Long live the queen

Commander / EDH Casual Combo Control RBW (Mardu)

Holmborn

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Canyon Slough
• 1x Castle Locthwain
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 2x Plains
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Shambling Vent
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Gideon of the Trials

Instant (16)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Chance for Glory
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Final Fortune
• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Glorious End
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Slaughter Pact
• 1x Stunning Reversal
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Utter End
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Enchantment (12)

• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Axis of Mortality
• 1x Demonic Pact
• 1x Forbidden Crypt
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Lich's Mastery
• 1x Murderous Betrayal
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Transcendence

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Harmless Offering
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Last Chance
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Painful Truths
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Wrath of God

Commander (1)

Creature (14)

• 1x Abyssal Persecutor
• 1x Angel of Grace
• 1x Bazaar Trader
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Exquisite Archangel
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Magus of the Mirror
• 1x Phage the Untouchable
• 1x Platinum Angel
• 1x Platinum Emperion
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Twilight Prophet
• 1x Windborn Muse
• 1x Xantcha, Sleeper Agent

Artifact (12)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Immortal Coil
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Soul Conduit
• 1x Sundial of the Infinite
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x Thought Vessel

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The Queen never dies, the Queen never loses.

This deck is all about winning the game through not losing. You do this, by using overpowered cards that would normally lose you the game or completely drain your life, but with enough "you can't lose the game" effects, turn them into powerhouse cards that give you options that rarely ever get seen in these colours.

This deck heavily relies on using life as a ressource, and expending it rapidly. To help mitigate this, we have multiple cards that simply do not care that you are below 0 life, plus a few cards to trade away your low life total.

Examples of some overpowered cards we use would be the Extra Turn spells, such as Chance for Glory , Glorious End , Final Fortune and Last Chance . These cards are huge haymakers, and can very rapidly change the tempo of the game in your favour. There are even a way to create infinite turns, by using Isochron Scepter and imprinting Final Fortune . Isochron Scepter can also be used with Angel's Grace , in order to create repeatable ways of preventing game or life loss. In a pinch or 1v1 setting, this combo can be a game changer that can give you multiple turns to find your combos.
Another combo would be Chance for Glory in combination with Platinum Angel , creating an indestructible "You can't lose" card, allowing you to really start taking advantage of your costly cards.

This deck is a control deck, that wins through combos. To survive till we assemble our combo, we run a big amount of pillowfort cards, such as No Mercy , Authority of the Consuls , Ghostly Prison , Maze of Ith and Windborn Muse . These cards will hopefully deter any opponents from attacking us. We also introduce the Monarch mechanic to the game, by way of Queen Marchesa , which will make opponents start attacking eachother, instead of us. Queen Marchesa also generates 1/1 Deathtouch tokens for us, when we are not the monarch, which also help deter opponents from attacking, or giving us a way to take back the crown, if we need the card draw. We also run a suite of removal and board wipes, such as Utter End , Generous Gift and Anguished Unmaking . One noteworthy aspect of these single target removal spells, is that they can hit our own stuff, which might become neccesary when one of our Lich cards are in play, and we need to take a lot of damage. Our board wipes, Merciless Eviction , Damnation and Wrath of God are quite common board wipes for a deck in our style, but we also run Fire Covenant , which doubles as a life loss. Life Loss, is a wincon of ours, as we can relatively easily exchange our life total.

i mentioned an exchanging life total combo, so lets go through a few combos, as There are a few routes to take, and a reasonable amount of Tutors to make this consistent. One of my favourites is using donation effects like Bazaar Trader and Harmless Offering to give away your "lose the game" cards like Immortal Coil , Demonic Pact or Forbidden Crypt . Another combo is to use one of our 3 life total exchanges Axis of Mortality , Magus of the Mirror or Soul Conduit , to give away our expended life total to an opponent. With how many ways we have to drain our own life, such as Fire Covenant , Necropotence or Murderous Betrayal , which also functions as a repeatable Doom Blade , it should be no problem to get to 0 or near 0 life. If your playgroup allows it, using Death Wish is also a possibility.

I hope you've enjoyed this little writeup about my pet deck. It's one ive been tinkering with for a while, and i find myself making small adjustments all the time.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	UG
Splash colors	WBR
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 60 - 0 Rares 13 - 0 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.47
Tokens	Assassin 1/1 B w/ Haste, City's Blessing, Elephant 3-3 G, Emblem Gideon of the Trials, The Monarch, Treasure