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Edgar Markov's Vampire Horde [Primer]

Commander / EDH

DanyTmG

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Commander: foil Edgar Markov

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Edgar Markov's Vampire Horde

I want to preface this primer by saying this is NOT a cEDH deck, and quite frankly it's very unlikely for Edgar Markov to ever be a cEDH deck unless WOTC prints some ridiculously broken vampire tribal cards or the cEDH meta magically changes to use the combat step. This is a deck that I use at non cEDH tables and has been built with that in mind. If you are looking for a Commander that can be competitive in a "75%" meta, look no further.

Deck Introduction

This is my take on Edgar Markov, built in a more traditional aggro style deck and excels in metas that prefer to play Battlecruiser Magic. In my testing the best ways to play Edgar Markov are either in an aristocrats style deck or as an aggro deck. I chose to take this deck in an aggro direction as I am traditionally more of a control player and was looking for a different style of deck to pilot when playing with my playgroup. Needless to say, I've been having a blast piloting this deck.

Overall, this deck is pretty straightforward to play, but playing aggro in EDH is no simple task. It's not simple because unlike 1v1 (where aggro strategies shine), in Commander you need to take out multiple opponents. When piloting this deck, Your main goal is to win with attrition; Play vampires, turn them sideways, kill your opponents. With Edgar's eminence ability, it's very easy to get an overwhelming board state and swarm your opponents with your blood-suckers. Aggro can be very rewarding to play in EDH and can sometimes lead to very explosive victories, BUT be prepared to have a big target painted on your head as you will be the aggressor who is controlling the pace of the game. Players who want the game to go late WILL try to hinder your progress as much as they can.

Who Am I?

Hey, I'm Dany.

I've been playing Magic since the release of the original Zendikar block. I used to play a ton of Standard when I first started playing Magic and dabbled a little in Modern. In 2013 I was introduced to the glorious format of EDH (through the Commander 2013 precons) and since then I haven't looked back. I pretty much only play Commander now, as I find it to be the most entertaining format in Magic. After hundreds of games (and thousands of dollars), I'd like to say that I'm pretty well-versed in both EDH and cEDH deck building and want to start sharing my thoughts on TappedOut.

When I first started playing Magic I started playing aggro mono black Vampires in Standard and they are definitely my favorite tribe in Magic. I even had a aggro BR Modern Vampire deck for a little while, which was a ton of fun to pilot. I tried making an Olivia Voldaren EDH deck way back in the day but I was never really happy with the deck so I eventually took it apart. Through the years of playing EDH I came to the realization that I enjoy playing control/combo strategies and build most of my decks in that fashion. However, when Edgar Markov and Commander 2017 were spoiled I knew without a doubt I would be making a deck with him to go back to my roots of playing Vampire tribal. Needless to say, playing Edgar has re-ignited my passion for aggro and made me realize how to play aggro efficiently in EDH to the point where I've gone back and edited some of my older control/combo decks to have a minor aggro gameplan.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Can quickly amass a swarm of Vampires.
  • Vampires can get hella swole through +1/+1 counters and anthem effects.
  • Very straightforward to play.
  • Is a hyper aggressive deck.
  • Mardu has great removal options.

Cons:

  • Weak to board wipes. (Like most creature based decks)
  • Requires a greedy colored mana base. (Lots of , and casting costs)
  • Can have trouble against pillowfort/stax decks.
  • People will try very hard to stop you early.

Why Play this Deck?

You might enjoy this deck if you:

  • Like tribal decks; specifically Vampires.
  • Want to play an aggressive deck/apply pressure in the early game.
  • Like swinging with swarms of creatures.
  • Don't like complex/durdley strategies or boardstates.
  • Enjoy playing Mardu colors.

You might not enjoy this deck if you:

  • Don't like tribal decks.
  • Don't like controlling the pace of the game or being focused.
  • Dislike aggro/creature strategies.
  • Hate the combat step.
  • Prefer games going late.
  • Enjoy playing blue/counter magic.
  • Like to durdle.

Gameplan

The general gameplan in this deck is to start dropping creatures as quickly as you can. Through Edgar's eminence ability you will rapidly generate a huge board of vampires and swarm out your opponents. With the large board state that you generate, you want to start pressuring your opponents and make them feel the wrath of your blood-sucking army (who will progressively get stronger with +1/+1 counters or tribal buffs). Additionally, casting Edgar as soon as you can is usually a good plan (granted you have some sort of a board presence). The sheer amount of power he adds to your board can be very overwhelming for opponents and the best part is you can swing with him the turn you play him.

While the overall strategy of this deck may sound simple to execute, it can be quite tough to accomplish because playing aggro in EDH isn't a trivial task. Aggro gets tough to play in EDH because you are generally playing against 3 other players, each of whom have 40 life. Doing 120 points of damage with tiny vampires can be quite a daunting task, however we have a bunch of cards that collectively drain our opponents to make this easier. These are some of the key cards that help us solidify our victory:

Purphoros, God of the Forge - Probably one of the best cards to run in EDH when you want to amass an army of creatures. This card is especially powerful in Edgar because each creature we play nets us another 1/1. This means that at minimum, each time you play a creature you're doing 4 damage to each of your opponents before even swinging for combat.

