next week because I feel like I am cheezing it a little when I run this deck in three player games.

Quote from Tev »

I got a Possibility Storm out yesterday and I'm not too sure if it would be good for your build. My build is not as lean, so that meant that I could cast a one or two drop Vampire but get a three drop, so I felt like it was a massive upswing in utility. The amount of bodies it spewed out was also fantastic, it got to the point where I just mass gang blocked an opposing Inferno Titan because it was shooting down my team. What was also fantastic was the protection it gave by messing with my opponent's ability to play out their gameplan. I did become the archenemy and I did die, but that was mostly due to a misplay where I forgot someone landed a Blind Obedience so I needed to keep more Vampires back than I originally thought (I had 8 poison and an opponent had Skittles, I forgot to leave back a flying blocker). If I hadn't screwed up, I would still be in the game and quite possibly eliminate one player on my next turn while fighting the other two.

Another thing I noted from your deck is Null Profusion. I know it draws off of any card cast, but the hand size of two just screams trouble to me. If someone ever hits with Unnerve, you're done. Instead, I would recommend Vanquisher's Banner. It is colorless, which may or may not matter, but it does cost one less which always helps an aggro deck. Whenever you play a Vampire, you would draw a card but it is also an Anthem. Plus it synergizes with Possibility Storm.

Edit: Oh yeah, on your OP, Fire Covenant is listed in the Sorcery section when it is an Instant.

Its good to hear some feedback on Possibility Storm. I still have not gotten a chance to see it yet.

Null Profusion - honestly I don't know that I have much for feedback on it yet. I have seen it a few times in early phases of games where it has completely sucked for me. I have yet to ever get it late enough to be able to cast it. It does have some concerns still but honestly I dont really see much for discard run and you can always cast our commander to get out from a no card hand. So far I guess its not my favorite card but I am not ready to axe it.

Vanquisher's Banner - maybe, I have been adding a lot more vampires of late. My list started at a point where I was trying to avoid 5 cost spells but slowly I have been allowing them back in. I will give it a bit more thought as my vamp count is much better than it originally had been.

Fire Covenant - oops fixed. I just sort of assumed it was a sorcery given what it did but yea.... thats cool.

Quote from dachivale »

I never felt Null Profusion was a good choice myself, kind of like how Grafted Skullcap is also not great.. I think indeed that the Banner might be a better card. Personally don't own a copy, if I did I might add it. I think it would replace another high cost non-creature/non-vampire in my list if I could add it..

The Draw + pump is quite a nice deal, even though it doesn't further your board, it does further your hand.. thus at least considerable indeed.

@ ISBP - not sure if Gamble is a good card here, it's a risk and reward kind of card, it's great in Mairsil, cause it's win/win there no matter if it's discarded, that is not the same here though...

Not sure on tangle wire, I own a copy, never added it, for something like that, if we where to try and lock down, might as wel add other such cards, like winter orb, etc... I feel it's good when we are ahead, but a dead card when we need more gas, like so many other cards that could be added but aren't..

I get your point on shared animosity, but the same goes for many other cards, you need to really push gas to get damage in. I think we are lost at the point where we cannot do this as much.. thus why I feel that it would be a good card to keep in.. but again, might be a bit more either we are winning by a mile or losing by inches... ^^


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I have used Soltari Champion in many decks and it is a good card - but I guess indeed it might not be as useful here... might better use Odric, Master Tactician.. make them block with nothing... this card has pushed my army past big creatures in many decks... and thinking I wil add it here also... (totally forgot about having that card and it's use in swarm decks..) - This wil be my 'cover of darkness' which I don't own.. ^^

For the most part I am just moving some of the questionable cards arround and testing out new concepts. I dont know if they are going to be good or not.

Gamble - In most lists the card you are tutoring for you dont want to be questionably maybe entombing. This card is a gamble but it always has a percentage chance to fail. The idea is to really try to get the chances of it failing to be 1/3 or less. Its a risk / reward style of card and if I can get away with tutoring Necropotence for R it is probably worth doing. Its possible that I should instead drop the $$$ for an Imperial Seal but I have been reluctant to do that thus far. I think it is incredibly important for tutors to be cheap in this deck so that they can be multi tasked. The issue I have with Imperial Seal is that it is the same card disadvantage as Gamble its just that it might backfire and get rid of the card you want. Gamble on the other hand though can be used and retrieve the card you want in the same turn which has its advantage. I could potentially see both being in the list. My argument towards cheap tutors is that the card draw options continue to get worse as we try to add more of them but tutors give us that wildcard option to maybe get them.

