Looks like you guys already concluded that Mirror Entity is better than Jazal Goldmane so I won’t go into detail about this. However I do think entity is worth a slot and might even be one of our better three drops. Of course it can't compare to Shared Animosity but we can only run one of these. Mirror entity by itself is probably the next best 3 drop damage wise.
In general I agree that cards that require a whole turn in play are bad. But in this case it’d argue it's useful to our game plan. I think Entity is good because it's the only 3 drop vampire that can turn a small board into a significant force. This forces your opponent to have an answer. I'm perfectly happy playing two one drops and an entity and seeing what happens. If I get to untap I can probably swing for a good amount of damage and if I don't I only lost three cards. My point here is that we are facing board wipes very often and Entity helps to not over extent into them.
In your discussion I did miss the point that entity can also active Cruel Celebrant and co (if I’m correct). This is something that can come up once in a while.
Yeah Cordial Vampire seems pretty good, as do Universal Automaton and Changeling Outcast. I'll be adding all three.
Winds of Abandon seems pretty damn awful. If you don't win that turn, you're so so far behind and if you do need a final alpha strike, 6 mana is way too much for that effect. Fire Covenant is way better. Cosmotronic Wave and Master Warcraft are also better...
Hello everyone! I'm quite new here and I'm very eager to hear your opinion about a specific build of Edgar Markov - I'm trying to build low cost, Ad Nauseam aristocrats deck with Goblin Bombardment, Purphoros, God of the Forge or Cruel Celebrant type of effects as a win-con, while Agro would still be a plan B. Do you have any ideas for such a deck? I think that it requires many 1 CMC vamps with 2+ cost effects that generate me many bodies like Martyr of Dusk or mana (Dark Ritual or Culling the Weak) to go off. My biggest question is "How many sac outlets would be enough?"
I think aristocrats vampires can work for sure, but I'd opt for a slightly more controlling version including at least Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos and the white one (forgot the name). Generally with this style of deck you always want a sac outlet in play and people know (or learn) this and will try to target your sac outlets. Based on experience with another aristocrats style deck i'd say 7-9 sac outlets would be needed to consistently have one available. This does depend on the amount of tutors you will run. As there almost no sac outlets that fit well with an agro strategy I’d opt not to play as many one drops. Having 7-9 'dead' cards does mean your other cards need to be more impactful and I'm not sure if one drops can pull this off. But I haven't built an aristocrats Edgar deck yet so if you end up building one I’d love to hear how it goes
It's obvious that wizards is promoting aristocrats vampires with yet another good aristocrats vampire, Charming Vampire. Unfortunately we aren’t (yet) an aristocrats decks and we (or at leas I) are not running enough sac outlets to consistently have one in play. Without a sac outlet he's just mediocre at best. It's also cool that it does trigger on your opponents creatures dying, but we can't abuse this either unfortunately. I think he still is better than some of our other two drops though so looks like in for now.
Regarding removal package I can't completely ignore what my opponents are doing because then they either combo out or start hitting me with huge creatures. There are often game moments that I'm hoping to topdeck a removal spells so I devoted 4 slots to removal. I'm currently running:
Ragarding gruesome fate:
I have not tested this. I do believed there was also a red 3 mana sorcery with a similar effect but I can't find it at the moment (it was either for creatures of number of vampires or something). There is also Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
The problem I have with these cards is that they are only good when we have a good board state and don't do anything for us when we are behind (and therefore are 'win more'). Further a card like Price of Progress will most of the time deal more damage for less mana at instant speed and regardless of board state.
@NZB2323: I have no idea if Winds of abandon is of any use but I'm just going to try it out as I do sometimes want a one sided board wipe. I'm wondering how you deal with stuff like moat, Dueling Grounds, Propaganda, Spike Weaver or similar effects. I do feel like there are some permanents that we have to have an answer for….
I think Yawgmoth, Thran Physician has potential in this deck. Edgar produces tons of tokens to feed -1 life ability gaining us card draw and removing potential threats all at the same time. The proliferate ability is more niche but nice when your vamps have +1/+1 counters on them
My first thought was that it's worse than Skullclamp, but on second thought it does seem somewhat interesting. I guess it's main use will be sacking your entire board in response to a board wipe and achieve a similar effect as a Minions' Murmurs. It does provide some additional value as well. Might be worth trying.
It's good, but are you gonna use it against a mono-colored token deck?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer:
I assume you’re going to cast a board wipe in one of three situations:
1. One player is so far ahead that a board wipe is needed or people start dying.
2. You are so far behind compared to the rest of the board that a board wipe is needed.
3. Wiping the board can win you the game or at least take out another player
In situation one, I can assume that they probably don’t have a filled hand because everything is in play so giving them mana isn’t the worst (mono tokens is something like krenko I guess? Probably not that much card advantage there). If they do have a huge hand size and their board is significantly better…. Well what are you going to do than anyway?
Situation two: we probably rather have a wrath here. But in 90% of the time we don’t want to cast a wrath due to our own board state. Situation tree: If you’re taking them out who cares if they get land?
Winds of Abandon vs Kindred Dominance:
Exiling provides an answer to recursion effects, something which is quite common in EDH in my opinion. It also answers: Indestructable, Regerate, Totem armors, Go to the graveyard triggers. Though these are less common it’s nice to have an answer to it if needed.
But I guess the main reasons winds will be better than kindred is that, at worst, it will be an expensive Path to Exile. Therefore it’s never dead in hand while kindred can be. Also 7 mana cards are in my opinion not really playable with a 33-34 land manabase. Even the 6 is probably going to be a problem.
