Evelyn - Vampire Mill?

[ISBPathfinder]

Vampire Mill

Ok, let me start by saying I have no idea if this idea is actually going to work but I got to thinking about Evelyn, the Covetous as a value engine but the thing I kept getting caught up in was that she could only cast one spell a turn. I thought about pushing harder on having mass flash to overcome that but ultimately I felt it was just better to throw down clone copies of her as if I have two copies of her I can cast two spells a turn from her pool and also in that case each vampire entering would trigger more than one trigger of adding to her pool. I also realized that as soon as anyone sees what I am doing with this deck they are going to want to save interaction for when I cast clones and that is part of why I have so much one mana instant speed protection in my list. Lots of that protection can also double as a source of triggering the commander again though as well so it feels like it won't sit dead in hand.

Bloodghast - is probably my other reasonable clock for this deck outside of clone armying my commander. I added a lot of sac outlets to the deck to support him but I think those sac outlets aren't that bad as in a lot of cases I can use them paired with cards like Feign Death too grab another pull from my commander or keep my commander in play through disruption.

If you look at my list I added just a touch of mill outside of the commander's main plan. I was really hoping to make the little bit of mill I do run more of finishers rather than something I am pushing for all game. My commander will ideally add up in some casual milling and I finish players off with a big punch from those few sources to ratchet the pressure up. Also the commander's mill also hits me so I wanted a way to step things up on my opponents. I opted to focus more on being a control based tribal deck than I did on being proactive as its just how I like to operate.

Rite of Replication kicked on my commander with no other board setup can also trigger to exile the top 30 cards from each players library and give me access to cast those cards. Its maybe not that insane of a wincon but it gives me resources and pressure.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

COMMANDER (1)

1 Evelyn, the Covetous

CREATURES (24)

1 Vampire of the Dire Moon

1 Viscera Seer

1 Baleful Strix

1 Bloodghast

1 Bloodthrone Vampire

1 Dockside Extortionist

1 Dusk Legion Zealot

1 Nighthawk Scavenger

1 Pawn of Ulamog

1 Scion of Opulence

1 Vampire Nighthawk

1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan

1 Bloodline Keeper

1 Falkenrath Aristocrat

1 Immersturm Predator

1 Olivia Voldaren

1 Sakashima of a Thousand Faces

1 Sakashima the Impostor

1 Solemn Simulacrum

1 Spark Double

1 Bloodline Necromancer

1 Phenax, God of Deception

1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

1 Olivia, Crimson Bride

ARTIFACT (12)

1 Expedition Map

1 Sol Ring

1 Wayfarer's Bauble

1 Arcane Signet

1 Dimir Signet

1 Fellwar Stone

1 Izzet Signet

1 Rakdos Signet

1 Relic of Legends

1 Panharmonicon

1 The One Ring

1 Lifeline

ENCHANTMENT (1)

1 Rhystic Study

INSTANT (20)

1 Pact of Negation

1 Entomb

1 Essence Flux

1 Feign Death

1 Malakir Rebirth

1 March of Swirling Mist

1 Pongify

1 Rapid Hybridization

1 Supernatural Stamina

1 Swan Song

1 Undying Evil

1 Undying Malice

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Arcane Denial

1 Cyclonic Rift

1 Mana Drain

1 Deflecting Swat

1 Delayed Blast Fireball

1 Fierce Guardianship

1 Deadly Rollick

SORCERY (7)

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Mind Grind

1 Agadeem's Awakening

1 Toxic Deluge

1 Irenicus's Vile Duplication

1 Rite of Replication

1 Living Death

PLANESWALKER (0)

LAND (35)

1 Arid Mesa

1 Badlands

1 Blood Crypt

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Cavern of Souls

1 Command Tower

1 Flooded Strand

4 Island

1 Marsh Flats

1 Misty Rainforest

1 Mountain

1 Myriad Landscape

1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

1 Polluted Delta

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Steam Vents

1 Strip Mine

1 Sulfur Falls

5 Swamp

1 Tolaria West

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Verdant Catacombs

1 Underground Sea

1 Volcanic Island

1 Volrath's Stronghold

1 Watery Grave

1 Wooded Foothills

1 Xander's Lounge

Approximate Total Cost:

CONSIDERING:

• Panharmonicon - Ohhh man how did I forget about this card with a commander that triggers on ETBs. Well, gonna have to figure out a space for this.
• Twinflame - There is some appeal in cloning my commander with some other vamps in one go.
• Butcher of Malakir - I go back and forth on if I should bother with a gravepact effect. I keep thinking that I don't have the creature counts but maybe on a vamp it might be ok.
• Saw in Half - Its sort of an instant speed clone but could be used on defense in some situations. It seems useful when and where I care about ETB triggers and it could pair with some of the rebirth effects I already run.
• Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt - I thought about some mass rez options but the option of possibly working in one as a land might be nice.
• Living Death - One of the better rez effects and its a sweeper too. I should be able to support it with my sac outlet count.

[yeti1069]

I tried Evelyn in Historic Brawl and found that the #1 bottleneck was mana, and #2 was the 1/turn limit. In theory you'll be stealing some ramp from opponents, but you also don't necessarily want to be spending your collection cast on that. Historic didn't have the pieces available, but I'd considered Unwinding Clock with more rocks as a way of having mana available on each turn.