Impact Tremors - Similar to Purphoros, Impact Tremors allows us to ping each of our opponents, every time a creature ETB's on our side. It also only costs , so we can drop it earlier in the game.

Throne of the God-Pharaoh - Since our general strategy is to play tons of vampires and swing with them, most of the time we will have a board state with many tapped creatures. Throne lets us ping our opponents once again after combat. This card can get out of hand really quick when you start swinging with 5+ vampires every turn.

Malakir Bloodwitch - Malakir Bloodwitch is a great way to mass ping each of our opponents. Since our main goal is to play swarms of Vampires the life loss that Malakir Bloodwitch is always very significant; we also get to gain a crap ton of life off of her ETB. Additionally, this is something we can recur so we can trigger this over and over again.

Sanctum Seeker - This vampire from Ixalan really works well this the overall strategy of this deck. Our main goal is to turn our vampires sideways and Sanctum Seeker really starts to hurt once you have amassed a huge army. It also gains us a ton of life, which is a nice added bonus.

Twilight Prophet - This card does a great job of pinging all of our opponents, gains us life and draws us a card as well.

In addition to mass pinging our opponents we want to be able to protect our board state from wrath effects. Due to this, we run cards that make our board resilient or let us recur our creatures. I'll further expand on these cards below in the "Single Card Discussion" section under the "Interaction" section. In general, this deck doesn't run any traditional "combos" but uses synergistic cards to make an aggro strategy more approachable in a multiplayer environment.

Match Ups

Like any EDH deck, this deck has bad match ups and it's important to know which match ups will give you grief. Assessing who is a threat to you at the current point in the game is a very important skill that many EDH players lack. There are a couple of different archetypes that you will come across and this is generally how you want to play against them. Below are how you should usually prioritize your targets against some common EDH archetypes. (I bolded "usually" because in EDH there are always varying game states and your target priority can greatly change)

  1. Control/Stax/Pillowfort - These are the players who are normally playing a plethora of board wipes; the bane of our existence. The quicker you take out these targets, the less likely you are to be on the receiving end of a wrath effect, thus losing your entire board state. Save your interaction spells (especially your protection spells) for these players.

  2. Aggro - Having another aggro deck at the table can lead to some very interesting political situations when playing this deck. All of it really depends on who is the aggressor. If you start as the aggressor, try to close out the game quickly by taking out the other aggro player(s) and then finishing off the rest. GO HARD, OR GO HOME. (Haste outlets are very useful in these match ups) If you aren't the aggressor try to politically convince the other players that aggro player X is the problem and that they should direct their resources towards them. You run a decent amount of interaction in this deck, you can use those pieces politically to create temporary alliances. Once the other aggro player(s) have been eliminated, swarm out your vampires and go for the kill.

  3. Reanimator/Voltron - These decks generally aren't too much of an issue because they rely on a couple of BIG creatures rather than many little creatures. Because we are running many little creatures, most of them expendable. Additionally, the longer our creatures stay on the board, usually the larger they get through the various pump effects available to us in the deck. Because of this, sometimes we can easily contest the large creatures these types of deck throw at us. Additionally, we run a fair amount of single target removal, which can greatly hose these strategies.

Opening Hand

Deciding on an opening hand can generally be pretty tough to evaluate in EDH. In this deck they are slightly more straightforward to evaluate but can get tricky in certain scenarios because of how greedy the color combinations are in casting costs for Vampires. When you pick up an opening hand you want to look that your hand has the following:

  • Lands/Ramp - It's obviously important to have lands in your opening hand, but in this deck it isn't necessarily important that you have a ramp spell as we run pretty low costed cards. The most imperative thing to consider is you have a hand that can generate ALL of your colors but with a greater emphasis on how much black mana you can produce. There are a lot of cards that cost or which can be tough to cast in a tri-color deck. As a result of this, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is an absolute godsend in this deck. On average most of the cards you want to be playing early are vampires that cost between 1-3 mana, because of this you almost always want to keep a hand that has 1-3 lands with a ramp piece or two.

  • Low-Costed Vampires - We are playing an aggro deck, so naturally we want to be dropping aggressive creatures. These creatures generally cost 1-3 mana and having at least 1-3 of these in our opening hand(s) means we are in a good position to pressure our opponents. You pretty much always don't want to keep a hand with a 5+ CMC creature because these are cards you want to curve into late and are cards that can be considered as "win-more." keeping a 4 drop creature is fine because most of the creatures we run in the 4CMC slots are creatures that solidify and reinforce an established board presence that we have created in turns 1-3.

  • Card Draw - In this deck, I would say having some sort of card draw in your opening hand is more important than having a ramp spell because you will generally run out of gas very quickly because of how low the curve for this deck is. The worst position this deck can find itself in is being in top deck mode without any vampires to cast. Without gas we are unable to play Vampires, meaning we are unable to amass a board presence, meaning we are unable to execute our gameplan.

  • Interaction - I usually like keeping a hand that has some form of interaction (1-2 cards are plenty); this includes removal cards and discard effects. It's always good to have answers for the things your opponent(s) are going to play. Interactions cards are very hand when you are playing against other aggro decks in your pod or stax/control decks looking for a way to disrupt you. Always remember, you're not the only one sitting at the table ready to play Magic: the Gathering.