Of course playing against a mono colored deck probably gives them all their basics in play, so it’s definitely something you have to be careful about when casting this card. In most cases It’s probably OK giving them lands. path to exile is a good card so I’m assuming that this card will be quite good too. I do see your angle though and I’m just going to have to test this card out. I’m not stating that it’s an auto include, it just looks like an interesting card for edger to test out.
I’ve run both and these are my thoughts about them:
I guess their biggest upside is the 3 power. They add the same amount of pressure on the board as two one drops (4 power total) if not including any anthem effects. For this reasons it feels quite okay to be casting these on turn two compared to some of the other 2 drops.
Their biggest downside is that they are sort of just ’vanilla’ creatures in that their effect is not all that relevant.
Adanto Vanguard has a build in Reconnaissance and anti-wipe effect. It’s also an excellent blocker and I never felt bad drawing or playing this card. Paying 4 life is rather hard with all the other effects that cost life in the deck though.
Asylum Visitor’s effect just isn’t that likely to be activated. If it would draw us a single card guaranteed that I’d play it for sure and it would even be worth the second mana. If it would draw us a card every turn It might have been the best two drop we would have. As is, I think I had in in play for 10 times and only once got a card out of it because my own hand was empty.
In my opinion both could be replaced by one drops. In the tier list I posed I’d put them in the bottom tier. I personally would cut Asylum Visitor first. I think Adanto isn’t worse or better than the other cards in the bottom tier.
Winds of Abandon definitely piqued my interest. One sided board wipes are really strong and it exiles on top of that! the mana cost of 6 is a bit steep though.....
I still feel like I want to drop the vampire curve lower if possible so I'm going to cut a two drop. Mainly because it feels better to play two one drops instead of one two drop because we then have 4 bodies. I also think we have the card draw to support this play style. However I'm not sure yet what the right mana curve is for Edgar so I might change my mind on this in the future. Anyway It's an upgrade over some of our other one drops for sure!
Edit:
From the two drop I consider these good enough: Dusk Legion Zealot -> drawing a card is worth the second mana Cruel Celebrant -> because of wraths, and because pings all opponents Legion Lieutenant -> lord is worth the second mana (even third mana I guess)
The two drops i'm not sure about if they are worth the extra mana: Bloodghast -> I changed my mind about him after clamping him 5 times in one game (mainly due to fetches). But games without clamp it didn't feel worth the second mana. Olivia's Bloodsworn -> I used to find the haste very useful but since dropping the curve I often don't have one red to spare. Therefore mainly good because of flying, and could maybe be replaced by a one drop with flying. Blood Artist -> If a board wipe happens with 8 + vampires it deals 8 dmg to one player, that's ok but nothing special in my opinion. Also because it has 0 toughness and no evasion most of the time it's not attacking itself.
Then the two drop that probably in my opinion are not be worth the extra mana: Bloodthrone Vampire -> I guess only played because of the Zulaports? can be used as a combat trick... but I don't know, on it's own it's nothing special. Stromkirk Condemned -> it's a semi lord but definatly the worst we have. Also 2 drops that don't require two colored mana go better with sol ring and mana crypt Tithe Drinker -> yeah well... this just isn’t our best two drop… Vampire Interloper -> see Olivia’s and its worse. Blood Seeker is probably great in the right meta, but is not in mine. If it's good it's worth the second mana though.
Sunbaked Canyon I don't think this will make a huge difference for the deck. I'm just not a fan of lands that don't produce black but it'll probably be fine if you have one. If it's going to be 30 euro's I don't think I'll get one though.
Prismatic Vista, we are a three color deck, but I just don't see any situation where I'd like to go get a mountain or plains. (except if there's like a blood moon in play but yeah....). When I have a plains or mountain in my opening hand it always feels bad. It's probably fine though, but not a significant improvement for Edgar.
Etchings of the Chosen I don’t think I'll try this for the reasons mentioned by ISBPathfinder. I've tested a lot of anthem effects and they just don't work. Same for effects that require you to keep mana up. Force of Virtue does have some appeal. Unfortunately we probably don't have enough white and I’m not entirely sure that exiling a card is worth it's effect...... a 'free' anthem effect however is something I’d be willing to try out.
Regarding Vault of the Archangel I've found that it comes up like in one out of 20-30 games where it's useful. It's fine but not really significant. It's just useful enough to include for me though, since I don't know any other colorless sources that are useful to us. I'm currently trying out ancient tomb in its place. Can't evaluate this change though.
I don't own any Battlebond Lands so I can't really give an opinion on those. But then again you didn't ask for my opinion in the first place
Anyway really nice set so far, and two cards that I’m really really happy with!
I guess I'm just lucky with my meta as I can generally swing in with my team and only lose one or maybe two vamps. Therefore I'm quite happy when I draw throne and I'd even value him at 50% of Sanctum. But this is obviously due to my meta.
Impact Tremors: You are quite right about this card, it’s not the best at turn two, we rather want to play it after a board wipe. However this card becomes good only after having played 3 or 4 vampires (whereas purphoros would only need 2 vamps played). In ideal case we have 4 one mana vampires and then tremors is very good, however most often we will not and will need multiple turns. This card might be to slow for Edgar and I'll switch it for bombardment for now.
My testing usually happens in a 4 player game and I definitely evaluate cards for multiplayer only.
A friend of my playgroup just wanted to test his deck against my vampires and we played 10-15 games or so.
I agree with you that 1v1 is a different format, but we can still learn things from this, even playing just by yourself can be useful.
If cards like Bolas's Citadel have any potential can be tested as well in a 1v1 environment as in multiplayer I'd say.....
I don't see why Throne of the God Pharaoh or Impact Tremors are bad against wipes though.
I do agree that mimic is one of the cards that might be cut. As is impact tremors but I just don't have enough test results with him.
Throne has been too good for me.
