Edgar Markov Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on February 27, 2025

Edgar Markov | Illustration by Volkan Baga

When we returned to Innistrad in Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow we got an influx of vampires and other fun tools to add to our vampire EDH decks. Edgar Markov, possibly the best Mardu card in the game, has been a favorite Commander ever since its first release in Commander 2017. My question is, do any of the new vamps fit in anywhere, or are the old cards still the old guard?

Time to get into this Edgar Markov EDH deck. Let’s get into it!

The Deck

Malakir Bloodwitch | Illustration by Shelly Wan

The Commander: Edgar Markov

Edgar Markov pulls its weight just about everywhere. Eminence allows it to pump out tokens multiple times every turn. Its ability to come out and swing in the same turn with a little bit of combat protection thanks to first strike allows Edgar to immediately start buffing up your board, including itself.

Edgar can get expensive quickly as a 6-drop, but even leaving it in the command zone reasonably grows your board.

Creatures

Every creature in this deck is a vampire, so you’re hitting Edgar’s triggers and getting those sweet buffs with everything you put on the board. There’s a good mix of abilities at play here, from anthems to token creatures.

Recent years have given us plenty of interesting and powerful vampires. Baron Bertram Graywater adds a 1/1 lifelink Vampire Rogue token to the board the first time Edgar Markov makes its vampire tokens each turn. You can also cash in tokens for cards with excess mana.

Elenda, Saint of Dusk is frequently a 10/10 menace lifelink creature for just 4 mana, considering that this deck can gain some life. That’s absurd on rate, and hexproof from instant speed removal helps it stick around.

Speaking of gaining life, Bloodthirsty Conqueror is like the Baneslayer Angel of vampires. It just sits there on the battlefield, leeching life from your opponents, and if needed, it attacks for a 10-point life swing. Plus, it's a core part of many combos, like infamous Sanguine Bond combos.

The typical plan for Bloodline Keeper is to get it out on turn 4 and then transform it on turns 6 or 7. If you get a good first hand, you can get it out and transformed on turn 3, allowing you to bolster your early board and start creating more vamps each turn. Lord of Lineage is a nice 5/5 that grows with Edgar, but more than likely you’ll tap it as a token creator.

Captivating Vampire is another solid lord that allows you to put all your Vampire tokens to good use stealing your opponents’ stuff.

Cordial Vampire makes every token you sacrifice or lose in combat another board-wide buff for your vamps.

Drana, Liberator of Malakir pumps up all your attacking creatures (of which there will be many) each time it manages to deal combat damage to a player.

Florian, Voldaren Scion gives you some much-needed library filtering. Once it’s out, you might not want to play a land before combat unless you need to. You may end up not getting anything you need at that moment but don’t want to exile a card for nothing.

Indulgent Aristocrat is a great 1-drop on that makes all your tokens anthem fodder. Putting this one with Cordial Vampire gives you a 2-for-1 bonus.

Patron of the Vein offers removal on ETB, making your opponents’ yards a “no creature” zone and antheming your board in the process. This makes asymmetric board wipes much worse for your opponents.

Vampire Nocturnus grants evasion if the top card of your library is black. Your vamps will be flying a lot since more than half of the deck has a black pip in the corner.

Planeswalker

The only planeswalker in the deck is Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. This is mostly for lore reasons since having Edgar without Sorin just feels wrong. But this black planeswalker‘s +1s are easy to use and pay for and getting a larger vampire out for only 3 mana with its -3 isn’t a bad trade-off if nothing else.

Anthems

With typal decks, you’re frequently looking at ways to enhance your creatures, so you need some general or specifically vampire-related buffs.

Warleader's Call combines an anthem effect with direct damage in a single card. Play a vampire, Edgar makes a token, and then this Boros () enchantment pings everyone twice. Oh, and your creatures also get stronger. Beautiful card.

Patchwork Banner is a typal mana rock, providing you with some ramp and fixing while boosting your vamps.

This list also has many effects that boost your vampires with static abilities or by spreading +1/+1 counters. Some of these cards include Drana, Liberator of Malakir, Indulgent Aristocrat, Bloodline Keeper / Lord of Lineage, or even a simple Legion Lieutenant.

Interaction Package

Your suite of interaction is more in the realm of targeted destruction and board wipes since you can get back online pretty quickly after one. Some notables in that group are Path to Exile, Damn, Kaya's Wrath, and Olivia's Wrath.

There are also some combat tricks and protection with Akroma's Will and Teferi's Protection.

Crackling Doom can get rid of at least some of the big nasties at the table, and New Blood allows you to make one of those big nasties your own.

Beseech the Mirror can tutor a lot of cool cards. In addition to the many creatures this gets, it also grabs typal-support cards like Patchwork Banner, Herald's Horn, and Door of Destinies, and tons of other stuff.

Wincons

Your typical wincon in this deck is going to come from combat damage. Your board state will get very large very quickly so swinging with 10+ medium-powered creatures won’t be uncommon. There are couple other cards that have some potential to win games very quickly.

