Thank you to everyone contributing in the disscution about Edgar Markov. I just got the preconstructed deck and i want to build a deck around him but i have questions i know maybe this isn't the place to ask but i havent seen a thread like this anywhere else.
I was wondering if Edgar Markov could be viable when playing under MTGO rules (30 life points, banned and restricted cards, etc, etc). I know people have tested that here but i just want to make sure it is viable before i invest.
I saw the list that Cainsson posted on page#5 on this topic and it looks solid, thank you. I was wondering if anyone has tried Mirri the cursed. Haste first strike and flying plus if you deal combat dmg to a player mirri gets a +1/+1 counter. Not bad for a 4cmc that puts 4 power on the board (and possibly 5).
The meta in my LGS looks like the following: zurgo, baral, titania, tasigur control, eldrazi, infect, Mono white Kytheon, Jeskai Narset control (i am sure there are others but i cant remeber now. Not Doran, Marchessa). In your opinion, how good Edgar Markov is against those decks?
Thank you everyone for reading and for your help, it is much appreciated.
Lol I happened to be online so i might as well try to pitch in.
To clarify, bulk of the discussion in this thread is not for the MTGO format, it's for 20 life french. Just keep that in mind when reviewing decklists here and seeing how well they perform.
30 life is a far cry from 20 in terms of viable decks in the meta, so although the gameplan is similar, the success rate will differ. Edgar is soft to combo, which makes that extra 10 life a problem. Against fellow aggro, his board state beats out mono-white and zurgo. I'm not sure how much unblockable and protection tech that infect deck has, but 10 poison is much easier to dish out than 30 dmg imo. totally not sure about eldrazi, narset and tasi.
There's an mtgo banlist thread somewhere, and I posted just now asking if edgar markov is surviving that meta. I'm curious as well. you might wanna check that thread out once in a while in case a response pops up.
Yea, the sorcery speed is an issue at times. for sure. Buuutttt......one mana for four damage. it's like they made that for me because I'm feelin the pooowweeerrrr of loooovvveeeeee.
...probably didn't need the Mike & Maria Kanellis reference.
You see the new one drop 2/2? Pretty easy to enable. Great way to curve a Teetering Peaks opening. raid - ~ etb with a +1/+1 counter on it. 1/1 for R, goblin pirate. t1 mountain, zurgo < t2 Peaks Zurgo and bash 4 < post combat this guy. Seems legit.
oh maria. took me years to unsee the kayfabe brainless diva gimmick that WWE forced on her for so long.
definitely playing that pirate. keep em quality 1 drops coming wizards, zurgo needs em! eminence has downgraded zurgo from a tournament sledgehammer that gets stonewalled only by green decks into a mid tier meta deck imo.
Sooo I saw sonic burst in action and it is amazing. Sometimes opportunities come up on the fly where you just need an explosive turn to just end the game, and this helps loads. The drawback wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be.
Plus, the art resembles opponents when they see it resolve so that's something to consider as well.
I wonder just how much we can afford to throw cards away...between collateral damage and shard volley, fireblast and now this? I'm not writing it off. It's two cmc for 4 damage at instant speed, I can't dismiss it. I am however, skeptical if this is reliable enough.
Mathematically speaking, we want to discard a land all the time because otherwise it's better damage wise if we'd have just cast two burn spells rather than one and one thrown away. Hmm.
If the variation of zurgo you play is full of 1 and 2 drops with barely any 3's and no 4's, this will be less useful, since you'll most likely be emptying your hand. In this scenario the only way you'll get miles off this is when you're flooded, which means you lose anyway. However, I play a looot of 3's and i think five 4 drops, and having that 4 damage out when stuck on 2 lands is a huge help. Also, I think of the random card lost as an acceleration cost, coz seriously 4 freaking damage to any target for only 2 mana at instant speed is huge. This messes with an opponent's math big time, which is something we want to do often with zurgo.. We often win when an opponent overestimates the time he has left to survive.. though extremely different from sonic burst, it's the same reason i keep thunderous wrath in my deck.
In that light, it *may* be worth playing over Reckless Abandon, though I like having control over the card I lose, even if it's sorcery over instant. Hmmm.
I'm not sure if it's a tie or if sonic burst beats it out, but one thing's for sure.. though reckless abandon is amazing, you can seriously feel the restriction of that sorcery speed I guess it's down to preference. the more creatures in the deck though the more use you'll find in reckless abandon. I'd say in less than 28 creatures sonic burst wins, above 30 reckless abandon wins, then in between is like 50-50. Coz I run around 27 critters right now, and a whopping 70% of the time I don't cast reckless abandon because 1.) I need the board state for now 2.) there are no more creatures in play because they were removed, and you can't respond with reckless abandon.