I guess I'm in a favorable meta as people tend to play 0,5 creatures a turn on average. As such I have not had issues with swinging in with tokens and, as a result, Throne of the God-Pharaoh has been one of my better cards. I do believe that If there's a higher average of creatures a turn (2+) then throne becomes a bit awkward.
I'm just going to try Bombardment out and see for myself how well the card performs. It's always best to support an argument with actual test results and as it seems to be working for you guys I'm gonna try it out.
I do want to trow two more arguments in there, because I can't let it slip
- Mimic should definitely not be played as a last card before a board wipe, but rather the first one after it.
- Bombardment does provide an alternative way of attack and I'm sure that I'm happy having him when facing Propaganda / Ghostly Prison and Terminus. I'm just not sure if I'm also happy with him if I'm not facing these cards but I'm gonna test this out and see for myself. I guess this is mainly because I have not been too impressed with Blood artist either, as this also suffers from dealing damage to one person only.
Edit: When running all 4 the Cutthroats I'm sure you want a third sac outlet and then Bombardment is probably the best option.
I do not currently have my list online. I'll make work of putting it somewhere.
Note though that I'm still very actively tweaking this list as less than a month ago I was still playing Twilight Prophet and Kalitas, Traiotr of Geth
Shared animosity and Coat of arms are often one shot effects and I’d prefer to keep them for the finishing blow. Same for Malakir bloodwitch. Throne of the god-pharaoh is situational, and sanctum seeker is just bonkers but you can’t have him all the time now can you
As a small calculation example (yes in reality you have blockers, removal, and other conditions) we have five 1/1 vamps. We play Edgar, which has haste and can attack the same turn. We are attacking for 5*2 + 5 = 15 dmg. Next turn we are attacking for 5*3+6 = 21. Add this up and we have close to lethal dmg for one player. With culling the weak we can set up this board state on turn 3.
Of course this is not likely going to happen in a real game, if not for opponents making these same calculation and realizing they either have to do something about our board state or they start dying. So they either remove Edgar (we still keep the +1/+1 counters) or, more likely, they wipe the board. In which case our card value is only -3/4 and we can rebuild easily.
In the given example I’d therfore play Edgar over Bloodline Keeper or any two lords because keeping these in hand would provide me with a rebuild. I’d also play Edgar over Ad nauseum or Wheel for the same reason, they provide me with a rebuild.
Concluding, Edgar provides an easy way to create a significant board position without having to over extend. I value this as a strategy against board wipes (For the same reasons I run mirror entity). Edgar’s effect in strength is in between animosity and the vampire but we have access to him at all times. The fact that he puts counters on permanent means he’s less susceptible to spot removal and he even ‘anthems’ creatures the turn they come into play.
That being said, ramp cards are not primarily there for casting Edgar, it’s just nice that they increase your accessibility to him. After both your comments I Reevaluated my opinion about Sol Ring, and thinking back there have been multiple instances where I didn’t cast him until turn three or so as I didn’t need the colorless. The rituals however do defiantly help to resolve multiple spells a turn, whether this be early game or after casting an ad nauseum (or making it possible to cast the ad nauseum) or getting Edgar into play they have always been useful and I’ve yet to be disappointed to see one.
Regarding Cover of Darkness I think its ok, its’s a card that’s completely dead in some situations and in others can provide your whole team with evasion against the entire table. Because it can be a complete dead card to I could totally see cutting it. If it works it’s pretty powerful though. Also like stated above, I like forcing people wrath earlier rather than later (=losing less resources). If this card helps me do it that then I’m all for it.
The main problem I have with Goblin Bombardment is that it deals damage to one target only, meaning that for the ‘dealing 120 dmg total’ (3x40) goal Impact Tremors, Zulaport Cutthroat, Throne of the God-Pharaoh and Price of Progress all have more potential. Even Metallic Mimic provides more damage as it gives +1 per creature and can attack itself (+ is a vamp therefore can receive boosts). In all given examples (Propaganda / Ghostly Prison and Terminus) I’d still argue that Impact Tremors, Zulaport Cutthroat (and co, with sac outlet), Throne of the God-Pharaoh and Price of Progress have a higher dmg output because they deal dmg to each opponent, which adds up to a higher total. Of course setting up a cutthroat with bombardment is very nice but not something we can consistently do as I don’t think we will ever be tutoring for either effect (or do you guys do this?).
However having said that….. due to your comments I figured that goblin bombardment can seriously mess with combat calculations, which does make me want to try him.
Of course these are only one man’s thoughts so I’d love to hear how you guys feel about this. Since every single list I’ve seen here runs Bombardment I must be at least be wrong in that regard.
I can't argue with fun NZB232. I'm sure the card provides some memorable games And I do love the idea of the mind games you can play with Vedalken Orrery.
@NZB2323: I'd argue that sol ring never is a dead card in an opener because it at least gets Edgard into play 1-2 turns earlier. All those 1/1 vamps are fun and all, but they are not going to achieve much without a bit of help. However having said that, with such a high color requirement I understand that sol ring becomes less attractive. Still with only 33 land and no further ramp, don't you ever have a hard time casting Champion of Dusk, Malakir Bloodwitch, Ad Nauseam, Eldrazi Monument or Edgar himself? maybe dark ritual or culling the weak might be better suited for your deck...
With regard to Zulaport Cutthroat, i was only pointing out that it feels bad to have in your opener. ISBPathfinder stated that both Impact Tremors and Metallic Mimic felt lackluster in openers and have been cut (or not included) for those reasons. I was pointing out that I feel the same way about Zulaport. There are multiple two drop support options for our deck and none of them feel nice to play on turn two. Therefore I was suggesting to take a few of them out of my deck in favor of more vampires. For myself I’m still running:
- Impact Tremors
- Cover of Darkness
- Zulaport Cutthroat
- Dark Confidant
- Metallic Mimic
- Throne of the God-Pharaoh
- I've cut Price of Progress as of today though I still think it has potential.
