Strefan, Maurer Progenitor Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on June 11, 2024

Strefan, Maurer Progenitor | Illustration by Chris Rallis

Do you have a favorite creature type in Magic? I bet that you may want to put as many of those creatures into one deck as possible. No matter your favorite creature type, have you ever thought about giving a vampire typal deck a try?

Creature-based decks run as many creatures as possible to flood the board and overwhelm opponents with combat damage as their win condition. If that sounds like your kind of strategy, you may like this Strefan, Maurer Progenitor Commander deck featuring 30 blood-sucking, or Blood token-giving vampires!

The Deck

Scion of Opulence | Illustration by Chris Rallis

Strefan, Maurer Progenitor is by far one of the most popular vampire commanders besides Edgar Markov. I’ll be doing something different for this Strefan deck to make it unique from other suggested vampire decks you may have seen before.

I’d like to call this deck almost vampire typal. While most of the creatures are vampires, there are four non-vampire creatures featured in the deck that either synergize with the life loss for Blood token-generation theme or help to win in an alternate, synergistic way. There’s even a vampire that does creature type fixing so that these four non-typal creatures can join the vampire party!

The Commander: Strefan, Maurer Progenitor

This Rakdos commander, Strefan, Maurer Progenitor, is an aggro value engine fueled by the sacrifice of Blood tokens. You can put one vampire from your hand onto the battlefield for free per turn, tapped and attacking along with your commander. As long as you have two Blood tokens to sacrifice on attack, that is.

It’s best to keep this general in the command zone until you have some Blood tokens generated from other vampires on the field as well as ways to dock down opponents’ life totals. By preparing your board state in this manner before casting Strefan, Maurer Progenitor, you can start attacking and utilizing the Blood tokens for sacrifice once it’s gotten over summoning sickness.

Blood Token Support

You won’t be able to bring vampires onto the battlefield for free without generating enough Blood tokens. Here are the cards that have a hand in creating them.

Arterial Alchemy generates three Blood tokens upon entering the battlefield if you're in a pod of four players. Your leftover Blood tokens can serve as mock equipment cards as long as Arterial Alchemy is on the field. You can maybe equip them to Strefan, Maurer Progenitor to pump its power and swing in to win with commander damage.

Since you’ll be attacking with Strefan, Maurer Progenitor mostly for its main trigger, you can equip Ceremonial Knife to it to generate a Blood token whenever it deals combat damage (note that it doesn't have to hit a player to trigger).

Sanguine Statuette not only generates a Blood token upon entering, but it’s like a back-up creature when you need a body on the field. You’ll already be sacrificing Blood tokens with your commander, so whenever that happens, you can choose to have Sanguine Statuette become a 3/3 vampire artifact creature with haste until the end of the turn. Doing so can increase your Blood token generation with Glass-Cast Heart when you attack with this temporary creature.

Scion of Opulence acts as both ramp and card advantage. With 29 other nontoken vampires in the deck, you can generate many Treasure tokens to act as extra spell-casting resources. Plus, you can either sacrifice the Treasure or Blood tokens in your arsenal, since they’re both artifacts, to exile the top card of your library and play it that turn.

Your Faithful Blood-Suckers

Vampires usually create Blood tokens when the enter the battlefield, when they die, or when they attack, depending on their abilities.

Anje, Maid of Dishonor creates one Blood token when it enters, then up to one more per turn as you play more vampires. Try not to cast too many vampires in one sitting, first so that you can leave them to cast for free on Strefan’s attack trigger, and second because Anje’s Blood token generation ability only triggers once per turn anyway.

Falkenrath Celebrants gives you two Blood tokens upon entering the battlefield. Falkenrath Forebear can give you a steady stream of Blood tokens throughout the game as long as you can deal combat damage with it each turn. And it's a recursive creature: You can sacrifice two Blood tokens and bring Falkenrath Forebear back from the graveyard to the battlefield.

Gluttonous Guest gives you a Blood token on ETB but continues giving you value by gaining 1 life per Blood token sacrificed.

Bloodtithe Harvester also gives you a Blood token on ETB like other vampires in the deck, but its tap and sacrifice ability allows you to remove a creature if you control enough Blood tokens.

Restless Bloodseeker / Bloodsoaked Reveler rewards you with a Blood token as long as you gain life during your turn on either side of the card. The transformed version gains an activated ability that can drain life, in case you really need a way to gain life for an extra Blood token.

Olivia's Attendants will be by far the most resourceful way to make Blood tokens in the deck. You can either deal combat damage for six Blood tokens, or you can activate the ping ability to have it deal 1 direct damage to any target and gain one Blood token at a time.

