Marchesa, The Black Rose EDH
How does it win:
There are a couple of routes to take to winning when playing this deck:
Mycosynth Lattice + Overloaded Vandelblast to blast everyone into the dark ages but you. Grindy win, but once this goes off you're more than likely guaranteed to win. Not exactly a win condition in itself but rather a way to stall 8+ turns for a real win condition. People will hate you.
Mycosynth Lattice + Hellkite Tyrant: Similar to the above, take away an opponent's entire board and make it your own. Then it wins the next turn. To make this combo more fluid and give an opponent less time to interact board in a card to give you an extra turn.
Heavy Black Board Presence + Gray Merchant of Asphodel: Works the same way as Mono-B Devotion except you can use Gary multiple times with the
Marchesa, the Black Rose + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed engine and a sac outlet. Easily can net 30+ Life a turn if the engine is online and you have a decent amount of black permanents on the field.
Insurrection + Marchesa, the Black Rose + A sac outlet OR Radiate + Mark of Mutiny + A sac Outlet: Jealous of everyone's stuff? Take it. With Marchesa out and a sac outlet Insurrection becomes: If the creature attacks the player with the most life gain control. Usually you'll win from just playing Insurrection though.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Glen Elendra Archmage + Alter of Dementia: Mill out all opponents.
The Engine:
Marchesa, the Black Rose + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed makes your board close to indestructible. It also allows you abuse ETB and Death triggers. A few of the fun things you can do with this engine are:
The Engine + Burnished Hart + 6 colorless: Ramp 4 lands in one turn.
The Engine + Solemn Simulacrum + a Sac Engine: Ramp 2 or 3 basic lands in one turn and draw 1 or 2 cards.
The Engine + Mulldrifter for Evoke: Draw 4 cards and get a 3/3 flier OR draw 2 extra cards and get a 2/2 flier instead at the next end step with a sac outlet. (This one is value)
The Engine + Baleful Strix: Draw 2 cards and get a 2/2 flier with death touch or draw 3 cards and get a 1/1 flier with death touch at the next end step.
The Engine + Kegia, the Tide Star + Sac Outlet: Take over 2 enemy creatures and a 5/5 flier at the next end step.
The Engine + Zealous Conscript + a sac outlet: Threaten two permanents until end of turn or three and lose the 3/3 haste until the next endstep.
The Engine + Any of the Primordials + a sac outlet: Primordial effect two or three times.
The Engine + Gray Merchant of Asphodel + a sac outlet: 2 or 3 Gary Triggers.
The Engine + Snapcaster Mage + a sac outlet: get flashback on two spells and potentially a third at the next endstep.
Setting up and Protecting the Engine:
The deck starts with one piece of the engine ready to cast at any point. The ideal situation is to refrain from casting Marchesa, the Black Rose until you get Mikaeus and an abusable effect that can immediately start pushing you towards victory since this will probably draw heat onto you in multiplayer.
You may even want to consider having Cavern of Souls naming Zombies since it protects Gary and Mikaeus from counter magic.
Once you have Mikaeus out on the field (Hopefully with Marchesa out as well) you need to protect him with either lightning greaves, or swiftfoot boots or the ideal card: Unspeakable Symbol which will protect Marchesa and Mikaeus if Marchesa is out.
If you lose Mikaeus he is recoverable with Phyrexian Reclamation.
Dethrone and Life:
If you want to get the most out of Marchesa you need to attack the person with the most life, and make sure that person isn't you. (Since you can't attack yourself).
To do this there are a lot of pay life effects in the deck. Try to stay above 20 and below the highest life total.
Infinite Mana:
The deck does have one way to generate infinite mana. Mikaues, the Unhallowed + Glen Elendra Archmage + Ashnod's Alter OR Phyrexian Alter (for Infinite Colored Mana).
I prefer Ashnod's because it is not always possible to get the Infinite Mana online and Ashnod's can reduce casting costs quite nicely.
Controlling the Board:
Until you get your combos and engines online it will be imperative to stay alive. Save tutors for control magic if the heat is on you and you do not have a way on the board to deal with it.
Board Wipes:
The deck has three (Potentially 4) board wipes you can use.
Damnation: The bread and butter. Easiest to use, no setup, just one card. Vulnerable to Counters.
Mutilate + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Lands: Takes set up and you need enough lands to take out whatever the biggest creature is. But it gets around indestructible nicely.
Radiate + Terminate/Hero's Downfall: Two card combo that does not get around hexproof and shroud. (Can also wipe planeswalkers). Instant Speed.
Radiate + Gild: Two card combo that does not get around hexproof and shroud but does exile and gives you extra mana in the form of artifacts.
Spot Removal:
Gild, Terminate, Hero's Downfall.
Very little spot removal. Use only for extreme single target threats.
Counter Magics:
Counterflux, Pact of Negation, Dissipate, Spell Crumple.
Each of these has different purposes but try and save one to protect your combos.
Mass Bounce: Cyclonic Rift
Use Rift as a one sided board wipe if at all possible. It throws people off tempo and really helps you establish a better position.
Non-Creature removal:
Nicole Bolas: You're looking at the only way (that I know of) to remove pesky enchantments in Grixis. If you play him protect him if at all possible and try and maximize his value (Not hard with a decent board position).
Card Draw:
You won't always have the engine, or you'll be digging for pieces for it. That is why the deck sports Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena, and Blue Sun's Zenith. These are to assist the deck with drawing for a more sustainable and reliable card draw engine using one of the combos above. Also helps draw for answers and so forth.
Ideal Game Plan:
Step 1: Assembling the Engine. When the game begins the goal is to first get Mikaeus on the field with Marchesa. Use card draw or tutors (if there isn't much hate coming your way) to grab the big players.
Step 2: Ramp and Card Draw. Using the engine and a sac outlet you can now start ramping and drawing cards.
Step 3: Determine the most effective win condition and dig or tutor for the pieces.
This one will change game to game but once you've become the target of the board it's time to figure out the win with the least interaction from your opponents and easiest to set up. Try to win in one turn if at all possible.
Weaknesses:
Mass Exile and Exile effects and graveyard exile:
If your group plays a lot of white or Leyline of the Void this deck will probably have a hard time performing. Merciless Eviction or other mass exile completely ruins the sticking power that comes from Mikaeus and Marchesa.
Aggro: The deck has a hard time against creature aggro and potentially Voltron. This is due to the fact that there are really only 4 boardwipes in the whole deck and 3 of them require set up and multiple cards before they become effective.
Cards to Consider:
The deck comes with only two sac outlets. One possible improvement would be to add two or more.
There's a sacrifice sub-theme in the deck which It That Betrays goes along with nicely. This theme could be improved on or put more into the forefront with certain cards.
More tutors could help one get to combos and pieces sooner.
That's the deck so far.
It has not been play tested yet with a group of actual players. Deck is completely theoretical up to this point.
Enjoy and Critique!