Even if not looking at this angle, with the heavy pip requirements on a lot of the vampires, I'd suggest opting for mana rocks that make colored (particularly ) mana over colorless.

Call the Bloodline would probably be decent here, as a way of generating more triggers off your commander, spending untapped mana at EOT, and pitching cards you don't need, since you'll often wanting to be casting from your exiled pile.

Timothar, Baron of Bats looks like it could be decent. I wouldn't want to put Evelyn into exile with this, but all your clones and other vampires could go. You're not running much recursion, so the difference between graveyard and exile is fairly nonexistent, but then you have the option of bringing them back for another round of triggers when the bats connect. With all the sac outlets, that also opens up to the possibility of sacrificing a bunch of stuff at the last EOT so you can swing with the bats on your turn, then bring all those cards back.

With the nonlegendary clones, you can clone THOSE with normal clones. There's also options like Mirror Box to open the door for general cloning, although I can see that being awkward without a bunch of tutors, and then makes for something of a house of cards.

My experience with Captain N'ghathrod was that I rarely cared much for the creatures I was reanimating as anything other than blockers unless they were HUGE bombs, because the commander really wanted horrors. Adding Maskwood Nexus meant that anything I was stealing was also contributing to the main game plan. I'll admit that it's kind of an awkward card at 4 mana, but it definitely helped the deck run more smoothly, and the option to spend 3 mana to make an on-plan 2/2 at instant speed has been relevant more often than I would have thought.

[ISBPathfinder]

I tried Evelyn in Historic Brawl and found that the #1 bottleneck was mana, and #2 was the 1/turn limit. In theory you'll be stealing some ramp from opponents, but you also don't necessarily want to be spending your collection cast on that. Historic didn't have the pieces available, but I'd considered Unwinding Clock with more rocks as a way of having mana available on each turn.

Even if not looking at this angle, with the heavy pip requirements on a lot of the vampires, I'd suggest opting for mana rocks that make colored (particularly ) mana over colorless.

Call the Bloodline would probably be decent here, as a way of generating more triggers off your commander, spending untapped mana at EOT, and pitching cards you don't need, since you'll often wanting to be casting from your exiled pile.

Timothar, Baron of Bats looks like it could be decent. I wouldn't want to put Evelyn into exile with this, but all your clones and other vampires could go. You're not running much recursion, so the difference between graveyard and exile is fairly nonexistent, but then you have the option of bringing them back for another round of triggers when the bats connect. With all the sac outlets, that also opens up to the possibility of sacrificing a bunch of stuff at the last EOT so you can swing with the bats on your turn, then bring all those cards back.

With the nonlegendary clones, you can clone THOSE with normal clones. There's also options like Mirror Box to open the door for general cloning, although I can see that being awkward without a bunch of tutors, and then makes for something of a house of cards.

My experience with Captain N'ghathrod was that I rarely cared much for the creatures I was reanimating as anything other than blockers unless they were HUGE bombs, because the commander really wanted horrors. Adding Maskwood Nexus meant that anything I was stealing was also contributing to the main game plan. I'll admit that it's kind of an awkward card at 4 mana, but it definitely helped the deck run more smoothly, and the option to spend 3 mana to make an on-plan 2/2 at instant speed has been relevant more often than I would have thought.

Thanks for the insight. I haven't played this deck yet but I am very interested in the idea. I do think there is a lot to try to work through with this concept and I don't think I have it nailed by any means. Some of it I just plan to go in a bit rough and see how things work and what needs improvement.

Bottlnecks

• Mana: I did deliberately curve the list a bit lower trying for multiple spellcasts ideally over resolving big splashy ones. This said if I can step up and clone my commander like how I want to it could be a real pain in the ass to have the mana to cast things as frequently as I want. I felt like I was putting a good bit of ramp into my landbase in running both Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. The commander has 3 black devotion as will any clones of it so Nykthos on black is really not bad when it comes to pushing heavy amounts of mana. I do see what you are saying on the black color as I was looking at my blue and black dominance in here but I also think that my manabase is really strong as a whole and a lot of my deck doesn't need to be cast in early turns
• 1/Turn: I debated having more flash to my list via adding more things like Vedalken Orrery. I already have Leyline of Anticipation and Winding Canyons but I could go further and add the Orrery and even something like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. I kind of went with a half measure as I want to see how these cards go for me. In the past I have had a lot of difficulty getting these effects to live long enough to feel like they are worthwhile. To me flash does resolve some of this issue but this is also assuming you want to use everything you get back from the commanders triggers. I also do think that if I push harder on the flash element its possible I do need more ramp but I want to feel it out first in some testing and see what feels good and what doesn't before I jump to conclusions.
• Clones: I did consider going deeper on the clones and even the idea of running some weird variations. Its true that some of the normal clones can work on the legend clones I run but I felt like it was a little winmore to push too hard on them. I think you could also look at a higher tutor count in a pinch executing some of the same function but not feeling as dead in situations either.

