Unleash guaranteeing a +1 counter is clever, personally I'd take her and make it grixis artifacts modular.

Other than that, I don't see too much missing, maybe warstorm surge.

Hello jcook23,

The key with Marchesa is knowing how much you want to abuse Dethrone, and how much you want to abuse her last triggered ability which returns dead creatures you control into the battlefield under your control.

Depending on that, you will include cards with life-payment effects to keep yourself at lower health so Dethrone triggers no matter what.

Personally, I believe Dethrone is useful, but not something to rely upon entirely; the reason behind this is, let's say you have 34 life and an opponent has 40, you attack and Dethrone triggers giving you +1/+1 counters, depending on the amount of damage you deal Dethrone might trigger again next combat against that same opponent, or you will have to switch targets to another opponent with more life 'reseting' your offensive potential and lowering your chances of effectively killing someone since you are switching targets. Don't take me wrong, Dethrone is fun but life gaining decks are usually very defensive which is sort of a turn down for an aggro deck.

Now, let's say you focus more on her last triggered ability which is the best idea with Marchesa; try to abuse +1/+1 counter abilities, I noticed you have a couple of decent combos with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed , Insurrection , Ashnod's Altar , etc. Might want to consider including Cauldron of Souls which adds a combo card to work with your Mikhaeus. Dragon Blood is a horrible card most of the time, except in this deck; drop a counter on something without the need of wasting your combat phase and use any of its triggered abilities as it dies or enters the battlefield.

Now, for the cards to cut. Personally, I hate everything single target in commander, specially for creature based decks like Marchesa. Try to use creatures in place of those removal cards like Go for the Throat , Dreadbore . Consider using Shriekmaw and if you combo it properly you can double destroy in a move (yea, with Dragon Blood ). In a similar way Mulldrifter becomes awesome when abused this way. Actually, Evoke becomes more awesome overall. Another highly comboable artifact is Minion Reflector . Additionaly, Black Sun's Zenith removes any +1/+1 counters from your creatures as it resolves, so I'm not sure how good is that for Marchesa's last ability (it's bad, btw).

It all goes down to, like I said before, to which of Marchesa's abilities you want to abuse more. Look at her stats, she's not strong by herself, she's good by her abilities and unique; the posibilities to abuse her are nearly limitless.

I haven't taken the time to build a deck around her but that's the analysis I can do just by a quick look at her and my experience. I hope this was useful in some way for you and I'm looking forward to seeing your deck finished and working.

Deadly Berry