Sorin Markov

Sorin trying on Neo's coat

"Many who cross Sorin's path come down with a sudden and fatal case of being-in-the-way-of-a-millennia-old-vampire"
- Mortify flavor text.

Sorin Markov is the second mono-black Planeswalker to be released in Magic: The Gathering, and is themed around the tribal mechanics of Magic's vampires (since he's, y'know, a vampire). He is from the grimdark plane Innistrad and is described as being a sangromancer, meaning he can not only drain your life force, but with enough power he can even mind control you. That's right, you as in you, the player. Luckily for you this only lasts for one of your turns, but if you've let him get that much Loyalty you're probably fucked anyway. Being a vampire he is extremely goddamn old, coming in third behind the dragons Bolas and Ugin, and being a vampire Mary Sue he has been involved in extremely important events, such as sealing the mind rape Cthulhu beasts known as the Eldrazi, and also creating Avacyn, the guardian angel of his homeworld after vampires and demons living there had gotten a little too rambunctious. So far he has been released in four flavours; Sorin Markov, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Sorin, Solemn Visitor, and Sorin, Grim Nemesis. (Becoming more and more sparkly with each rendition, like all vampires have been, until Grim Nemesis reduces him to an (admittedly badass) armoured corpse. Hopefully a signal for the future of vampires in other media)

Background

Being an old ass motherfucker, Sorin has done quite a bit in his life, which we have just learned about recently. This is to say, we learn more as the writers decide to add more onto his laundry list of achievements. In all fairness though, some of them are pretty damn badass.

Vampirism

Many years ago, there lived a man named Edgar Markov. He was an Alchemist in a land called Stensia, which was being swept over with famine. Not wanting to die of hunger like a little bitch, he decided to make a deal with a fucking demon, become a vampire, and then gave Sorin, his grandson, the same gifts given through his totally safe blood ritual. The experience was so horrifying that Sorin's spark awoke and he became a Planeswalker.

Keep in mind this was all well before the mending that nerfed planeswalkers, so Sorin went from being a scared child to being one of the most absurdly powerful beings in the universe. Feels good man, except for the trauma.

The Eye of Ugin

After what's assumed to be a few (thousand) years of eating people and brooding about being nigh omnipotent, Sorin decided to get off his lazy ass and do something with his immortal life. This something just so happened to be actually walk the planes, which is when he encountered the rapetastic Eldrazi. Sorin shat himself and got help from two other planeswalkers: Nahiri the lithomancer and Ugin the spirit dragon, who had mastery of colorless magic and somewhat understood the Eldrazi. The plan was for Nahiri and Ugin to make hedrons which would both lure and trap the Eldrazi. When the Eldrazi reached the hedrons, Ugin would anchor them to their physical form (basically their shadows), then "pin" and seal them into the plane with their massive hedron network (with the Eye of Ugin as the control center). Which goes more or less as planned. Nahiri stays behind on Zenikar to closely monitor the network and Eldrazi, while Ugin+Sorin agree to keep their phones on and come back to help if the Eldrazi breach their prison. (Spoiler Alert: they do)

When you live for millennia a man's gotta get his fun somehow.

The Creation of Avacyn

Over the years, Sorin spent more and more time away from the festering hellpit of Innistrad, but he could see from afar that things were becoming even MOAR GRIMDARK! The vampires were driving the humans back to the brink of annihilation, which is a terrible idea since they need human blood to live and all. This finally forced Sorin's hand to DO SOMETHING. It was the second time he ever had to do a thing, but this time Sorin had learned that having friends is the key to success.

So he created one.

Sorin forged Avacyn, the guardian angel of Innistrad, to protect humans and keep the balance and all that jazz. Yes, the mono-black vampire Planeswalker specializing in mind-rape and blood-sucking created a mono-white angel, oldwalkers were overpowered and didn't give a hoot about "color pie". The grateful humans founded the Church of Avacyn in honor of her deeds and protection, while the vampires told Sorin to go fuck himself for stopping their completely unsustainable slaughter.

Rise of the Eldrazi

Thousands of years later, Chandra Nalaar, Jace Beleren, and Sarkhan Vol all collectively shit the bed (possibly manipulated by Bolas) and break the seal on the Eye of Ugin. Luckily this doesn't set the Eldrazi free just yet, so Sorin comes back to help and not let shit devolve further. Unfortunately he immediately met up the exemplar of extreme stupidity, the Elf planeswalker Nissa Revane.

Sorin told her of his plan to reinforce the Eye, and Nissa agrees to help. When they arrive the magic around the Eye was extremely weak, and so he prepared to do some serious patchwork. But Nissa, in all of her infinite elven wisdom, raised her mighty staff and brought it right down on the structure, completely destroying it. She thought that once the GIGANTIC LOVECRAFTIAN PLANET EATING TENTACLE MONSTERS saw the two of them, they would flee the plane! They didn't.

