Legitimacy: The Treasure of Politics

Commander / EDH Control Multiplayer Pillow Fort Primer RBW (Mardu)

Enral

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Inspiring Vantage
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Mistveil Plains
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 4x Plains
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Utility (7)

• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Treasure Map  ^Flip
• 1x Vedalken Orrery

Card Advantage (3)

• 1x Alms Collector
• 1x Humble Defector
• 1x Necropotence

Interaction (14)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Hide / Seek
• 1x Lapse of Certainty
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Seal of Cleansing
• 1x Seal of Doom
• 1x Soul Snare
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Puzzle Box
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Utter End

Ramp (11)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Smothering TitheGC
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Protection (10)

• 1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope
• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Delaying Shield
• 1x Greater Auramancy
• 1x Karmic Justice
• 1x Lapse of Certainty
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Solitary Confinement
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Teferi's Protection

Recursion (5)

• 1x Mistveil Plains
• 1x Pull from Eternity
• 1x Replenish
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold

Win Condition (2)

• 1x Luminarch Ascension
• 1x Revel in Riches

Commander (1)

Pillowfort (11)

• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• 1x Gravity Sphere
• 1x Island Sanctuary
• 1x Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Platinum Angel
• 1x Righteous Aura
• 1x Solitary Confinement
• 1x Sphere of Safety
• 1x Windborn Muse

Politics (10)

• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Duelist's Heritage
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Humble Defector
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Seal of Cleansing
• 1x Seal of Doom
• 1x Soul Snare
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip

Tutor (8)

• 1x Academy Rector
• 1x Demonic TutorGC
• 1x Enlightened TutorGC
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Tithe
• 1x Vampiric TutorGC
• 1x Weathered Wayfarer

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Maybeboard

Other (2)

• 1x Chance for Glory
• 1x Temple Bell

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Legitimacy: The Treasure of Politics

Let's Get Political

Introduction

Welcome to my Queen Marchesa deck. If you like pillowfort, control, politics, and unique win conditions, this is the perfect deck for you! It's essentially a 4-in-1 kinda deal! This deck essentially wants to build a pillowfort while using political tools like Humble Defector to gain favors. Once I've got Smothering Tithe into play, I can start hyper-accelerating everyone's card draw with Teferi's Puzzle Box while ramping me even further to eventually close out the game with Revel in Riches.

Treasures?!

Yes. This deck is all about abusing that treasure token in every way possible. Smothering Tithe converts having my opponents gaining the monarchy to generate more treasure tokens. Treasure Cove allows me to convert treasure tokens into card advantage. Revel in Riches turns blood bath into treasure tokens and wins me the game. Treasure tokens generate me a ton of mana to be able to further my boardstate faster than everyone else at the table.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

You'll love this deck is you like table talks and playing the political game in your pod. You'll also enjoy having almost every answer at your finger-tips once you have Sunforger in play. You'll probably not enjoy this deck if you want a straight-forward deck, combo, and prefer aggro over pillowfort/control type of strategies.

The Monarchy

General Strategy

The main strategy is to control the flow of the game with politics and Sunforger to incentivize opponents to do things for Queen Marchesa (long may she reigns). We also want to fully exploit the card Smothering Tithe to gain unprecedented mana advantage via treasure tokens with drawing mechanics like Teferi's Puzzle Box. Once the pod is fully under our grasp, and with a ton of treasure tokens in play generated by Smothering Tithe, we will eventually win with Revel in Riches. The ideal boardstate is to have Queen Marchesa and Sunforger in play. The key is to have open mana and a full grip at all times to create a perception that you have the answers to any threats. It is sometimes alright to let our opponents get the Monarch especially if we are in need of extra bodies versus card draw.

