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Marchesa is my Plus One [Primer] [2023]

Commander / EDH Counters Dethrone Sacrifice UBR (Grixis)

Mitrian

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Creature (45)

Land (36)

Commander (1)

Commander: Marchesa, the Black Rose

Artifact (8)

Enchantment (7)

Instant (3)

One of my most fun decks to play, as the abilities on Marchesa are unique and very powerful. Before we get into the deck, let's take a closer look at her card text, specifically the bottom part:

"Whenever a creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it dies, return that card to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the next end step."

Focus on the word "dies" there. This is synonymous with destroyed, and sacrificed, and the card goes to a graveyard as a result. Any graveyard. This includes targeted removal, combat damage, non-combat damage, and any kind of sacrifices. The only thing this doesn't cover is exile and counterspell.

There's a couple common themes you see with Marchesa builds, and one is Thievery effects where you steal opponent creatures, put a +1 counter on them, then sacrifice them. Because the sacrifice counts as dies, and it happened while under your control, the card will return to your control at the end of the turn, and will no longer go back to opponent (unless it dies again later, without a counter or Marchesa on the field).

Another common theme is Undying and Persist. With Undying, the creature will always come back. If it didn't have a +1, it'll come back through the Undying mechanic, and when it does, it'll be given a +1 counter. And when it has the +1 counter, then Marchesa will bring it back, without a +1 counter. And then Undying will… you get the idea. Persist is a little more difficult to keep going because you'll eventually need to add +1 counters, but the idea is the same, that you have two semi-overlapping abilities that just keep bringing the creatures back. Obviously the deck has lots of ways to add +1 counters, so it's a natural synergy with Persist as well.

One more common theme I'll mention is the wizard theme. Marchesa is a wizard herself, and there's a few other really good wizards that fit nicely in this deck, such as Glen Elendra Archmage, Sage of Fables. Sage of Hours and others. Because of this, you'll sometimes see some partial tribal strategies around wizards with Marchesa.

This deck doesn't focus heavily on any of those things, but includes some of each. For example, we have enough wizards in the list, to also add Riptide Laboratory, but that's the only card specific to wizards.

We run Mikaeus, the Unhallowed simply to give Undying to everything else, but that's one of the only undying creatures we run.

And we have a couple Thievery elements in the deck, but don't really lean into it that hard.

No, instead we focus almost entirely on leveraging the ETB effects of creatures, since we have such a high potential of triggering those multiple times for every creature. Enough that Panharmonicon is very much worth including. We achieve all the traditional goals of EDH builds (ramp, draw, counter, removal, pump) from those ETB abilities and just lean hard into leveraging those as many times as we can. We've included a variety of sacrifice outlets to force the death trigger, and get added benefits from death triggers and sacrifice rewards.

Combine all that with a variety of ways to add +1 counters to creatures, and then of course, reliable methods of protecting Marchesa herself, and the end result is a very reliable, powerful, and immensely satisfying and fun deck to play.

We could increase the power level by adding a handful of tutors to convert it to a more toolbox style where you just go grab whatever you need from the deck for any given challenge, but if you've read my other primers, you know I tend to avoid tutors.

One very important point, before jumping into the deck tech, is that you may notice there's not a lot of infinite combos here. That's because Marchesa brings back creatures only on the end step rather than immediately. However, it says "the next end step" which means we can still leverage this every turn, not just our own. That can really amplify the value and allow us reuse those death or ETB triggers significantly more.

Mana rocks are great to start with, but even more important, you want some early drops, as many 1, 2, and 3 creatures as you can put into play before Marchesa comes down at 4CMC. If you're opening hand has no rocks and only one or two 3CMC-or-less creatures, it's worth taking a mulligan.

The goal is to play Marchesa with some small creatures who can attack as soon as she enters, getting +1 counters via her dethrone ability. And as will be our strategy throughout the whole game, force opponents into deciding whether to grant us additional ETB or death triggers, or to take the combat damage.

Our next focus should be to find a way to protect Marchesa. We don't run much protection for her directly, so until she can attack or otherwise get a +1 counter, she will be vulnerable. Hopefully one of our early drops included a way to add a +1 counter at least on our end step when they return to play.

I used to run Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves for that reason, but without a way to tutor them up, I found that too often she'd be without them anyway. Instead I look for haste enablers, which if we can get those out before or with Marchesa is ideal, but not common.

We should be into some of our draw effects and this is where the deck really speeds up. The resiliency should be making us a target, and our health should not be the highest, which keeps dethrone active. If we are still somehow the highest, look for things like Spellskite and Unspeakable Symbol to manually adjust that down to enable dethrone. (Spellskite can repeatedly target the same spell to redirect, so you can use it to burn down your health that way. Just don't do the enemy's job for them.)

If it's going to plan, we should have a handful of creatures in play that we can attack with, and our bigger drops like Terror of the Peaks and Grimgrin can start taking over and blowing people up. Worst case, our doublers and creature stealing can grab our opponents' big threats and start hitting them in the face with those.

Graveyard hate such as Rest in Peace and other cards like Solemnity can really wreck our plans, so save removal or counterspells for those, prevent or remove them immediately, or we'll be completely shut down. ETB hate also hampers us quite a bit, so get rid of Torpor Orb and steal Elesh Norn ASAP.