This section will individually discuss each card I have placed in my deck and why It warrants a slot in my deck.

Additionally, I will mark flex slots with a double asterisk (**); flex slots are cards that can be replaced with a card you prefer or a card that works better in your meta.

The vampires you run in your deck are pretty modular; with the exception of a few. You can swap around many of them with vampires that work better in your meta, but make sure that you run a higher density of lower-costed vampires as this is an aggro deck and you want the deck to function on a lower-curve. A lot of vampires that are generally underwhelming in commander can be very good in Edgar because of that eminence trigger.

Vampire Card List:

1 CMC Vampires

  • Duskborne Skymarcher** - Solid 1-drop that is evasive. Can also buff another vampire, which can be relevant sometimes.
  • Falkenrath Gorger** - Strong stats for a 1-drop and also very strong against decks that are heavy on discard/wheel effects.
  • Guul Draz Assasin** - Primarily used because it's a 1-drop. But in later turns it is a great mana sink that also functions as removal.
  • Indulgent Aristocrat - Great 1-drop that mass buffs your army of vampires. Also functions as a sac outlet.
  • Insolent Neonate** - Evasive 1-drop that can draw us a card later in the game.
  • Shadow Alley Denizen - Gives your vampires evasion and is very easy to trigger with eminence triggers.
  • Vampire Cuthroat** - Evasive 1-drop with lifelink.
  • Viscera Seer - Free sac outlet that lets you scry 1.
  • Vicious Conquistador** - 1-drop that pings all of our opponents.
  • Pulse Tracker** - 1-drop that pings all of our opponents.
  • Stromkirk Noble** - Solid 1-drop that can get out of hand if left unchecked. Also can suprisingly evasive due to how many humans are in Magic.
  • Skymarcher Aspirant** - A 2/1 for 1 mana is great for applying pressure in the early game; can be evasive in the late game.

2 CMC Vampires

  • Asylum Visitor** - Has good aggressive stats for a 2-drop and has the potential to draw us cards witht he various discard effects present in this deck.
  • Blood Artist** - Cheap creature that can deter your opponents from casting a board wipe. Also allows you to ping opponents and gain life in the process.
  • Bloodcrazed Paladin** -
  • Bloodghast** - Easily recurrable creature that has the potential to be hasty.
  • Dusk Legion Zealot** - Card draw on a stick, seems good. Also more easily recurred in this deck than a draw spell.
  • Falkenrath Exterminator - One of the better 2-drop vampires. Gets stronger as it connects and has a repeatable ability that can burn creatures or opponents.
  • Gifted Aetherborn** - Great 2-drop with good stats and strong keywords.
  • Kalastria Highborn** - Awesome 2-drop that can get through opponents who run heavy pillowfort strategies. Also a good way to get some value if your board gets wiped.
  • Legion Lieutenant - No reason why you shouldn't be running this card; it's a lord and it costs 2 mana.
  • Metallic Mimic - Very essential card for aggro tribal decks. Makes every vampire ETB with a +1/+1 counter. It's pricey right now, but highly recommended.
  • Olivia's Bloodsworn** - Evasive creature that is also a haste outlet for your vampires.
  • Vampire Hexmage** - My meta has a lot of Super-friends decks, so this is an extremely valuable 2-drop for me.

3 CMC Vampires

  • Captivating Vampire - Anthem effect for your vampires. Also allows you to steal your opponents creature threats, really essential card in vampire tribal.
  • Drana, Liberator of Malakir - Evasive, first-striker that pumps your attacking vampires.
  • Forerunner of the Legion** - Great creature that not only tutors our good vampires but also does a great job of buffing our vampires each time we play one. Eminence triggers really make this card shine.
  • Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle - Has a token generating effect that is very easy to trigger in this deck. The tokens it creates have lifelink as well.
  • Rakish Heir - Very good card that buffs your vampires when they connect for damage.
  • Stromkirk Captain - Anthem effect for your vampires, that also gives them first strike.
  • Vampire Nighthawk** - Keyword soup on a vampire; he flies, has lifelink and deathtouch. Probably one of my favorite cards in Magic from when I started playing.
  • Yahenni, Undying Partisan - Hasty and resilient creature that also functions as a sac outlet.

4 CMC Vampires

  • Bloodline Keeper   - This is the best card you can in a tribal vampire deck. Creates evasive tokens and buffs for +2/+2 when it transforms, which is very easy to accomplish in this deck.
  • Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet** - Very strong card that primarily serves as graveyard hate and a board wipe deterrent. It also has some impressive stats and can be pumped up.
  • Sanctum Seeker - Really valuable card in a vampire aggro deck. Pings all of your opponents when you swing with your vampire army.
  • Twilight Prophet - Ascend is insanely easy to trigger in Edgar Markov just due to the sheer amount of tokens we are producing through eminence. If you play this card on curve there is no reason why you shouldn't trigger ascend. This card draws us cards, pings all opponents and gains us life. It also flies...
  • Vampire Nocturnus** - When active it is an insanely strong card that makes all of your vampires SWOLE and evasive. It is active more often than not because of how black-heavy this deck is.