Protecting the Monarchy

Securing the monarchy is a tough endeavor as the power to draw a card at every endstep is a very tempting advantage and is hard to resist. The following are cards and notable synergies to help us with that:

• Delaying Shield + Mirage Mirror = Take no damage as long as you hold up each turn for mirror to copy shield to transfer delay counters to it.
• Gravity Sphere + Island Sanctuary = No creatures can attack me (note that Island Sanctuary is effectively negated by Necropotence/Solitary Confinement)
• Alms Collector + Teferi's Puzzle Box = Basically a combo to lock out everyone's hand.
• Solitary Confinement = The ultimate enchantment to prevent any interaction from our opponents.
• Delaying Shield = You'll never lose the monarchy.
• Avacyn, Angel of Hope = Protects my board from most boardwipes.
• Pull from Eternity + Teferi's Protection = Get to use Teferi's Protection again as many times as we want by tucking it back to library with Mistveil Plains.

Getting Political

The deck at it's core is all about leveraging politics to advance our board state. Maze of Ith is a great land to help out another player in need and buying favor. We don't really run many cards that interferes with my opponent's board or cards they play as that will draw unnecessary attention to our board and affect our political leverage power. The following are ways to use politics to our advantage:

• Maze of Ith = "I'll save you from that attack if you promise
• Humble Defector = "I'll give him to you if you promise to give him back to me after you use him to draw."

Revel in Riches

Revel in Riches

With the printing of the card Smothering Tithe, letting my opponents draw cards is now a build around engine since it will let me generate a bunch of treasure tokens to inevitably draw me closer to my win condition Revel in Riches. The following are cards and notable synergies that generates card advantage:

• Alms Collector + Humble Defector = Turns a card advantage for our opponents into symmetrical card draw.
• Necropotence + Solitary Confinement = Bypass the draw phase restriction for a simple cost of life loss and one exiled card a turn.
• Homeward Path + Humble Defector = Turns Humble Defector into a draw engine for me alone only.
• Teferi's Puzzle Box + Vedalken Orrery = Allows me to play whatever I draw at instant speed before I put those cards away.
• Solitary Confinement + Teferi's Puzzle Box = I'm unaffected by Teferi's Puzzle Box since I'm skipping my draw phase due to Solitary Confinement. Works with Necropotence too.

Getting to the Promise Land

My deck aims to win via Revel in Riches and there are several combo synergies in the deck that allows me to generate multiple treasure tokens. The most important treasure token generator is Smothering Tithe and it is paramount to get that into play ASAP whenever possible to get the ball rolling. In a creature filled boardstate, having Academy Rector and Phyrexian Tower out is a significant rattlesnake as a simple boardwipe can literally give me the victory as I can sac her in response to fetch Revel in Riches to win. Similarly, having Smothering Tithe and a bunch of treasure tokens in play will elicit a similar response with rector/tower in play. If plan A falls apart, my secondary win condition is to generate enough Angel tokens with Luminarch Ascension to secure the throne. A good way to ensure I get Luminarch Ascension to take off is to to pair it up with Delaying Shield or Solitary Confinement.

Footnotes

Queen Marchesa is a very fun mardu commander to build around. I've tinkered with multiple different builds including goodstuff, hatebears, and voltron which are all viable and powerful strategies to build around. I ultimately settled on the pillowfort/politics build as it is more well-received in a general pod at my LGS and less cut-throat than my other iterations. Upgrading the deck into a leaner and meaner version is possible and the following are cards to be considered:

• Humility
• Glacial Chasm
• Solemnity
• Phyrexian Unlife
• Blood Moon
• Torpor Orb
• Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Please upvote to if you love me some treasure!

Top Ranked	Achieved #2 position overall 8 years ago
Date added	8 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Necropotence + Solitary Confinement Alms Collector + Humble Defector Alms Collector + Teferi's Puzzle Box Teferi's Puzzle Box + Vedalken Orrery Pull from Eternity + Teferi's Protection Solitary Confinement + Teferi's Puzzle Box Homeward Path + Humble Defector Gravity Sphere + Island Sanctuary Delaying Shield + Mirage Mirror
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 56 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.98
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Assassin 1/1 B w/ Haste, Ogre 3/3 R, Spirit 1/1 C, Monarch Emblem, Treasure
Folders	My EDH Brews, other people's edh decks i like, Decks I like, edh lists, Primers, Decks I like, EDH - Someone Else's Deck, Commander / EDH, Makin, Maybe