Introduction
Alright, I'm gonna get something something out of the way right here and now: I love
Marchesa, the Black Rose
, but damn if she isn't a pain in the ass to build. I love brewing don't get me wrong, that's not the problem at all, the problem is that in
Marchesa
I want everything! She can do a ton of different things: Wizards, Modular, prison, value, aristocrats, and so much more! And I freaking suck at killing my darlings, so yeah, I've had a hard time building with her! I don't think one of her decks that I've built has lasted more than two months before I've decided "not good enough" and torn it apart to rebuild. However, I think I finally found a build that I'm settled on, and I love it!
One more time, I love
Marchesa
, that's why I've rebuilt her a million times, because I've never found any of my builds to be good enough for what she can do and what I want her to do, but this list... oh yeah, I love this list.
My Queen!
I always like start my commander primers by taking a look at the commander itself, so let's do that shall we?
Dethrone
Alright, I'll take it, for one it's quite flavorful for Marchesa, and hey, I'm all for making my general bigger and also using this for politics, I dig it.
Other creatures you control have dethrone.
Okay, now that's cool. A dethrone lord in the command zone, again, super flavorful, her army gets to get stronger when they're attacking the ass in the throne that right fully belongs to her, plus, I mean, that makes her a lord for every creature but even better, they can grow each combat! I love this, it's flavorful, it's powerful, I'm all for it, now if only we could use those counters some how...
Whenever a creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it dies, return that card to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the next end step.
Oh... that'll do! So now, whenever a creature we control with a counter on it dies, it will just come back at the next end step, and what's fun about this is that it's a death trigger, not an end step trigger. What that means is that, if a creature dies and then someone takes out
Marchesa
, so long as
Marchesa
saw the other creature die, it will enter at the next end step even if she isn't in play at the end step. (and yes, this means that if
Marchesa
herself dies with a counter, she too will come back on end step, I know, I love it too!)
How to Build Marchesa
There are ton of ways to build
Marchesa
, as I meantioned earlier, hence why it has taken me just about three years to finally find a build for her that I am satisfied with. (and that's an exaggeration, I bought her during Dominaria Standard, so yeah, three years) However, while there may be a million and one ways to build around
Marchesa
, pretty much each and every one revolves around that last ability: Whenever a creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it dies, return that card to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the next end step.
This allows us to do some pretty stupid shit, especially since it triggers each end step, including our opponents'. So yeah, whether it's abusing ETBs and/or Death Triggers or just stopping our opponents from ever dealing with our board, this is the part of
Marchesa
we should focus on.
However, her being a dethrone lord is far from irrelevant, especially given that last line of text. You might notice that our mana base looks a lot like a certain Modern deck's... yeah, we're basically Grixis
Death's Shadow
but in commander. We use fetches, shocks, pain lands, and talismans to keep our life total low so our ass stays off the throne... so yeah, our mana base is fucking expensive. Now, you don't have to use this hella expensive mana base, especially the nine fetches, but I think it's worth it, I mean, yeah, printer ink can be pretty pricey these days, but I don't think it's that bad. What do you mean "buy the cards?" For real though, the pain lands, talismans, and shocks are just good on their own if you'd rather use basics and checks in place of the fetches... but really, proxy, this game is casual, any one who says no to proxies in EDH can go screw a bear trap.
Now then, with all of that out of the way, let's dive into to my final final final final (maybe) deck for
Marchesa, the Black Rose
.
Every blue deck needs counters... tha- that's it, that's the joke. Really though, holy crap, this section was a pain in the
ass. I have had a few people say that they don't love
Marchesa's
design because she seems like a pre built commander, and to everyone out there saying that I ask that you please put "+1/+1 counter" in scry fall and set the commander's colors to
and see what you find. Look at all of those options... there are a few... about a dozen of the 457 are actually what we want, but yeah, I guess it's good to have options.
However, while I might complain a little about this, I actually appreciate how little counter generators there are in Grixis. If I had
The Great Henge
or
Cathars' Crusade
in Marchesa's colors it would be dumb and also very easy, so I do appreciate the challenge of figuring out the best ways to get counters in Grixis.
