Grixis' lack of responses to Enchantments can be overwhelming, what are your thoughts on Aura Thief and Stern Proctor? I also found a gem when looking through older cards, Thalakos Deceiver may have a spot here, attack, sac, take creature, recurse, repeat.

Zinrius

Thalakos Deceiver is pretty good as a budget replacement for Cytoplast Manipulator they both fill the same function but the manipulator gives you a few advantages. Primarily that she can do her job without ever attacking (ie on other people's turns) and while you're on the throne.

Stern Proctor is a good option as a "flicker-able" target which can help you get rid of a problem enchantment temporarily or set you up for counter magic. I think he would require a bit of work to get good use from as he doesn't have his own counter generation aside from attacks and he is only a temporary fix, though he is one of our very limited options for this problem. there's no reason you can't run him, but i prefer going the unstable obelisk rout as it gives me a little more flexibility. feel free to include him in your deck list as needed.

Aura Thief will depend on your meta. a lot of times gaining control of all enchantments indiscriminately isn't super helpful / doesn't fix the problem. for example Oblivion Ring. for me it isn't as helpful. if you're in a meta where there's someone running a bunch of anthems or pillow fort effects or whatever he is definitely a great include. I would add him in a heartbeat if my meta shifts that way.

What are your thoughts on Commander 2018 cards for this deck so far? To me the only thing that sticks out is Forge of Heroes for Opal Palace #2. Nothing else seems super exciting.

RazortoothMtg

So far the only new card they've revealed that I'm planning to add is Forge of Heroes, though I haven't completely decided which land it replaces. I'm thinking Opal Palace or Graven Cairns for the cut at the moment, with my leaning towards keeping OP.

Bloodtracker seems like a slightly worse Toothy to me, so I'm not sure I'll bother with him, but he could be useful in some more budget lists.

Nothing else has really caught my eye as of July 26 though.

I have several suggestions...

Metallic Mimic - Abuse those etb/death triggers on everyone's turn instead of once per round. It doesn't need a lot of creatures of the same type... i.e. name zombie and sac Gary over and over. If you add this, I'd replace Merciless Executioner with his zombie twin Fleshbag Marauder.

Spellskite - You can redirect the same spell/ability on the stack to set your life where you need it... and using it normally is great too.

Toxic Deluge/Last One Standing - Cheap boardwipes are good here. Deluge is obviously a nice way to get off the throne too. Also consider Jokulhaups.

Spellseeker - Search your library for target Cyclonic Rift lol. Also consider Imperial Recruiter.

Ogre Battledriver/Urabrask the Hidden/Hall of the Bandit Lord - Haste is huge with Marchesa and you're lacking here...

Sadistic Hypnotist - Discard seals games.

Goblin Bombardment - Excellent sac outlet here and you can always hit yourself to get off the throne.

Cards I'd cut:

Dreadbore - unless you've got superfriends decks you face consistently.

Decree of Pain - Jokulhaups is better here and has a cheaper cmc. You don't need extra cards when you just win.

Unstable Obelisk - I know enchantments are a pain but wow this effect is expensive.

Cool ideas, I've been having a look again at Marchesa. One card I'd surely add is Phyrexian Arena. Costs 3 mana, doesn't hurt too much, and nets an extra card every turn. Plus, at least in my meta, most people don't go (too much) out of their way to destroy it. There are usually nastier things to be dealt with :)

xlust Thanks for checking out my deck and offering suggestions, I really appreciate your taking a look!

The EDH community is hotly divided on the issue of "is Phyrexian Arena Good" and I tend to side with the "no" camp.

When considering the card, I consider the investment:reward ratio.

Arena costs 3 mana. That means it takes 3 turns before it's paid for itself and 4 before it's barely starting to be profitable.

By comparison, you could play a card like Read the Bones which will let you draw two cards immediately, as well as scrying away one or both of those cards if you want (basically as good as a third card). This means it's basically paid for itself as soon as you play it.

in 4 turns, even if nobody removes arena, the game could be over. Drawing arena on Turn 10 is basically a dead draw, but a card like Read the Bones or Painful Truths is immediately useful, even on turn 10.

I'm not running those cards either though. As you'll see, I've opted for a bit more of a low mana cost card selection package, rather than a card draw package.

