BlackLegendary Creature — Vampire NobleTimothar, Baron of Bats
Mana value6Rank#9,394
The Commander
Ward—Discard a card.
Whenever another nontoken Vampire you control dies, you may pay 
and exile it. If you do, create a 1/1 black Bat creature token with flying. It gains "When this token deals combat damage to a player, sacrifice it and return the exiled card to the battlefield tapped."
Guide
Gameplan
Timothar is a mono-black Vampire tribal/aristocrats commander that turns your dying Vampires into flying Bat tokens, then recurs those Vampires when the Bats connect. You flood the board with Vampires, sacrifice or trade them freely, generate evasive Bats, and grind out card and board advantage until you overwhelm or drain the table. Mid-game you leverage repeated death triggers, life drain, and recursion to win an attrition war.
Strengths
- Built-in recursion and card advantage from your own creatures dying
- Ward—discard makes Timothar resilient and hard to remove cheaply
- Excellent synergy with sacrifice outlets and aristocrats payoffs
- Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, ramp, and removal
- Creates evasive flyers that double as a recursion engine
Weaknesses
- Relies on a 6-mana commander to function fully
- Bat recursion is slow and requires combat damage to connect
- Vulnerable to graveyard hate and exile-based removal
- Single-color means no access to counterspells or efficient board wipes outside black
- Token doublers and sac outlets are key but not always available
Key Cards
- Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose — Converts your incidental lifegain and drain into a direct win condition.
- Bloodthirsty Aerialist — A Vampire that grows with all your lifegain triggers and provides evasion.
- Phyrexian Altar — Free sacrifice outlet that fuels Timothar's death trigger while ramping mana.
- Viscera Seer — Cheap sac outlet that lets you trigger Timothar at will.
- Sanctum Seeker — Drains each opponent whenever a Vampire enters, including your recurred ones.
- Black Market Connections — Premier mono-black card advantage and ramp engine for a grindy deck.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana (Sol Ring, Jet Medallion, Arcane Signet) to deploy Timothar ahead of curve, and prioritize free sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar, Carrion Feeder, and Goblin Bombardment to maximize triggers. Tutors such as Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor find your payoff pieces consistently, and a token doubler like Anointed Procession or Mondrak doubles your Bat output. Tighten the curve and add staple drain pieces (Blood Artist, Cruel Celebrant) so each death loop closes the game faster.
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
- ▸Aristocrats drain via Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Sanctum Seeker
- ▸Lifegain payoffs like Vito and Exsanguinate burning the table out
- ▸Wide evasive Bat swarm backed by anthems for combat damage
- ▸Grinding opponents out of resources then closing with recurred threats
Archetypes
- Vampire Tribal — Timothar rewards a critical mass of nontoken Vampires that loop in and out of play.
- Aristocrats — Sacrifice outlets plus death payoffs turn dying Vampires into Bats and value.
- Tokens — The Bat tokens stack with anthems and token doublers for an evasive swarm.
- Reanimator — Timothar's exile-and-return effect plus black recursion recycles your best Vampires.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