- I'm not playing Goblin Bombardment or Smuggler's Copter but I'd imagine these are suboptimal on turn two as well (though copter might be okayish on turn two)
Of course you could argue that any hand having to play one of these on turn two should be mulliganed. Anyway I really think that all of these cards have potential (Zulaport to) but I think there's a limited amount of them Edgar should run. With regards to Zulaport I was considering that, since you don’t want to drop him early anyway, Vindictive Vampire might just be better? As you're running both what are your thoughts on this?
Well I did some testing this weekend (albeit it was 1v1) and I arrived at these conclusions:
If there were five more 1/1 vanilla vampires for B I'd play them. I feel getting two 1/1 vampires for one mana is just so strong that I want to do this all the time. Dropping 3 one drops and then a lord or some good effect feels like the thing this deck wants to be doing. There are only 4-5 two drop vampires that I actualy feel are worth the two mana, all others I'd replace with 1 drops if this were possible.
Further all the 2 drops that aren’t vampires feel bad to have in your opening hand. Some supporting two drops we have access to are good when playing the second wave (after a board wipe) others after establishing a good board position (Zulaport Cutthroat) but I never want to see them in my first hand. I've drawn Zulaport Cutthroat three times in the first few turns and I was never happy seeing it. I’m probably going to cut a few of the support cards and add more 2 drop vampires to my list because of this.
I did some testing of bolas's citadel. The card value of it was mediocre for its six mana since you get stuck as soon as you hit your second land. This can be manipulated slightly with fetch land and you could add top but I don't think the card value will ever be better than the other options we have available. However..... the second ability really suprised me. Every time I drew it, or played it, the damage it could deal finished the game for me (or could have if I hadn't misplayed).... Granted these where 1v1 games but dealing 10 damage to each opponent is a huge effect for this deck. Ad in some of the card]Zulaport Cutthroat[/card]'s and it can deal upwards of 15-20 dmg to each opponent. It for sure warrants some more testing for me.
@ISBPathfinder:
Great to hear your going to test some more! I’m looking forward to your findings. I realize you didn’t write your OP as a primer, but somehow this topic is the most active source on information about Edgar that I could find online. Would it be ok if I used some of the material you wrote to construct a primer about Edgar? Either I could PM it to you to add to the OP or I’d make a primer at tapped out. I do still have to find time for it though.
I have to revise my opinion of dark confidant. This support card was the only two drop I didn’t feel sad about playing on turn two. I do have to say whenever I had to sacrifice a creature confi was the first to go as I’d always want to keep as many vampire bodies in play as possible.
Are you still running Reliquary Tower? I kind of cut it in all my decks that don't really need a hand size of 10+, which is only control I guess.
@yeti1069:
I'm sorry to hear you took the deck apart. But I second your conclusion that multiple board wipes can be hard to deal with (My findings is that generally a third or fourth board wipe puts you in topdeck mode and this is often game over). I definitely think that aristocrats Edgar is a viable strategy, though I can't recall I ever saw a good list. So I’m curious to hear of your findings!
@mythicpogchamp:
Wouldn't Mass Hysteria achieve a similar result to what your using Vedalken Orrery for? And it's cheaper and faster ^^
@Shannar: Bloodcrazed Paladin I've tested in the past. On paper it looks fun as a way to capitalize on board wipes but in practice holding up the mana at the right time just doesn't work (similar to indestructible effects).
Rakish Heir has been OK for me. When not contested It can really run out of hand and walk away with the game, which happens to me occasionally. I think I’d rate it over Drana, Liberator of Malakir as Drana is dependent on connecting herself. Then again I tent to swing with Drana whereas I don't with rakish heir, so I guess that's worth something as well.
God-Pharaoh's Gift and Gate to the Afterlife I don't really think that a 7 mana artifacts that might produce a 4/4 (non vamp) token a turn is wat we want. Even if it were a 4/4 vampire token I think there are cards that can produce more value for 7 mana.
@NZB2323:
I really like where your taking your build to, running all the possible 1 drops a lot of vampire two drops as well as adding lots of lifelink. Except for the mana base I don't feel it's that budged at all and it's almost exact same as I run atm. Only thing I'm playing differently is more ramp, sol ring, chrome mox, dark ritual and culling the weak all have been good for me any reason you’re not running a sol ring? A an advise I’d look into replacing some of your lands that come into play tapped, since we’re a really aggressive deck I feel these are worse than normal in Edgar. Path of Ancestry is an exception though. scrying every turn is really nice and helped me out on many occasions.
haha thanx for your long reply! you’re a hard man to convince though
I get it through after working on a deck for more than a year I don't take others opinions for granted either.
I guess the support cards really are meta dependent. I'm usually the only 'go wide' player at the table so maybe that's why these cards work for me. I must admit that therefore wrath's are my biggest problems (next to big flying things) and I evaluate cards accordingly. You are right that cards like Mass Hysteria and Impact Tremors are at their best when rebuilding.
Price of Progress just has a great mana/damage ratio. I guess you're running Serra Ascendant for similair reasons (doing dmg as quick as posible). Manabarbs unfortunately doesn't come close to PoP's potential though.
Regarding dark ritual and culling the weak. It's not their main use to get Edgar in play but they dos increase the accessibility to Edgar as an added bonus. With the insane card draw Edgar runs the loss of cards is neglectable and they just add a great amount of explosive capability to the deck. I'd really like to ask for your indulgence and add dark ritual and culling the weak to your deck next time you pick the deck up. Seeing how something works is always better then throwing around arguments for or against a card and I'm just convinced you're going to like them
There are two other cards on which you voiced your opinion that I can't let slip, Which are Mirror Entity and Dark Confidant.