Tangle Wire - its dramatically different than Winter Orb as its more of a temporary tempo card. Tangle Wire hits opponents harder than us as it can fade before it taps us down, it can tap itself down, and we have super cheap vampires / tokens to tap to it. On the other hand it probably taps down a bunch of lands for our opponents so in some regards it can be like a few turns of disabling our opponents. They still get to play lands and draw cards so its not necessarily like taking a few turns but it can potentially disable our opponents for a few turns. Winter Orb is more of a long term disabling tactic but its also harder to extend further into the board under that even for our deck so what I like about Tangle Wire is that it takes advantage of our early game rather than trying to lock up the game for us and our opponents moving forward. Its more of a tempo gain rather than a stall for time if you ask me. I have played Tangle Wire a few other times and I run it in my Kozilek deck. Its really more of a temporary tempo in how I have played it before. I am not going to say that it fits fore sure here but I want to give it a shot and see how it comes out.

Shared Animosity I was at the point where I saw it 3-4 times at this point and never once did I cast it. It was never good enough for me to spend my turn on it and in almost every case it wasn't going to kill anyone and half of my creatures would die to the attack. I would rather go back to Eldrazi Monument than to return to Shared Animosity right now. For the time being I am going to try without either. I am not saying that I would never return to either or any other card but for now, I am going without them.

Quote from Drain Life »

My goodness, there is a lot of good content here, and I haven't even had time to finish reading the first page.

Thanks for another great thread ISBPathfinder. I noticed you have been on these boards for going on 7 years. Seems like just the other day, and to think that I have been here for over 11 takes me back.

We finally got our hands on Commander 2017 in Lima, Peru about a month ago and I jumped all over Edgar Markov. The wife called dibbs on Wizards and my best friend got Dragons. I had to go seraching for good content about Grandpa Munster, and this is a great landing point.

I must say that after all I have read thus far, you are running into the classic recurring problems which have been addressed and solved from magic's past.

You talk about needing more card draw, complaining about how little ramp you run, unsure what to do with removal, and uncertain hiw useful or useless things like coat of arms and Cauldron of Souls are or are not.

I do not claim to be the holder of sacred knowledge, but in my nearly 13 years of playing this game, I notice the old addage is true: the more things change, the more they stay the same. That is to say, this is still a turn based game based around math, percentages, turn order, resource management, probabilities and so forth.

Look, the best decks look to combo out on turn 4 if they can. Mayne sooner. I don't think we care about fighting against those deck with Edgar Markov. I think we are expecting our games to turn 10 or beyond, and in those games, building a resilient deck is important.

In a 4 or 5 player game, that means we are facing 120-160 points of life to chew through, and our commander is designed to win innthe red zone rather than just dropping some combo and making the table scoop.

If someone wants to put combos in our Vigo the Carpathian deck, then more power to you. I am more interested in battles of attrition and grinding out victory with this deck.

You see, my best non-combo decks tend to have the same things in common, and it is echoed by many other players like on the podcast "The Command Zone." We want 10-14 forms of card draw and maybe tutors. We want 35 or so lands with 10 or so forms of ramp.

In magic, we are limited to one land drop per turn, and bending that ruke with ramp puts us ahead of the curve. As our opponents are trying to do the same, it also allows us to keep up with mana production.

The same is true about card draw. As we cast ramp and action spells, how hand disappears.a sizeable portion of card draw will refill our hand after an early resource dump, keep us from running out of gas as the game goes along, and give us a ton of options.

There was a great thread on the WotC forms years ago showing how decks with this much ramp and card draw had significantly more mana available to cast action spells by turn 10 (than a deck without any), as well as having access to more action spells. Remember, "action spells" are anything which is not ramp, lands, or card draw.

You cannot skimp on this stuff.

