Vincent Valentine // Galian Beast (Vincent Valentine)

Legendary Creature — Assassin // Legendary Creature — Werewolf Beast

Vincent Valentine // Galian Beast

Mana value4EDHREC#3,757

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The Commander

Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, put a number of +1/+1 counters on Vincent Valentine equal to that creature's power.

Whenever Vincent Valentine attacks, you may transform it.

Trample, lifelink

When Galian Beast dies, return it to the battlefield tapped (front face up).

Guide

Gameplan

Vincent is a mono-black voltron/aristocrats hybrid: drop him turn 4, then force opponents' creatures to die so he balloons with +1/+1 counters, attack to flip into Galian Beast, and smash with trample and lifelink while he keeps recurring himself. You play removal, edicts, and board wipes not just to control the board but to actively feed your commander, turning every dead opposing creature into permanent stats.

Strengths

Snowballs into a massive trampling lifelinker for very little mana, and the counters are permanent.
Edicts, board wipes, and spot removal all double as ramp for his counters, so your interaction is never dead.
Galian Beast's death-trigger recursion makes him extremely resilient to combat and removal once flipped.
Lifelink on a big trampler keeps you out of burn/aggro range and stabilizes long games.
Mono-black gives access to elite tutors, recursion, and the best removal suite in the format.

Weaknesses

The growth trigger relies on OPPONENTS' creatures dying—against light-creature or token-sacrifice decks he can stall out.
Voltron lines fold to a single exile or bounce effect (Swords to Plowshares, Pongify, blink), and the counters reset if he leaves the battlefield.
Mono-black has no native way to push damage through chump-blockers besides trample, and no protection from targeted removal.
Color-screwed against artifact/enchantment-based threats and graveyard hate that shuts off recursion.
Single-threat focus means if Vincent is answered repeatedly you have little backup pressure.

Key Cards

Dictate of Erebos — Turns every one of your creature deaths into an opponent's death, feeding Vincent counters constantly.
Grave Pact — Same engine as Dictate—each sacrifice on your side strips opponents and fattens your commander.
Toxic Deluge — A scalable wipe that kills opposing creatures and dumps a pile of counters onto Vincent at once.
Whip of Erebos — Stacks extra lifelink and lets you reanimate big bodies, reinforcing the lifegain plan.
Greaves and Boots (Lightning Greaves / Swiftfoot Boots) — Hexproof/shroud protect your invested counters from the single removal spell that undoes the whole plan.
Liliana's Caress / Megrim effects — Less essential—prioritize edict effects like Diabolic Edict and Fleshbreaker to guarantee opponent deaths.
Skullclamp — Cheap card draw engine that also kills your own creatures to trigger sacrifice payoffs.

Upgrade Path

Add fast mana (Dark Ritual, Sol Ring, ritual chains) to land Vincent ahead of curve, and prioritize cheap protection (Greaves, Boots, Imp's Mischief, Malakir Rebirth) since one removal spell undoes your investment. Lean harder into the Grave Pact + sacrifice-outlet engine with tutors (Demonic, Vampiric, Diabolic Intent) to assemble guaranteed opponent deaths, and round out with extra-combat or unblockable enablers like Rogue's Passage and Whispersilk Cloak to ensure commander damage connects.

Core Cards

The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.

Win Conditions

▸Commander damage—a trampling, lifelinking Vincent/Galian Beast that's grown to 10+ power one-shots players.
▸Grinding the table out with Grave Pact-style attrition until Vincent's swings are unblockable.
▸Lifegain payoffs (Aetherflux Reservoir, Sanguine Bond) converting the lifelink swings into direct loss.
▸Death-engine combos like Mikaeus + sacrifice loops to wipe boards and feed an oversized attacker.

Archetypes

Voltron — He naturally accumulates counters and has trample plus lifelink, so suiting him up with protection and evasion closes games fast.
Aristocrats — Sacrifice outlets plus Grave Pact effects force opponent creatures to die, directly powering his counter engine.
Control — Removal and board wipes both answer threats and grow Vincent, letting you grind the table down while building one inevitable threat.
Reanimator — Mono-black recursion fills the board with bodies to sacrifice and lets you cheat large finishers alongside the commander.