Hi folks. Welcome to the Weekly Sale Column. This column will show you some cards on sale that might spice up your lists or inspire something completely new. These lists will usually be Commander lists in Bracket 3, so you'll be able to play these in any Bracket 3 (or higher) pods.

If you want to play in lower pods, just swap out the Game Changers for other choices; if you want to compete with Bracket 4 and 5 pods, add more along with some other competitive combos.

Keep in mind that the Game Changers in your deck aren't the only thing that moves you up and down a bracket. Your intent with your deck; inclusions of other interactions, engines, and combos; and overall playgroup should all be factors in your bracket!

Remember that the weekly sale ends on Sunday night at 11:59 PM EST, so you have until then to get your cards ordered.

Hot Vampire Summer

If Christmas in July is a thing, then we can surely slam down a Halloween party in June. Welcome to the Summerween Sale, where bloodsucking Vampires like Edward Cullen shine and sparkle. Contrary to popular belief, Vampires quite enjoy the warm summer weather; it probably has something to do with the whole being-dead thing.

Leading this group of beach-dwelling Vampires is the original Vampire of Ixalan, Elenda, the Dusk Rose. Elenda is a four-mana () Vampire with Lifelink and two unique Death triggers. The first triggers whenever another Creature dies, which puts a +1/+1 counter on Elenda. Her second trigger goes off when she dies, which will create X 1/1 White Vampire tokens with Lifelink, where X is her Power.

Essentially, we want to see lots of Creatures dying repeatedly so that she gets bigger and can leave a nice big summer party where she was. This leans heavily into an archetype called "Aristocrats", which utilizes Creature sacrificing and death triggers to whittle your opponents down slowly and methodically.

Let's get into it.

The Rest of the Vampire Family

To kick things off, we'll need more Vampires for this party. Charismatic Conqueror is perfect for this list, as it regularly creates Vampire tokens for you; just be wary of the miserable board state that ensues if both you and another opponent have one. Cordial Vampire and Legion Lieutenant will be great at pumping our other Vampires, but not as good as Captivating Vampire who will pump while also stealing other Creatures for our party.

Elenda's Hierophant, aptly named, has a similar death trigger to Elenda and will bring more tokens into play. Forerunner of the Legion will help us find any specific Vampire we need. Searching up Emeritus of Woe gives us the benefit of finding essentially any card in our deck, comboing quite nicely.

Welcoming Vampire will help greet our opponents (to their doom) and give us some much needed card draw. This party's chaperone, Edgar, Charmed Groom, pumps our board and eventually takes a nap to give us some more tokens when he flips to the back side, Edgar Markov's Coffin.

Finally, Bishop of Rebirth and Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher will make sure that our party attendees are always coming back for me with some solid recursion, while our bouncer, Voldaren Pariah, will keep our opponents in check by making them sacrifice some Creatures.

Summer Heat is so Draining

There are two important factors in an Aristocrats deck. Two words: Dies and Sacrifice.

Starting with some good sacrifice outlets, we've got Indulgent Aristocrat, Master of Dark Rites, and Viscera Seer, all at one mana. Bartolome del Presidio lives alone at two mana, and then Yahenni, Undying Partisan along with Warren Soultrader sit nicely at three mana, all of which provide some solid utility. You'll definitely find yourself using Warren Soultrader to do some fun lines letting you play tons of cards using Treasures.

More importantly though, are the draining death triggers. The most iconic guest at our party is Blood Artist, triggers when it or any other Creature dies. Similar to Blood Artist includes Cruel Celebrant, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, and Zulaport Cutthroat. If you haven't noticed, the trend there is that they steal a life from your opponents when one of your Creatures die.

On the Noncreature side, we've also got two strong Enchantments. The Meathook Massacre has the added benefit of fueling itself and controlling the board while Bastion of Remembrance gives us a token to keep the drain party going.

Falkenrath Noble and Mirkwood Bats sit nicely at four mana, which is probably the sweet spot on cost for this sort of effect. Sanctum Seeker will go nicely with all of those tokens, since it will trigger for each Vampire that attacks. Sangromancer does a full Lightning Bolt whenever an opponent's Creature dies, and rounding out the top end is the double-draining Vein Ripper.

Change the Game

We play exactly one Game Changer in this list, which will go well whenever any of our opponents sacrifice or discard a permanent, giving it to us. There is plenty of room for more, though, especially in Orzhov colors. Vampiric Tutor has the added benefit of being on theme with its name and cards like Braids, Cabal Minion and Teferi's Protection give some useful utility, so fit in whichever ones you want!

We also play quite a few of the "whenever you gain life, target opponent loses life" options in our colors, which includes Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Marauding Blight-Priest, and Sanguine Bond. They're known for comboing with cards that say "whenever an opponent loses life, you gain that much", creating an endless loop that will knock out your opponents instantly.

Adding in cards like Bloodthirsty Conqueror and Exquisite Blood puts a number of relatively fast, two-card combos in, effectively bumping you up to Bracket 4 or 5. They're not included here, but feel free to add them if you're feeling it!

Here's our list.

Summerween Sale | Commander | Matt Newnam

• Commander (1)
• 1 Elenda, the Dusk Rose

• Creatures (44)
• 1 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
• 1 Arnyn, Deathbloom Botanist
• 1 Astarion, the Decadent
• 1 Bartolome del Presidio
• 1 Bishop of Rebirth
• 1 Blood Artist
• 1 Bloodghast
• 1 Bloodletter of Aclazotz
• 1 Captivating Vampire
• 1 Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher
• 1 Charismatic Conqueror
• 1 Cordial Vampire
• 1 Crossway Troublemakers
• 1 Cruel Celebrant
• 1 Edgar, Charmed Groom
• 1 Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim
• 1 Elenda's Hierophant
• 1 Emeritus of Woe
• 1 Falkenrath Noble
• 1 Felisa, Fang of Silverquill
• 1 Forerunner of the Legion
• 1 High-Society Hunter
• 1 Indulgent Aristocrat
• 1 Legion Lieutenant
• 1 Malakir Bloodwitch
• 1 Marauding Blight-Priest
• 1 Master of Dark Rites
• 1 Mirkwood Bats
• 1 Pawn of Ulamog
• 1 Pitiless Plunderer
• 1 Sanctum Seeker
• 1 Sangromancer
• 1 Tergrid, God of Fright
• 1 Teysa Karlov
• 1 Vein Ripper
• 1 Veinwitch Coven
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Vito, Fanatic of Aclazotz
• 1 Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose
• 1 Voldaren Pariah
• 1 Warren Soultrader
• 1 Welcoming Vampire
• 1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1 Zulaport Cutthroat

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

• Instants (3)
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Malakir Rebirth
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Diabolic Intent
• 1 Olivia's Wrath
• 1 Toxic Deluge
• 1 Victimize

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Bastion of Remembrance
• 1 Legion's Landing
• 1 Sanguine Bond
• 1 The Meathook Massacre

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ghost Lantern
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Hierarchy

• Lands (36)
• 11 Swamp
• 7 Plains
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Castle Ardenvale
• 1 Eclipsed Steppe
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 High Market
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Marsh Flats
• 1 Midgar, City of Mako
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Shadowy Backstreet
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1 Three Tree City
• 1 Turbulent Moor
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
• 1 Westvale Abbey
• 1 Windbrisk Heights

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Final Thoughts

I'm quite a fan of a summer Commander party. These noble, aristocratic Vampires are looking to take a break from the minutia of blood sucking and ruling over their castles; try to take a page out of their book! Give this list a try, Aristocrats is quite a fun variant on the usual way to win games of Commander.