Next, remeber WHY we are in red black and white. The big reason we are running white, as opposed to Oliva as our commander, is access to disenchant effects. We can kill creature in blacl no problem. We can shatter artifacts withthe help of red. We can kill planeswalkers, reanimate creaturea, draw cards, and cast board wipes all without white. We are playing white so we can run Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Return to Dust and other such removal. Do not under estimate Utter End, and if you have to cut it, make sure you still have about 8+ forms of quality removal in the deck. Okay... that and Sorin Planeswalkers.

In my time with the deck out of the box, it is surprising how quickly it can build an army from nothing, and rebuild after a board wipe.

I personally like having quality vampires over a high quantity of them. I don't want a bunch of terrible 1 and 2 drops over some quality 3-6 drops.

Another old piece of advice is understamding who the beat down is and only casting the cards you need to help you win. It is so important to be conservative and no over extend your hand. Several of the vampires which come in the deck have the ability to take over the game, and when I play, they tend to bait a lot of mass removal. That is fine with me, as they are eventually going to run out and won't be able to answer the final push. That is also why we bait with our weakest win conditions and make life more ajd more miserable every time it comes back to our turn.

Far too often people talk about not even casting Edgar and waiting until he can pump a swarm of creatures, and they seem to forget what kind of pressure he puts on our opponents. First strike is an underrated combat ability until you have to figure out blocks. What's worse is how he grows on each attack.

Opponets who are not staring down the fangs of Edgar Markov are often happy to let him strike down our common foe. Those who have become the unfortunate target hate to burn up spot removal against a commander, because even Swords to Plowshares starts to feel like unsummon when the commander is sent back to the command zone.

This meams that We oftem bait mass removal or force ineffecient plays, which grants us the advantage.

I can't wait to keep reading later. I hope this was a worthwhile read.

Thanks, there has been a lot of group discussion and while in the end I do end up making decisions based on my own thoughts I definitely try to do what I cant towards making things stronger. My own decisions are also biased towards the metas in which I play but I try to reason and logic situations where things might be different. What can I say.... time flies lol. I still think back to when I started playing commander and all of these "staples" were like.... cheap bad cards that no other format wanted.

I am also building and basing a lot of what I do on players not playing fast efficient competitive combo. I still see a little bit of combo but it tends to not be as fast or consistent when I do see it. I personally do not like combo so I don't execute it as kind of a general how I play.

The reason I run Edgar as my commander is the free value on each vampire cast. I have considered building Olivia in the past but there is no way I would ever build her as a tribal deck. There is so much free value when you look at a cheap vampire and then you tag a free token onto the end of what it already does on its own. Some of these vampires are cards that we would not hesitate to run as just good creatures on their own merit but when you also tag a free extra body onto the end of them the value starts to take off kind of hard. You do get access to more colors with Edgar but in the end, all of edgar's built in benefits move towards running a more aggressive list rather than a control strategy. It is still very important to run removal effects as there are some things that you just wont ever get past with brute force alone but at the same time if you run too much removal you dilute the benefits and advantages of the commander itself which is geared more towards being a tribal aggressive deck.

Quality vs Quantity - I have been playing the list essentially since it came out. Several of us here have and really the community as a whole seems to be agreeing that the cheaper vampires provide more value than quality vampires. I actually started out with a list more built on good standalone vampires but I quickly learned that I was actually getting a lot more value from Edgar off of going with a swarm of cheap creatures than I was with casting value vampires over time. My first build was more on generically good and control like vampires but in such a build I essentially never had enough bodies for casting my commander to really make much sense. Every time I found the cheap vampires I just kept wishing I could be casting those creatures all the time.

Swarming and getting swept - I acknowledge this can happen. I actually really push hard for card draw so that I can be moving my hand all the time. I acknowledge that if you don't have the proper draw to back up playing a bunch of one drops you will run out of hand and flounder. Its really important for the build I am going for to keep draw high and situational cards lower. I have and do get swept and the important thing is having follow up plays. Several of the better draw mechanics can draw entire new hands almost every turn. Some of my issue comes back to finding cards that are efficient at drawing cards to the extent that I need them. For instance, I really cannot get enough efficiency out of Night's Whisper in a list like this because the cards drawn for the mana is not high enough given the lower value per card in this list. This is in part why I have been putting so much emphasis on specific draw effects and tutors for them. How many sweepers players play varies from meta to meta. If you encounter more wraths / propaganda effects in general in a meta then yes, this strategy will get worse.