Cards like Preordain, Impulse, Faithless Looting, and Lim-Dul's Vault are low costed ways to comb through cards looking for a specific answer rather than simply drawing in bulk for value.

Precision Draws vs Volume Draws.

I am running Necropotence as a source of mass draw, since for the same price as Phyrexian Arena it can draw you significantly more cards much faster, even immediately.

Various permanents such as Skullclamp, Rhystic Study, Grim Haruspex, and the like tend to fill my "mass draw" needs rather than sorceries, especially where they're repeatable and synergize better with the overall gameplan.

I recently used your list as a guideline for my deck. Finally got to try out the new Nicol Bolas and it was ruthless. I never wanted to make it flip into a planeswalker because the recurring discard 1 from each opponent is pretty spectacular and you're probably hitting someone for 5 dmg. Great list

bscheidemann I'm glad to hear it's working out for you! It means a lot.

I agree, most of the time the repeated discard and a 5/5 is way better than flipping him. It's just an incidental bonus really, I'd absolutely be running him even without the flip ability.

What do you think about Grim Haruspex's slightly worse version Midnight Reaper?

Could be another good card draw on demand that also helps to keep you off the throne but could be exploitable. (granted if you ever want to kill him off; you can do so with a double sacrifice.)

As long as you have a sac outlet in play you are effectively in control of your own life total still given that you can just sac him in response to a board wipe and he will be off the field when the sweeper comes through.

Given the 4 "death draws you cards" options, he's still probably sitting at 3rd of 4 realistically. (The 4 being Grim Haru, River Kelpie, Midnight and Harvester of Souls). Souls is just a huge CMC (but triggers on ALL deaths) but the 6 cmc puts him at 4 of 4 in my mind.

Another question; How do you find that persist interacts in this deck? (I know that persist kinda cancels out marchesa's ability but is amazing with mikaeus in play).

I just see that the popular opinion is that 'persist is broken in marchesa' but notice that you keep only the highest end of persist creatures in Glenn Elendra Archmage. (Also curious how archmage performs for you... i plan on including a metallic mimic which combined with sage of fables ETB's the archmage with a +1/+1 already on it).

I'm kind of just templating out what I would like for my future marchesa build (I have a built out Queen Marchesa... wanted to add the other side haha). But my meta is likely different; we are a lower power level table (25-40% tops) so I'm probably not looking towards a lot of the expensive powerhouses that would take over a game... other than mikaeus just because I feel like he's an integral piece.

Bloodytrailz

I'd say that your ranking of the 4 options is pretty accurate. You missed Smothering Abomination though, which is my number 2 pick I think, especially where it is a sac outlet in a way. Having flying also means it's a bit easier to get dethrone triggers with it if you need to.

I'm currently using Grim Haruspex because it's 3mana and has some wizard synergies, but smothering abomination is very high on my list of potential changes.

Midnight Reaper would be a good include if you needed more life loss cards, or if you needed more card draw and didn't want something like Necropotence. personally i have no issues on those fronts so I've opted to go for the cards i have here. midnight reaper is definitely a good option if you're looking for a low CMC card draw effect to replace Harvester of Souls or river kelpie.

The thing with persist is that other than Glen Elendra Archmage there are only two other creatures that are even worth considering. River Kelpie and Puppeteer Clique. the rest are basically just vanilla creatures essentially in that they have no abilities or other interactions with the deck's gameplan.

as i mentioned before, haruspex is just a more efficient effect than kelpie, 2 less mana is a lot. and i ran clique for a while actually, but i just rarely found myself making good use of the reanimation effect and so i dropped it for something else.

Anything > CMC4 has to be particularly good in my opinion, otherwise it's tough to play in a deck like this since we don't have the ramp that other (Green) decks have available. being able to get the most out of your mana each turn is a big big factor in how effective your deck is.