Now then, these are the most important pieces of our deck. We need ways to protect our board, especially Marchesa since we can't get a dethrone trigger with her the turn she comes down. So, usually, we want to spend the earlier turns trying to find one of these and putting it into play. Now then, let's take a look at the list of counter engines I selected for this deck.
Agitator Ant
is a new one to the crew, and it's a lot better than I had originally given it credit for. For one, it triggers on end step, so that means that we can use it to protect Marchesa the turn she comes down. Plus, this little guys is a "group hug" card, or at least, that's what a lot of your opponents
think it is. I mean, hey, it's free counters for their creatures, awesome! But really, we don't give a shit about that, because it will help us
way more than it will help our opponent (unless they're playing a counters deck as well I suppose) and by the time they realize that it's probably too late. I love this little guy, so unassuming, until it's too late.
Cytoplast Manipulator
and
Vigean Graftmage
are some of the best counter generators in the deck. They enter with counters themselves and then whenever a creature enters the battlefield we can move a counter from them onto that creature. So, not only do these guys come with self protection with the counters, but the fact that they can move the counters whenever a creature
enters means we can protect our best pieces on the end step. Basically, we sacrifice this and a creature we want to recur, then to the next end step. Then we can stack it so that the Manipulator/Graftmage will enter first, and
then the creature we are looking to recur so that we can then move a counter. We can do this every turn, getting value off of our best creature and any death triggers we currently have out.
Feast on the Fallen
was a card that I put into the deck and then took out, and then put back in, and then took back out, but the
third time it stayed. This card is brilliant, it triggers each upkeep, and it only cares if an opponent lost life, not
how they lost the life. One person's a threat so everyone needs to attack them? We get a counter. Opponent's
Blood Artist
shot another opponent in the face? We get a counter. Someone cracked a fetch or shocked in a
Hallowed Fountain
? Guess what, we get a counter.
This gets even nuttier with some of the cards we have in the list as well, like
Zulaport Cutthroat
or
Flayer of the Hatebound
allowing us to trigger it on each and every upkeep. This card has treated me quite well thus far and I don't know why I ever cut it from the list at all.
Ninety percent of the time
Metallic Mimic
is coming down and naming Wizard. We have a lot of Wizards in the deck, and
Marchesa
herself is a Wizard, so it protects our most important piece and also most of our deck along with her. However, the versatility is nice, especially since we can sacrifice later on and choose a different creature as it enters, so this is for sure a very powerful piece in our deck.
Olivia, Mobilized for War
is a great counter generator that had ignored for... about three years, and I can't believe I did. Discarding a card is practically free in this deck given the amount of card draw we can generate by recurring creatures with
Marchesa
. No conditions, no moving counters, no specific creature types, just discard a card when it enters and we get a free counter, done and done. I like to think Marchesa and Olivia would be good friends if they ever met.
Like I said when I went over Mimic, we have a lot of Wizards in the deck and
Marchesa
is, herself, a Wizard, so
Sage of Fables
is quite good! Also, since it says "enters with an additional +1/+1 counter" and not "when it enters, put a +1/+1 counter on it" it means it's not a triggered ability so it can't be
Stifled
and our opponent can't remove the creature in response to the counter being put onto it. It's also a card draw engine of sorts, but that's really a desperation mode I find, so yeah, the top half is the meat of this card.
I saved the best for last, and damn if
Unspeakable Symbol
ain't the best counters generator in this deck. Pay 3 life: put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. So, this not only can protect at instant speed, but we can use it on any creature,
and it hurts us so it also keeps us off the throne for dethrone triggers... yeah, best one in the deck. Also, what I love is that if our opponent tries to double spell us we can still respond to put a counter on whatever they're targeting. Sure, we'd have to pay another 3 life, but this basically reads "pay 3 life, regenerate target creature" in our deck...
and that's the floor! Now then, admittedly, this card gets worse the longer the game goes on and our life total dwindles, but it's the best one early on the game to help get us set up and keep our board protected from our opponents' interaction.