Call the Bloodline - Hummm yea that could be fun. I suspect at some point I really don't need to be playing lands from my hand anymore. I like that they have lifelink too. I will see if I can run down a copy.

Timothar, Baron of Bats - I feel like it could really just be some black rez effect instead. To me it feels like a not great card that hopes the next player doesn't have exile / bounce as their answer.

Mirror Box / Maskwood Nexus - I would probably add Helm of the Host before I resort to these but I also don't hate the idea of going deeper on tutors before going here. Thinking about this more is actually making me realize that I really don't hate the idea of Blade of Selves as it could work on my commander for reasonable mana or even on several of my random vamps without a problem.

I will see about ordering a copy of that random enchant and I like the idea of Blade of Selves. I suspect as I go to build it I will stumble across some other random things too. I really have no idea how viable this idea is going to be but I want to see how it plays.

[ISBPathfinder]

I finally got some of the cards in the mail. Holy heck snail mail is slow these days as its been two weeks since I ordered them and I am still missing some of the cards that I ordered. I do fear this idea might not really function but it just seems cool enough that I want to tinker with it until I lose a bunch of games. If it seems at all viable I am going to keep poking at it lol.

DECK CHANGES:

• Sensei's Divining Top → Sword of Hearth and Home I do think that top could work given that I could selectively syphon cards to my commander but that said its not a vamp and its not something with flash so I want to simplify a bit for now. I wanted more ramp and I realized that this sword gives me ramp and a vamp flicker for another commander trigger so that seemed good.
• Ugin, the Spirit Dragon → Blade of Selves I thought about Ugin a bit more and while its true that he won't hit my commander on lower settings I just felt like I wanted to lower my curve a bit. Beyond that I want to at least test the myraid blade even though I do think its optimistic to think that there is going to be somewhere I can attack without losing my commander it still works well on a number of my vampires in deck and at the cost of my commander I could rack up a number of triggers. In a 4 player game its 6 cards from each players deck on a myraid swing.
• Thrilling Encore → Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir I do have the sac outlets to maybe make Thrilling work but I felt like getting more flash online is also good. What sold me a bit on Teferi was his difficulty to be interacted with as well as having flash himself. Most of my own deck is between being creatures and instants so I think he can help me along and its hard to immediately disrupt him as he protects himself from spot removal by his restricting opponents to sorcery speed.
• Corpse Dance → Bloodline Necromancer Bloodline plays better with other cards in the deck as I can flicker or rez effect him and get more triggers. I still think Corpse Dance is alright but outside of amassing big mana I think the vampire is probably stronger for this deck.
• Brainstorm → Relic of Legends I wanted to reduce some of my generic spells and while I think Brainstorm is fine I wanted more ramp. I thought I had a good number of legends Relic curves with my 5 drop commander fairly well. It gives me a good opportunity to ramp at the right place and once my commander is in it gives me more than a single mana from the rock so I think thats good.
• Worn Powerstone → Bitterhorn, Nissa's Animus just moving some ramp around. The downside is that it doesn't ramp into my commander unless I miss land drops but it ramps me forward a bit more for later especially with a coffers package. I am less certain if I should be doing this but I am going to at least test it out.
• Winding Canyons → Glasspool Mimic I am not sure that I need my landcount quite as high as it is and technically this keeps my land count if I do need it but it also adds a clone option.

I am still not quite sure how hard its going to be to spin up multiple of my commander. I keep thinking about Helm of the Host as well as utilizing more selection / tutors like possibly Lim-Dûl's Vault. I do like that I got a bit more ramp into the list in this change and as of now I am hoping to get some testing in with it so I can have a better feel of where I stand with this project.

[ISBPathfinder]

I managed to win 2/3 games I played this weekend. Both games won were due to milling opponents out or them conceding when it seemed I could make the mill work for me. From my testing it felt like getting to my commander and then getting copies was where I needed to be. It felt like I wasn't ramping enough to get in faster and I got away with a lot of things because opponents didn't know what I was doing beforehand. It might change now that they know what my goal is and how to interact with me but the commander and cloning it felt amazing. I also got set up with Bloodghast both games where I won and it wasn't uncommon for him entering to be pulling 2-4 cards per entering which was great. The first game I won was off the back of a Rite of Replication into 8x copies of my commander milling for 40 via commander.

The one game I lost was a crazy game where on my turn 3 an opponent made a 10/10 token while drawing 10 cards and having no max hand size the rest of the game. I was forced to Living Death defensively in a horrible situation on like turn 5 and it just lead to me dying by turn 6 or 7 alongside the rest of the table. Its hard to really say much about that kind of a game when a player dumps nothing but god ramp into a big draw spell as an opener.