Edgar Markov as a threat - its more of an issue how much mana is devoted to him. Its true that he does grow each turn but he is also kind of expensive to cast in the first place and recasting him in games gets expensive fast. He is at his strongest when you are buffing multiple bodies per attack with him. I use him as another anthem and while I don't avoid casting him, I also think that if you are not buffing somewhat of a lot of vampires I might have something better to do. Because he serves to give us bodies in play and buff them its also part of why I have been pushing more for evasion of late. As to the question of if other players worry and consider spot removing him, he generates his value on attack so even if he is not attacking you, a swarm of dudes getting buffed is reason to consider using that spot removal on him before he can attack. I think it will depend on the metas and the players as to if he gets spot removed if someone has spot removal.

Thanks for all the feedback, I think Edgar is still very far from being solved but I have really enjoyed toying with builds and testing new cards.

Quote from Zauberstein »

Nice deck, can't wait to see the reports. Have you considered grave pact? It may provide a form of evasion stopping your opponent from blocking if they do not want to sac a creature. Also, if you are lucky enough to have grave pact with skullclamp the card advantage will be unreal lol

I did play with the idea a bit early on. In the end, I felt like I cut my sac outlets to the point where I could not all that reliably activate them as I wanted. I think it could still fit here but I also think that they are a bit situational as to if they are serving your needs. If you ask me the issues for a deck like this is not really the issue of being attacked but instead it is:

1) Running out of draw
2) Effects that disable us (Propaganda, Aether Flash, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Lightmine Field)
3) Being swept
4) Clumping or drawing too many of a situational effect. It kind of circles back to #1 but if I draw all answers and no threats its a problem.

Generally speaking I don't need to worry about my opponents value and threats unless and until one of the above happen. I threw out a few random cards that could be problems but that does not compose the entire list and some of them were in fact very niche cards. My issue is that I don't feel that Grave Pact actually helps me against much of the problems that tend to cause me to stumble with this deck. Grave Pact can be useful in the right situation and it can remove some blockers which allows us to connect better but it also is slow and plays more towards a control concept and strategy than I am looking for. While Grave Pact could answer something like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite which really is something that would screw us, I think its better to run removal that is more broad in what it can target and do so that we have something more versatile for whatever issue does come up.

---

As I was saying, last week I had some other focuses as I was running my Sram deck a lot last week and I felt bad about playing a 3 player game of vamps so I did not run it last week. I will see if I can get more testing in tomorrow to see if I can get more testing in. The thought of getting my hands on an Imperial Seal now that its price is down a bit is something I might consider for this deck as I really need to be moving fast with cheap tutors. I did just put in a sell order to Cardkingdom for like $1,200 in credit so it might be among some of the things I pick up once that is done.

I ended up playing my vamps in a 5 player FFA game last night. I wasn't expecting much because going to 5 players is really rough and usually ends poorly. I had kind of a sick game though so I figured I would highlight it.

My opponents are: Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis (enchantment based token deck), Ashling the Pilgrim, Roon of the Hidden Realm, and Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar. From the get go I see Ashling so I expect this to be.... a little rough. We roll to see who is first and I end up being last.

My opening hand is: 2 fetchlands, Gemstone Caverns, Shadow Alley Denizen, Mirror Entity, Enlightened Tutor, Ad Nauseam. I start the game by exiling Mirror Entity to the caverns. In retrospect I probably should have pitched Ad Nauseam to it instead.