5 CMC Vampires

  • Champion of Dusk - This card is bananas! The burst draw that a fast aggro deck really needs to stay relevant later in the game, Eminence vampire tokens only add to how many freaking cards this dude is gonna draw us. It also has a 4/4 body which is a nice added bonus.
  • Malakir Bloodwitch - As mentioned above, this card can really drain the heck out of your opponents and can be considered a finisher in this deck. Also has flying and protection from white, which are added perks.
Unlike most EDH decks, ramp isn't as important in this deck primarily due to the fact that this deck very low-costed cards. However, there are still a few ramp cards that I choose to run in this deck to speed up how this deck curves out. Below you will see the ramp cards I choose to run.

Ramp Card List:

  • Sol Ring - I don't really think an explanation is needed here. If your budget allows for a Mana Crypt, I'd add one in as well. I use my Mana Crypts in my more competitive decks and choose not to run them here.
  • Phyrexian Tower - Really great land that can really help not only with ramping but with mana fixing for those pesky or cards.
  • Legion's Landing   - This is probably my favorite ramp spell in this deck. It's a 1-drop that creates a vampire and is extremely easy to flip. Once it flips, It ramps into a land that can produce tokens for later turns when you run out of gas.
Interaction is very important in EDH as you need to always have an answer for your opponent's threats. You need to remember that you aren't the only person sitting at the table playing to win and should always be prepared for your opponents. Even though this is an aggro deck, it is still imperative that we run some form of interaction, especially for the late game where this deck can sometimes have issues dealing with threats. Below I'll be splitting up the interaction I run in this deck into three sections: Single-Target Removal, Discard Effects and Board Wipes.
One of the best things about Edgar Markov is that he is in Mardu colors. Mardu has access to some of the best forms of removal in Magic, especially when it comes to single-target removal. Below are my choices for single target removal, but these slots are completely flexible to what threats you encounter more often in your meta. I personally choose to run very cheap removal spells because this deck has a tendency to tap most of its mana to cast creatures and as a result of this you want to have answers that you can cast with the little remaining mana you have.

Single-Target Removal Cards:

  • Path to Exile** - Commander staple when it comes to removal, Instant speed and costs 1 mana. With the amount of reanimator decks in my meta, this card is just amazing as it exiles threats so opponents can't recur them.
  • Swords to Plowshares** - See Path to Exile. While the life gain caused by this card works against this decks overall gameplan, there are moments where you'd rather have an opponent gain some life than have a game ending creature threat.
  • Wear/Tear** - Cheap and versatile removal spell that lets you get rid of an artifact, and enchantment or both.
  • Anguished Unmaking** - Instant speed nonland permanent removal that has a very minor downside in this deck (pay 3 life).
  • Kolaghan's Command** - Great modal spell that has several relevant modes for this deck and lets you choose TWO modes. The removal options this card offers are always great in the early game as they let us remove our opponents artifacts or 2 toughness creatures. This card works great as removal against any deck that uses tons of fast mana (rocks or dorks).
Discard effects are very important in this deck because they allow us to control what our opponents can potentially play against us. Creature based decks are extremely susceptible to board wipes so we need a way to combat those effects as they almost always WILL be played against us. Most people will run protection spells to combat board wipes (even I did in older iterations of this deck), however switching over to discard spells has made this deck far more proactive than reactive. Protection spells (like Boros Charm) usually just sit in your hand in anticipation for your opponent to play a board wipe meaning they are pretty much only useful IF your opponents actually end up playing one. With discard effects yo don't end up holding mana for a reactive play and have the flexibility to interact with cards beyond board wipes.

Discard Effect Cards:

  • Thoughtseize - Staple discard effect that costs 1 mana. Lets you get rid of all manner of threats.
  • Duress - Similar to Thoughtseize, great way to get rid of pesky nonland/noncreature spells.
  • Mind Slash** - Repeatable discard that has a reasonable cost. Since we are making a ton of tokens off of eminence triggers, losing a couple of them to this card is far more favorable to losing your entire board to a board wipe. Also lets you get rid of non-board wipe threats.
  • Kolaghan's Command** - It's a modal spell that can make opponent's discard a card. The discard is definitely not the primary use for this card (as it gives out opponent a choice) but it's nice that it is there.
  • Torment of Hailfire** - This card isn't primarily for discard, but the fact that it can make the opponent discard is nice. It's a good way to clear the board and potentially close out games when you have a ton of expendable mana in the late game. Definitely would consider it as a pseudo win-con.
As discussed above, his deck has a tough time against with board wipes, so naturally it may seem odd to include board wipes in the list. However, there WILL be scenarios where you are behind in board presence and need to answer your opponents. Having your own board wipes will let you do this. Another good thing about Mardu colors is that there are plenty of board wipes to choose from and you can pick and choose what works best for you. Below are the choices I feel least affect my board presence and that work best in my meta.

