It's Good to Be King

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Counters RBW (Mardu) Theme/Gimmick Tokens Vampires

GoldenAgeBatman

(Alt) Alternate Win Condition 1 (3)

• 1x Life Insurance
• 1x Revel in Riches
• 1x Smothering Tithe

(Alt) Alternate Win Condition 2 (1)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun

(Alt) Alternate Win Condition 3 (2)

• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge

(Aristocrats) Payoffs (5)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Cordial Vampire
• 1x Cruel Celebrant
• 1x Elenda, the Dusk Rose
• 1x Kalastria Highborn

(Aristocrats) Sacrifice Outlets (4)

• 1x Indulgent Aristocrat
• 1x Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan

(Combat) Combat Tricks (5)

• 1x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
• 1x Reconnaissance
• 1x Sanctum Seeker
• 1x Shared Animosity
• 1x Tainted Strike

(Counters) Counters (4)

• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Metallic Mimic
• 1x Rakish Heir
• 1x The Ozolith

(Draw) Card Draw (10)

• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Champion of Dusk
• 1x Florian, Voldaren Scion
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Smuggler's Share
• 1x Twilight Prophet
• 1x Vanquisher's Banner
• 1x Welcoming Vampire

(Lands) Dual (1)

• 1x Luxury Suite

(Lands) Fetchable Lands (18)

• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 2x Mountain
• 3x Plains
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Savai Triome
• 8x Swamp

(Lands) Fetches (11)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

(Lands) Tri-Color (2)

• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Reflecting Pool

(Lands) Utility Lands (2)

• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

(Lifegain) Life Gain (5)

• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Mask of Griselbrand
• 1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
• 1x Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord
• 1x Whip of Erebos

(Lords) Lords (5)

• 1x Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip
• 1x Edgar, Charmed Groom  ^Flip
• 1x Legion Lieutenant
• 1x Stromkirk Captain
• 1x Vampire Nocturnus

(Removal) Mass Removal (3)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Vanquish the Horde

(Removal) Single Target (4)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Gifted Aetherborn
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

(Revival) Revival (1)

• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation

(Saves) Protection (3)

• 1x Flawless Maneuver
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Unbreakable Formation

(Tutors) Tutors (5)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Forerunner of the Legion
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

(Utility) Utility Belt (5)

• 1x Captivating Vampire
• 1x Pain Magnification
• 1x Scapegoat
• 1x Shadow Alley Denizen
• 1x Shadowspear

Commander (1)

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Maybeboard

Other (2)

• 1x Plateau
• 1x Scrubland

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My take on more of a midrange aristocrats style Edgar Markov build. I am in the process of creating a write-up for this to better explain my deck choices.

Deck Strategy

The main goal of this deck is to generate vampires with tons of counters to either wreck face after turning cards sideways or sacrificing the immense creatures for greater glory.

"Aristocrats"

An aristocrat deck (as defined by EDHREC) is a strategy which seeks to sacrifice its own creatures in order to accumulate game-winning benefits.

To this end, we have two categories for cards in this theme: "Sacrifice Outlets" and "Payoffs".

A Sacrifice Outlet is any card which we use to sacrifice another card. These include the appropriately named Indulgent Aristocrat, Vampiric Rites, Viscera Seer, Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, Altar of Dementia (which also serves as an alternate win condition) and Yahenni, Undying Partisan.

An aristocrat Payoff is any card which grants us a bonus upon losing a resource; concurrently, this will often damage our opponent. Examples include Blood Artist, Cruel Celebrant and Kalastria Highborn. Elenda, the Dusk Rose and Cordial Vampire allows us to take any creature death and bolster our forces.

Combat Tricks

Reconnaissance allows us to swing out and attack with all of our creatures without worrying about how blocks will be assigned, as we can always withdraw forces from unfavorable outcomes.

Sanctum Seeker is like a machine gun; it mows down our opponents with life lost before blockers are assigned.

Shared Animosity allows an army of tokens to become a force to be reckoned with.

Drana, Liberator of Malakir gets in early damage thanks to First Strike and subsequently improves our entire attacking army.

Counters

This deck is designed to maximize the number of counters we place on our vampiric hordes. With this in mind, Cathars' Crusade turns every enter the battlefield token trigger into a deadly threat sure to overwhelm our opponents!

Metallic Mimic further aides our game plan by turning our 1/1 vampire tokens into 2/2 vampires, permanently boosting our other forces as they enter the battlefield.

Rakish Heir converts initially small damage from our tokens into a progressively worrisome threat to our enemies.

In the unfortunate event of a board wipe The Ozolith assures us that the counters generated on our creatures won't disappear forever. Move them onto Edgar Markov for a devastating commander damage strike late game!

Lifegain

Sorin, Solemn Visitor makes our attacking army of vampires have lifelink. Not to mention it can generate vampire tokens and make our opponents sacrifice creatures!

Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord allows us to recur a fallen comrade from the graveyard, ping an opponent and give all of our attacking creatures lifelink!

Blind Obedience helps us slow down our opponent's game plans while taxing them with the repeatable extort trigger.

Whip of Erebos is a handy way to grant our army of vampires lifelink as well as "whip" back a vampire in dire circumstances.

Core Commander Categories

Within these sections you'll find cards grouped as card draw, ramp, tutors and removal.

Card Draw

If there's one thing this deck needs it's lots of card draw, as we'll be playing cards left and right.

