Lokotor I was wondering if you would be open to making a budgetless version of this list? I've been playing this deck for ages and I absolutely love it, but unfortunately my pod's power level has increased and it seems like this deck may have been left behind. I'd love to keep playing it so a powered up version would be amazing(if possible). No budget restrictions whatsoever so feel free to go wild if you do. No biggie otherwise! Thanks so much for putting all this effort into keeping the deck and primer updated!

Charlielx

This list is pretty high budget as it stands. The only major changes I can think of on that front would be adding ABUR duals and maybe a few more fetches.

I think there are some more substantive changes you could make to enable the deck to be more competitive, but they're not budget changes as much as style changes. To get the deck to be more competitive you're looking at adding in combo pieces, more interaction, and probably shifting the spread of cards away from creatures and more into draw/ramp to enable you to find combos faster.

Off the top of my head, adding goblin bombardment to the list enables you to do Mikaeus + Glen Elendra + Bombardment for a combo win. there's obviously plenty of combo options to go for though.

do keep in mind that no matter what you do marchesa probably won't ever be able to get to the top of the power level for cEDH metas, but you can probably build in a way to get you into the lower tiers of that type of gameplay.

I guess I will need to switch it up a bit then, gonna go look around at some other lists to see if I can find something along those lines. Thanks!

How's Teferi's Time Twist been? Not sure when you put it in, but I see it's in there now.

alexjustdoit

So far Teferi's Time Twist has been good. it's a pretty strong protective piece generally, and the +1/+1 counter on return for creatures makes it doubly so. But it's also good to be able to protect something like Mirage Mirror or Grave Pact in a pinch. it even helps vs a board wipe since it exiles until EoT.

It's a card I've definitely been glad to have added. I would recommend it.

If you were confused by my "considered cards" section notes, I meant that I wasn't sure if Unstable Obelisk would need to go back in or not.

alexjustdoit

So far Teferi's Time Twist has been good. it's a pretty strong protective piece generally, and the +1/+1 counter on return for creatures makes it doubly so. But it's also good to be able to protect something like Mirage Mirror or Grave Pact in a pinch. it even helps vs a board wipe since it exiles until EoT.

It's a card I've definitely been glad to have added. I would recommend it.

If you were confused by my "considered cards" section notes, I meant that I wasn't sure if Unstable Obelisk would need to go back in or not.

Would you consider Greater Gargadon instead of Visera Seer?

jeannieboef

You can certainly substitute a variety of sacrifice outlets for Viscera Seer, but it depends on why you want to substitute.

Greater Gargadon has the advantage of being essentially not interactable with, but it also turns itself off after a little while, so you may run into issues there, and personally that's why I don't run it. 5-10 sacrifices may be enough for some games, but I often find I'm sacrificing 2-4 creatures PER TURN at times, and at that point gargadon wouldn't be much use.

Okay, makes sense, thanks. In my version I can't even keep a hand if it doesn't have draw. I find I need so much draw because there are sooo many parts to get into play. As I end up having so much draw, I tend to draw into another sac outlet in 10 uses. I just don't see anyone else using it and I was fishing for a reason.

jeannieboef absolutely valid concerns there. Viscera Seer helps smooth draws as well, so there's that. But I totally agree having a draw engine is very important, and one of the reasons I recommend using cards like Smothering Abomination and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician as sacrifice sources as well

So for those of you who run Syr Konrad, the Grim or Gray Merchant of Asphodel...if you could only run one, which one would you run in MTBR and why?

jeannieboef

it depends on what you want / how your build looks, but generally, at least for my list, at least I'd say go for Gray Merchant of Asphodel rather than Syr Konrad, the Grim .

konrad relies on getting a lot of triggers to pay off, since it's just chip damage otherwise. in a good game you might be getting 3-4 sac triggers per turn, and doing ~14 damage in a round to each player is decent, but at the same time, if you're getting 3-4 sacrifices per turn you're already probably drawing 15 cards, killing everything on the board, and fetching all your lands or something, so it's just win more.

gary has the benefit of being a 1 shot piece which can both stabilize you if your life total is low, and also can do significant damage to the table. assuming you have a modest devotion of 6, (him + Marchesa, the Black Rose + Viscera Seer + Unspeakable Symbol for example) that's a pretty decent swing in life totals, and if you're doing it every turn, then that's nearly game ending in just one rotation.