Vampire Creature Buffers

Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood can get stronger with +1/+1 counters during your combat phases or via noncombat damage. If you cast a sorcery spell that deals damage to a creature, or an opponent's creature is dealt combat damage, Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood gets stronger.

Mephidross Vampire buffs your vampire creatures whenever they deal combat damage to an opponent’s creature in some way. It’s also like a creature type fixing card, allowing the four non-vampire creatures in this deck to gain this same ability.

Vampire Nocturnus supports the mostly black cards contained in the deck, buffing vampires by +2/+1 and granting them flying as long as the top card of your library is black. Vampire Scrivener buffs itself with +1/+1 counters based on whether you’ve gained or lost life during your turn. For each instance of life loss or lifegain, Vampire Scrivener receives a +1/+1 counter, which can get out of control if you have multiple creatures on the field that cause round-table life loss for opponents and lifegain for you.

Bloodlord of Vaasgoth buffs vampires with three +1/+1 counters thanks to its Bloodthirst 3 ability. This only triggers if an opponent has been dealt damage during that turn. Sure, you want to save vampires to come onto the battlefield for free when Strefan, Maurer Progenitor attacks, but casting vampire spells with Bloodlord of Vaasgoth on the field can be a good way to buff your vampire army mid-game.

Round-Table Life Loss

Some of the cards in this deck cause life loss to generate more Blood tokens throughout the game.

Mirkwood Bats is your go-to round-the-table life loss card as you’ll always be making Blood tokens for your sacrifice outlet. If you can make three Blood tokens on your end step, that's 3 life that each opponent loses because of Mirkwood Bats’s ability. When you sacrifice the two Blood tokens when Strefan attacks, that’s 2 life points lost for each opponent because sacrificing those tokens also causes life loss.

Ayara, First of Locthwain is a great addition to the deck even though it’s an elf noble rather than a vampire. Most of the vampires in the build are mono-black or black and red, so the trigger applies regularly here.

Defiant Bloodlord makes an opponent lose life whenever you gain life. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose makes opponents lose life equivalent to how much life you’ve gained. With Vito’s activated ability granting creatures lifelink, landing 10 points of damage anywhere is worth another 10 to an opponent of your choice.

Sanctum Seeker supports your aggro strategy by draining your opponents’ life totals as you attack with vampires, and you’ll gain life in this process, too. Archfiend of Despair is also vital despite being a demon and not a vampire. Since Archfiend stops opponents from gaining life, the only way they can dig themselves out of this hole is with targeted removal. Plus, they take double the life they lost during your turn on your end step..

Anje, Maid of Dishonor, while also a Blood token generator, acts as a proponent for round-table life loss with its activated ability. By sacrificing a creature or a Blood token, you can have your opponents each lose 2 life as you gain 2 life.

Anthem Effects

Anthem effects are essential for keeping your vampire army stronger than creatures on opponents’ battlefields. The two key cards in this deck that provide anthem effects for your hoard of vampires could be the difference between being on offense or defense.

Lord of Lineage gives all your vampires an impressive +2/+2 if you manage to transform Bloodline Keeper.

Captivating Vampire does more than buff your vampire army. It can also help you to gain control of an opponent's creature as long as you have five available vampires to tap for this activated ability. This is an essential tactic for maintaining battlefield advantage over your opponents.

Card Advantage

It’s hard to get card advantage in black compared to blue, but thankfully there’s some resources available in this deck so your hand always has the next answer. Bolas's Citadel synergizes with the small lifegain subtheme in this deck as you can pay life to play spells off the top of your library for more card advantage. Champion of Dusk rewards you with more card draw based on how many vampires you control, but you’ll have to lose that same amount of life in return.

A couple of the vampire cards in the deck help to make black Vampire tokens, which can be sacrificed to Ayara, First of Locthwain to draw a card.

Planeswalkers

There are a couple of planeswalkers in the build that synergize with the round table life theme and vampire creature support. Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord supports vampires by giving one lifelink, deathtouch, and a +1/+1 counter until the end of the turn. Its ultimate ability lets you place a vampire card onto the battlefield without paying its mana cost. You can also sacrifice a vampire to deal 3 direct damage to any target and gain 3 life.

Angrath, the Flame-Chained, while not a vampire planeswalker, is useful for draining opponents’ life totals around the table. Its +1 ability forces opponents to discard a card. Plus, having all opponents lose 2 life reassures that you can get at least three Blood tokens on your end step when playing in a four-player Commander pod.

Board Wipes

Sometimes an opponent may decide to go wide with creatures, like you’re trying to do, and a complete reset with a board wipe may be needed when battlefields get too out of control. There are two creature-based board wipes just for that very scenario.

Vampires' Vengeance will be the most important board wipe because it’s a one-sided sweeper that can rid the battlefield of all your opponents’ small creatures.