Board Wipe Card List:

  • Toxic Deluge - Probably one of the best board wipes in EDH. Costs 3 mana and can get rid of indestructible threats. The life cost that comes with this card is usually negligible in this deck because vampires have the ability to very easily gain you life. I will pretty much only cast this card if I'm behind.
  • Torment of Hailfire** - Works as a pseudo board wipe in the late game that is completely one-sided. Also really useful in closing out games; a potential win-con.
Utility cards are usually there to fill the holes in our decks. In an aggro Edgar Markov deck, I'd break these cards into three different categories: Card Draw, Recursion, and Attrition. Below I'll go into further detail explaining each of these categories and why they are important to the overall strategy of this deck.
In this style of deck, card draw can be considered far more important than ramp. The reason behind this is that constantly want to be playing vampires and because of their lower casting costs you will often find yourself running out of gas. Whats the point of having a crap ton of mana if you have nothing to play? This is why we value card draw more than ramp in this deck. One thing you'll also notice in my list is that I run several low costed, one-time use draw spells. I find these spells invaluable in later turns when you are able to cast them alongside a low-costed vampire. Below are the cards I run for card draw in my deck.

Card Draw Cards List:

  • Night's Whisper** - Lets you draw two cards for 2 mana and 2 life. Just as good early in the game as it is in the late game.
  • Painful Truths** - Good burst draw spell that can draw us 3 cards.
  • Skullclamp - With the amount of 1/1 tokens this deck produces, Skullclamp is just an all-star.
  • Necropotence - Probably one of the best draw spells in EDH. Can be rough to cast because of , but is extremely efficient at refilling you hand with gas at the cost of life.
  • Phyrexian Arena - Gives you an additional draw per upkeep at the cost of 1 life. EDH staple.
  • Vanquisher's Banner - New Ixalan card that not only buffs vampires but also gives us a draw on each vampire you cast. Perfect turn 5+ card when you usually find yourself running out of gas.
  • Dusk Legion Zealot - Easily recurred draw effect that has a body and gives us an eminence trigger. SO much value.
  • Twilight Prophet - Not only does this draw us cards, but it also pings opponents and gains us life.
  • Champion of Dusk Insane burst draw that has a 4/4 body. The life loss is negligible since vampires gain life so easily.
  • Ad Nauseam - Fantastic mass draw spell that can be played after a board wipe to fill up your hand to recover your board state. Also lets you run over your opponents later in the game if your board remains unanswered. The life-cost associated with this card is almost always worth it because of the lower average CMC of this deck and also due to the fact that you usually get a lot of life back with vampires to fuel this card.
Recursion cards are very important in Edgar Markov because they serve as a way to protect our board state. It's also just a general rule to run recursion spells in EDH as it's a singleton format. Edgar really benefits of recursion spells that return creatures to your hand so that you can get more eminence triggers; which is why I choose to not run the usual black reanimator spells (Reanimate, Animate Dead, Necromancy, etc). Below are cards I use for recursion.

Recursion Cards List:

  • Phyrexian Reclamation - This is probably one of the most useful spells in this deck and I wouldn't recommend running the deck with out it. It's a cheap enchantment that lets you return any creature card from your graveyard for 2 mana & life to your HAND.
  • Kolaghan's Command** - One of the modes in this card let's you recur a creature to your hand, which is great in combination with one of it's other modes. Also is instant speed, so you can recur something in response to grave hate.
Utility cards that help the overall aggro strategy of the deck are cards I have categorized in this section. These cards help us reduce our opponent(s) life totals quicker through various effects such as pinging or creature buffs. Below are the attrition cards I choose to run.

Attrition Card List:

  • Purphoros, God of the Forge - Purphoros can be considered one or the "wincons" in this deck. Very efficient way to ping opponents and can be very tough to get rid of.
  • Impact Tremors - Impact Tremors is basically a mini Purphoros that you can cast early to collectively ping your opponents. In combination with Purphoros, this can get out of hand.
  • Throne of the God-Pharaoh - As discussed above (See; Gameplan), great way to collectively ping your opponents as you will generally have many tapped creatures at the end of your turn.
  • Mass Hysteria - Haste outlet that costs 1 mana! While it does have the drawback of giving everything haste, it really lets the deck be the aggressor from the get-go, something that will give you a HUGE advantage when trying to close the game out as fast as possible.
  • Shared Animosity** - This card is just insanely good at applying pressure on your opponents. Makes your vampire army huge.
  • Vault of the Archangel** - Great utility land that can deter opponents from blocking your giant lifelink/deathtouch army. Great mana sink in the late game and also really good in the scenarios where you need to play defensively.
Below I'll go into detail about exclusions in my deck and why they aren't present.

  • Badlands/Scrubland/Plateau - Simply put I don't run ABUR Duals in any of my decks due to budgetary reasons (even my competitive decks). I can't justify the cost associated with them for some slight consistency within my manabase. If I had them lying around I'd definitely use them but shocks and battle lands do the job for me personally. Fetches though, I'd say they are 100% worth the investment for 3+ color decks.

  • Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood - I don't think this combo has a place in an aggro Edgar Markov deck because they cost a lot of mana and can feel like bad draws in the early game. However, if you plan on running Edgar Markov as an aristocrats style deck I'd say they are very good.

  • Exsanguinate/Debt to the Deathless - These cards are fantastic finishers and if you want to run them feel free to. I personally don't like them in my deck because I'd rather be running creature threats.