Regarding Entity: Your arguments are all solid, but I regard this card as possibly the best three drop we have. Why? because it's the only three drop that can make our army a lethal force. Your calculation example is the exact reason I run him. He's the only three drop we have that can turn just two other vampires (and thus 3 tokens) into a significant force. Yes it's going to be the turn after we play him and yes it's likely to be removed in the meantime, but is this a bad thing? This card often forces people to wrath a turn earlier than they would otherwise do. I'd agree with an argument that this card is less good in a meta where spot removal is dominant. If wrath effect are dominant however........
Regarding Dark Confidant, I've read through a number of pages of this topic by now and I've more than once heard you voice your opinion that a two drop felt 'lackluster' on curve. I'd argue that this is the same for Confi as well. Further I'd consider Confi only better then sign in blood after three turns in play. Like you're saying, this list is so aggressive and so fast that I feel like cards that need to be in play for 3 turns might not be wat we want.
Anyway, really nice to have a discussion about Edgar. Your thread definitely made me look at a number of cards I’m running twice and make some minor adjustments to my deck! I really hope you’re willing to give the rituals a shot and report back your findings.
In general I agree that cards that require a whole turn in play are bad. But in this case it’d argue it's useful to our game plan. I think Entity is good because it's the only 3 drop vampire that can turn a small board into a significant force. This forces your opponent to have an answer. I'm perfectly happy playing two one drops and an entity and seeing what happens. If I get to untap I can probably swing for a good amount of damage and if I don't I only lost three cards. My point here is that we are facing board wipes very often and Entity helps to not over extent into them.
In your discussion I did miss the point that entity can also active Cruel Celebrant and co (if I’m correct). This is something that can come up once in a while.
Cordial Vampire, Universal Automaton and Changeling Outcast are defiantly in yes.
As for Winds of Abandon everyone is probably right and it's not any good. But combining path to exile with cyclonic rift into one card does mean I just have to try it out.
I think aristocrats vampires can work for sure, but I'd opt for a slightly more controlling version including at least Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos and the white one (forgot the name). Generally with this style of deck you always want a sac outlet in play and people know (or learn) this and will try to target your sac outlets. Based on experience with another aristocrats style deck i'd say 7-9 sac outlets would be needed to consistently have one available. This does depend on the amount of tutors you will run. As there almost no sac outlets that fit well with an agro strategy I’d opt not to play as many one drops. Having 7-9 'dead' cards does mean your other cards need to be more impactful and I'm not sure if one drops can pull this off. But I haven't built an aristocrats Edgar deck yet so if you end up building one I’d love to hear how it goes
Ow and +1 for adding ritual and culling the weak!
Hall of heliod's generosity is interesting. We can afford to run one colorless land and recurring necro and animosity does seem useful. At least more so then Vault of the Archangel.
Regarding removal package I can't completely ignore what my opponents are doing because then they either combo out or start hitting me with huge creatures. There are often game moments that I'm hoping to topdeck a removal spells so I devoted 4 slots to removal. I'm currently running:
Path to exile
Swords to plowshares
Anguished Unmaking
Wear//tear
Fire Covenant is on my want list and I have had some good experience with collective effort in Edgar.
Ragarding gruesome fate:
I have not tested this. I do believed there was also a red 3 mana sorcery with a similar effect but I can't find it at the moment (it was either for creatures of number of vampires or something). There is also Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
The problem I have with these cards is that they are only good when we have a good board state and don't do anything for us when we are behind (and therefore are 'win more'). Further a card like Price of Progress will most of the time deal more damage for less mana at instant speed and regardless of board state.
My first thought was that it's worse than Skullclamp, but on second thought it does seem somewhat interesting. I guess it's main use will be sacking your entire board in response to a board wipe and achieve a similar effect as a Minions' Murmurs. It does provide some additional value as well. Might be worth trying.
Short answer: Yes
Long answer:
I assume you’re going to cast a board wipe in one of three situations:
1. One player is so far ahead that a board wipe is needed or people start dying.
2. You are so far behind compared to the rest of the board that a board wipe is needed.
3. Wiping the board can win you the game or at least take out another player
In situation one, I can assume that they probably don’t have a filled hand because everything is in play so giving them mana isn’t the worst (mono tokens is something like krenko I guess? Probably not that much card advantage there). If they do have a huge hand size and their board is significantly better…. Well what are you going to do than anyway?
Situation two: we probably rather have a wrath here. But in 90% of the time we don’t want to cast a wrath due to our own board state. Situation tree: If you’re taking them out who cares if they get land?
Winds of Abandon vs Kindred Dominance:
Exiling provides an answer to recursion effects, something which is quite common in EDH in my opinion. It also answers: Indestructable, Regerate, Totem armors, Go to the graveyard triggers. Though these are less common it’s nice to have an answer to it if needed.
But I guess the main reasons winds will be better than kindred is that, at worst, it will be an expensive Path to Exile. Therefore it’s never dead in hand while kindred can be. Also 7 mana cards are in my opinion not really playable with a 33-34 land manabase. Even the 6 is probably going to be a problem.
Of course playing against a mono colored deck probably gives them all their basics in play, so it’s definitely something you have to be careful about when casting this card. In most cases It’s probably OK giving them lands. path to exile is a good card so I’m assuming that this card will be quite good too. I do see your angle though and I’m just going to have to test this card out. I’m not stating that it’s an auto include, it just looks like an interesting card for edger to test out.
Yes we do.
