Marchesa, Political Queen of Pillows

Commander / EDH Aikido Control Pillow Fort RBW (Mardu)

MegaMatt13

Land (36)

• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Kor Haven
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 5x Plains
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Savai Triome
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Vault of Champions

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Besmirch
• 1x Damn
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Disrupt Decorum
• 1x Farewell
• 1x Insurrection
• 1x Mythos of Snapdax
• 1x Painful Truths
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Ruinous Ultimatum

Instant (16)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Comeuppance
• 1x Deflecting Palm
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Delirium
• 1x Despark
• 1x Inkshield
• 1x Mandate of Peace
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Stinging Study
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Wear / Tear

Artifact (13)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bloodthirsty Blade
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Treasure Map  ^Flip

Commander (1)

Creature (13)

• 1x Brash Taunter
• 1x Breena, the Demagogue
• 1x Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1x Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• 1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• 1x Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant
• 1x Kardur, Doomscourge
• 1x Mangara, the Diplomat
• 1x Prosper, Tome-Bound
• 1x Royal Assassin
• 1x Selfless Squire
• 1x Windborn Muse
• 1x Xantcha, Sleeper Agent

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Court of Ambition
• 1x Court of Grace
• 1x Cunning Rhetoric
• 1x Curse of Opulence
• 1x Duelist's Heritage
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Wound Reflection

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Hate Mirage
• 1x Mob Rule

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Gossamer Chains

Instant (1)

• 1x Dawn Charm

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Queen Marchesa (long may the true queen reign) gained the throne through her cunning. She now uses her arsenal of protective spells, political shenanigans, and combat tricks to maintain her throne.

This is a political control deck that encourages opponents to target each other instead of you. The deck contains a lot of pillowfort effects designed to protect you while your opponents kill each other. Please provide feedback and upvote if you like! Please read the Notable Exclusions section to see if your suggestion has already been considered.

Not Worthy of her Presence: Notable Exclusions

The following cards I have tried or put a great deal of thought into. Marchesa is a very selective queen and these cards were found to be unworthy of her splendor:

Crackling Doom: I list this one first because I'm still on the fence with it. It's been in and out of my deck a million times. It's a Mardu staple and EDHREC shows that a lot of people use it in Marchesa. I just don't like that it doesn't target. Sometimes the biggest creatures aren't the most problematic. Having said all that, it is very good card advantage and gets around hexproof/indesctructibility. It may find its way back in.

Solitary Confinement: Probably the most controversial exclusion. This is the ultimate pillowfort card and deck builders I highly respect include it. I've thought long and hard about this one and I've found that I've never been in a position where I think "oh wow I wish I had a solitary confinement to get me out of this mess". It's card disadvantage is just too steep. The whole point of Marchesa is incremental card advantage with the Monarch mechanic. The Monarch mechanic helps you achieve card parity with this enchantment...but that's not good enough. The pillowfort of this deck is strong enough without it.

Necropotence: Probably the best legal card draw spell in the format...which is exactly its problem. It screams "destroy me and punish my owner". This deck is about subtle incremental card advantage that opponents find non-threatening. Necropotence is the exact opposite of that.

Mystifying Maze: 4 mana always felt a lot for this effect. Plus I didn't like that it "flickered" the attacking creature, giving the opponent an extra ETB trigger.

Norn's Annex: This card worked ok but sometimes wasn't enough of a deterrent to attack to justify its mana cost.

Skyline Despot, Protector of the Crown, Custodi Lich, Knights of the Black Rose, Throne of the High City and Marchesa's Decree: I tried all of these and they were unnecessary. With Marchesa in the command zone, other monarch cards just aren't needed. Their abilities are mostly too expensive for what they do. Skyline Despot in particular was terrible in this build. He painted a huge target on me. He'd be effective in aggro token builds but not this pillowfort. The only one of these I'm still on the fence about is Marchesa's Decree. It's a pillowfort enchantment and it's CMC isn't bad for what it does. It may find its way back.

Ankle Shanker: Another Mardu staple. It would be great in an aggressive token build of Marchesa, but not in this pillowfort build.

Kaervek the Merciless: This card is a blast but too much of a target in this deck. Has a better home in other Rakdos builds.

Slumbering Dragon: Wow this dragon was sleepy. The "threat" of waking a vanilla dragon just wasn't enough to prevent people from attacking.

Goblin Diplomats and Goblin Spymaster: People are funny. When you force them to attack they will often attack YOU out of spite. I could see these working in an aggro or chaos build though.