  • Sorin, Solemn Visitor/Sorin, Grim Nemesis - Both are okay to run in the deck (Solemn Visitor being the better one IMO), but I couldn't find the space for them. In my opinion, Lord of Innistrad is the best one.

  • Cathars' Crusade - I used to run this card in the deck, but found that in testing it's very win-more; it pretty much does nothing if you don't have creatures to play. I have since replaced it with Vanquisher's banner, which provides an immediate buff and allows you to get gas off the creatures you cast. Door of Destinies can also work as a better card to run.

  • Coat of Arms - With the amount of tribal decks floating around (due to Commander 2017), it's just not worth running this card. Might be a great card to sideboard if you know you aren't playing against other tribal decks; but I probably still wouldn't run it; there are better choices for tribal buffs.

  • Anowon, the Ruin Sage - I used to run this card but chose to cut it because it immediately draws removal before it's even able to accomplish anything, which feels bad when you spend 5 mana to cast it. If it had an immediate effect it would be far more useful.

  • Bloodlord of Vaasgoth - Much like Cathar's Crusade, this card felt very win-more in testing. It would have been better if it had an immediate effect or a burst effect like Necropolis Regent.

  • Butcher of Malakir - This card is actually pretty dang great, but I think it comes down too late for an aggro deck; youre better off running a Dictate of Erebos or a Grave Pact. This card is sweet in aristocrats though.

  • Blade of the Bloodchief - This card works much better in an aristocrats style deck. I would personally say it's too slow for aggro, but I could see it being okay at best.

  • Reanimate/Animate Dead/Necromancy - I personally don't think single-target reanimation is particularly good in vampire aggro. Reanimating a single vampire doesn't necessarily feel good as vampires work better in large numbers rather than by themselves. The only reason I run Kolaghan's Command (as a single target reanimation spell) is because it's modal and I don't have to choose that mode unless it is relevant (ex. one of my big threats are in the yard). If you want single-target reanimation, Bloodline Necromancer is a pretty good card to run because it provides you with three bodies; Bloodline Necromancer itself, the reanimated target and an eminence 1/1.

  • Living Death/Patriarch's Bidding - I would say mass reanimation spells like Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding are very useful in a deck like Edgar Markov because they let you swarm you opponents with multiple threats (this deck wins with attrition). However, in my meta there are too many reanimator decks, which makes Living Death more beneficial to my opponents; these decks also tend to run their own copies of Living Death so I can usually take advantage of that. I don't run Patriarch's Bidding for similar reasons; too many tribal decks and the card usually provides my opponents with too much of an advantage. If your meta isn't rampant with reanimator & tribal decks, I would definitely find a slot for these cards.

If you're looking for a fun and aggressive tribal deck to play I strongly believe Edgar Markov fits the bill for that style of deck. It's a very rewarding deck to play and winning feels fantastic with the deck. However, don't expect this deck to have much depth; you play vampires, turn them sideways, kill your opponents. All in all, I've been having a blast piloting Edgar and it has definitely re-ignited my passion for playing aggressive Magic decks; even in EDH.

In:

  • Shared Animosity - I finally got a copy of Shared Animosity and boy is it explosive in this deck. Makes all of our vampires extremely massive. Works great as a finisher.

Out:

  • Dictate of Erebos - Dictate was fantastic in this deck but usually only in scenarios where I was very ahead. Because my deck is built to be aggressive I don't run as many sac effects like an aristocrats deck would, making Dictate far more situational. (If you run an aristocrats style Edgar deck I wouldn't recommend cutting Dictate)

In:

  • Grasp of Fate - Found myself needing more removal and interaction my meta. Grasp of Fate lets me deal with multiple threats.

  • Painful Truths - Really good draw spell that is a great upgrade from Read the Bones.

Out:

  • Pillar of Origins - I find myself not needing that much ramp in this deck and often need more interaction, which is why I cut Pillar. Ramp in this deck is mostly used to get Edgar out faster and I think there is enough of that even without Pillar of Origins.

  • Read the Bones - Painful Truths is just better. Not much else to say.

Rivals of Ixalan is here and we have a TON of cool toys to play with. A lot of the vampires in this set are very focused on drawing cards, which is fantastic for this aggro style deck. For the time being, all of these cards are in testing, but I'm confident most of them will stay in until some other vampires get printed.

In:

  • Dusk Legion Zealot - A great early drop vampire that draws us a card. Also easily recurred in this deck, unlike a draw spell. This card is being tested

  • Legion Lieutenant - 2 mana lord...need I say more. This card is 100% staying in no doubt.

  • Paladin of Atonement - This card seems like it can get very big, very fast. Also is lower on the curve which is nice. Gonna be testing this one out to see if it's worth the slot.

  • Forerunner of the Legion - What a sweet card for Vampire tribal, this one is definitely staying in for the foreseeable future. Tutors a vampire and buffs vampires.

  • Twilight Prophet - Ascend is gonna be extremely easy to trigger in Edgar Markov and this creature not only draws us cards, but also pings all of our opponents.

  • Champion of Dusk - This is the card I'm most excited about from this set. Huge burst draw on a stick that curves out perfectly when we are looking to refill our hand.

Out:

  • Pulse Tracker - I still run Vicious Conquistador for a similar effect. We now have Twilight Prophet as a more resilient and impactful pinger.