Sorin left Zendikar, flipping it the bird as hard as he goddamn could, letting the residents of the plane and Nissa die a horrible death while he looked for Ugin to repair shit before the Eldrazi escaped entirely.

The Imprisonment of Avacyn

After this tremendous Eldrazi-related fuck-up, Sorin decided it was time to go home, sit on the couch, and have a nice tall glass of cold blood ale before finding Ugin. But the first thing he noticed was that his waifu Avacyn was nowhere to be found! Vampires and other horrors were back in full force, decimating humanity once again. And demons and devils had joined the party, so now humans could have a side of ass-rape with their being devoured by werewolves, drained by vampires, and possession by spirits. As one could expect, Sorin was just a little bit upset.

He'd had enough of being civil thanks to good ol' Nissa Revane ruining his plans, and enforced a simple policy; anyone asked a question as to where Avacyn was would provide an answer, and if they got in his way they would die. This inquisitorial spree led him to a chance encounter with Tibalt, a demonic little shit who was totally in opposition of any and all rules. But Tibalt had the worst fucking planeswalker card in Magic's history, so Sorin dealt with him as he dealt with any other moron. Sorin discovered his precious real-doll girlfriend was trapped in a giant "totally not another Eye of Ugin" prison called the Helvault with the super powerful demon Griselbrand. But then Liliana released Avacyn and slew Griselbrand (for entirely different and selfish reasons) before Sorin had to actually do anything.

Khans/Dragons of Tarkir

Sorin goes looking for Ugin so they can fix the hedron network. In the Khans of Tarkir timeline Bolas had killed Ugin thousands of years ago, so Sorin finds his corpse and despairs for the multiverse. But Ugin's just in a coma in the Dragons of Tarkir timeline (the canon timeline) and Sorin wakes him up. Ugin asks Sorin to get Nahiri and meet up on Zendikar, but Sorin is strangely reluctant to fetch this obviously critical ally that crafted the damn thing they're trying to fix. This is because...

Shadows Over Innistrad

Flashback time! A thousand years ago, the Hedron network weakened just enough for the Eldrazi titans to corrupt some mortals into attacking their prison. Nahiri woke up and easily stopped the immediate threat (being an oldwalker), but to her surprise neither Ugin or Sorin showed up when she sent the alert[1]. Ugin was either suffering a minor to severe case of postmortem decomposition or was healing while in a coma, depending on the timeline, so solid excuse either way. Whereas Sorin simply didn't get the message because his planar wards around Innistrad inadvertently blocked it.

Nahiri confronted Sorin about not upholding his small end of the unequal bargain (Nahiri indefinitely watching over and risking her native plane vs Sorin keeping his damn phone on) and asked for his help fixing shit. Instead of fixing shit and/or apologizing and/or explaining his weakened state from recently creating Avacyn, Sorin told her 'Bitch I don't owe you anything' and imprisoned her inside the Helvault indefinitely with a bunch of demons.[2] Oldwalkers were dicks.

Liliana breaks the Helvault ~1000 years later, and Nahiri is out to make Sorin suffer by making Innistrad bleed. So Sorin goes to the vampires that hate him so very much to ask for their help against the powerful foe he arrogantly, idiotically, and needlessly snubbed. To secure the aid of the other vampires, however, he must destroy his one true waifu, Avacyn. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing for Innistrad by this point, given that she'd gone batshit crazy and started going on wanton slaughter rampages.[3]. But Avacyn was irreplaceable - forging her took the full godlike power of pre-mending Sorin and left him weakened - and her death allowed Emrakul to enter the plane.

Eldritch Moon

While the Gatewatch pranced off to go fight Emrakul, Sorin and an army of Vampires confronted Nahiri at the ruins of the Markov Mansion. Sorin forced Nahiri to planeswalker away, but got shoved into a giant spiky rock that was too painful to planeswalk from. Sensing an easy coup, Olivia left him to die in the rock (and stole his rad sword).

War of the Spark

Everyone's favorite edge vampire is back, and he is pissed. Through sheer anger (and the planeswalker beacon providing a focus past his pain or something), he managed to free himself from the rock and is ready to rip Nahiri a new one. So great is their feud that they ignore the whole battle for the multiverse and just try to kill each other, though shit escalates enough towards the end where they reluctantly call timeout and help the Gatewatch.

Sorin Markov

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Sorin, Solemn Visitor

In Play

Sorin has four iterations in card form so far: Sorin Markov; Sorin, Lord of Innistrad; Sorin, Solemn Visitor; and Sorin, Grim Nemesis.

Sorin Markov costs 3BBB and starts at a fair 4 loyalty. He has three abilities:

• +2: Drain a creature or player for 2 life, you gain 2 life.
• -3: Target player's life total becomes 10.
• -7: You control target player's next turn.