While expensive for a board wipe, Feast of Succession is great if your opponents have all creatures with toughness 4 or less. The spell also affects your creatures, so be sure you have resources for rebuilding your board before you decide to cast this spell. Plus, you become the monarch when casting the spell, which can help with card draw resources at the end of each of your turns.

The Mana Base

The mana base is pretty straightforward with enough lands for mana fixing as well as basic lands.

Voldaren Estate is a vampire-themed land that gives you vampire-specific mana fixing by paying 1 life. As long as you control five or more vampires, you can tap the land to create a Blood token if you’re in a pinch and need one.

Most creatures in the deck are mono-black or red-black, so it’s safe to say that more basic Swamp cards are needed than basic Mountain lands. There are 13 Swamps, 9 Mountains, and 14 other dual lands that tap for either red or black in some way. There’s also one Evolving Wilds for possible mana fixing if you’re having trouble drawing one color of mana or the other.

The Strategy

The round-table life loss cards drain your opponents’ life totals to create more Blood tokens from Strefan’s first triggered ability. Including as many vampire creatures and other Blood token generators as possible increases the chances you'll be able to put an attacking vampire into play for free whenever Strefan, Maurer Progenitor attacks.

Filling the board with flying vampires can quickly dock down an opponent's life total if they don’t have creatures with flying or reach. While not all the vampires in this deck fly, they do synergize with one another to help you succeed.

The gist of the strategy is to cast lower mana cost vampires to protect your board state from early game attacks. You want to amass as much Blood as you can, then use Strefan, Maurer Progenitor to take a consistent aggro approach to the game and overwhelm your opponents with vampires.

Combos and Interactions

Glass-Cast Heart will be a Blood token machine for this deck, though you'll only get one Blood token per combat step. Later, you can sacrifice Glass-Cast Heart and 13 Blood tokens to drain your opponents of 13 life and gain that much life yourself. It's a great way to close out a game if you've been keeping the pressure on up until that point.

Rule 0 Violations Check

Hellkite Tyrant is one of the alternate win conditions in Magic that usually annoy players, especially since it involves giving up their artifacts to the player who attacked them. This card should be brought up in a Rule 0 discussion with your pod members before playing.

This dragon is included in the deck because you’ll be generating a ton of Blood tokens. You'll rarely reach 20 Blood tokens, but gaining control of opponents’ artifacts with Hellkite Tyrant can make up the difference.

Budget Options

Bloodline Keeper / Lord of Lineage is about $18 mainly because it’s from a popular, older MTG set, the original Innistrad. Instead, you can generate a couple of temporary hasty tokens with Hungry for More for only $0.50. Alternatively, you can get a steadier flow of Vampire tokens from Sorin the Mirthless for only $3 depending on how long the black planeswalker remains on the battlefield.

Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord retails for a hefty $43. For players looking for more budget options, you can substitute this card for Sorin Markov, which is about $10, or for another vampire creature card of your choice that synergizes with your idea of a great vampire deck.

Captivating Vampire is on the more expensive side at $14. To pump your vampires for cheaper, you can substitute with Adaptive Automaton for $1.50 or Brass Herald for $0.50. Archfiend Of Despair costs $12, which may not be considered a budget option depending on your preference. Instead, you can substitute this creature with another vampire creature of your choice.

Other Builds

Since Strefan works primarily with vampires, you could switch out whichever vampire cards within the commander’s color identity that you would like if you prefer different ones. If you’d rather run all vampires, you can omit the 4 non-vampire creatures and replace them with the vampire creature cards you believe best fit your desired strategy.

Markov Enforcer, Blood Petal Celebrant, and Kamber, the Plunderer are examples of other vampires that could be substituted in to get more Blood tokens.

You could also include more Sorin planeswalker cards for vampire support, removal, and other benefits to fit the vampire typal theme. Sorin the Mirthless grants card advantage, makes 2/3 Vampire tokens, and deals damage to any opponent while gaining life. Sorin, Vampire Lord can buff a target creature, deal damage to any target and gain life, and gains control of opponents’ creatures with its ultimate ability.

Commanding Conclusion

Lord of Lineage | Illustration by Jason Chan

Now that you’ve seen this unique, vampire typal Strefan, Maurer Progenitor build, you may be ready to make your own vampire deck. If typal decks aren’t your thing, maybe you learned about new cards that you want to use in some of the Commander decks you already have.

Do you like the Rakdos () take on vampire typal like this Strefan, Maurer Progenitor build or do you prefer more of an Orzhov () build with Edgar, Charmed Groom or Elenda, the Dusk Rose as the commander? Let me know in the comments below, and stay connected to the Draftsim Facebook page for more inspiration on which deck you’ll build next!

Until next time, keep your fangs out and wings up!