Sooo I saw sonic burst in action and it is amazing. Sometimes opportunities come up on the fly where you just need an explosive turn to just end the game, and this helps loads. The drawback wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be.
Plus, the art resembles opponents when they see it resolve so that's something to consider as well.
I wonder just how much we can afford to throw cards away...between collateral damage and shard volley, fireblast and now this? I'm not writing it off. It's two cmc for 4 damage at instant speed, I can't dismiss it. I am however, skeptical if this is reliable enough.
Mathematically speaking, we want to discard a land all the time because otherwise it's better damage wise if we'd have just cast two burn spells rather than one and one thrown away. Hmm.
If the variation of zurgo you play is full of 1 and 2 drops with barely any 3's and no 4's, this will be less useful, since you'll most likely be emptying your hand. In this scenario the only way you'll get miles off this is when you're flooded, which means you lose anyway. However, I play a looot of 3's and i think five 4 drops, and having that 4 damage out when stuck on 2 lands is a huge help. Also, I think of the random card lost as an acceleration cost, coz seriously 4 freaking damage to any target for only 2 mana at instant speed is huge. This messes with an opponent's math big time, which is something we want to do often with zurgo.. We often win when an opponent overestimates the time he has left to survive.. though extremely different from sonic burst, it's the same reason i keep thunderous wrath in my deck.
Sooo I saw sonic burst in action and it is amazing. Sometimes opportunities come up on the fly where you just need an explosive turn to just end the game, and this helps loads. The drawback wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be.
Plus, the art resembles opponents when they see it resolve so that's something to consider as well.
They should never have unbanned Fastbond... I did see a few of those lists that did use goblin guide and such indeed, always wondered why would you add that to a deck that would be better of with almost any 1 mana vampire...
What did Kalitas deck use that could stop vampires? Or was Kalitas himself already the issue due to the 4 toughness + lifelink?
Would you know by any chance how that kalitas did against the other decks? I don't see it winning against zurgo, titania or any kind of partner combo for that matter.
I guess to pitch in some tourney results, there was a local 14 man one nearby, didn't get to play but here are the results
Meta Breakdown:
Edgar Markov x 6
Arahbo, Roar of the World x1
Horde of Notions x1
Karlov of the Ghost Council x1
Grand Arbiter Agustin IV x1
Titania, Protector of Argoth x1
Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus x1
Thrasios, Triton Hero / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus x1
Obzedat, Ghost Council x1
TOP 8
1. Edgar Markov
2. Edgar Markov
3. Thrasios, Triton Hero / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus
4. Karlov of the Ghost Council
5. Arahbo, Roar of the World
6. Horde of Notions
7. Grand Arbiter Agustin IV
8. Edgar Markov
With no Doran and only one titania in the group and 6 edgar entries this was bound to happen. I think in a bigger tournament where titania is a popular tournament choice (at least in my local meta, i think the last huge tournament had 10 out of 42 rocking titania), edgar will get checked more often. I'm really curious how the next announcement will go.
I had a feeling this deck would lose to Titania. Moreso thanks to Fastbond, but still.
let's not forget ancient tomb lol.. but it's more than just those unbans. titania's board state in general gets scarier than edgar's 1-2 turns after she shows up. the resilience of said board state may be a tie, but in the end 5/3's >>>> 1/1's, and that's hard to deal with, unless edgar gets her down to less than 10 life before the first cast.. even then, zuran orb is a lethal out in a race.
They should never have unbanned Fastbond... I did see a few of those lists that did use goblin guide and such indeed, always wondered why would you add that to a deck that would be better of with almost any 1 mana vampire...
What did Kalitas deck use that could stop vampires? Or was Kalitas himself already the issue due to the 4 toughness + lifelink?
if the kalitas list is anything like the one in my meta, it's probably a monoB control variant with max removal, sweeps and hand disrupt. and kalitas himself can reverse a board state in his favor when he's in play and you have things to kill. i could imagine edgar being soft to that kind of build.