CHANGES:

• Anhelo, the Painter → Scion of Opulence - so, with my deck working so well in my first testing I wanted to lean more into having mana especially emergency mana as having options to sac vamps into having mana to cast emergency interactions seems useful. Anhelo didn't seem like he was going to be as impressive as having more mana access.
• Glasspool Mimic → Dockside Extortionist - well...... I am in a meta that dockside is insane so lets just embrace that and accept that I am building a list with some recursion. I had a game where I got to cast someone else's dockside for like 12 relatively early and it was great.
• Thassa, Deep-Dwelling → Lifeline - Thassa was here to trigger ETBs again. Well, Lifeline is wayyyyy more insane especially with sac outlet creatures so I think this is mostly just upside even if its easier to remove.
• Mind Stone → Fellwar Stone - just moving mana rocks to one that gives colored mana. I don't think I need the option to sac mind stone here.
• Bitterhorn, Nissa's Animus → Dimir Signet - moving to faster ramp. I wanted to push to make Cabal Coffers work and instead I want to shift to my commander coming in early.
• Sword of Hearth and Home → Izzet Signet - moving to faster ramp. I did get to live the dream of flickering a Solemn Simulacrum and 4x triggering Bloodghast with a fetchland for the turn and it was glorious. That said it felt like the stars alined for it to work and I don't have a lot of creatures that carry equipment offensively well so I am going to scrap it for easier ramp.
• Thran Dynamo → Rakdos Signet - Just trying to move to faster ramp over bigger ramp. I want to get to my commander sooner rather than pushing for big mana.
• Dress Down → The One Ring - I just generically like Dress Down but that said I wanted to trim back some of my non vamp / non ramp stuff and add a little more draw. I think my commander is really good at generating draw but I have no hand size by the end of the game and it means I have to use my commander's one play a turn to do things like play lands.
• Leyline of Anticipation → Panharmonicon - I do think that Leyline of Anticipation / Vedalken Orrery can work in this deck but again, they kind of do nothing and get answered quickly. I did manage to set it up once and I got to have fun casting like literally one creature with flash and then everyone freaked out and it got answered. I want to do some more testing with the deck for now before saying that I really need this effect
• Counterspell → Pawn of Ulamog - I do want to have some counter magic but I want to boost my vamp count and mana gen first for now. I like the idea of being able to sac some vamps to gen mana to cast a spell from my commander in a pinch.
• Starstorm → Living Death - With my sac outlets I feel I can support Living Death as a sweeper / reset.
• Cabal Coffers → Agadeem's Awakening - I felt like I was pushing too hard to try to support coffers in my deck and opted to just shift out of it for now.

So, with this change I think I need to mess with my landbase still. I am aware of this and its possible that Tolaria West / Expedition Map might have gotten worse and might change in the future as well as me lowering my basic land count some for more dual lands. I think my landbase needs some attention still and I plan to come back and look at that later but for now my priority was more with the above changes.

This deck is crazy and I look forward to playing it more especially with my opponents understanding what I am doing a little more. This deck does feel a little combo like in nature but it doesn't do anything infinitely. It does get past a lot of the usual concerns with mill which tend to be things like eldrazi shuffles in that I have a good chance of exiling them with my commander.

EDIT: Crud, I forgot to cut Blade of Selves. That is planned to be cut but I forgot to pair it with something coming in. I will circle back to that.

[ISBPathfinder]

Had another reasonably good game yesterday with this deck. I did notice an issue where I didn't have a sac outlet which was hurting me in this game as I came across Bloodghast, had Living Death in hand, and Lifeline in my commander's exile pile but it took me a bit longer to get access to a sac outlet. I did eventually manage to come back with a Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt with x=5 because an opponent for some reason had been milling us which let me set up and close out the game putting 5 creatures in with one clone for my commander, a sac outlet, and just a ton of vamps.

I ended up closing this game out a turn or two later when I got a big Mind Grind for like x=27 off the back of Nykthos mana. The on death mana gen vamps also open up some really nice options for closing out with this card as well even though I didn't do that I think I could have banked on them. I had a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir in play when I did the Mind Grind so thats fairly rough for my opponents.

DECK CHANGE:

• Blade of Selves → Wayfarer's Bauble not much here I had planned to get off the blade of selves and push a little more ramp. I might change this to something else later but I think I am ok with it sitting as a bauble for now.

Not much for changes for now. I did end up wanting a sac outlet in this game which could have been bad as I was sitting on some of the Feign Death type cards but I couldn't move them. It is possible that I might consider adding Altar of Dementia just because it is on theme and a sac outlet but I have been trying to push the vamps count first and foremost. We will see when I get more testing in this deck has been performing well enough I have felt kind of bad running it too often.

I really do need to put in a lot more testing for this deck but I should also consider what my control elements are and where I can get more control from. Its possible I might want to add something like a Grave Pact to this sort of deck. I just think its important to not just race and see if I can be the fastest to the wincon but also have some interaction. I also did some thinking about how it might feel to have some rez that I don't have to time like say Animate Dead where I don't have to do it as things die. Its at least food for thought but I ultimately need more testing to see where my flaws are. This deck has been winning a little too consistently for me to figure out where to improve which is weird. I do also only have like 5 games under my belt as well so I am far from a veteran of this deck either.

[Chromaticus]

If you do decide to look into the Unwinding Clock plan, there are a couple token producers I might consider—

Maskwood Nexus, which would have the side perk of allowing you to cast your opponents spells and trigger Evelyn, the Covetous.

Glass-Cast Heart, to generate vampire dorks and get some filtering ability. If you go ham on the rocks plan, Inspiring Statuary uses the blood tokens well.

