The first vampire planeswalker has striking artwork. In game he is not quite so striking however. Sorin Markov costs six mana to cast, three of which must be black. This cost restricts his use to mono-black decks or decks that can reliably cast three black mana by turn six.
Sorin Markov enters the battlefield with four loyalty counters, and has three abilities. Sorin’s abilities are all useful, but each has its own drawbacks too.
The first ability adds two loyalty counters, and deals two damage to target creature or player and you gain two life. This is a very nice ability. The melee table often features a utility creature or two that will be destroyed by this hit. The ability to hit a player too means that you will never be short of a target. The addition of two rather than one loyalty counter is gravy.
Sorin’s second ability costs three loyalty counters. It changes target player’s life total to 10. This change does count as life gain or life loss too, for any cards that trigger from this. At the melee table the main use will be to peg back a player who has gained an inordinate amount of life. Another use is to take a player to 10, and then swing for 10 damage that they cannot stop. This is still a situational ability though.
The third ability allows you to control a player’s next turn, for seven loyalty counters. In a duel this is nothing short of crippling. In melee, less so. Worse still if you make that layer kill another layer, guess who gets the point? Not you, that’s who!
Sorin has one useful ability, and two situationally useful ones. It is simply the case that any deck with the ability to cast Sorin has better options for the same mana cost, or less. This limits Sorin’s use and his usefulness too.
Verdict: Weak. A deck based around Sorin Markov will not perform, and the card has limit uses in some other decks.
Connections: Like Sorin Markov? You may also like [Chandra Ablaze] [Venser, the Sojourner] [Garruk, Primal Hunter]
Don’t like Sorin? You may prefer [Jace Beleren] [Garruk Wildspeaker] [Liliana of the Veil]
