Legendary Creature — Vampire Knight

Bartolomé del Presidio

Mana value2EDHREC#1,692

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The Commander

Sacrifice another creature or artifact: Put a +1/+1 counter on Bartolomé del Presidio.

Guide

Gameplan

Bartolomé is a 2-mana aristocrats engine that turns your battlefield into fuel: sacrifice tokens and expendable artifacts to grow him while triggering a web of death/sac payoffs. You build a wide board with token generators, loop sacrifice fodder for value and damage, and either beat down with a hexproof/protected Bartolomé or drain the table out. Early turns deploy fodder and outlets, mid-game you assemble Blood Artist effects, late game you go off in a sacrifice chain.

Strengths

Cheap, repeatable, free sacrifice outlet right in the command zone
Excellent at converting tokens and artifacts into value with aristocrats payoffs
Scales into a real beater that can carry counters and equipment
Resilient engine in BW with strong recursion and removal access

Weaknesses

Bartolomé himself has no evasion or protection built in—easily chump-blocked or removed
Needs supporting fodder and payoffs; he's blank without a board
No card draw or ramp in the text, so colorless and slow without engines
Vulnerable to graveyard hate and board wipes that strand your sacrifice loops

Key Cards

Blood Artist — Turns every sacrifice and creature death into incremental drain, converting Bartolomé's outlet into a wincon.
Zulaport Cutthroat — A second Blood Artist effect that only triggers off your creatures, stacking lethal drain with sac loops.
Bastion of Remembrance — Enchantment-based drain that survives creature wipes and keeps your aristocrats plan online.
Pitiless Plunderer — Generates Treasure on each creature death, fueling more sacrifices and explosive mana for loops.
Skullclamp — Premier card advantage engine—draw two off any 1-toughness token you sacrifice to Bartolomé.
Pawn of Ulamog — Makes Eldrazi Spawn fodder whenever your creatures die, snowballing sacrifice value.

Upgrade Path

Add infinite combo lines: pair a free sac outlet with recursion like Reassembling Skeleton or Gravecrawler plus a Treasure maker (Pitiless Plunderer) and a drain payoff for instant kills. Tighten the curve with cheap tutors (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Intent) to find your payoffs, and add protection like Lightning Greaves so Bartolomé survives as both engine and threat. Upgrade fodder quality with token doublers and free creatures (Ophiomancer, Bitterblossom) to keep the sacrifice engine fed every turn.

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

▸Drain the table with Blood Artist/Zulaport effects fueled by mass sacrifice
▸Assemble an infinite sacrifice-reanimation loop for infinite drain
▸Beat down with an oversized, counter-loaded Bartolomé carrying evasion or protection
▸Grind opponents out via overwhelming card and board advantage from sac engines

Archetypes

Aristocrats — His free sac outlet plus death triggers is the textbook engine for drain-based aristocrats.
Tokens — Wide token boards provide endless fodder to feed counters and death payoffs.
Combo — Free sacrifice plus a Treasure/recursion piece and a drain effect enables infinite loops.
Reanimator — BW recursion lets you sacrifice and rebuy big creatures for repeated value.