Overall not too bad. His +2 helps deal with pesky dorks and keeps you alive later on in the game, his -3 is a fantastic tool against life-gain decks, and his ultimate ability can be devastating in the right board state. Quite obviously, Sorin Markov is not an aggressive card, and is much more suited to a more control-based deck, as he can keep you alive and set up for a kill.

Note that his -3 has several cards that will end the game when used in conjunction with it; Sorin's Vengeance, Urza's Rage, and any Fireball/Drain Life variant will do the trick, including the very situational Hidetsugu's Second Rite. Additionally, original Zendikar vampires are often better if you have an opponent with 10 or less life.

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad is a much lighter 2WB starting at 3 loyalty. He too has three abilities:

• +1: Make a 1/1 black vampire token with lifelink.
• -2: You get an emblem(!!!) with "Creatures you control get +1/+0".
• -6: Destroy up to 3 target creatures and/or planeswalkers, and put them in play on your side of the field from the graveyard.

If you wanted an aggressive Sorin, this is the version you're looking for. His +1 is a little weak, but it does defend him decently enough, and gives him more ammo for his incredible -2. Pumping your team permanently is a fantastic utility for 4 mana, and almost begs a token based strategy to be built around it. His ultimate also allows him to be placed into a more controlling shell, as his dinky tokens will protect both him and you until you can have him ready to pop a few threats away. Again, he's nothing incredible, but still solid for his cost and able to do something game-changing.

Combining him with multiple anthems in a weenie deck can be very powerful as well, as his "anthem" is permanent.

Sorin, Solemn Visitor costs the exact same as his previous incarnation, but now starts with four loyalty. He continues his trend of having three abilities, all of which have the same loyalty costs as before:

• +1: All of your creatures gain +1/+0 and lifelink until end of turn.
• -2: Put a 2/2 Black Flying Vampire token into play.
• -6: You gain an emblem with "At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that opponent sacrifices a creature."

Sorin, Grim Nemesis has the same CMC as his original mono-black incarnation, and enters with 6 loyalty for 4WB:

• +1: Reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. Each opponent loses life equal to its converted mana cost.
• -X: Sorin, Grim Nemesis deals X damage to target creature or planeswalker and you gain X life
• -9: Put a number of 1/1 black Vampire Knight creature tokens with lifelink onto the battlefield equal to the highest life total amongst all players.

An extremely powerful planeswalker, Sorin's +1 is simply insane. If it needs to be explained to you why that ability is gross, read it again. If you still don't understand, you are beyond help. Given that all a smart player will do with Sorin is tick him up for card advantage until you need to use that glorious -X to kill something, using his -9 is often a real possibility in a grindy game, provided you can keep him alive. Not that you would ever use it over the -X for ~11-12 anywhere other than commander. This Sorin fits perfectly in a grindy control deck that can keep him alive to drain your opponent with that incidental damage while you sit back, laugh and draw cards. To be competitive, a high CMC planeswalker card has to two things - protect itself, and generate you a fuckhuge advantage. Sorin excels at the latter, and if you can protect him from the concentrated efforts an intelligent opponent will throw at him, he can and will win the game by himself.

Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord is a Rare walker, and enters the field with 4 lotalty for 2WB:

As long as he's on the field, all of your creatures and planeswalkers have lifelink.

• +2: Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord deals 1 damage to target player or planeswalker.
• -X: Return target creature with converted mana cost X from your graveyard to the battlefield. That creature is a Vampire in addition to its other types.

As a lower rarity walker, this version of Sorin is a lot weaker than any of his other incarnations so far. That doesn't mean he can't work but he's going to need some help you want him to shine. He's probably still a little bit tired from getting out of the rock. Though his +2 is rather weak, it's still a +2 ability, meaning you can get his loyalty up really quickly and get stuff from your graveyard just as fast.

Planeswalkers of Magic: The Gathering
Original Five:	Ajani Goldmane - Chandra Nalaar Garruk Wildspeaker - Jace Beleren - Liliana Vess
Alara:	Elspeth Tirel - Nicol Bolas - Sarkhan Vol - Tezzeret
Zendikar:	Gideon Jura - Nissa Revane - Sorin Markov
Scars of Mirrodin:	Karn - Koth of the Hammer - Venser
Innistrad:	Tamiyo - Tibalt - Davriel Cane
Return to Ravnica:	Domri Rade - Ral Zarek - Vraska
Theros:	Ashiok - Kiora - Xenagos - Calix
Tarkir:	Ugin - Narset
Kaladesh:	Dovin Baan - Saheeli Rai
Amonkhet:	Samut
Other:	Dack Fayden - Vivien Reid - Kaya
Commander 2014:	Daretti - Freyalise - Nahiri - Ob Nixilis - Teferi
Pre-mending:	Bo Levar - Commodore Guff - Jaya Ballard - Urza
Forgotten Realms:	Ellywick Tumblestrum - Bahamut - Lolth - Zariel - Mordenkainen
Planeswalker Groups:	The Gatewatch