Champion of Dusk hits the ground as a large threat while simultaneously drawing an absurd number of cards.

Bolas's Citadel is one of the deck's most powerful draw engines, especially when combined with Necropotence. Plus, the secondary sacrifice ability plays into our deck strategy!

Falkenrath Pit Fighter is a situational card draw which allows us to ditch situationally useless cards in our hand in exchange for card draw. As a bonus, the sacrificed creature will oftentimes trigger our Aristocrat cards, netting us even more benefits.

Necropotence can be a game-ending draw engine. Trade life for resources and ultimately victory!

Florian, Voldaren Scion is an interesting card drawing machine. Not only is it a First Striking body generating a token upon entering the battlefield, but it also allows us to rifle through our deck and avoid dead draws. Make sure to leave mana open to cast the exiled card!

Welcoming Vampire turns our token entering the battlefield into a free card draw. Even though this is only limited to once per turn the ability alone is worth inclusion.

Skullclamp buffs up a creature on our board and can ultimately feed into our Aristocratic game plan. This is especially useful early game when attaching to 1/1 tokens for instantaneous card draw.

Once we've established a solid board presence with mana and tokens we can obtain the "City's Blessing" and activate Twilight Prophet's abilities. Not only does it allow us to reveal and draw the top of our library, it also drains our opponents of life while boosting our own!

Ramp

Carnival of Souls turns our tokens into mana generating powerhouses. The lost life is worth accelerating our game plan towards ultimate victory.

Dark Ritual. An oldie but a goodie.

Culling the Weak plays into our aristocrats strategy while generating a massive 4{B} to our mana pool... all for 1 {B}!

Tutors

Tutors are crucial for finding the right tool for the job. So far, I run five tutors in this deck:

Demonic Tutor which is, hands down, the best tutor in the deck.

Diabolic Intent: A synergistic card for an Aristocrats deck, as the sacrificed creature will usually trigger some sort of benefit for our team.

Enlightened Tutor helps find early game powerhouses like Skullclamp and The Ozolith, or mid-to-late game changers like Cathars' Crusade or Aetherflux Reservoir

Forerunner of the Legion is a card I count as a tutor insomuch as it allows us to find the best vampire for any given situation. It's best paired with any ability allowing for card draw, as our opponents will know the chosen card and thus we lack the element of surprise strategically.

Tithe helps us thin our deck and grab potentially two plains cards. Note: this doesn't mean just basic lands, so we can grab two shocks or even (eventually) original duals!

Lastly, there's the appropriately named Vampiric Tutor which does a great job of fetching what we need preferably before our next turn.

Removal

Within these sections you'll find cards grouped as "removal"; namely, single target and mass removal.

Single Target

Gifted Aetherborn and Vampire of the Dire Moon are treated in this deck as more of a 1-for-1 removal against larger threats. The lifegain also helps offset any damage from, say, trample creatures which is definitely a plus.

Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile act as quick responses to overwhelming threats (e.g. Eldrazi)

Anguished Unmaking is one of my go-to forms of removal for problem pieces on board. (e.g. enchantments or artifacts).

Mass Removal

This deck doesn't want to play too much removal as that would set our game plan back too much. However, in the event where we need to whittle away at the board I play two board wipes:

Blasphemous Act which is, in essence, a 1 {R} destroy (nearly) everything on the board.

and

Grave Pact which serves as a warning to other players not to destroy or kill my creatures lest they lose theirs in retaliation. As a fun fact my copy of this card is the oldest card in use in my collection, as I bought it at the lunch table in high school so many years ago.

Utility

This is my flexible category also known as my "utility belt" and just like Batman, it contains the right gadget to thwart my adversaries.

First, there's Boros Charm, a flexible card allowing for board protection, planeswalker removal or a handy instance of Double-Strike from Edgar Markov to deal lethal commander damage late game.

Anointed Procession doubles the number of tokens we generate from Edgar's eminence ability; this also affects treasure tokens!

In a similar vein (ah ha! Vampires ) to Teferi's Protection there's Unbreakable Formation

Scapegoat is an Aristocrats triggering instant speed card allowing us to save our board state in the event of a board wipe.

Shadow Alley Denizen allows us to treat every vampire (including tokens) that enters our battlefield to grant "intimidate" to a creature. Note this means any creature which could be fun for political games.

In the event of a grinding game of attrition bring back fallen vampires with the help of Phyrexian Reclamation.

Elixir of Immortality ensures our vampires go back to our library where they can do the most good. It also helps that we gain life when this is activated.

Shadowspear is a devastating way to make the equipped creature's strikes reach the enemy and regain lost life.

Captivating Vampire allow us to steal our opponents creatures and bolster our own forces. This can sometimes end games on its own due to the powerful activated ability.

Lastly there's Teferi's Protection as a means to prevent a massive board wipe like Armageddon or Merciless Eviction from ruining our game plan.

Alternate Win Conditions

"The bomber always gets through"

Aetherflux Reservoir: Sling enough spells and generate the life necessary to single-target eliminate an opponent.

Revel in Riches + Smothering Tithe : A potent combo. Let the riches stack and watch as they pave the way towards victory!

RIP Tom Petty

Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 years
Key combos	Revel in Riches + Smothering Tithe
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.85
Tokens	City's Blessing, Emblem Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 B, Vampire 1/1 W, Vampire 1/1 WB, Vampire 2/2 B
Folders	Archived Decks