Malakir Bloodwitch becomes an instant win card if your board state is big enough to knock everyone out at once.

Yahenni, Undying Partisan can become a beater to take out one or two players if you give it indestructible before casting a board wipe. Ideally you'll do this before combat so that you can swing with it the same turn.

The Mana Base

This deck is heavy on the black side with white coming in second and red mostly there as a splash color. The entire mana base is made up of dual and tri-lands to make sure you aren’t hurting for any specific color.

These include the full suite of shock, check, tango, fetch, bounce, Battlebond lands, and pain lands, with few exceptions that I’ve cut to add black-based verge lands. Blazemire Verge and Bleachbone Verge generate black mana on their own, and with a few typed dual lands around, they become an easy way of generating your second and third colors with no downside.

Three Tree City is awesome in a typal deck that wants to go wide. This land can typically turn 2 mana into 5 or 6, while fixing colors you might need. Some mana sinks like Olivia Voldaren can benefit from the extra mana.

Some notable utility lands include Cabal Coffers, Mortuary Mire, Unclaimed Territory, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (helps with the heavy black commitment), Vault of the Archangel, and Voldaren Estate. You also have the usual gamut of mana rocks to help push early mana production.

The Strategy

The strategy of playing with Edgar Markov is very similar to playing a Rakdos deck: fast and aggressive. Markov being Mardu () is a nice bonus since it gives you the ability to throw around some nice white cards here and there, but their usefulness only extends back to the original strategy.

With vampires you go wide, not tall, focusing instead on getting tokens and creatures out for value rather than building up a few strong creatures. Then you have the “problem” of deciding if you want to swing them all at one opponent to take them out, or spread the love and try to set your opponents back a bit farther.

Losing tokens and even creatures is fine since you tend to hold back your generators and anthems to be used on subsequent turns.

Combos and Interactions

There are a few little nasty things you can do to your opponents here.

Get Exquisite Blood and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose out and gain some life and then just have them trigger back and forth forever. As soon as one of your opponents is done, move on to the next. Bloodthirsty Conqueror helps with the redundancy, and it’s also a massive vampire.

Or, you start with Indulgent Aristocrat and Cordial Vampire out. Sacrifice a token creature with Aristocrat to add a +1/+1 counter all around, then add another thanks to Cordial.

Another interaction starts with Indulgent Aristocrat, Animation Module, and Ashnod's Altar on the battlefield, while you control at least three vampires and an additional creature. Sacrifice that extra creature (maybe a vampire) to pass around +1/+1 counters on all your vamps. Each of those counters trigger Module.

Then, pay 1 colorless and resolve the first of these triggers to create a Servo token and then immediately sacrifice it using the Altar to get back 2 colorless. Repeat as necessary with the other Module triggers for a bonus of 3 colorless mana to loop infinite colorless mana, infinite Servos, infinite +1/+1s on your vampires, and infinite LTB/death/sacrifice triggers for whatever may like them.

You can pull off a very similar combo with Elenda, the Dusk Rose once you've stacked enough +1/+1 counters on them.

Budget Options

The deck currently costs around $780. That’s a chunk of change to pay for what I’d consider a very well-tuned vampire deck. Here’s something I have a bit of internal contention with: Should you play budget Edgar Markov?

Edgar by itself is already a $40+ card. You generally want to play other anthems that boost those abilities, which also aren’t exactly cheap: Coat of Arms and Door of Destinies are both upwards of $15, and Urza's Incubator goes for over $10+. Although many vampires hurt your wallet a bit, many of the expensive cards have been reprinted in Commander precons and Innistrad Remastered. Some cards like Elenda, the Dusk Rose are over $10+, or Bloodthirsty Conqueror around $30+.

But none of those have anything to say about the price of the mana base at around $290. This is where I’d suggest making any changes and cuts. You can trade out any nonbasic land in the deck for a cheaper dual land variant or a basic if you do it in a balanced manner. What you’re sacrificing to save money is a big part of the deck’s strategy: aggression.

Removing the lands that either increase the value or that you can drop untapped and use for multiple colors means that you may not get Edgar Markov or some of the other main set pieces out early. But that’s a decision I think anyone playing a deck like this needs to ask themselves.

Except Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. You can easily drop Sorin and add one of its cheaper brethren (or even a different vampire entirely) and be fine. Bloodlord was just the best one for this build.

Commanding Conclusion

Yahenni, Undying Partisan | Illustration by Lius Lasahido

Edgar Markov is a very fun commander to play with. It’s in the colors that the best vampires come from and you have a wide range of modes to mold it towards your own playstyle.

I had quite a number of cards that I set aside that didn’t make the cut when it came to taking Edgar in the anthems direction. The nice thing about it is that it can become an enabler of just about any of vampires' main mechanics, so playing around is highly suggested. Get your money’s worth out of dear old Edgar!

What changes would you make with the deck? Which of the more recent cards do you think should have made the cut? Let me know in the comments below or in Draftsim’s Discord.

That’s all from me for now. Stay safe, stay healthy, and drink plenty of water!