Undying is obviously much stronger than persist, but again, there's only really about two cards worth bothering with here.

a card which doesn't do more than one thing isn't usually a good pick in my opinion. a creature like Sightless Ghoul which is basically just an attacker with no really notable abilities isn't worth running when its only significant synergy with the deck is that it's hard to remove. cards like Rakdos Cackler are a much better way to get the same effect.

as for undying cards Pyreheart Wolf and Flayer of the Hatebound are the two (other than mikaeus). flayer is too expensive at 6CMC where all he does is give some incidental damage that can just as easily come from attacking. pyreheart wolf might be a decent include, but since i'm running a lot of cards like gravepact and such i can keep the board fairly clear and don't have to worry too much about blockers.

i find that glen elendra archmage is a very strong card in the deck though. flying makes dethrone easy and like you said, sage of fables makes it a great soft lock.

metallic mimic isn't worth it for me since my tribal synergy is pretty light. i have about 7 wizards and nothing else really overlaps much, but if you focus a bit more on the wizard theme though then it would be a great include for sure.

feel free to look at my queen marchesa deck if you want. it's public on my profile i believe.

I'm gonna read the comments in a bit, but this...now this...seems like a well thought out competitive list for Marchesa. Awesome job!

Curious how Desecrated Tomb works out for you; it's not a card I would have thought about, makes sense though, gives us air blockers and sacrifice fodder.

Also what do you think about the 2 'big finisher' cards available to marchesa... Jokulhaups and Death Cloud. Basically win by blowing up everything and having your board come back while everyone else with left with nothing but a pile of burnt rubble.

Bloodytrailz

Desecrated Tomb is good so far. Not bad on offense either.

I'm not a fan of Death Cloud. it is too much mana. the deck is aiming to be fast and light so chances of having enough mana on the field to cast it for a meaningful number are pretty low. i'd estimate you'd need somewhere around x=8 to have any big impact and that's just not feasible most of the time. maybe in a big mana deck with Cabal Coffers and Crypt Ghast and etc...

Jokulhaups might be ok, but i feel like it's pretty unnecessary. MLD is frowned on in most groups and i'm running a good amount of artifacts that i'd want to keep around to help close out a game after blowing the board out. (Altars and such)

also most of the creatures in the deck are rather small and having a board of 4 2/2 creatures after a blow out is not going to be a quick end to the game.

Cyclonic Rift is basically doing the same job but I think it causes a bit less feel bads / grudges from the other players.

it could be fine, but i think it's more of a meta call than it is a mechanical one.

That makes sense for sure. I will personally be including Sidisi, Undead Vizier in lieu of not owning/wanting to buy the 25-40$ good tutors.

Another card that's on my definite include list that you don't have is Mana Confluence.. aka city of brass #2... it's odd to see one but not the pair of them.

I'm looking to play a bit heavier of a wizard influence utilizing metallic mimic to repeatedly sacrifice them. Including a couple extra wizards like Vindictive Lich and Disciple of Bolas. Lich helps with every facet of what we want to achieve, removal, discard or direct damage... on top of a decent sized beatstick with 4 power. Disciple can help to stabilize HP alongside basilisk collar, acts as a sacrifice outlet and draws cards. I'm a little iffier on the disciple because of it's "must" sacrifice, but I think it fights our gameplan well. Gaining life isn't necessarily always ideal, but sometimes you need to survive trample/evasive beatdown (which isn't uncommon in my meta... Arahbo cats deck + derevi -but not broken, low powerlevel- exist in my meta).

A couple other things I'm thinking about adding in are global haste enablers; Fervor and/or Anger to go alongside the lightning greaves.

I'm also looking to play a bit of the aristocrats subtheme but not heavily into it, I want to devote like no more than like 6-7 cards to it, so I'm being selective in these cards. Zealous Conscripts, Hostage Taker, Mark of Mutiny just to name a few.. i play in a low powerlevel, creature heavy meta so these effects will go a long way. (Alongside things like grave pact/dictate of erebos) ... Also Zealous Conscripts+Infernal Tribute act as a way to remove enchantments/artifacts by stealing and sacrificing them.

I'm still working on trimming my list down right now to an ideal 100, so I'm sure i'll be chiming in more as I progress through the list of cuts and figuring out what cards I want to use to fill my goals for the deck.

Bloodytrailz

I mention Sidisi, Undead Vizier in my notable exclusions like you said it's a good fit if you don't have Demonic/Vampiric.

I'm not running Mana Confluence simply because I haven't felt like spending $10 on it. it would definitely be a good call.

I opted for Plaguecrafter over Vindictive Lich, but either or both are certainly fine to use.