T1: fetchland into Scrubland. Shadow Alley Denizen and at my opponents EOT I Enlightened Tutor for Necropotence.
T2: Fetchland into Badlands Necropotence and draw up to 8 cards and ditch a land.
T3: Swamp, Falkenrath Gorger, Quag Vampires, Viscera Seer, Vampiric Tutor for Malakir Bloodwitch. I refill my hand to full. Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis plays his commander and I happen to have 2 lands in my hand so I opt to play for tempo since I have good draw already. Ashling the Pilgrim plays his commander. Roon of the Hidden Realm plays his commander. I think the Tomorrow player is playing some ramp.
T4: Land, I know that I am going to get blown up before my next turn because Ashling has the ability to do it. I am up to 6 lands thanks to the opening hand Gemstone Caverns + Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis gave me an extra. I have Insolent Neonate and follow it up with Malakir Bloodwitch and syphon 12 life off of each of my opponents giving me a net gain of 48 life. I then swing a mob of vamps at Ashling who only has his 1/1 commander who he does not block with. I draw a bit heavier and get some really good action this turn as I think I draw like 9 more cards and I had 2-3 left in hand. I end up dropping my excess lands so I only have one land drop for the next turn in exchange for more action. Ashling blows up my board - Malakir Bloodwitch because he only goes 3 damage deep. Roon plays some ETB creature and Tomorrow plays Mind's Dilation.
T5: Land, Sol Ring (I flip a Diabolic Intent off the top card for Tomorrow but he has no creatures to cast it with). Purphoros, God of the Forge, two one drop vamps and Stoneforge Mystic (opponents lose 10 life). I draw a bunch of cards again. Ashling replays his commander and plays + equips a Loxodon Warhammer (he has a few good stones to achieve this). He is getting ready to blow up again and gain a bunch of life. Roon manages to find Sylvan Reclamation and takes out my Purphoros, God of the Forge and Necropotence (I still have like 50ish life). I in response put away another 7 cards. Tomorrow morphs a creature.
T6: my opponents have like 10-15 life for the most part right now. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Indulgent Aristocrat, Dark Prophecy, I activate my Nykthos to recover the mana I just spent (I think I get 7ish mana off of it). Zulaport Cutthroat, Captivating Vampire, Iroas, God of Victory (Tomorrow has a Kheru Spellsnatcher which he reveals now and hijacks my god). I use my Captivating Vampire + the other 3 new vamps and one of my existing vamp tokens to hijack Ashling (he scoops in response). I sacrifice the Stoneforge Mystic to Indulgent Aristocrat off of floating mana and then swing 4 vamps at Roon. Roon uses his 3 creatures to block the ones on the ground and I sac a few more to pump my guys a few times and Roon dies to Malakir Bloodwitch + the Zulaport Cutthroat death triggers.

My last two opponents kind of peak at their top cards / take their turns and concede. I was going to kill them both on my next turn essentially from what I had in play. I did manage on T6 to have the option to play Possibility Storm but at that point essentially all of the things I had to do were kind of relevant for ending the game right then and there. If I had not been so close to ending the game I probably would have cast the Possibility Storm. Soooooo that game was a little lucky... I got a fast tempo land start and I got to tutor for Necropotence. I hit a LOT of my cheap vampires as well which is very lucky plus I got to tutor and play Malakir Bloodwitch essentially at the ideal time which allowed me to continue to completely shred through my deck with Necropotence. I did get wrathed for 11 vamps between my turns 4 & 5 and I did eat some other removal as well but still somehow it was an incredibly fast one sided beat down game.

I don't know if I have much for take aways from this game. Necropotence is sick and tutoring for it wins games lol.

That game was definitely an outlier. I did want to post it though because of how well it did come together. I managed to take 26 life from each of my opponents by turn 6 with non combat damage (Malakir Bloodwitch = 12, Purphoros, God of the Forge = 10, Zulaport Cutthroat = 4) and Ashling did 3 more to each so my opponents had all lost 29 life from things before event taking into consideration the attackers I had.

Malakir Bloodwitch has been great essentially every game for me. It is somewhat similar to Sanctum Seeker but it packs a little more punch since it factors in vamps I play in the same turn plus itself plus the token it creates in how it works. Sanctum Seeker has the potential to work over multiple turns but honestly, he is such a must answer that it seems unlikely he lives.

I really do think I might end up getting an Imperial Seal for this deck as well. I have just sort of accepted that I have most of the great draw I am going to get for this deck and now its just a question of how to get those specific cards.

I have a lot of additional decks that I am trying to get time in with as well so I have dropped back a little in how much I play this one. This deck is also fairly strong and fast so if and when it does well I feel bad playing it again the same night.

How do you feel about Hammer of Purphoros and Whip of Erebos?

