Battle Cry

Instant

Untap all white creatures you control.

Whenever a creature blocks this turn, it gets +0/+1 until end of turn.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (1)

Ojallday on Dealing with politics as an …

1 year ago

I have a friend that ran Markov who had a similar problem. Due to the nature of the deck you drop all of your creatures and kill one player. His solution was to transition to a mid-range strategy. Simply put he would cast early game threats to put pressure on other players, but they didn't win him the game or kill a player, so that he could win the game on later turns. Since I don't know how you are losing I'll put forward a few ways players stop Markov decks and how to counter those strategies.

First, are players killing you when all of you creatures are tapped down? Keep some of your creatures back as blockers, this is obvious and the strategy goes against how agro players operate in most formats but is needed in multiplayer environments. Along the same lines are white spells that can untap all of your creatures on other players turns like Battle Cry and Call to Glory leading to fun combat tricks to kill off important creatures and more importantly save your life total.

Second, are players board wiping constantly to knock down your board state? This was the problem my friend had and after two board wipes he would be out of cards in hand with no board state top decking hoping for some sort of Windfall. There are a few ways to counter this which can be focused on individually or can be mixed for similar results. Making it so your creatures don't die is one method featuring spells like Boros Charm and Teferi's Protection. Another is mass reanimation spells like Faith's Reward, Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death. Finally are flexible spells that essentially replace the creatures you lost. Those being Reprocess, Plumb the Forbidden or Village Rites.

Third, playing politics. Like you said there is not much stopping the rest of the table from ganging up on you, you can however influence other players decisions based on how you play and how others at your table play as well. Hold back threats, it's tempting to dump your hand and start swinging but as you mentioned this makes you a huge target. Instead put down a Coat of Arms or another value spell and hold the rest of your mana open for interaction, which leads to my next point interaction. You have some of the best removal spells in the game in your colors like Fracture,Dreadbore, Anguished Unmaking and Swords to Plowshares all of which are great bargaining chips to use as favors for other players, as well as being useful to take care of things causing problems for you. Last of all are less card choices but more how you address the table, having a good pokerface helps a lot with this. At the start of the game address the commanders others are playing and talk to the group about the powerful synergies they employ. Whenever an important combo or synergy price is played by an opponent point it out to the other players and if it's very strong stress it needs to be dealt with, which may incline the other players to use spells on it, reducing what they can use against you and making it so you don't have to deal with the problem. When a Tutor is cast discuss what spell the player could be gettng, this will draw attention to them and away from you. Finally when players address your board shift focus away from it, point out another player with the winning board state or the deck that won the last game. Downplay that you are a threat until you are ready to win the game. Keep in mind you are still an agro deck, so you can always lean into dumping your hand to kill a player fast if the game match up calls for it.

This final section is just general deck construction. Vampire selection: make sure you vampires are doing more that entering the battlefield to create an extra Vampire through eminence. Things like Blood Artist and Viscera Seer give value when opponents interact with the board and thing like Twilight Prophet draws cards. There are also the vampire lords that buff all of your vampires and tokens. Things that have synergy with your strategy are good includes too like Sanguine Bond, Impact Tremors or Goblin Bombardment and go a long way. Finally is "normal" card advantage that doesn't rely on you having vampires out and will shine in the early game as well as add value late game, Greed, Phyrexian Arena and Wheel of Misfortune.

I hope some of my thoughts help you work out a good game plan.