Sucking the fun out of it: How to beat Edgar Markov and the Vampires he brings along

    Between 2016 and 2017, Wizards of the coast released some of the most powerful commanders of all time in their preconstructed decks. Tymna and Kraum aka Blue farm is currently the top cEDH commander pairing and partners are just as popular today as ever. The 2017 batch however was all based on creature types. We already discussed The Ur-Dragon in s previous article, but that set had another trick up its sleeve in Edgar Markov for the vampires.

    Banned in French commander, also known as dual commander, This creature has the very strange inverse effect that the more competitive the deck, the least likely it is that you will actually cast that commander. Allow me to explain. Edgar Markov has the ability to create a 1/1 black vampire token with each vampire cast. In lower power iterations of the deck, players would simply play whatever vampires they choose, building up a bit of an army in the process, and then cast Edgar Markov to pump the team and try to close out the game in a matter of a couple of turns. In more competitive builds, you are trying to knock players out of the game before you even have enough mana to cast Edgar Markov by playing as many 1 or 2 mana vampires as possible and getting out ahead quickly so that your opponents can’t deal with it. Edgar is probably as close to a true Aggro deck commander as we can get.


    The strength of the deck comes down to speed. This deck preys on casual decks that plan on spending their first few turns ramping and getting set up. Before you know it, you’re already dead. Vampires as a type are also a fairly well supported group giving them plenty of lords that make all the tokens bigger or capitalize on cards like Coat of Arms. Vampires tend to also carry a lot of removal in those colors and lifelink so traditionally playing an aggro deck against it will not work.


    The weakness, similarly to most aggro decks in other formats, is gas. These kinds of decks and especially this color pair are not normally known for having excellent card draw options. Because of this, if we can outlast the Vampires long enough, we should be able to start playing bigger and more impactful spells than Edgar is capable of.


    The main strategy we’ll be looking for is early game defense. Most experienced aggro players will take out one player at a time to reduce the amount of resistance they have against them because if an opponent is playing an aggro strategy, there is a very high chance that the table will be interested in teaming up to at least slow them down. So what we’re looking for is development and blockers, but not quite enough of a threat to draw attention. Let someone else play that early turn Sol Ring and draw the heat from Edgar. That player may die, but keep building your board and look for a board wipe. Once all the creatures are sweeped and hands are low, your impact per card should carry you to victory.


    For Kryptonite cards, you really can’t go wrong with token hate. My personal favorite is Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite since it pumps my creatures and makes my opponents creatures -2/-2 effect killing all the tokens consistently and usually guaranteeing that your blockers can win in combat.


    That’s all we have for this week! We’re definitely looking forward to seeing some of you in Chicago next weekend here. If you have a topic for an article or our podcast “The Thought Vessel Show” on Spotify, send us an email to thoughtvesselshow@gmail.com.