Welcome to my Mardu EDH deck featuring Edgar Markov as the Commander. This deck has evolved from the Commander 2017 pre-con "Vampiric Bloodlust", and in order to keep it focused - not optimized - I've maintained 44 of the original 100 pre-con cards in the build (mostly the fun and interactive cards). You can find the original pre-con list in the link under deck stats where it says "Based on".
The pre-con contains a lot of great cards within Mardu colors, and were inspirational to how this deck has evolved. Our strategy is to go wide and tall by building up an army of Vampires and beefing them up with +1/+1 counters. Optimally, we'll have Edgar in play, commanding the battle space leading us to victory. Overall, there are 24 Vampires in the deck which you'll find within the customized categories based on what they do for us. You can filter the deck list by "type" as well.
First, let's look at our Commander, Edgar Markov. He is an extremely powerful Commander due to his Eminence ability, which allows us to put a 1/1 Vampire Token into play any time we CAST a Vampire. It's important to remember that this only triggers from a cast, and not "put into play", "make a copy", or anything otherwise. Additionally, Edgar enters the battlefield ready to rock due to having Haste and First Strike. It's important to cast Edgar at a time in the game when you're ready to protect him from removal - because it definitely feels bad when we use 6 mana just to see him disappear moments later. Lastly, whenever Edgar is turned sideways and attacking, he grants ALL of your Vampires a +1/+1 counter.
One area which has been vastly upgraded is the mana base. Most of our creatures and big spells fall within , and so I've placed an emphasis on drawing lands which give us black mana, and splashed in and . What the pre-con mana base really lacked was ways to quickly smooth out our mana curve and colors available, therefore we now have fetch lands, filter lands, and other quick dual-colored lands which come into play untapped. Lastly, I've incorporated a few helpful lands such as Cavern of Souls to ensure we get our Vampires onto the battlefield, Command Beacon to cheaply get Edgar back into the fight without paying Commander tax, and Phyrexian Tower to interact with Phyrexian Reclamation and bringing back creatures from the graveyard.
When it comes to ramp, the deck is currently a bit light but still performs nicely. We run staples such as Sol Ring, Mind Stone and the guild signets, as well as Black Market (which was already in the pre-con) and Black Market Connections which can be extremely powerful since the Shapeshifter tokens it creates can be Vampires. If we're able to get Phyrexian Altar out, this is another form of ramp by sacrificing some Vampire Tokens to it for mana in order to cast larger spells when they're needed.
Keeping a full grip and being able to interact with potential threats is extremely important in our strategy. For this, we run cards such as Herald's Horn and Visions of Phyrexia to draw or play cards on upkeep, as well as Vanquisher's Banner and Black Market Connections for move consistent card draw. The pre-con came with Skullclamp which has amazing functional use with our 1/1 Vampire tokens. For impulse card draw, Read the Bones and Syphon Mind have a ton of value to refill our hand. Graveyard recursion is inclusive in the way card draw was designed in this deck, and so it should be utilized to replay some of our Vampires and trigger Eminence. Our most reliable graveyard recursion cards are Phyrexian Reclamation are Veinwitch Coven which can create very nice combos with ETB type cards and triggering Eminence. Lastly, the land Takenuma, Abandoned Mire can also mill us some Vampires to put into our hand.
Moving on to cards which support our two strategies: adding +1/+1 counters to our army of Vampires and gaining life along the way. Our primary goal is going wide and adding counters - the true Boros way - while our secondary goal fits those of Orzhov trying to gain life while draining our opponents'. For +1/+1 counters, we run a few Vampires with "Lord" effects (creatures like Captivating Vampire for example) and also those who grant +1/+1 counters on trigger like Rakish Heir. Also at our disposal are some good weaponry to equip onto Edgar or another powerful Vampire. Potential powerhouses like Blade of the Bloodchief and Bloodforged Battle-Axe can be great to power up a single creature or equip our entire army with copies of Bloodforge. In case of a board wipe, we run The Ozolith to capture all our +1/+1 counters (the +1/+1 Lord effects do not count) and store them for use next turn. Regarding life gain, we run a few cards which gain us life any time our opponents lose life, such as Exquisite Blood and Bontu's Monument. There's also some impulse life gain such as Blood Tribute which came in the pre-con, and looked too fun to cut out of the deck list.
The last categories we'll cover are protection and removal. Because our average CMC for the deck is above 3.0 and we don't want to be losing any of our permanents, this build contains a healthy dose of protection spells. To dodge mass removal, we have Scapegoat and the classic Teferi's Protection to ensure we maintain a board state. When we've gained the upper hand and are trying to close out the game, Cover of Darkness, Flawless Maneuver and Glaring Spotlight will ensure our attacking army goes unscathed. Moving onto removal, Olivia's Wrath is a fantastic asymmetric board wipe. The pre-con also gave us Anowon, the Ruin Sage and Butcher of Malakir which methodically clear the board of our opponents' creatures.
I also added an infinite combo just in case the game drags on and needs to be ended:
- With Blood Artist in the battlefield, cast Oathsworn Vampire and create a vampire token from Edgar Markov's Eminence. Sacrifice both Oathsworn Vampire and the vampire token to Phyrexian Altar, creating 2 mana of any color and also triggering Blood Artist to deal 2 damage to target player and gaining you 2 life. Re-cast Oathsworn Vampire from the graveyard with the 2 mana gained from Phyrexian Altar and repeat until everyone is dead.
Enjoy and happy tapping!