I’ve run both and these are my thoughts about them:
I guess their biggest upside is the 3 power. They add the same amount of pressure on the board as two one drops (4 power total) if not including any anthem effects. For this reasons it feels quite okay to be casting these on turn two compared to some of the other 2 drops.
Their biggest downside is that they are sort of just ’vanilla’ creatures in that their effect is not all that relevant.
Adanto Vanguard has a build in Reconnaissance and anti-wipe effect. It’s also an excellent blocker and I never felt bad drawing or playing this card. Paying 4 life is rather hard with all the other effects that cost life in the deck though.
Asylum Visitor’s effect just isn’t that likely to be activated. If it would draw us a single card guaranteed that I’d play it for sure and it would even be worth the second mana. If it would draw us a card every turn It might have been the best two drop we would have. As is, I think I had in in play for 10 times and only once got a card out of it because my own hand was empty.
In my opinion both could be replaced by one drops. In the tier list I posed I’d put them in the bottom tier. I personally would cut Asylum Visitor first. I think Adanto isn’t worse or better than the other cards in the bottom tier.
Edit:
From the two drop I consider these good enough:
Dusk Legion Zealot -> drawing a card is worth the second mana
Cruel Celebrant -> because of wraths, and because pings all opponents
Legion Lieutenant -> lord is worth the second mana (even third mana I guess)
The two drops i'm not sure about if they are worth the extra mana:
Bloodghast -> I changed my mind about him after clamping him 5 times in one game (mainly due to fetches). But games without clamp it didn't feel worth the second mana.
Olivia's Bloodsworn -> I used to find the haste very useful but since dropping the curve I often don't have one red to spare. Therefore mainly good because of flying, and could maybe be replaced by a one drop with flying.
Blood Artist -> If a board wipe happens with 8 + vampires it deals 8 dmg to one player, that's ok but nothing special in my opinion. Also because it has 0 toughness and no evasion most of the time it's not attacking itself.
Then the two drop that probably in my opinion are not be worth the extra mana:
Bloodthrone Vampire -> I guess only played because of the Zulaports? can be used as a combat trick... but I don't know, on it's own it's nothing special.
Stromkirk Condemned -> it's a semi lord but definatly the worst we have. Also 2 drops that don't require two colored mana go better with sol ring and mana crypt
Tithe Drinker -> yeah well... this just isn’t our best two drop…
Vampire Interloper -> see Olivia’s and its worse.
Blood Seeker is probably great in the right meta, but is not in mine. If it's good it's worth the second mana though.
Dark Confidant
Zulaport Cutthroat
Arn't vampires but support cards so I'll leave them out of the discusion.
Silent Clearing is in for sure as well!
Sunbaked Canyon I don't think this will make a huge difference for the deck. I'm just not a fan of lands that don't produce black but it'll probably be fine if you have one. If it's going to be 30 euro's I don't think I'll get one though.
Prismatic Vista, we are a three color deck, but I just don't see any situation where I'd like to go get a mountain or plains. (except if there's like a blood moon in play but yeah....). When I have a plains or mountain in my opening hand it always feels bad. It's probably fine though, but not a significant improvement for Edgar.
Etchings of the Chosen I don’t think I'll try this for the reasons mentioned by ISBPathfinder. I've tested a lot of anthem effects and they just don't work. Same for effects that require you to keep mana up. Force of Virtue does have some appeal. Unfortunately we probably don't have enough white and I’m not entirely sure that exiling a card is worth it's effect...... a 'free' anthem effect however is something I’d be willing to try out.
Regarding Vault of the Archangel I've found that it comes up like in one out of 20-30 games where it's useful. It's fine but not really significant. It's just useful enough to include for me though, since I don't know any other colorless sources that are useful to us. I'm currently trying out ancient tomb in its place. Can't evaluate this change though.
I don't own any Battlebond Lands so I can't really give an opinion on those. But then again you didn't ask for my opinion in the first place
Anyway really nice set so far, and two cards that I’m really really happy with!
I guess I'm just lucky with my meta as I can generally swing in with my team and only lose one or maybe two vamps. Therefore I'm quite happy when I draw throne and I'd even value him at 50% of Sanctum. But this is obviously due to my meta.
Impact Tremors: You are quite right about this card, it’s not the best at turn two, we rather want to play it after a board wipe. However this card becomes good only after having played 3 or 4 vampires (whereas purphoros would only need 2 vamps played). In ideal case we have 4 one mana vampires and then tremors is very good, however most often we will not and will need multiple turns. This card might be to slow for Edgar and I'll switch it for bombardment for now.
A friend of my playgroup just wanted to test his deck against my vampires and we played 10-15 games or so.
I agree with you that 1v1 is a different format, but we can still learn things from this, even playing just by yourself can be useful.
If cards like Bolas's Citadel have any potential can be tested as well in a 1v1 environment as in multiplayer I'd say.....
I don't see why Throne of the God Pharaoh or Impact Tremors are bad against wipes though.
I do agree that mimic is one of the cards that might be cut. As is impact tremors but I just don't have enough test results with him.
Throne has been too good for me.
I'm just going to try Bombardment out and see for myself how well the card performs. It's always best to support an argument with actual test results and as it seems to be working for you guys I'm gonna try it out.
I do want to trow two more arguments in there, because I can't let it slip
- Mimic should definitely not be played as a last card before a board wipe, but rather the first one after it.
- Bombardment does provide an alternative way of attack and I'm sure that I'm happy having him when facing Propaganda / Ghostly Prison and Terminus. I'm just not sure if I'm also happy with him if I'm not facing these cards but I'm gonna test this out and see for myself. I guess this is mainly because I have not been too impressed with Blood artist either, as this also suffers from dealing damage to one person only.
Edit: When running all 4 the Cutthroats I'm sure you want a third sac outlet and then Bombardment is probably the best option.
