"Bend the knee , your Lord Returns…"

"Bend the knee , your Lord Returns…"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

Sorin Markov is back. Back to his home plane of Innistrad and he isn’t too happy about what has been going in his absence. The humans are being overrun by monsters on all sides and the sentinel which he has put in place as the protector of his realm has gone missing. I’m excited to speculate what Avacyn would be like when she finally gets her own card in Avacyn restored, the last angel that was also created by a magic character was Akroma, Angel of Wrath and she turned out pretty good. I wonder what she would be like but Avacyn aside Sorin Markov will be coming in to the second expansion as a leaner, easier to cast planeswalker, if you are playing dual colors of black and white. There will be a lot of control decks that will be bringing in the Lord of Innistrad himself into play , vampire decks might get a boon from him , his first planeswalker ability is to create a 1/1 vampire with lifelink. It could be a blocker early if you don’t have a creature in play to make sure good ol Markov will survive the next few turns. Or if you already have several creatures on the battle field you can already use his second ability. It gives you an unremovable emblem that says all your creatures get +1/0. A very great offensive boost if you are out to finish your opponent early or if the opportunity has presented itself for a beat down. Sorin Markov is versatile in this regard if you have a pretty offensive mindset when you play him otherwise his advantage is lost. Another thing is that his final ability, the flavorful “create more minions” skill, allows you to destroy up to 3 target creatures or planeswalkers and put them on your side of the battle field. Imagine having Liliana and Karn on your side as the game progresses or even wiping out 3 of the biggest creatures on the table and having them for yourself to finish off your opponent in the next turn. The control part of Sorins ability is good for the end game and before he actually gets to it, it would mean that you have at least 3 vampires already on the field. Yup, I never did like vampires before but I would sure as hell won’t pass up to play Sorin when I can.