  • Kalastria Highborn - I knew I was going to cut this card when Rivals came out. It doesn't do much for my deck, however is really good in an aristocrats style Edgar deck.

  • Olivia, Mobilized for War - Even though this is a great haste enabler, more often than not I found myself not wanting to discard cards to its effect or not even having cards to discard for its effect. Was very situational, so it cutting it seems correct.

  • Dark Prophecy - Has a very greedy casting cost, and doesn't immediately draw us cards. Champion of dusk does what this card should do for us better.

  • Sign in Blood - Removed in favor of Dusk Legion Zealot. Even though Sign in Blood draws us one more card, it can't be recurred or provides us with a body and an Edgar trigger.

  • New Blood - Since the C17 hype has died down a bit in my meta, there are less tribal decks around and as a result this card becomes too situational. Seemed like the right cut to make as much even though I really like this card and the wacky things it does.

With some of the changes I recently made with RIX cards, I noticed that my curve went a little bit out of whack. As a result I've taken out some of my vampires that are higher in the curve and have replaced them with 1-drop vampires, allowing me to apply more pressure in the early game.

In:

  • Pulse Tracker - Pulse Tracker is back in! I wanted more 1-drops and this guy was always great in the past. Can be played early and collectively pings opponents.

  • Stromkirk Noble - Stromkirk Noble is another 1-drop that can get huge if left unanswered. It's surprisingly also very evasive; it's astounding how many creatures in Magic are humans.

  • Skymarcher Aspirant - A new RIX 1-drop with 2 power and the potential to have flying (Ascend is insanely easy to trigger in this deck). Seems like a great card to apply pressure early and even late game once it's under the effects of a few buffs.

Out:

  • Olivia Voldaren - As much as I love this card (definitely a pet card), this card always seemed way too slow for this deck. Since I'm looking to increase the speed of the deck, this seemed like an appropriate card to remove.

  • Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet - The grave hate this guy provides is always welcome, but I never felt like I ever got too much value out of him; mainly because a lot of the removal I run is exile based. It definitely was sweet when somebody board wiped, but overall this card very situational.

  • Vampire Nocturnus - When Nocturnus' buff effect is active it can be quite devastating for opponents, but the inconsistency of it can sometimes be very detrimental for you. As a result of this, I removed it as I already have quite a few buff cards in the deck.

I've also been testing a bunch of different board wipes in my list as replacement for Kindred Dominance as it usually feels very underwhelming to draw into. The wipes I've been testing are Blasphemous Act, Austere Command, Merciless Eviction and Bontu's Last Reckoning; after my testing I decided to go with Austere Command (explained below).

In:

  • Austere Command - Through my testing, Austere Command has been fantastic primarily due to it's flexibility. It can mass remove both artifacts and enchantments, but also has the ability to "evade" our own creatures with the 4CMC or greater creature destruction. Ideally, you don't want to be casting board wipes in this deck, but there will be moments where you might need to and Austere Command's flexibility can make certain wipes favorable for you.

Out:

  • Kindred Dominance - I often found myself never casting this card as it often felt very win-more; so I started looking for more flexible board wipes. The 7 CMC can also be really steep.
I've been playing mono-green elfball a ton recently and as a result of this have learned how busted Cloudstone Curio can be in the right deck. Edgar Markov seemed like the appropriate place to try it in.

In:

  • Cloudstone Curio - I've recently been testing this card out a bunch (after having a ton of success with it in my elves deck) and I think it's such a fantastic card for Edgar. Not only does it let you abuse ETB effects of your creatures but it lets you really abuse eminence triggers as your eminence tokens also trigger it.

Out:

  • Paladin of Atonement - I always liked this card as a 2-drop, but more often than not, Paladin of Atonement always seemed very underwhelming whenever I played it. It never really got big enough to be a huge threat early.
It's been a while since I've made any updates to this deck, but recently I've done a major overhaul of this deck to make it significantly more competitive. For people who have been following my list you'll see that I have changed the deck to have an even lower curve, use some tutors and be less reactive than before. Because of these changes, while the deck is overall stronger it is also far riskier to play as it is trying to win even earlier than it was before. Another change I've made to this deck is I've taken out all protection cards in favor of discard effects to make more proactive plays to protect my board. This is the one of my favorite changes I've made to the deck as it has has definitely improved the pacing of how this deck plays. Below you'll find the card changes made to the deck.

In:

  • Ad Nauseam - Probably my favorite change to the deck and also the change that made me drop the overall average CMC of the deck. It has been a great inclusion to recoup my board after a potential board wipe by mass drawing my deck and coming out even stronger with the inclusion of more 1/2 drop vampires. The cost of life is almost always worth it and with a lot of vampire having lifelink doesn't end up being as bad.

  • Phyrexian Tower - I've always wanted to add this card but have always held off because I never felt the price was worth it. Now that it was recently reprinted, I monetary cost seemed worth it to me and have added it in. I personally think this card functions better than a mana rock in this deck as it helps with mana ramp/fixing for those black heavy cards.