Note though that I'm still very actively tweaking this list as less than a month ago I was still playing Twilight Prophet and Kalitas, Traiotr of Geth
It’s true that I do value Edgars effect. On any given board of 5 vampires the only cards with more dmg output are Shared Animosity, coat of arms, Throne of the God-Pharaoh, Malakir Bloodwitch and Sanctum Seeker. In addition to these, there are of course Bloodline Keeper or any two lords that provide the same amount of damage.
Shared animosity and Coat of arms are often one shot effects and I’d prefer to keep them for the finishing blow. Same for Malakir bloodwitch. Throne of the god-pharaoh is situational, and sanctum seeker is just bonkers but you can’t have him all the time now can you
As a small calculation example (yes in reality you have blockers, removal, and other conditions) we have five 1/1 vamps. We play Edgar, which has haste and can attack the same turn. We are attacking for 5*2 + 5 = 15 dmg. Next turn we are attacking for 5*3+6 = 21. Add this up and we have close to lethal dmg for one player. With culling the weak we can set up this board state on turn 3.
Of course this is not likely going to happen in a real game, if not for opponents making these same calculation and realizing they either have to do something about our board state or they start dying. So they either remove Edgar (we still keep the +1/+1 counters) or, more likely, they wipe the board. In which case our card value is only -3/4 and we can rebuild easily.
In the given example I’d therfore play Edgar over Bloodline Keeper or any two lords because keeping these in hand would provide me with a rebuild. I’d also play Edgar over Ad nauseum or Wheel for the same reason, they provide me with a rebuild.
Concluding, Edgar provides an easy way to create a significant board position without having to over extend. I value this as a strategy against board wipes (For the same reasons I run mirror entity). Edgar’s effect in strength is in between animosity and the vampire but we have access to him at all times. The fact that he puts counters on permanent means he’s less susceptible to spot removal and he even ‘anthems’ creatures the turn they come into play.
That being said, ramp cards are not primarily there for casting Edgar, it’s just nice that they increase your accessibility to him. After both your comments I Reevaluated my opinion about Sol Ring, and thinking back there have been multiple instances where I didn’t cast him until turn three or so as I didn’t need the colorless. The rituals however do defiantly help to resolve multiple spells a turn, whether this be early game or after casting an ad nauseum (or making it possible to cast the ad nauseum) or getting Edgar into play they have always been useful and I’ve yet to be disappointed to see one.
Regarding Cover of Darkness I think its ok, its’s a card that’s completely dead in some situations and in others can provide your whole team with evasion against the entire table. Because it can be a complete dead card to I could totally see cutting it. If it works it’s pretty powerful though. Also like stated above, I like forcing people wrath earlier rather than later (=losing less resources). If this card helps me do it that then I’m all for it.
The main problem I have with Goblin Bombardment is that it deals damage to one target only, meaning that for the ‘dealing 120 dmg total’ (3x40) goal Impact Tremors, Zulaport Cutthroat, Throne of the God-Pharaoh and Price of Progress all have more potential. Even Metallic Mimic provides more damage as it gives +1 per creature and can attack itself (+ is a vamp therefore can receive boosts). In all given examples (Propaganda / Ghostly Prison and Terminus) I’d still argue that Impact Tremors, Zulaport Cutthroat (and co, with sac outlet), Throne of the God-Pharaoh and Price of Progress have a higher dmg output because they deal dmg to each opponent, which adds up to a higher total. Of course setting up a cutthroat with bombardment is very nice but not something we can consistently do as I don’t think we will ever be tutoring for either effect (or do you guys do this?).
However having said that….. due to your comments I figured that goblin bombardment can seriously mess with combat calculations, which does make me want to try him.
Of course these are only one man’s thoughts so I’d love to hear how you guys feel about this. Since every single list I’ve seen here runs Bombardment I must be at least be wrong in that regard.
@NZB2323: I'd argue that sol ring never is a dead card in an opener because it at least gets Edgard into play 1-2 turns earlier. All those 1/1 vamps are fun and all, but they are not going to achieve much without a bit of help. However having said that, with such a high color requirement I understand that sol ring becomes less attractive. Still with only 33 land and no further ramp, don't you ever have a hard time casting Champion of Dusk, Malakir Bloodwitch, Ad Nauseam, Eldrazi Monument or Edgar himself? maybe dark ritual or culling the weak might be better suited for your deck...
With regard to Zulaport Cutthroat, i was only pointing out that it feels bad to have in your opener. ISBPathfinder stated that both Impact Tremors and Metallic Mimic felt lackluster in openers and have been cut (or not included) for those reasons. I was pointing out that I feel the same way about Zulaport. There are multiple two drop support options for our deck and none of them feel nice to play on turn two. Therefore I was suggesting to take a few of them out of my deck in favor of more vampires. For myself I’m still running:
- Impact Tremors
- Cover of Darkness
- Zulaport Cutthroat
- Dark Confidant
- Metallic Mimic
- Throne of the God-Pharaoh
- I've cut Price of Progress as of today though I still think it has potential.
- I'm not playing Goblin Bombardment or Smuggler's Copter but I'd imagine these are suboptimal on turn two as well (though copter might be okayish on turn two)
Of course you could argue that any hand having to play one of these on turn two should be mulliganed. Anyway I really think that all of these cards have potential (Zulaport to) but I think there's a limited amount of them Edgar should run. With regards to Zulaport I was considering that, since you don’t want to drop him early anyway, Vindictive Vampire might just be better? As you're running both what are your thoughts on this?
If there were five more 1/1 vanilla vampires for B I'd play them. I feel getting two 1/1 vampires for one mana is just so strong that I want to do this all the time. Dropping 3 one drops and then a lord or some good effect feels like the thing this deck wants to be doing. There are only 4-5 two drop vampires that I actualy feel are worth the two mana, all others I'd replace with 1 drops if this were possible.