Bitter Feud: Similar to the goblins listed above, people often attacked me out of spite for naming them.

Reflect Damage: On theme with the deck but just too expensive for its effect.

Luminarch Ascension and Bloodchief Ascension: These enchantments incentive opponents to attack you to prevent you from turning them on. Exact opposite of what this deck wants.

Protecting the Crown

The main theme of the deck is to dissuade others from attacking you and remain the monarch. The following cards achieve this in various ways:

Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse impose mana costs on opponents should they attack us.

Court of Ambition and Court of Grace both give us the crown back if a pesky subject steals it while also generating value over the long term.

Maze of Ith, Thaumatic Compass   and Kor Haven work great against voltron strategies or other large beaters.

Gossamer Chains is similar to the above lands. It can make attacking with one large beater seem futile, redirecting the attack to an easier opponent.

No Mercy threatens an opponent's army with destruction should they connect.

Prosper, Tome-Bound acts as a rattlesnake with his deathtouch while slowly accruing value

Brash Taunter dissuades attackers as their damage would just bounce back to the owner.

Marchesa's Political Trickery

Marchesa used her cunning to gain the throne. The deck includes political cards that encourage opponents to attack each other:

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight encourages opponents to attack each other so that they can get the double damage bonus instead of seeing their damage halved when attacking you.

Wound Reflection is similar to Gisela in that encourages opponents to expend resources attacking each other for the extra damage.

Besmirch steals and then goads a creature so that it MUST attack someone else.

Disrupt Decorum and Kardur, Doomscourge create pandemonium forcing opponents to attack each other even if it isn't in their best interest. It can lead to resentments between opponents, exactly what our Queen loves.

Duelist's Heritage allows you to make deals with opponents. You can offer to give one of their creatures double strike if they attack someone else.

Breena, the Demagogue and Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant incentivize opponents to leave you alone in exchange for card draw while Curse of Opulence offers them mana. Of course as a greedy Queen we'll be gaining advantage too.

Cunning Combat Tricks

The pillow fort and political shenanigans aren't the only trick Marchesa has up her sleeves. She has a few instant-speed tricks to be used in case of the enemy storming the palace.

Sunforger gives our illustrious queen a large mallet that can be unattached in order to conjure nasty surprises.

Comeuppance can be an absolute blow out against an opponent's army, crippling their board state.

Teferi's Protection is the ultimate fog. It protects our Queen and her permanents from EVERYTHING. Combat damage, X spells to the face, boardwipes, targeted removal...nothing can touch her until our next turn.

Deflecting Palm is helpful when a burn spell or a voltron commander is coming after you. 21 commander damage? Naw, you take 21 to the face instead.

Selfless Squire absorbs all the damage you take and gives you a giant beater in return.

Inkshield also fogs an attack while giving you a massive army in return.

Delirium punishes opponents for getting too big for their breeches.

Mandate of Peace nullifies an opponent's combat while also preventing them from casting any further spells.

She's One Controlling Queen

In order to keep the throne, Marchesa needs to be able to banish troublesome subjects and their toys.

Anguished Unmaking, Despark, Wear / Tear, Mortify, Path to Exile, and Swords to Plowshares are instant-speed removal. Most of them are exile effects so they truly can't bother you anymore.

Rakdos Charm can either be used for artifact or graveyard removal. Also punishes armies from going wide.

Rest in Peace and Scavenger Grounds shut down graveyard strategies, reducing opponents' ability to accrue value over the course of the game.

Damn, Mythos of Snapdax, Ruinous Ultimatum, and Farewell cleanse the board of naughty subjects.

Win Conditions

The deck mostly wants opponents to do the dirty work for you until you're left with one final opponent. The deck has a few cards that can help finish the job:

Insurrection is the most obvious one. Allow the enemy to build a large army. Steal it and crush them with it.

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight + Wound Reflection doubles damage and can close out games quickly.

Rakdos Charm and can finish off decks that go wide.

Sunforger gives a big power buff that can be equipped to Marchesa for commander damage.

Top Ranked	Achieved #9 position overall 7 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Pillow Fort 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH RBW (Mardu) 5 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.19
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Assassin 1/1 B w/ Haste, Gold, Inkling 2/1 WB, Spirit 1/1 W, The Monarch, Treasure
Folders	Decks of Interest - EDH, inspiration, edh_to_build, EDH, The Queen, Marchesa's Machinations, EDH References, all decks, Decks to Build, Ideas