  • Mass Hysteria - Added this in because of the fact that it's a haste outlet you can play on turn 1. Yes, it has the drawback of giving your opponents' creatures haste, but in the grand scheme of things this card benefits us more in the long run as its gets the vampire horde rolling much, much faster. I also have a meta that is heavily dominated by Super-friends and control decks, so this doesn't affect me as negatively.

New Vampires - I took out a lot of my higher costed vampires in favor of lower costed ones to work better with Ad Nauseam and to make the deck much faster overall.

  • Duskborne Skymarcher - Solid evasive 1-drop. One of the better vampire 1-drop choices out there.

  • Falkenrath Gorger - A 2/1 for 1 mana is solid. Also combos great with Olivia, Mobilized for War.

  • Guul Draz Assassin - A 1-drop that later becomes a good mana sink that can remove certain threats.

  • Insolent Neonate - An evasive 1 drop that can also be used for card draw later in the game.

  • Vampire Cutthroat - Evasive 1 drop with Lifelink. Pretty good overall when it comes to vampire 1-drops.

  • Asylum Visitor - Strong vampire that works reall well with the new discard theme present in this deck. Allows us to potentially draw more gas.

  • Kalastria Highborn

  • Gifted Aetherborn - Great 2 drop with strong keywords.

  • Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet - He's back! He a good board wipe deterrent that also functions as graveyard hate. Also has good stats and Lifelink, withe to potential to grow stronger.

  • Vampire Nocturnus - Also back. The deck is now 90% black so I'm bringing Nocturnus back. Makes our vampires huge and evasive.

Discard Effects - I decided to replace my protection cards with targeted discard effects. These cards allow me to me more proactive than reactive when trying to deal with board wipe. They let me eliminate the threat before it even exists and also lower the over curve of the deck.

  • Thoughtseize - Staple discard effect that costs 1 mana. Lets you get rid of all manner of threats.

  • Duress - Similar to Thoughtseize, great way to get rid of board wipes.

  • Mind Slash - Repeatable discard that has a reasonable cost. Since we are making a ton of tokens off of eminence triggers, losing a couple of them to this card is far more favorable to losing your entire board to a board wipe.

  • Torment of Hailfire - This card isn't primarily for discard, but the fact that it can make the opponent discard is nice. It's a good way to clear the board and potentially close out games when you have a ton of expendable mana in the late game. Definitely would consider it as a pseudo win-con.

Tutors - I know that when I initially made this deck, I had said that I chose not to run tutors as this is one of my more casual decks. But my playgroup definitely has shifted to a more combo oriented group. So in order to spice things up a bit, I've decided to "level-up" this deck to give them a run for their money. While I'm still not running all of the good tutors that I can in these colours, the few that I have added definitely help the deck be more competitive.

  • Demonic Tutor - Probably the best tutor in the game. Enough said.

  • Diabolic Intent - Cheap tutor that doesn't have a ridiculous additional cost. Can be replaced with Vampiric Tutor

  • Enlightened Tutor - Most of the targets this can fetch are pretty much always useful. Can pull out card draw, creature buffs, recursion and discard effects. Also can be replaced with Vampiric Tutor.

Out:

  • Anointed Procession - This was definitely a hard cut to make because it can be downright explosive at times. However, one of the things I've never liked about this card is it really ruins the tempo of the way you'll play creatures. Generally instead of dropping a 4-drop vampire on turn 4 I found myself spending a turn casting this, so that I'd get more eminence tokens in my next turn. Essentially, this would slow me down a whole turn and that's something I can't afford to do with this lower curve list. I may re-add this in the future, who knows.

  • Athreos, God of Passage - Removed in favor of Kalitas. He provides a more reliable body and protection. I can still see this card being very useful in this deck though.

  • Austere Command - Torment of Hailfire ends up being more reliable removal for closing out the game. Also not a great card to Ad Nauseam into.

  • Cloudstone Curio - Feels clunky in this new deck list so I got rid of it.

  • Fervor - Removed in favor of Mass Hysteria.

  • Grasp of Fate - Removed in favor of discard effects.

  • Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - Felt too slow and underwhelming for this new list.

  • Phyrexian Arena - Ended up being too slow of a way to generate gas for this deck. I've started removing this from most of my decks now as I find more often than not there are better and faster ways to draw cards.

  • Boros Charm, Teferi's Protection, Eldrazi Monument, Dusk - Removed in favor of discard effects so the list is more proactive rather than reactive.

  • Bishop of Rebirth , Falkenrath Aristocrat, Necropolois Regeant, Patron of the Vein, Vona, Butcher of Magan, - Removed in favor of cheaper/better vampires so I don't kill myself when casting Ad Nauseum.

  • Talisman of Indulgence, Rakdos Signet, Orzhov Signet - I've decided to remove the mana rocks I used to run in favor or 2 CMC vampires and Phyrexian Tower, in order to make the deck more aggressive.

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Casual

98% Competitive

Top Ranked
  • Achieved #11 position overall 7 years ago
Date added 7 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

13 - 0 Mythic Rares

42 - 0 Rares

25 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.33
Tokens City's Blessing, Vampire 1/1 B, Vampire 1/1 W, Vampire 2/2 B, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders Papa Edgar, favorite, Commander, Built, Ideas, Likes, Edgar, Edgar Markov Decks, Cool EDH Decks, Edgar Markov
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