For similar reasons as you mentioned I didn't bother with Disciple of Bolas plus, between various other card draw sources I haven't really needed him. Necropotence etc... plus at CMC4 he is competing with a lot of other cards.

Haste isn't super important for me since i've tried to build in a lot of ways to get counters outside of combat, but i think it would fit well if you were running more of a battle cruiser value deck.

Threaten and etc... is a popular way to build marchesa and definitely has a good support structure. I opted to go a different route though and as you can see i went a lot more aristocrats based. a low power big fatties battle cruiser meta will probably find a lot of success with an Act of Treason focused list though.

also, the Zealous Conscripts Infernal Tribute idea is a good one. nice catch.

let me know if you want any feedback on other cards, I've tested or considered cards in most sets that are released.

Well, I woke up at 5am today and spent about 7 hours constructing my list and doing a substantial writeup for card choices/justifications.

If you wouldn't mind checking it out Marchesa, On the way to the top! and letting me know whatever thoughts you have about it (I'm also always willing to listen to constructive criticism). I know I've chosen some cards for my prototype list that you already spoke against and I'm aware of your opinions on those. (I've read your sections a couple times now).

So I had a decent sized comment )with questions) written out the other daya, but somehow it was lost in my plethora of browser tabs and possibly deleted lol Can you check out my list and give me some constructive feedback? I've got a LOT of cards on my maybe list. Cards I'm either going to try out or just quickly added while searching through scryfall because they seem like they'd work well in Marchesa, but don't take the maybe list to heart because it's just a big big list of potential includes lol Thanks in advance!

Now this I like. The average CMC is pretty lean, yet you still found room for some fun fatties. Ashes to Ashes & Cannibalize is interesting couple of removal spells that wasn't on my radar. Loving the inclusion of baby Nicy B too.

One card I think you need to at least address is Toxic Deluge, since it's such a staple. I'm guessing you see it being in competition with Blasphemous Act for the slot of a cheap board wipe, which is OK, esp. if your meta doesn't have a whole lot of indestructible/protection from red/damage prevention

Coward_Token

Thanks, glad you like the list.

Toxic Deluge isn't here mostly because it's $15+ and to be honest I haven't really ever needed it. I've never had an issue with any of my other board wipes not cutting it and generally I'd say indestructible or pro black/red creatures are a pretty minor issue overall and I have enough exile based spot removal to deal with them when they do come up, so it hasn't been much of a problem.

you could certainly run it over any of the other board wipes I've mentioned, and it synergizes nicely with the deck in general, I just haven't ever felt any pressure to grab it.

Ultimately "Play it if you want to" isn't really a very insightful commentary on the card so I didn't bother mentioning it in the primer.

Not sure if this is worth a consideration or not... but how about something like Goblin Cratermaker ... low CMC, self sacrifing (for a small cost), destroys artifacts, artifact creatures and eldrazi and can ping out lower HP creatures.

Not sure if you've checked out RNA spoilers yet, just curious if there's any cards jumping out at you that i've missed.

Essence Capture - BB counterspell, little harder to cast maybe, only counters a creature, but we get a +1/+1 counter at pseudo-instant speed which is nice potentialy. (Better in creature heavy meta obviously)

Skatewing Spy - I know, this is basically new herald of secret streams, but this one does something more, it grants evasion but it also lets you block enemy fliers. (Granted, i could just steal them or force a sacrifice to deal with problematic fliers instead)

Priest of Forgotten Gods - Tap to sac 2 creatures, each opponents loses 2 life, sacs a creature then we gain 2 black and draw a card. This is just a lot of stuff happening at once, but it's all stuff we aren't sad about. It is slow for a sac outlet due to mandatory 2 sacrifices & tap to sacrifice, but an interesting card to consider.

Burning-Tree Vandal - Generates his own +1/+1 counter on ETB and is a repeatable loot effect... probably not worth it overall, but at least worth a thought.

Bedevil - versatile removal, auto-include in my queen marchesa deck but im not as 100% certain it's a windmill slam include here.

That's about all I'm seeing and most of those aren't even that enticing really. I feel like priest of the forgotten gods is my most likely include (maybe bedevil) but even that's not really exciting due to it's limitations.