But Syr Konrad also sees your opponent's stuff. Like Syr Konrad + Bojukabog could just kill everyone. Even a board wipe is devistating. I just wonder what would do more consistant work.

jeannieboef

I just wonder what would do more consistant work.

But Syr Konrad ... opponent's stuff.

The only one you can depend on for consistency is you. If a card is only great 'when my opponent does [X]' then it's not going to be the safe choice unless it's something mandatory like drawing a card.

When you're in a pod with a voltron deck, spell slinger deck, and some white deck with like 3 creatures Konrad isn't going to do much of anything, whereas gary is going to reliably produce pretty much the same results every time you play him.

konrad can definitely have a higher ceiling, but it would be more meta dependent.

New to the Marchesa deck and starting with your budget list atm. Was wondering why you are not running gray merchant of asphodel in your list? I assume he has been tested and was just wondering why he was removed.

srduncan22

To some extent Gray Merchant of Asphodel is a bit counterproductive and can be difficult to use in the deck. The effect causes a rather large up swing in life for you (at a minimum +9 life and -3 to everyone else), which will almost always mean you no longer can trigger Dethrone reliably. Being able to more strategically gain life via things like Basilisk Collar or Shadowspear is more useful since we want to only be ahead on life after attacking, ideally.

The mass life drain on Gary can be useful, but it's hard to repeatedly trigger it unless you have something like Spark Double or Unspeakable Symbol in play to pair with Gary so that the life gain doesn't make it impossible to get counters on him.

So overall Gary is ok, but for 5 mana its a few too many hoops to jump through in my mind if you want to get repeated, consistent value

srduncan22 - Gary/Kokusho are really good but require cards like Metallic Mimic , Vigean Graftmage , Mikaeus, the Unhallowed , the 2 cards mentioned above, and some tutors to make it viable for repeated sacrifice without worrying about the Throne. I run all 5 of these alternate sources of +1+1 counters personally (and Sage of Fables).

Hey awesome deck, it’s inspired my current plan for my brew a ton. The thing that keeps sticking out to me is why the Omen of the Sea? If you need 2 mana draw why not something like Night's Whisper?

TraceT Instant speed is a big factor, and it lets you see a lot of cards over its lifespan (up to 5). I rate it better than cards like Ponder, Preordain, Sign in Blood and Night's Whisper mainly due to being instant speed and that it digs deeper.

Lokotor what is your opinion on these cards being added to Marchesa ? Kalain, Reclusive Painter, Fain, the Broker, Plumb the Forbidden and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer ?

Thanks! Those are good points. Also, Resculpt might be a great fit for this deck.

Quodan

Fain, the Broker Is ok, but a bit slow. I would consider it in a budget list possibly, but I think there are generally better sacrifice outlets you could pick from.

Kalain, Reclusive Painter I don't like. you need to devote a lot of space to treasure production and there's really not a lot of cards that fit the bill on that end, and it's too limited to rely only on his own ability to make treasures. in a pirate focused list where you're making a lot of treasures it might be a better fit, but in general I wouldn't bother with it.

Plumb the Forbidden is definitely a playable card, I generally steer more towards creature based card draw like Baleful Strix, Watcher for Tomorrow and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician since they tend to provide better value over a game, but you could certainly play this as well. I have it in my budget list, although the price has gotten a bit higher lately.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer Doesn't really do a lot here. I think it's a much better card in formats like legacy and modern than in commander and it doesn't really create the right kind of value for a marchesa deck the way I run it (aristocrats) he doesn't have evasion and is a fairly small body, so you'll probably find it hard to connect and so I think a lot of the time he's going to just sit around and do nothing.

TraceT

Resculpt is definitely something you could play. It's pretty much directly comparable to Reality Shift and you could certainly play either or both.

have you ever played a full persist combo list?

jeannieboef At some point earlier on I had a few combos but I don't personally enjoy it that much and my playgroup tends to be a bit more casual usually so I don't have a great pressure to pick it back up. it's obviously pretty easy to set up since, all you'd really have to do is sub out Ashnod's Altar for Goblin Bombardment and you'd be good to go basically. you could obviously add in as many combos as you like, and I think a lot of the pieces are already in there as is so should be an easy change if you prefer it.

Is Gisa, Glorious Resurrector a card you’d consider running in this Marchesa deck ? If so what card would you take out to replace it ?