In general, I feel that rocks are really good. This deck reminds me a little of @pokkens Haldan, Avid Arcanist and Pako, Arcane Retriever deck.

[ISBPathfinder]

If you do decide to look into the Unwinding Clock plan, there are a couple token producers I might consider—

Maskwood Nexus, which would have the side perk of allowing you to cast your opponents spells and trigger Evelyn, the Covetous.

Glass-Cast Heart, to generate vampire dorks and get some filtering ability. If you go ham on the rocks plan, Inspiring Statuary uses the blood tokens well.

In general, I feel that rocks are really good. This deck reminds me a little of @pokkens Haldan, Avid Arcanist and Pako, Arcane Retriever deck.

Unwinding Clock - Its a thought but I think there are two things to take into account with it. 1) What are the cards with flash we have and how much do they cost? Casting the commander is really nice but I am generally not casting things on my turn before trying to cast my commander later with flash and a lot of my other cards that can be cast at instant speed are cheap. I think I counted like 5ish cards that cost more than one mana that aren't my commander. 2) The size of the rocks and types of rocks used. By this its worth mentioning that the signets need other mana to activate which can make them a little more awkward with an unwinding clock. The option to cast the commander off of just mana rocks especially on a recast would be hard given the rocks I am using.

That isn't to say that it couldn't work but I would possibly want to be running more cards with flash that cost a little more mana in casting them.

Maskwood Nexus - My issue with this card always comes down to how do you build for this card. I currently have 4 non vamps that wont be vamp on entering (clones are usually vamps). If we are playing with the assumption of using this for slow token gen I just don't buy using this card over Helm of the Host even if its a 2 mana difference in cost to do everything in the first turn. Now, lets talk about doing something silly and gimmicky..... I started looking at this commander originally as a Maskwood Nexus deck with the intent of it being a Norin the Wary deck which would have been really silly and fun. That said, I scrapped it because while that thought is highly amusing I thought this commander could actually make a real deck instead of making something super gimmicky and I decided to go the direction of an actual build. I do think its possible to try to pull off something with a make everything a vamp with this commander but I don't think it makes the deck better or more consistent it will make it gimmicky and amusing but it will be hard to set up and inconsistent.

Blood Tokens - I could probably pull off some blood token support but I think I would start with a small package and see if I actually like blood tokens themselves. Technically my landbase is wrong and I have a copy of Voldaren Estate in my deck but I haven't ever activated it for the blood token (honestly I don't really remember it in play either but maybe I have played it). I have come close a few times to including Voldaren Bloodcaster // Bloodbat Summoner but the functionality of the blood token looting just isn't really what I have felt like I need in my deck. A lot of my draw is through my commander and I can't use blood tokens on those cards so my actual hand usually starts to dwindle as the game goes on because the actual hand card draw I run isn't as many. Its possible I should entertain running something like Mindslicer because I am not really reliant on cards in hand as my draw. I might try to experiment with blood tokens at some point but it would probably start as a light splash and see if I like the functionality of blood tokens as is first before I would go further into testing them and its not something I really see myself needing offhand but its also something I have not put the testing into.

I haven't played against that partner pair much to really comment on how they play but yea I can see some parallels. I will say though that the mill power of this deck is actually quite concerning. I have had a lot of turns where I end up taking 20+ cards off the top through large recursion plays. My biggest turn of commander milling was a situation that I already had two clones of my commander and then I kicked a Rite of Replication on a Sakashima of a Thousand Faces copy of my commander which resulted in 8 triggers of 5 vamps entering for a mill 40 result. I still had more mana left after doing that and my opponents just all scooped to it lol. The number of times though where I have a few copies of my commander and just move a Bloodghast around a few times with a fetchland though still often results in like up to a mill 10 which is fantastic. I have been rather surprised at the results of this deck so far but I also haven't encountered a lot of control decks while playing this so far to try to pick me apart. Spot removing my commander when I go to clone him is a large part why I run the Feign Death type cards as if you have a sac outlet you can target the commander and sac / rez and still be there for the clone entry to dodge spot interaction.

[ISBPathfinder]

Well, I had another fairly good game this week. It wasn't a very interesting game because one of my opponents was stuck on two lands, another was stuck lacking one of their colors, and the third was just trying to piss pound me with big hydras.

The game got started with a signet play on two. On three I played a tapped land and passed over playing out my early vamp to save it for after commander play. Turn 4 commander at EOT. Turn 5 I cloned my commander with a Spark Double.

Around here the hydra deck started spitting out deathtouch dudes with big power. They started coming my way as I was stealing their valuable resources. I took a few swats for damage. At this point I started playing deathtouch boys dropping both Nighthawk Scavenger and Baleful Strix into play. Hydras ran two big boys into my deathtouchers and still got in for 5 or so putting me to low 20s life. I played Vampire Nighthawk from my commander's pile and Cultivate from my hydra friend pushing for more resources.

From here, I got a few more creatures including Falkenrath Aristocrat and a few others I can't recall. I started countering the big X mana hydras and dropped a Mana Drain on a 10 mana one. The hydra player was getting upset with how I was playing but the other two were not putting up a very good fight. The blue starved player set up a Seedborn Muse but their one mana dump needed blue mana to do things and they were stuck with a Vivid Grove type card as their only source to blue. I did counterspell a draw 6 x spell from them because getting blue was their way into the game lol.