Long time since I have posted anything! So I think we are getting some pretty good cards out of Ixalan, and just wanted to share them here to see what you guyz were thinking about those cards, if they were worth an inclusion. Since my decklist differs a bit, I will use OP's one for comparisons. Also, at the end of the post. Let's start (with the decklist for reference here):
We already have in our deck one card that prevents lifegain, and it is so strong it is the only enchantment in the deck. This one comes attached to a difficult to block creature that has the advantage of dealing damage to opponents easily. Since the meta has shifted to fast aggro decks that run a lot of creatures, this could pull it's weight. It would hurt to cast creatures for opponents, more than for us. I think it would be pretty great. I would take out one of the other 3 CMC or more card for her, simply I don't know what are the worst picks because I have been off until recently, so I would like an advice on this one... I am pretty sure it could be included but simply don't know what to remove yet. For now I am thinking Goblin Rabblemaster would be the one to remove, as every time I have played it I have been deceived, but what do you guyz think?
This one I think would be really busted in the deck. In fact, it could almost be considered a 2 mana 3/2 with haste that can be casted on turn 3. I mean, you will always attack, always netting a token...? This would let us ramp and give us some more fuel to cast either a bigger finisher one turn faster, get out of situations where we are missing lands. Imagine casting this, crack the token to make it 3/2 then use the mana for a Bolt. That would be a pretty awesome turn 3 play in my opinion. This card is really good at being aggressive and is also awesome to help survive a bit longer if the game goes to 5/6 turns. I would remove any card for this one really. I think it would be an amazing inclusion. I think I would remove Fleetwheel Cruiser for it. I don't know how good the vehicle can be, but I think this pirate would be better. It can come down 1 turn earlier, so it would deal 3 damage on T3 and 3 T4 (6 total), while the vehicle would have done only 5 on T4, then would have been dead if we have no other creature. The vehicle also is dependant on your other creatures to attack on the following turns. If the only other card you have is a 4 power card, you don't really want to tap it, so you swing for 5. But imagine you have the 4 power card AND this pirate, you swing for 6 or even 7, keeping one spare mana to cast an instant, like Lightning Bolt, to deal a total of 10 in a single turn. I would like you guyz to think about this and would clearly like to know what you are thinking about this 3drinks.
This one I am less sure about. It would be really dependant on the creatures we have in play (see my above comment on vehicles) and would not even work with Zurgo, but in the right situation we could copy some really ridiculous stuff. Imagine attacking with a Ball Lightning or Blistering Firecat and copying it with this, going for 12/14 damage in a single attack from two creatures!!! I think this deserves some testing, but I see it being really good with a lot of those high-power cards. And I also think copying anything at like 3 or more CMC in the deck becomes really good. I think testing would be required.
first 1 could easily find a spot in the deck with all the life gain tech in my meta.. the second 1 is a 50/50 depending on how often i get to use the treaure to make extra plays on the same turn it's created. the last one is meh, too much competition in the 3 drop spot.
So we have arahbo and Edgar Markov happening soon. Any thoughts on our matchip against those decks?
Bad. The only way you steal a game is an early tangle wire, or a well-timed price of progress. Otherwise you'll always get chump blocked, and the few lifelink outs in the vamp lineup mitigates burn damage. rolling earthquake and maybe adding sudden demise helps.
A bigger problem for zurgo IMO is arahbo. You have to save all your burn for the kitties esp when their lifelink, otherwise you auto-lose the race. problem is one of those lifelinkers have freaking embalm for one so you have to waste 2 burn spells to avoid your opponent gaining 4 every turn, all the while getting his life to zero. It's a nightmare.
I plan to replace Drana with the mono-white Legendary Vampire Cleric.
Nothing else so far.
why not play both?
I want to keep my curve low with only 6 3CMC creatures (Yaheni, Nighthawk, Captain, Captivating, Drana and Mirror Entity) and right now the only 4cmc creature I play is Falkenrath Aristocrat.
I may actually end up swapping Mirror Entity for Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle and Daretti for Sanctum Seeker instead.
I agree with those changes.
I'll try to draft a different list that plays more 4 drops like kalitas and bloodline keeper, maybe even top the curve at 5 with bloodlord of vaasgoth and play a one off ramp spell in dark ritual, then throw in perish for doran and titania (GOD there's so much titania in our local meta, minimum of 5 players per tourney) and see where that takes me..
Lol I happened to be online so i might as well try to pitch in.
To clarify, bulk of the discussion in this thread is not for the MTGO format, it's for 20 life french. Just keep that in mind when reviewing decklists here and seeing how well they perform.
30 life is a far cry from 20 in terms of viable decks in the meta, so although the gameplan is similar, the success rate will differ. Edgar is soft to combo, which makes that extra 10 life a problem. Against fellow aggro, his board state beats out mono-white and zurgo. I'm not sure how much unblockable and protection tech that infect deck has, but 10 poison is much easier to dish out than 30 dmg imo. totally not sure about eldrazi, narset and tasi.
