Commander Deck Tech: Sorin of House Markov

Have you ever wondered how a few iconic planeswalkers started out? Well, Modern Horizons 3 just gave us a glimpse of how Sorin, Tamiyo, Grist, Ral, and Ajani were before they activated their spark.

In this article, we'll show you how to play a list that uses Sorin of House Markov as your commander: an Orzhov deck that "sucks away" all your opponent's vital energy. We also prepared a second list that focuses on Orzhov planeswalkers, if that's more your thing.

There are many versions of Sorin in both lists, so let's see them!

According to Magic: The Gathering lore, Sorin activated his spark when he was forced by his grandfather, Edgar Markov, and other relatives to drink the blood of an Archangel and become a Vampire. This trauma was so great that it revealed to him, now a Vampire, paths that only planeswalkers could go through.

Sorin accompanied Ugin and Nahiri in their travels for a long time, so there are many other versions of him, such as:

This latest version, Sorin of House Markov, is the first time we see him as a creature. It combines classic Orzhov touches with this planeswalker's unique style.

Extort lets you pay one white or black mana any time you cast a spell. If you do, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain that same amount of life. Both sides of this card have this ability, so Sorin, Ravenous Neonate also gives you a good amount of drain.

In practice, this means that, as long as Sorin is on the board, if you cast a Swords to Plowshares with one white mana, you may use another white or black mana to force each opponent to lose one life.

If you're playing in a standard casual table, with 4 players, each spell you cast with Extort will give you 3 life. By the way, that's how much you need for Sorin to become a planeswalker.

As a planeswalker, Sorin has three abilities:

- Its +2 creates Food tokens, which will give you life,

- Its -1 deals damage equal to how much life you gained this turn to any target, which is useful both as a way to remove creatures or deal damage to your opponent directly,

- And, finally, its -6 lets you take control over a target creature and makes it a Vampire with lifelink, but only if you control another white permanent besides Sorin.

These three abilities don't really interact much with each other, but they resemble abilities in other versions of Sorin.

Its -1 ability is, by far, the most valuable one for our main list, and can potentially win you the game if you manage to set up an explosive turn with it.

We built this list around our commander's -1 planeswalker ability, and our goal is to get as much out of it as we can.

I'll also highlight Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord in this list, which you can consider a secondary commander for this list.

Its passive ability gives lifelink to all creatures and planeswalkers you control as long as it is your turn. This means you'll gain life by attacking with any creature you control or if you use any loyalty abilities, like Sorin, Vampire Lord's, which deals 4 damage to any target.

In this case, you'll gain 8 life total, as it's 4 from your planeswalker's ability, and 4 from Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord's lifelink.

Consider the following scenario: you only used Sorin, Vampire Lord's ability in your turn and didn't attack or activate any other ability that gives you any life. Your commander's -1 planeswalker ability will let you deal 8 damage to any target, and that's a significant amount of damage.

To guarantee you'll really deal damage to your opponents, this list has some interesting life loss cards, such as:

Blind Obedience and Crypt Ghast also have Extort, like your commander. When you have two or more cards with Extort on the board, you'll need to pay one extra cost for each of them, and thus activate Extort extra times.

Now, back to the Swords to Plowshares example. If you pay for its cost and have any mana left, you can pay your commander's Extort, Blind Obedience's, and Crypt Ghast, all at once, to activate Extort three times.

As a result, each of your opponents will lose 3 life, and you'll gain as much life as they lost in total (for three opponents, that would be 9 life).

Sorin Markov's +2 ability drains life, but he also sets one of your opponent's life total to 10. That doesn't mean life loss; its ability simply sets their life total to 10, which will push them closer to losing the game (or you closer to winning it).

Exsanguinate is also one of the cards that may win you the game. In this case, it will all depend on how much you'll pay to make your opponents lose life. As you gain life equal to how much life they lost this way, you just need to use your commander's ability after this spell and eliminate someone. The same goes to Debt to the Deathless.

To use all the life you'll gain, we added K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth. It makes all your black spells cost 2 life instead for each black mana, quite similarly to Phyrexian mana.

Making Your Opponents Lose Even More Life

We also added two very important Vampires to go with Sorin.

With Feed or Food, Astarion, the Decadent increases how much life you gain in your turn or doubles how much life your opponent loses (which, depending on the actual amount, might just kill that player).

As for Bloodletter of Aclazotz, it significantly boosts cards that drain life or burn your opponents in some way; with it, any life loss during your turn is doubled instantly.

Life Gain

There are many Orzhov cards that give you life, and some even double the amount of life you gain overall. In this list, we brought:

Protection

Any deck that focuses on life gain will greatly annoy your opponents. So, we saved a few slots in this list for protection.

As all planeswalkers in this list are Sorins, Deification is great to protect them against hexproof. It also protects their loyalty counters from being removed, which just protects them from this type of removal overall.

In different ways, Teferi's Protection and Flare of Fortitude will protect your life points from being altered, and also protect any permanents you control.

As we said before, our secondary list was built around Orzhov planeswalkers.

Both lists in this article share a few cards, like The Chain Veil and Deification, but some of them gain a new meaning and purpose because this secondary list has many interesting planeswalkers.

For instance, Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion and many Proliferate cards will support your planeswalkers and increase their loyalty counters. Protection like Archangel of Tithes, Archon of Absolution, and Onakke Oathkeeper lets you punish any opponents that dare to attack you.

Sorin is known for his annoying effects, but his creature version, Sorin of House Markov, has a lot of potential in a deck full of annoying effects that will cause almost irreversible trauma to your opponents.

Orzhov cards also bring a lot of support for this deck, and there are many you can use to make this deck cheaper.

Now, tell us: how would you build this deck? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below!

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!