I used the Mana Drain mana to cast a Rite of Replication on my Stunt Double and commander milled everyone for 35 cards. From here I tutored Nykthos and used it for mana to essentially just win on the spot. One of my opponents was an eldrazi deck though so traditional mill wouldn't work to win so I had to set up a Lifeline + Panharmonicon setup and started exile milling 16 cards per creature dying stacking 5 more creatures to die and come back.

So...... this game ended on......... man was it like turn 8ish. Yikes thats kind of fast for what I did in the end. I really was mostly 1v1ing hydras though I suppose. I don't have any real changes right now to outline. The deck is working possibly a little too well. The hydra player was really frustrated with me which I could tell after the game but I feel like most of my control decks would have frustrated them. Some players get really irritated when you mill and or take resources from them as well which it could have been. I felt a little bad about it but when talking to the color screwed player afterwards he didn't think it was that bad considering two of them were struggling to be in the game and the last player was playing proactive plays. He mentioned that maybe the rite of replication was a bit much so I will take that into consideration. Its possible in the future I might pull the card not because it isn't working but because its working a bit too well. We will see with time but it seems to punish those not playing control the most of the cards in my deck.

[BlueRain]

Hey!

I realise this is a little out of nowhere.

I love the list. This is the first Evelyn list I've managed to find that's meshed with the idea I had for what I wanted the deck to be. I originally planned on something similar, though leaned more heavily into token generation, but it felt thin on the ground and a little cumbersome in places.

Generators like Glass-Cask Heart and Black-Market Connections seemed to pull their weight, but it was when I got to things like Maskwood Nexus that it stopped seeming like a viable way to do it. Love the clone angle, I didn't think of it much past the obvious Rite of Replication.

I was wondering if you continue to enjoy this deck or have continued to update it? Would love to hear a little about the usual lines of play and if you've had your eye on anything from the past few sets. Evelyn-esque effects where you have a solid gameplan but then have the variance of the stolen cards have always been my favourite decks, far and away (a heavy reanimator Gonti deck was my favourite for a long time!).

Anyway, yapping aside would love to hear your thoughts on the viability and long-term enjoyment of this deck!

[ISBPathfinder]

Hey!

I realise this is a little out of nowhere.

I love the list. This is the first Evelyn list I've managed to find that's meshed with the idea I had for what I wanted the deck to be. I originally planned on something similar, though leaned more heavily into token generation, but it felt thin on the ground and a little cumbersome in places.

Generators like Glass-Cask Heart and Black-Market Connections seemed to pull their weight, but it was when I got to things like Maskwood Nexus that it stopped seeming like a viable way to do it. Love the clone angle, I didn't think of it much past the obvious Rite of Replication.

I was wondering if you continue to enjoy this deck or have continued to update it? Would love to hear a little about the usual lines of play and if you've had your eye on anything from the past few sets. Evelyn-esque effects where you have a solid gameplan but then have the variance of the stolen cards have always been my favourite decks, far and away (a heavy reanimator Gonti deck was my favourite for a long time!).

Anyway, yapping aside would love to hear your thoughts on the viability and long-term enjoyment of this deck!

I actually still have this deck together and play it a little less frequently. My own build I would put as generally strong for non cEDH decks as far as power levels go. It does struggle having enough interaction or speed to go up against dedicated and tuned combo decks but its somewhat mean when you step it back and play against decks not on that tier. It has a hell of a lot of inevitability in the strategy and I win quite frequently when I play it. That said, I feel like I probably need to tune it up a bit I really haven't done that much tuning in part just because its power level already puts itself fairly high up among my decks. I probably have a few too many save from death effects in the list and I could use more actual card draw. Sometimes my interaction feels heavy and other times it feels non existent which probably mostly goes back to the draw thing not being that high and often relying on the question of how many times I have triggered my commander.

I haven't actually updated this list since before the last wave of vamps came out. I was briefly last week looking at ordering a copy of Dusk Legion Sergeant and Preacher of the Schism. I do think Glass-Cast Heart looks fairly good too after you pointed it out but I am less keen on some of those slower and bigger token makers just given the amount of time and mana they take to get going.

This deck is usually a bit slow to get going as I probably need more card draw but the commander's effect I sort of treat like draw and it really does most of the time get me there but I often get 3v1ed with this deck because people remember dying to it and so getting going can sometimes be tough especially when you are trying to land a first clone. If you can get a clone going you are probably already sort of halfway there on killing everyone. The clones that are actual cards are a lot better than the token clones right now in my build just because of the fact that you can save them with some of the spot rez stuff. I haven't updated this list to include any of the doctor who clones though which was something I was thinking about doing.

This deck is very viable and my lack of updates has more so been because its already so solid I am hesitant to improve it all that much. I don't think it really goes cEDH but it can already be somewhat brutal for normal decks to compete against being its really a controlling deck at its core. My win condition is ultimately just generating me more and more resources to utilize and snowball with.