I'm really liking this take on Edgar Markov because it's not about the goodstuff vampires and it's going for quantity over quality. I know you're trying to keep the mana curve down very low, but what about adding one or two blink spells to take advantage of cards like Malakir Bloodwitch and Purphoros, God of the Forge? Maybe Eerie Interlude? It's cheap to cast and you choose which creatures are blinked. I'd choose Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle for the swap. It costs the same, and a cheap vampire he is not (especially when compared to all your 1-drop and 2-drop creatures). As a token producer I feel that he's a bit slow since he can only make one vamp each combat. Sure, you don't always have blowout games like the ones you told about, and you may end up going for the long haul in games that drag on, but I feel he's a bit slow even then. Even so, the next set in the Ixalan block will definitely bring more vampires for you to choose.

I don't want to answer for ISB but based on other threads of his I have followed, and questions I have asked him in the past, he is not a fan of one time blink effects.

Quote from ctaylor33 »

How do you feel about Hammer of Purphoros and Whip of Erebos?

The real question is how do either help me? Both of these will take essentially a full turn to cast and in a lot of cases it will be behind most of my action that I am casting these. They kind of rely on me already having a fairly good setup for them to do much and so I am going to call them winmore in that they dont really help me out of a bad situation but they might put me in one because they don't contribute enough to my gameplan. I have become very very lean when it comes to my noncreature effects that don't essentially tutor for draw, are draw, or are some sort of answer to get me out of a jam that playing more dudes into wont help. I guess I do also allow for some evasion as well but thats also in part because attacking with vampires is something this deck does normally do and token, utility, and ETB guys are all annoying when they start to stockpile.

If you look back over some of the history of the changes of this deck I have continued to have a hard time with the non creature effects that are not draw and evasion because too often I cant give up the turn for them not to mention the card in hand for drawing them.

Quote from DementedKirby »

I'm really liking this take on Edgar Markov because it's not about the goodstuff vampires and it's going for quantity over quality. I know you're trying to keep the mana curve down very low, but what about adding one or two blink spells to take advantage of cards like Malakir Bloodwitch and Purphoros, God of the Forge? Maybe Eerie Interlude? It's cheap to cast and you choose which creatures are blinked. I'd choose Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle for the swap. It costs the same, and a cheap vampire he is not (especially when compared to all your 1-drop and 2-drop creatures). As a token producer I feel that he's a bit slow since he can only make one vamp each combat. Sure, you don't always have blowout games like the ones you told about, and you may end up going for the long haul in games that drag on, but I feel he's a bit slow even then. Even so, the next set in the Ixalan block will definitely bring more vampires for you to choose.

Yea I also started out as kind of goodstuff vamps when I started out but after a few games of seeing things like Viscera Seer and Blood Artist I started to really like the efficiency of that free token with cheap costing vamps. My first transition to a low curve was a little rocky but man, I would never go back now after having gotten there. I still constantly question a TON of my non vampire choices but I slowly just kind of move them arround and experiment with different things until something clicks. I still think I probably have 3-5 noncreature cards floating that I think could go if I could figure out something that works a little better.

Eerie Interlude - You are looking at a few of very few ETBs in this deck. If I can get my hands on those cards and stick them I already am probably doing fairly well. There just are not all that many effects that go off of ETB in this deck. Its far more likely that I would go back to Yawgmoth's Will because I could recast one drop vamps and get the tokens off of them again as well. Its going to just be too niche for this deck personally.

Quote from ctaylor33 »

I don't want to answer for ISB but based on other threads of his I have followed, and questions I have asked him in the past, he is not a fan of one time blink effects.

You are right that I often have issues with them but its more that people put them in decks they don't belong. I at one point was drafting up an ETB Ephara, God of the Polis and essentially every bit of flicker looked amazing in that list. I just think there are a lot more situations I would not run that sort of effect than decks I would. Some people run those as defense effects and I don't much care for that because of the resources you have to try to keep up. Flicker effects like this are better for ETB decks especially those focusing on some control strategies as you can have potentially a counterspell up or that. That is when the mass flicker effects are good.

Yeah, I see what you mean. I was looking at those two cards in particular as more potential wincons than they are. But if Eerie Interlude were just dependent on them, it’d be a dead draw most of the time. As for those 3-5 nonVampire cards that you may cut, Rivals of Ixalan will definitely provide you with some more vampires.