There's an mtgo banlist thread somewhere, and I posted just now asking if edgar markov is surviving that meta. I'm curious as well. you might wanna check that thread out once in a while in case a response pops up.
here's the link: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/forum-1-vs-1-duel-commander/772974-mtgo-banlist-1v1-wizards-discussion-thread?page=38
oh maria. took me years to unsee the kayfabe brainless diva gimmick that WWE forced on her for so long.
definitely playing that pirate. keep em quality 1 drops coming wizards, zurgo needs em! eminence has downgraded zurgo from a tournament sledgehammer that gets stonewalled only by green decks into a mid tier meta deck imo.
I'm not sure if it's a tie or if sonic burst beats it out, but one thing's for sure.. though reckless abandon is amazing, you can seriously feel the restriction of that sorcery speed
If the variation of zurgo you play is full of 1 and 2 drops with barely any 3's and no 4's, this will be less useful, since you'll most likely be emptying your hand. In this scenario the only way you'll get miles off this is when you're flooded, which means you lose anyway. However, I play a looot of 3's and i think five 4 drops, and having that 4 damage out when stuck on 2 lands is a huge help. Also, I think of the random card lost as an acceleration cost, coz seriously 4 freaking damage to any target for only 2 mana at instant speed is huge. This messes with an opponent's math big time, which is something we want to do often with zurgo.. We often win when an opponent overestimates the time he has left to survive.. though extremely different from sonic burst, it's the same reason i keep thunderous wrath in my deck.
Plus, the art resembles opponents when they see it resolve so that's something to consider as well.
Would you know by any chance how that kalitas did against the other decks? I don't see it winning against zurgo, titania or any kind of partner combo for that matter.
Meta Breakdown:
Edgar Markov x 6
Arahbo, Roar of the World x1
Horde of Notions x1
Karlov of the Ghost Council x1
Grand Arbiter Agustin IV x1
Titania, Protector of Argoth x1
Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus x1
Thrasios, Triton Hero / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus x1
Obzedat, Ghost Council x1
TOP 8
1. Edgar Markov
2. Edgar Markov
3. Thrasios, Triton Hero / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus
4. Karlov of the Ghost Council
5. Arahbo, Roar of the World
6. Horde of Notions
7. Grand Arbiter Agustin IV
8. Edgar Markov
With no Doran and only one titania in the group and 6 edgar entries this was bound to happen. I think in a bigger tournament where titania is a popular tournament choice (at least in my local meta, i think the last huge tournament had 10 out of 42 rocking titania), edgar will get checked more often. I'm really curious how the next announcement will go.
Done
let's not forget ancient tomb lol.. but it's more than just those unbans. titania's board state in general gets scarier than edgar's 1-2 turns after she shows up. the resilience of said board state may be a tie, but in the end 5/3's >>>> 1/1's, and that's hard to deal with, unless edgar gets her down to less than 10 life before the first cast.. even then, zuran orb is a lethal out in a race.
if the kalitas list is anything like the one in my meta, it's probably a monoB control variant with max removal, sweeps and hand disrupt. and kalitas himself can reverse a board state in his favor when he's in play and you have things to kill. i could imagine edgar being soft to that kind of build.
first 1 could easily find a spot in the deck with all the life gain tech in my meta.. the second 1 is a 50/50 depending on how often i get to use the treaure to make extra plays on the same turn it's created. the last one is meh, too much competition in the 3 drop spot.
Bad. The only way you steal a game is an early tangle wire, or a well-timed price of progress. Otherwise you'll always get chump blocked, and the few lifelink outs in the vamp lineup mitigates burn damage. rolling earthquake and maybe adding sudden demise helps.
A bigger problem for zurgo IMO is arahbo. You have to save all your burn for the kitties esp when their lifelink, otherwise you auto-lose the race. problem is one of those lifelinkers have freaking embalm for one so you have to waste 2 burn spells to avoid your opponent gaining 4 every turn, all the while getting his life to zero. It's a nightmare.
I agree with those changes.
I'll try to draft a different list that plays more 4 drops like kalitas and bloodline keeper, maybe even top the curve at 5 with bloodlord of vaasgoth and play a one off ramp spell in dark ritual, then throw in perish for doran and titania (GOD there's so much titania in our local meta, minimum of 5 players per tourney) and see where that takes me..