Most of our wins come from beatdown. We'll (hopefully) lose dethrone as we approach the end game, and will finish up by relying on our other abilities to create +1 counters on creatures, and just keep adding to the army and sending them to attack every turn. We may need to burn through some stall tactics and counter some Cyclonic Rift or Terminus effects, but most board wipes are not a threat to us, and generally help our plans. Attrition favors us, don't overextend and we can usually emerge victorious.

Our deck includes a wide variety of features and benefits, almost all of which have either a death trigger, or an ETB triggers, so let's highlight them here for discussion:

I'd like to find a few more options for artifact and enchantment removal in the form of creature ETB. Is an area of weakness for now.
Life Gain is not actually something we want in the early or mid game, as we always want someone else higher life than us, for the dethrone triggers. But, we have a little, which is sometimes useful in the later game when we have other ways to get +1 counters.
Without trying, we end up with quite a few options for stealing our opponents' stuff. Some nice options here:
  • Aura Thief - Underplayed card that is great on its own, and phenomenal in a deck that can abuse and reuse it repeatedly.
  • Dauthi Voidwalker
  • Olivia Voldaren - Takes a lot of work and mana to steal stuff, but makes for a nice mana dump.
  • Puppeteer Clique - fun to combo with Mikey, but even without can get some insane value with him, if there are good targets in enemy 'yards.
  • Sower of Temptation
  • Thalakos Deceiver - Requires attacking, but we're doing that anyway, and it's highly unlikely the enemy has a blocker with shadow.
  • Zealous Conscripts - Great for stealing stuff to sacrifice before end of turn. And great to combo off with Kiki-Jiki, which I think is the only infinite combo in the deck.
  • Iron Apprentice - I love this guy, cheap and fits so nicely with what we're doing. Haven't yet figured out how it plays with The Ozolith though.
  • Kalain, Reclusive Painter - I'd love to get a couple more Treasure generators in the list, but even as is, he works pretty well.
  • Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - He's a magnet for removal, but that's not so easy to do in this deck, which makes him such a powerhouse for us.
  • Sage of Fables - Wizards subtheme enabler. Still good for us even if it only affected Marchesa though.
  • Scorn-Blade Berserker
  • Thran Vigil - Cheap and just flat out perfect for this deck!
  • Uncivil Unrest - High cost, still testing, but so far I really like this new addition.
  • Unspeakable Symbol - One of the best cards in the deck for us.
  • Wizard Class - Costs a lot to get to Level 3, but we have some good draw in the deck so it's generally worth it.
  • The Ozolith - Great that it preserves our +1 counters. Not so great that it moves them ALL to only ONE creature. And rather lame that it only triggers at our combat phase. Currently still in the list because it can target any of our creatures, which… Is very useful.
  • Mer-Ek Nightblade - Giving all our creatures deathtouch is never a bad thing.
  • Archaeomancer - Here almost entirely to bring back Cyclonic Rift and Chaos Warp.
  • Spellskite - Protection for Marchesa, but also a good way to regulate our own health so we're not the highest.
  • Urabrask the Hidden - Haste for everything is great. Slowing down enemies is also great.
  • Sneak Attack - Fantastic card in general. We don't run a lot of high cost creatures, but it's still a nice way to give stuff haste for immediate dethrone counters that will bring it back for free as well.

I'm a veteran player, who started playing Magic back in the days of Alpha -- which means I'm getting pretty old. I once had my own Black Lotus, more than one I believe, and I of course played them unsleeved. Back then, as a kid, I didn't like the card, because I didn't even dream about things like Turn 1 wins. So they were traded away. Not that it matters, because my early collection of cards, which included the moxen, duals, and other craziness (by today's standards anyway) were all heavily played, bent up, and ultimately lost over the course of moves and life transitions.

In my thirties I got back into Magic, spending a lot of time and money playing Standard during the days of Lorwyn, Alara, Zendikar, Mirrodin, and Innistrad. I never won any tournaments, but I played in quite a few. I had full playsets of every card produced during those 5-7 years, so could build any Standard deck I wanted -- man that was a lot of fun. But eventually, I lost the taste for the ultra-competitive scene and switched back to kitchen table Magic where I fell in love with Commander. My first Commander ever built was Maelstrom Wanderer and I still try to keep that deck current and relevant.

I've stopped spending as much money these days, and play mostly with MPC proxies, which means I don't worry about card costs much at all. I feel strongly that people should play with whatever cards they enjoy playing with, not just the ones they can afford to buy. Magic is an expensive hobby, but finances shouldn't be what prevents any participation. I do, however, still support WotC and I buy almost every Commander pre-con deck they make, which lately has gotten crazy with the number being produced.

There are some elements of Magic that I tend to avoid -- including MLD (generally not fun for people to play against), excessive tutors (makes many decks too linear for me, and searching and shuffling often slows things down), and extra turns (often creates "feels bad" moments and more downtime for opponents). I respect the power of these cards and styles, but I'm more interested in games where everyone is having fun, and not just me.

I build and play to win (without those cards, usually), in every game, but ultimately I really don't mind losing -- I just love to play.

Thanks for reading my long-winded primer! I write these not for Internet points, but because it's become part of my process for building and fine-tuning a deck. I find when I have to write out justifications for my card choices, it's easier to be honest and objective about which cards are actually effective, and which are just 'pet' cards. However, please feel free to comment and share thoughts. I welcome alternative opinions!

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Date added 6 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

12 - 0 Mythic Rares

60 - 0 Rares

16 - 0 Uncommons

7 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.38
Tokens Bird 1/1 W, Copy Clone, Morph 2/2 C, Squid 1/1 U, Treasure
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