Welcome to my Queen Marchesa Decklist! I have been tweaking it for awhile and this is my best version to date. If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free!
Simplified Overview:
This a the epitome of a control deck in EDH. Deter anyone from attacking us, wipe the board when we need to, have super value creatures that shut down our opponents or provide us card advantage, tutor for whatever we need, lock down the board with powerful enchantments, eventually win with our combo or by grinding everyone else out.
Early Game
With this decklist, we are taxing our opponents early with cards like
Blind Obedience
,
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
,
Authority of the Consuls
,
Kismet
to name a few.
Dropping cards early like
Land Tax
,
Bitterblossom
,
Luminarch Ascension
,
Weathered Wayfarer
will also put is in a favorable position.
In the early game we are also tutoring for draw engines like
Phyrexian Arena
,
Necropotence
,
Dark Confidant
. Our commander also provides card advantage.
Mid-Game
Our opponents are slightly irritated at this point because their cards are coming into play tapped and they are losing in card advantage.
Now is when we drop our cards that deter opponents from attacking or prevent us from taking unwanted damage.
Windborn Muse
,
No Mercy
,
Ghostly Prison
,
Maze of Ith
,
Solitary Confinement
,
Righteous Aura
.
Now no one will be attacking us or dealing damage to us because we can prevent it or tax them for it. As this is happening we are searching for combo pieces and continuing to gain card advantage.
An opponent destroys all of our enchantments?
Replenish
them back. Or if we have
Karmic Justice
in play we can destroy any of their permanents for each of ours destroyed.
Late-Game
Now our opponents are really frustrated. We are extorting everyone, taxing everyone, creating tokens, wiping the board, and have way too many cards to know what to do with. Well, we know what we are doing but no one else does.
At this point, we have lots of fun enchantments out, value planeswalkers, and value creatures. No one is attacking us or trying to deal with us. Yes, we are annoying and hiding behind the greatest of pillow-forts but we are not an immediate threat. Someone else will appear much more threatening so we can let them try to kill one another.
Suprise!
Queen Marchesa going infinite? Who expected that? Not your opponents.
Ashnod's Altar
+
Murderous Redcap
+
Nim Deathmantle
= Everyone takes infinite damage and dies.
So how does the combo work?
Sacrificing
Murderous Redcap
to
Ashnod's Altar
creates .
Murderous Redcap
has persist so it will come back to the battlefield. When it does we sacrifice it again to
Ashnod's Altar
gaining an additional .
With six mana floating we attach
Nim Deathmantle
to
Murderous Redcap
as it enters the graveyard and return it to the battlefield. Two mana is left over every time so we have infinite mana to pay for
Nim Deathmantle
and bring back
Murderous Redcap
infinite times, dealing infinite damage.
Well that was fun, everyone is dead, probably. If somehow an opponent survived they have a steep hill to climb against all your pillow fort goodness and you can most likely extort them to death or they will realize you still have planeswalkers or creatures in play they can't deal with.
Strategy with this deck
Tutoring:
You want to be tutoring for
Necropotence
in the early game. It is probobly the single best card in this deck because it provides insane card advantage and we don't really care about life. That being said you aren't invincible so be cautious.
Karmic Justice
is a great tutor option if you have lots of permanents in play you want to protect.
If you are in a pretty comfortable position it is fine to start tutoring for combo pieces.
With
Imperial Recruiter
you almost always want to get
Dark Confidant
unless you don't need card advantage or already have it in play.
Graveyard Hate
So many decks in EDH revolve around the graveyard, many decks that get out of hand very fast. We have
Containment Priest
and
Rest in Peace
to deal with them.
Make everyone play on their turn:
Welcome to EDH where every other deck is blue and they would rather play cards on your turn than their own. They will always have mana up to counter your spells and do annoying things on other people's turns. Not just blue though, lots of cards in EDH are at instant speed and
Price of Glory
,
Grand Abolisher
, and
Red Elemental Blast
can be our best friends. These cards are important to have when we are going for our combo so no one can counter pieces or try to stop the combo when it is our turn.
Remember:
You are not playing arch-enemy. Yes, we have lots of spot removal and board wipes but save them for a card that is ruining our game plan, or an opponent's board state is about to win the game. If you try to police everyone, it will quickly become a 3v1 and we don't want that. Just because a card is threatening it's not a bad idea to let someone else deal with it. As we know people hold a grudge in EDH like nowhere else.
DO NOT play your combo pieces randomly onto the board. We don't have lots of options in terms of bringing back things from our graveyard, so it is much smarter to play your combo in a 1-2 turn sequence. If your combo doesn't work you can watch your opponents kill each other and then 1v1 the last player with a scarier board presence, card advantage, and life advantage.
Hope you all enjoyed this decklist. Thank you for taking the time to read the description and view the cards. Have a great day and please comment! I love responding and take all suggestions.