Further all the 2 drops that aren’t vampires feel bad to have in your opening hand. Some supporting two drops we have access to are good when playing the second wave (after a board wipe) others after establishing a good board position (Zulaport Cutthroat) but I never want to see them in my first hand. I've drawn Zulaport Cutthroat three times in the first few turns and I was never happy seeing it. I’m probably going to cut a few of the support cards and add more 2 drop vampires to my list because of this.
I did some testing of bolas's citadel. The card value of it was mediocre for its six mana since you get stuck as soon as you hit your second land. This can be manipulated slightly with fetch land and you could add top but I don't think the card value will ever be better than the other options we have available. However..... the second ability really suprised me. Every time I drew it, or played it, the damage it could deal finished the game for me (or could have if I hadn't misplayed).... Granted these where 1v1 games but dealing 10 damage to each opponent is a huge effect for this deck. Ad in some of the card]Zulaport Cutthroat[/card]'s and it can deal upwards of 15-20 dmg to each opponent. It for sure warrants some more testing for me.
@ISBPathfinder:
Great to hear your going to test some more! I’m looking forward to your findings. I realize you didn’t write your OP as a primer, but somehow this topic is the most active source on information about Edgar that I could find online. Would it be ok if I used some of the material you wrote to construct a primer about Edgar? Either I could PM it to you to add to the OP or I’d make a primer at tapped out. I do still have to find time for it though.
I have to revise my opinion of dark confidant. This support card was the only two drop I didn’t feel sad about playing on turn two. I do have to say whenever I had to sacrifice a creature confi was the first to go as I’d always want to keep as many vampire bodies in play as possible.
Are you still running Reliquary Tower? I kind of cut it in all my decks that don't really need a hand size of 10+, which is only control I guess.
@yeti1069:
I'm sorry to hear you took the deck apart. But I second your conclusion that multiple board wipes can be hard to deal with (My findings is that generally a third or fourth board wipe puts you in topdeck mode and this is often game over). I definitely think that aristocrats Edgar is a viable strategy, though I can't recall I ever saw a good list. So I’m curious to hear of your findings!
@mythicpogchamp:
Wouldn't Mass Hysteria achieve a similar result to what your using Vedalken Orrery for? And it's cheaper and faster ^^
@Shannar:
Bloodcrazed Paladin I've tested in the past. On paper it looks fun as a way to capitalize on board wipes but in practice holding up the mana at the right time just doesn't work (similar to indestructible effects).
Rakish Heir has been OK for me. When not contested It can really run out of hand and walk away with the game, which happens to me occasionally. I think I’d rate it over Drana, Liberator of Malakir as Drana is dependent on connecting herself. Then again I tent to swing with Drana whereas I don't with rakish heir, so I guess that's worth something as well.
God-Pharaoh's Gift and Gate to the Afterlife I don't really think that a 7 mana artifacts that might produce a 4/4 (non vamp) token a turn is wat we want. Even if it were a 4/4 vampire token I think there are cards that can produce more value for 7 mana.
@NZB2323:
I really like where your taking your build to, running all the possible 1 drops a lot of vampire two drops as well as adding lots of lifelink. Except for the mana base I don't feel it's that budged at all and it's almost exact same as I run atm. Only thing I'm playing differently is more ramp, sol ring, chrome mox, dark ritual and culling the weak all have been good for me
I get it through after working on a deck for more than a year I don't take others opinions for granted either.
I guess the support cards really are meta dependent. I'm usually the only 'go wide' player at the table so maybe that's why these cards work for me. I must admit that therefore wrath's are my biggest problems (next to big flying things) and I evaluate cards accordingly. You are right that cards like Mass Hysteria and Impact Tremors are at their best when rebuilding.
Price of Progress just has a great mana/damage ratio. I guess you're running Serra Ascendant for similair reasons (doing dmg as quick as posible). Manabarbs unfortunately doesn't come close to PoP's potential though.
Regarding dark ritual and culling the weak. It's not their main use to get Edgar in play but they dos increase the accessibility to Edgar as an added bonus. With the insane card draw Edgar runs the loss of cards is neglectable and they just add a great amount of explosive capability to the deck. I'd really like to ask for your indulgence and add dark ritual and culling the weak to your deck next time you pick the deck up. Seeing how something works is always better then throwing around arguments for or against a card and I'm just convinced you're going to like them
There are two other cards on which you voiced your opinion that I can't let slip, Which are Mirror Entity and Dark Confidant.
Regarding Entity: Your arguments are all solid, but I regard this card as possibly the best three drop we have. Why? because it's the only three drop that can make our army a lethal force. Your calculation example is the exact reason I run him. He's the only three drop we have that can turn just two other vampires (and thus 3 tokens) into a significant force. Yes it's going to be the turn after we play him and yes it's likely to be removed in the meantime, but is this a bad thing? This card often forces people to wrath a turn earlier than they would otherwise do. I'd agree with an argument that this card is less good in a meta where spot removal is dominant. If wrath effect are dominant however........
Regarding Dark Confidant, I've read through a number of pages of this topic by now and I've more than once heard you voice your opinion that a two drop felt 'lackluster' on curve. I'd argue that this is the same for Confi as well. Further I'd consider Confi only better then sign in blood after three turns in play. Like you're saying, this list is so aggressive and so fast that I feel like cards that need to be in play for 3 turns might not be wat we want.
Anyway, really nice to have a discussion about Edgar. Your thread definitely made me look at a number of cards I’m running twice and make some minor adjustments to my deck! I really hope you’re willing to give the rituals a shot and report back your findings.