Baa Bah Bah Baah BAAH...I'm Kar-Lovin' it (EDH / Commander)

I'm Kosher, so no, not a frequent visitor to McDonalds. But a hearty congratulations to the good folks in marketing who made darn sure that insidious jingle stays in my head. Sort of like this deck. Like fast food, people love to hate on it, but it's just so good..

...Bah Bah Bah Baah BAAH...

Your job is to cast creepy ole Uncle Karl soon as you can (say, turn 2?) and start triggering life gain. Over and over. See, Karl doesn't care about how much life you gain; just how many times you do. This important distinction will be the key to fine tuning your deck, if you'd like to make your own amendments. To illustrate, [Curse of Vitality], an otherwise horrific card, has found a place in the deck. No one wants to spend removal to get rid of it, and it steadily feeds Karlov, at only a 3 CMC investment. No matter that it only slightly increases your life. If your friends hate on the targeted player, or if only you do (and you'll have a mid-aggro vamp suite, as explained below), it provides consistent value. Being too passive in commander is no fun, nor does slow and steady win the race of you happen to be playing against an aggressive Gruul player. Putting your opponents on slow-brewed-death is so much harder to do in a multiplayer format. So I've taken the liberty of adding "fangs" by ensuring your Karl lifelink triggers come in Vampiric form (...all mtg players appreciate bad puns. You do, don't you?). Two primary benefits to doing this:

(a) Ensures your deck can hold its own if somehow Karl finds himself incapacitated, or you find yourself behind the life point 8 ball, with no discernble way to save yourself by triggering measly 'you gain 1 life, your opponents lose one life' effects.

(b) Thanks to Ixalan, Rivals, and Edgar, Vampires have access to some pretty cool w/b cards, particularly the 2 new mythics from Rivals. Adding dimesnions of white weenie / mid-range aggro / life gain toolkit make this deck very versatile. And I think that's behind the choice of commander too; Instead of mere taxation, Karlov actually gets around to SPENDING those hard earned public dollars; on 21 commander damage, instant repeatable creature removal, you name it.

Comments, critiques, and cash donations are appreciated.