Night 05! Rise of the Vampires!
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back to DMCrossroads! Before I get into today’s post, I feel like I need to warn you; this is going to be the most hyped post I’ll have written here so far. It may be the most hyped thing I’ve written in a long time, if not simply EVER! There’s going to be a lot of ALL CAPS WRITING and exclamation points to properly convey, in text, just how excited I am!
You see… Today is day 3 of the Commander 2017 spoiler week. And today…
They spoiled some Vampires.
If you don’t understand why that makes me hyped, then I’m going to quickly explain: I love Vampires. I. LOVE. VAMPIRES! There are very few Vampire products or sagas or universes that I don’t enjoy. Maybe a total of three or so, now that I think about it. In all the Vampire-related things that have ever been created, there MAY be three instances I was unhappy about.
And this Commander 2017 deck is NOT one of those things. I. Love. This. Deck.
And I can’t wait to talk to you about it. But before we do, I feel the need to do some house-keeping. Yesterday’s post came out before I saw two of the spoilers from the 8th of August. For the sake of being organized, I want to quickly talk about those two cards before we get started on today. Let’s go!
Mirror of the Forebears strongly resembles a Tribal-dedicated Mirage Mirror. If you haven’t been following the Commander VS episodes over at the StarCityGames YouTube channel, then you may not realize this, but the Magic Mirror (as Jeremy Noell and Stephen Green have nicknamed it) is an amazing piece that can find a home in nearly any and every deck. Mirror of the Forebears does something similar, albeit it limited to working within Tribal decks. Still, I can’t imagine what kind of deck I wouldn’t want to run this card in because if ONE awesome thing is awesome, TWO awesome things is TWICE AS AWESOME!
Qasali Slingers is an awesome card in the fact that it is basically a creature version of Aura Shards. And honestly, Green and White is really good at getting rid of pesky Artifacts and Enchantments, so the fact that this provides even more removal for those types of cards and aligns with Cat tribal is such a win! And the fact that it triggers off the Cat entering the battlefield and not on cast is very important because Flicker effects and token creators just became even more awesome!
Okay, so those two cards were awesome additions! I don’t want to downplay them in the slightest. BUT! … Let’s talk about some Vampires. And like the past couple of posts, I want to start with the big shebang RIGHT UP FRONT!
Hold on a second, I’m still trying to collect my thoughts and excitement for this. Don’t judge me, you don’t understand the over-hype that I’m currently over-hyping right now!
Let’s start with the simple stuff, like his name. You may or may not have noticed, but Legendary Creatures tend to come with a “,” somewhere in their name, followed by a title. They could have called this card “Edgar Markov, Father of Vampires” or “Edgar Markov, Lord of Innistrad” or even “Edgar Markov, Ruler of the Night”. But they didn’t. And I think I know why. Edgar Markov doesn’t need a title. Think about it. This IS the Father of Vampires on Innistrad. And seeing that Vampires were SUCH A THREAT to humanity that Sorin Markov felt they needed to be policed and created Avacyn to do so, I would wager that calling him the Lord of Innistrad or Ruler of the Night is EXTREMELY appropriate. But that’s all just fluff. Because THIS is Edgar Markov. No fluff needed.
Then we look at his art. We got to see it last week when the Commander 2017 page on Wizards.com had his art as splash art, but he wasn’t centered on the page. He was aligned to the right just a bit so they could fit the title of the page and some description wording without overlapping his face or armor. I agree 100% with how they handled the situation, but now seeing the art on the card, it’s amazing. Lord Markov (let’s be real, we’re not worthy to call him by his name!) is centered, surrounded by tending fledgling Vampires, a look of nobility and strength. His golden, black eyes are looking right at the player (or any poor fool of an opponent who picks him up to read his text) and staring into your soul. This is some prime art. THIS is the art… of Lord Edgar Markov!
Finally, let’s look at what he does. And wow, does he do it all or what? Sure, he costs 6, but he’s also a 4/4 with First Strike and Haste. That means he’s going to enter the battlefield SWINGING! But that’s not all he does. Let’s say you play him turn 6, but you were able to set up with two or three other Vampires in prior turns. That means you’ve gotten two or three Vampire tokens because of his Eminence ability. I want to draw very SPECIAL ATTENTION to this ability. Not only do we get tokens while casting Vampires and Lord Markov is in the Command Zone. We STILL get them while he is on the battlefield! We’re going to bring an ARMY of Vampires to fight! And Lord Markov empowers his forces, making them gain strength with just his command to attack! Unlike Drana, Liberator of Malakir, you can prevent Lord Markov’s damage, block him, but you cannot stop the benefit he is giving to his warriors. Honestly, the only complaint I have about this card is that he’s a Vampire Knight. Let’s be honest. Lord Edgar Markov is the Vampire King!