Quote from DementedKirby »

Yeah, I see what you mean. I was looking at those two cards in particular as more potential wincons than they are. But if Eerie Interlude were just dependent on them, it’d be a dead draw most of the time. As for those 3-5 nonVampire cards that you may cut, Rivals of Ixalan will definitely provide you with some more vampires.

Yea I have some high hopes from the next set but its hard to say what we will get until we see it. My preference is towards 1-2 mana vamps but I will take a few quality swarm options too. Oddly enough there were no anthems in Ixilan (Sanctum Seeker and Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle kind of.... but not really). I wouldnt be surprised if they gave them at least one stat buff vampire this next set given there werent any last set. My hope I guess is not to get much for reprints.

Time will tell I guess. For the most part though I just move cards around until they feel right lol.

I only see the creatures from your list. Am I doing something wrong? Is the full list posted?

Quote from Ud5soul »

I only see the creatures from your list. Am I doing something wrong? Is the full list posted?

The original post is up to date with what my list is. Its probably in multiple columns so scroll to the right.

Quote from dachivale »

I do hope the next set wil bring more pump lords.. I am gonna edit/change my deck a bit more when I get some time also... I think I took out Malakir Bloodwitch but indeed that might have been a mistake...

Lately just haven't felt much like playing magic, guess after playing since Beta my slump has finally arrived.. might also be that my play group is not as active and its kinda boring to be playing 1v1 games with the same person 3 weeks in a row... Especially cause it's a person I am not the biggest fan of lets say... ^^

But to not regress to much into stories that are neither here nor there... Lets hope for something good low cost or pump for vamps next set and I also don't think blink and other strategies are needed or good for the deck.. Mavren Fein does seem less powerful reading again that it's only 1 token, not 1 per non-token that attacked... (definitely read the card wrong.. xD)

Hope to possibly put some more money into a few decks, this one might be included when I do get some cards.. (need more tutors, etc..)

Sorry to hear about your playgroup decline. Its really rough in that its something thats hard to control and it would also make me probably give me hesitations to play.

Malakir Bloodwitch - it plays towards the pros of this build which is the ability to play out a lot of bodies. I like it from the standpoint of very fast value generation because doing damage to each player for each vamp is kind of like getting the output out of 3ish anthems in the sheer output it has. Its an upfront value but its nice in that you kind of know how hard you are going to hit for in that its rare for people to play all that much for instant speed sweepers that are online already. Its kind of like Starstorm that might screw you and even then that can be kind of situational in what kind of decks its run. I have been having really good results so far, my only hesitation was kind of its mana cost but its proven to be well worthwhile for me at least so far.

Next set - its hard to really predict what we will get other than there will be more vamps. I really hope we don't end up with much for reprints because that could also take up some space as far as us getting new utility. I do think they will probably add an anthem of some sort but its hard to say what that might look like (just going from what they have in standard and what they lack).

Mavren Fein - its been.... ok. Its still generally speaking 3 vamps for 3 mana which is kind of a solid investment but you are right that it does suck that you only get one token. I got to play him T2 once behind a T1 fast mana and vamp game and it was fairly legit then but the later you get him the less good it gets. I could be convinced to move him to something else because the later he happens the worse he is. The options left for vamps is drying out a little though so other than just moving it to a cheaper body for the sake of a cheaper body I don't know that there is that much I am looking to add right now.

Good luck with your upgrades and meta.

Okay I have to weigh in here: Possibility Storm why? I don't care that you get the extra cast trigger; if that really mattered then you would be better off playing Anointed Procession in every single possible way imaginable on down to crazy synergy with Purphoros, God of the Forge to everything else in the deck. But you don't like Anointed Procession so there's gotta be something more to it for you.

The chaos it sows?? No. This could backfire in so many ways imaginable and I don't like the unpredictable all that much. Everyone knows Wheel of Fortune is an amazing card because of it's card advantage vs. cost ratio plus what it does to wreck your opponent's hands in multiplayer.

I feel the deck would benefit more from Sensei's Divining Top. If you add Imperial Seal (and I believe you know that you should) not only does it help you draw into something immediately important with it but it has amazing synergy with my best friend, Dark Confidant.