[BlueRain]

I actually still have this deck together and play it a little less frequently. My own build I would put as generally strong for non cEDH decks as far as power levels go. It does struggle having enough interaction or speed to go up against dedicated and tuned combo decks but its somewhat mean when you step it back and play against decks not on that tier. It has a hell of a lot of inevitability in the strategy and I win quite frequently when I play it. That said, I feel like I probably need to tune it up a bit I really haven't done that much tuning in part just because its power level already puts itself fairly high up among my decks. I probably have a few too many save from death effects in the list and I could use more actual card draw. Sometimes my interaction feels heavy and other times it feels non existent which probably mostly goes back to the draw thing not being that high and often relying on the question of how many times I have triggered my commander.

I haven't actually updated this list since before the last wave of vamps came out. I was briefly last week looking at ordering a copy of Dusk Legion Sergeant and Preacher of the Schism. I do think Glass-Cast Heart looks fairly good too after you pointed it out but I am less keen on some of those slower and bigger token makers just given the amount of time and mana they take to get going.

This deck is usually a bit slow to get going as I probably need more card draw but the commander's effect I sort of treat like draw and it really does most of the time get me there but I often get 3v1ed with this deck because people remember dying to it and so getting going can sometimes be tough especially when you are trying to land a first clone. If you can get a clone going you are probably already sort of halfway there on killing everyone. The clones that are actual cards are a lot better than the token clones right now in my build just because of the fact that you can save them with some of the spot rez stuff. I haven't updated this list to include any of the doctor who clones though which was something I was thinking about doing.

This deck is very viable and my lack of updates has more so been because its already so solid I am hesitant to improve it all that much. I don't think it really goes cEDH but it can already be somewhat brutal for normal decks to compete against being its really a controlling deck at its core. My win condition is ultimately just generating me more and more resources to utilize and snowball with.

Hey - thanks so much for the reply. That's great to hear, that's very much where my playgroup sits, so knowing it can throw hands with the stronger side of casual is good to know! Think it's such a hard deck to evaluate on paper, that I was just never sure if it wouldn't end up working.

I ended up translating quite a lot of your list into the first iteration of mine, big fan.
I did decide on a few changes, whether they're for the better I'll have to see. Sadly I was so sure they'd ban A-The One Ring that i never ended up picking a copy, silly me!
I included Black Market Connections as a vamp generator, card draw engine and ramp piece and doubled down on Panharmonicon effects with Roaming Throne and Molten Echoes .

Like you I'm not sure whether the list needs more card draw, Evelyn's effect is excellent for advantage but it does seem a bit light.
Considerations I had were Kindred Discovery , which pumps the draw and has fantastic synergy with all the flickery/etb nonsense, but also doesn't include a "may" clause, which genuinely seems like it might end up killing you some games with the nature of Evelyn's mill.
Was also thinking about cards like Fact or Fiction and Stinging Study , just strong one-shot draw effects that are instant so can be used on other people's turns if they get Evelyn'd, or held up with interaction.
Last one was Vampiric Rites , it's on theme, has some nice incidental life gain to offset fetches/black market and doubles as a sac outlet, but the effect is a little expensive for what it is.

The second thing I was wondering was if you feel there are enough sac outlets in the deck? There's a ton of ways to get great value from them, but I was curious if you feel like you usually had one when you needed it? I've added Phyrexian Tower as a sac outlet that can be fetched with Map/Tolaria, and also considering Altar of Dementia currently.

Would love to hear your thoughts from your experience on the above, really appreciate you taking the time to chat about the deck!

[ISBPathfinder]

Great call adding Roaming Throne thats something I should probably do as well and I do have a few copies so I guess thats something I should do lol. I almost wonder if the addition of Roaming Throne is so strong that you wouldn't want to also run Tezzeret the Seeker given he only costs one extra mana to have him into play. There are some other artifact tutors you could also consider but I think Tezzeret would make a lot of sense. The throne is also a sick clone target given its ward built in. Man.... thats probably a crazy useful add. I might even have to consider other artifact tutors given that one card.

Pyre of Heroes might also be fun. Its something I haven't explored but its vamp ETB / deaths which could be funny and it could give more access to things like Bloodghast. I don't know why talking about Roaming Throne suddenly made me think of this but now its in my head lol.

Draw - Yea all of that is probably fine. I could also see just going the direction of like Necropotence. Most of my complaint about the draw tends to be more so early on before you get a bunch of commander triggers backloged. I feel like if I pushed for more draw its something I would rather push to be cheap to cast and set up early rather than 5+ cmc.

Sac - its not been too much of an issue but looking at my actual sac outlets I have like 5 vamps and nothing else. Its possible it could go up it just depends on how much priority you want to give it. Its strong to have if you go to do the stay alive tricks as having that sac outlet lets you dodge out of exile / theft / transform. Its not been a huge issue of mine but I also think if you want there are probably a few more non optimal vampires that could come in as sac too.

[BlueRain]

Great call adding Roaming Throne thats something I should probably do as well and I do have a few copies so I guess thats something I should do lol. I almost wonder if the addition of Roaming Throne is so strong that you wouldn't want to also run Tezzeret the Seeker given he only costs one extra mana to have him into play. There are some other artifact tutors you could also consider but I think Tezzeret would make a lot of sense. The throne is also a sick clone target given its ward built in. Man.... thats probably a crazy useful add. I might even have to consider other artifact tutors given that one card.