I could go on and on about this card and how I plan to make this deck. Because, trust me! I am going to be running Lord Edgar Markov at some point in the VERY near future! But there’s a ton of other cards and I don’t want to take up your entire evening. After all, there are Vampires about! You may want to ready your defenses before nightfall…
I will openly admit that I was not nearly as excited about Licia, Sanguine Tribune as I was for Lord Edgar Markov (no, Lord is not leaving his name for most likely… Ever. Expect me to always refer to him as Lord from here on out!) despite the fact that I think they’re an interesting Legendary Creature. Why, you may ask? Well, for starters, the CMC on this one is REALLY high. I see that the cost is reduced by gaining life, but I have this stereotype of Vampires for Magic: the Gathering in my head that makes me think more of the “growing in strength via combat” by them gaining +1/+1 counters instead of thinking of a lifegain deck. Now, with that being said, if I stop thinking of Licia as a Vampire Commander and more of a Lifegain Commander, I start getting more excited. I once ran Karlov of the Ghost Council as a WB Lifegain Zombie Tribal deck, so utilizing lifegain to gain counters is not new to me. Then, I also notice that you can activate Licia’s +1/+1 counter ability once EACH TURN! Not each of YOUR TURNS, EACH TURN! So in a four-person game where I’m gaining tons of life, I could pay 20 into this Commander and get a 16/16 after a single round? Um. Yes. Yes, please. I think Karlov will be a great part of the 99 for a deck like this and I’m excited to see what Licia can really do!
I’ll also note that Reddit got super hyped over Licia because their armor appears to be Roman-esque in nature. Some people theorized that they may be from Theros and we’ll see a Greece vs. Roman style conflict in a return to Theros while others are hoping and praying for a Roman-based plane in the future that has Vampires incorporated into the government. Honestly, if it has Vampires in it, I don’t truly care where we go!
Wizards, STOP WITH THE AMAZING ART! This guy looks EXTREMELY badass, and I can only imagine that the branding tool in his hand is either about to be used or just was used on some poor fool. Then I look at the stats on the card and I can’t help but get excited. A 3/3 body with Menace for three mana is awesome. And then I read the Bounty counter ability and it SCREAMS politics! “Hmm, see this creature we all don’t really like? I’m going to put a Bounty on it. Now if we get rid of it, we all benefit!” Definitely something I would play. And this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Bounty counters, so there’s some pre-existing synergy to build with in a deck led by Mathas.
That’s it for the Legendary Vampires that have been spoiled thus far. Someone on Reddit noticed that there are five Legendary Creatures spoiled for the Dragon deck, four for the Cat deck and only three for the Vampires, so there’s some theorizing that there will be another new Legendary Vampire at some point. I’d like to also provide the possibility that perhaps there will be more reprints in the decks that have fewer new Legendary Creatures. Vampires have tons of Legendary Creatures they could bring back, including two Drana’s, two Olivia’s, two Kalitas’ and more! So who knows what we’ll see once the decklists are revealed? For now, let’s talk about the non-Legendary Vampires we saw today.
Commander 2016 had a very unique card in one of the decks called Bastion Protector. My wife, Dani, fell in love with this card because it was another Aegis Angel for her Kaalia of the Vast deck. It looks like Vampires are bringing the “buff Commander cards” idea back and instead of giving Indestructible, the red-colored card is giving Haste. I’m excited to see the mechanic return and Haste is fine, but I almost wonder if Trample wouldn’t have been better. Haste is super important ONCE each time you play your Commander. Trample matters every attack phase it’s on the battlefield and we’ve seen Red start to share Trample with Green over the past couple of years. Remember the Red Archetype of Aggression from Theros? Still, this is a four mana 4/4 with flying that buffs your Commander and gives haste. All in all, an extremely efficient card!
I like everything about this card. The stats are spot on with a five mana 4/5 body with Trample. But the fact that it encourages people (or punishes them!) for not having their Commander on the battlefield seems hilarious! I mean, part of the reason we all love and play Commander is because you get to build this awesome deck around this awesome Legendary Creature! (Most of the time… I acknowledge some people build cards around COLORS instead of the Creature itself, but I will stand by the statement that normally, decks are built with what the Commander provides in mind). The only issue I could have with this card is if your own Commander is hard to cast, it may be a dud. Still, if you’re in a group that runs a lot of big stompy Commanders that you know won’t be out until turn seven or you plan on regularly sending back to the Command Zone… This might give you the upper hand with some nice damage!
Any time I see graveyard disruption on a card, I instantly want to buy as many as I can fit into decks with those colors. As a graveyard player (Hail the Golgari!) I know too well how crazy decks that rely on putting their own cards in the graveyard can get. A healthy amount of graveyard hate has a place in ANY DECK and I would say it’s as necessary as having ramp and draw. Not only does this card provide graveyard hate, it’s still very tribal by boosting EACH VAMPIRE YOU CONTROL when something gets exiled for dying. Sounds like a win/win for me!