Pyre of Heroes might also be fun. Its something I haven't explored but its vamp ETB / deaths which could be funny and it could give more access to things like Bloodghast. I don't know why talking about Roaming Throne suddenly made me think of this but now its in my head lol.

Draw - Yea all of that is probably fine. I could also see just going the direction of like Necropotence. Most of my complaint about the draw tends to be more so early on before you get a bunch of commander triggers backloged. I feel like if I pushed for more draw its something I would rather push to be cheap to cast and set up early rather than 5+ cmc.

Sac - its not been too much of an issue but looking at my actual sac outlets I have like 5 vamps and nothing else. Its possible it could go up it just depends on how much priority you want to give it. Its strong to have if you go to do the stay alive tricks as having that sac outlet lets you dodge out of exile / theft / transform. Its not been a huge issue of mine but I also think if you want there are probably a few more non optimal vampires that could come in as sac too.

Yeah Roaming Throne unironically is the best vampire in the deck by my reckoning! There's been some wild prints this past year.
Tezzeret the Seeker is an interesting option - at the worst he's kind of pseudo ramp to help an inherently mana-hungry deck, and at the best you're fetching possibly the strongest piece in your deck. I think if I was to put him in then Altar of Dementia would certainly make the cut, and possibly Ashnod's Altar / Phyrexian Altar to boot.

Pyre of Heroes is an interesting consideration, I am a sucker for pod and pod-adjacent effects.
Seems like it'd be a valid reason to include the more toolboxy Callous Bloodmage and possibly Champion of Dusk or Malakir Bloodwitch to sure up the 5 mana gap.

I have thought both Malakir Bloodwitch and Vein Ripper might have a place in the deck as a secondary win-condition. It doesn't seem like it'd take much at all to cycle those into a victory,

Sorry for the slightly free-form post, it's quite exciting to have someone to chat through this deck with. I've had it on the backburner for quite a long time because I thought it'd be difficult to build and possibly ineffective - so it's encouraging to hear it's got some teeth to it.

EDIT: Ooh, one last card I was interested in your opinion on. Don Andres, the Renegade , I'm so close to liking him, and I think if the treasures didn't come in tapped, I would - but he kind of just seems like a worse Prosper, Tome-Bound with the benefit of being a vampire otherwise.

[ISBPathfinder]

Yeah Roaming Throne unironically is the best vampire in the deck by my reckoning! There's been some wild prints this past year.
Tezzeret the Seeker is an interesting option - at the worst he's kind of pseudo ramp to help an inherently mana-hungry deck, and at the best you're fetching possibly the strongest piece in your deck. I think if I was to put him in then Altar of Dementia would certainly make the cut, and possibly Ashnod's Altar / Phyrexian Altar to boot.

Pyre of Heroes is an interesting consideration, I am a sucker for pod and pod-adjacent effects.
Seems like it'd be a valid reason to include the more toolboxy Callous Bloodmage and possibly Champion of Dusk or Malakir Bloodwitch to sure up the 5 mana gap.

I have thought both Malakir Bloodwitch and Vein Ripper might have a place in the deck as a secondary win-condition. It doesn't seem like it'd take much at all to cycle those into a victory,

Sorry for the slightly free-form post, it's quite exciting to have someone to chat through this deck with. I've had it on the backburner for quite a long time because I thought it'd be difficult to build and possibly ineffective - so it's encouraging to hear it's got some teeth to it.

EDIT: Ooh, one last card I was interested in your opinion on. Don Andres, the Renegade , I'm so close to liking him, and I think if the treasures didn't come in tapped, I would - but he kind of just seems like a worse Prosper, Tome-Bound with the benefit of being a vampire otherwise.

Malakir Bloodwitch / Vein Ripper - I haven't had issues closing out with mill in part because its exile mill so even if my opponents have like eldrazi there is really no defense from the commander's wincon of mill other than like I guess if someone transforms / steals the commander but we are a control deck so I feel like even then use control elements to get her back. If you want to run them you can I just think you are going to struggle to close the game out with them. You might find them to be fine just as lifegain but I doubt you kill anyone with them. I have even considered dropping my 2x mill cards in the deck just because I get there all the time with my commander's strategy alone I really put them in for some extra umph but I haven't really felt the need to have them.

Don Andres, the Renegade - I think he is probably fine. I agree everything does seem a little slow needing to cast more spells after casting him and then his treasure come in tapped but that can be useful emergency reaction mana for later. I should probably try him out I think I need to shift some of my stuff around and while I think he is probably slow he might take some heat off my commander or give me more vampire themed mana production. I am not sold on him being like exceptional but I also don't think he is trash. He is in my pile of cards that I probably should test out at some point.

I was originally considering this commander as a REALLY bad gimmick deck where I was going to try to use the all my creatures are vampires enchantments and artifacts and then use Norin the Wary as a vamp lol. It was a really really bad idea but as I was looking at it I was like wow I think this commander can actually just work with some clones and vamps and I built a far less gimmick version that worked out.