So this spell obviously isn’t a Vampire itself, but as you read it, you can tell while I’m classifying it with the rest of the Vampire cards. I love taking people’s stuff. The first Vampire Tribal deck I ran was Commandered by Olivia Voldaren (as, I believe, most Vampire Tribal decks tend to be led by) and nothing was more fun than taunting my opponents by pinging their creatures and turning them into Vampires and then taking them. This card goes a step further and REPLACES TEXT ON THE TAKEN CARD so that whatever creature type it previously referenced now references Vampire instead. This doesn’t just turn the taken creature into Vampire, it can take an Elf Lord and make it a Vampire Lord. As a Krenko, Mob Boss player, I giggled with glee when I thought of taking Krenko from someone and making Goblins now say Vampires. Imagine making 1/1 Vampire tokens for each Vampire you control?! Please, Wizards, stop TOYING WITH MY EMOTIONS!
That was all the Vampire and Vampire-esque cards that were spoiled today! But we’re not done. Actually, we’re only about halfway… Because some AWESOME other cards were also spoiled! The first ones I want to talk about was the cycle of Curses!
I’m not going to go over each and every ability because you can read them for yourself and figure out which of your decks they will do the most work in. I do, however, want to mention that I am in love with Curses and have been since they first came out. I’ve been talking about wanting to run a Curse Commander deck and am constantly upset that there isn’t a Grixis colored Legendary Creature that I can work with. I’ve resigned myself to work with Nekusar the Mindrazer, since he’s the right colors, helps you draw cards and I don’t have to worry about losing my Curses like I would if I ran the deck under Jeleva, Nephalia’s Scourge. With that in mind, I noticed something VERY important about these Curses, since they’re new and improved! Remember that any time an opponent triggers one of these new Curses by attacking the cursed player, they’re not the only one getting the benefit. THESE Curses pay the attacker AND the owner of the curse! THAT IS SO COOL! It’s the ultimate political play. Sure, you want to attack this person because who doesn’t want 2 life, to draw a card, a 2/2 Zombie token, a Gold token or to untap their nonland permanents? Just know that anything you get, I get. You have to pay taxes on that benefit! Fantastic!
Finally, there was three other cards spoiled today and nearly all three were instantly gobbled up by the people as being awesome. Let’s talk about them before we wrap this SUPER LONG post up!
For starters, seeing Kindred Charge after Kindred Discovery yesterday leads us to believe there will be five cards in a Kindred Cycle, just like the five Curse cards. This means there’s a White, Black and Green Kindred card that we haven’t seen yet. For today, though, Kindred Charge was instantly seen and loved by Krenko players. You mean I get MORE while I keep getting MORE from Krenko?! I’ll definitely be adding the card to my own Krenko deck!
Disrupt Decorum tickled the fancies of another set of Goblin players; Grenzo, Havoc Raiser already loves forcing chaos by making people attack each other with Goad. This spell can basically hit everyone at once and may put you in a position to sweep in for a win, or to just keep the chaos going by constantly hitting people with JUST ENOUGH creatures to keep the War of Goading going! I saved Teferi’s Protection for last because I think it made the biggest splash in the community. For starters, it’s an amazing card. It basically says you get a turn off from being touched, which is awesome on its own. Then you read the card and realize that Wizards printed a NEW card with Phasing on it. We haven’t seen this mechanic for YEARS, so the fact that they’re printing it now may be a hint that we should expect to see it in the future. While I’m loving the card, I’ll be the first person to admit that I don’t fully understand the rules behind Phasing and I’m not super excited to see the mechanic return en masse. However, if this is the only printing of it, I could definitely deal with that!
Wow. Again, this was a really long post and I hope you readers at least enjoyed it! I would love to hear from you on what you think about the new cards, what you think will come of the Wizards tomorrow, what decks you’re planning on putting what cards into, etc.! You can write to me here or find me on Twitter @DM_Cross! Or you can email me at [email protected]! Don’t also forget that you can follow along with the Praetor Magic YouTube channel and follow the channel’s Twitter handle @PraetorMagic! We’re STILL working on our first giveaway, so head over to the channel and SUBSCRIBE and then Tweet out your favorite Magic Online Commander League episode with #MOCL! That’ll give you a chance to win a Blessed vs. Cursed Duel Deck when we hit 50 subscribers, or the second one when we hit 100!
Thanks for reading through everything! I really appreciate the attention I’ve gotten so far. I’m loving these posts and seeing what people think, so definitely reach out to me!
Until next time, folks, that’s all I got for you! Peace, love ya’ll!