Marchesa
needs our creatures to die in order to work, so we, naturally, need some sacrifice outlets, in specific,
free sacrifice outlets. We need to be able to sacrifice our creatures on demand without having to worry about a mana valve, this way we can gain advantage with our ETBs and LTBs every turn and also protect our board with removal like
Path to Exile
or
Terminus
. So, naturally, we have a pretty stock list of sacrifice outlets so that we can find one consistently enough.
These three are grouped together because they are sacrifice outlets with some major extra utility for the deck.
I love
Ashnod's Altar
so much. Not only is it free sacrifice outlet, but it also makes mana, so it even doubles as a piece of ramp!
Viscera Seer
is a virtual card advantage engine, putting all of the cards we no longer want on the bottom of the deck, and make sure we hit our land drops, draw gas, and find our pieces in time.
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
does a few things here. For one, his sacrifice part allows us to not only dwindle down our opponent's creatures but also draw cards, and he even has us pay life so we can stay off of the throne. So Yawgmoth can fill two to three roles on board all by himself: removal, card draw engine, and counter engine in the way of enabling dethrone. Finally, he also allows us to proliferate our board, which can definitely be a way to really grow our creatures possibly win through combat damage.
These are all grouped together because they all have the same role: a sacrifice outlet that can protect itself.
Bloodflow Connoisseur
and
Carrion Feeder
can each protect themselves because sacrificing a creature puts a +1/+1 counter on them, and we know what that means in this deck. They can even sacrifice themselves so if they have a
Swords to Plowshares
get pointed at them they can sac themselves to avoid getting exiled.
Woe Strider
comes in with a friend which is already a nice plus, but he also allows us to sacrifice to scry and find whatever pieces we're currently looking for. On top of that, he has escape (which works great in a deck full of fetches mind you) and even escapes with two +1/+1 counters, which also keep it protected. The one downside here is that it can't sacrifice itself, so if our opponent points a
Baleful Mastery
at it, then we'll just have to let him go unless we have another sac outlet out, but outside of that, this is a great sac outlet.
Yahenni, Undying Partisan
has haste, which is already a form of protection with
Marchesa
, he can attack the turn he comes down to get a counter off of dethrone. Beyond that, his sacrifice benefit is giving him indestructible which is also quite handy, and finally, whenever a creature an opponent controls dies he gets a counter. Similar to
Woe Strider
, the one downside is that he can't sacrifice himself, but again, it's worth that one little downside.
Bloodthrone Vampire
is a two mana sacrifice outlet that can also sac herself, she has no other utility, but she's very cheap to get down so we play her.
Every deck needs some card advantage, and boy oh boy do we got card advantage! We have quite a few card advantage spells and engines in the deck because our deck practically a Rube Goldberg machine, it needs quite a few pieces to function: a sacrifice outlet, counter engines, and of course
Marchesa
. Because of this, we need to ensure we can find all of these pieces consistently and early enough to get our board set up and protected and start taking over the game. So, drawing cards and digging for all of our pieces is very important, so we have a lot of cheap and efficient card advantage to help get us there.
Not only does
Bloodtracker
protect itself, but it synergizes really well with all of the other counter generators in the deck. We can use our other counters generators and even
Marchesa's
dethrone effect to stack this sucker full of counters so that we can draw a bunch of cards. It's like
Greed
on a creature, and one of our best card advantage engines.
Disciple of Bolas
draws a bunch of cards and gains us life. Now, I know that life gain can sound pretty counter intuitive given the fact that we are a dethrone deck, but we really only want to use dethrone early on. As the game goes along we'll build up our board with better ways to put counters on our creatures, and that point, we'll want some life gain to help stabilize our life total. Also, this thing just draws a ton of cards. Our deck is Grixis counters in a way, so we will have no problem growing our creatures, and then this little guy can just sacrifice it to draw a bunch of cards and gain a ton of life.
Grim Haruspex
and
Midnight Reaper
are probably our best card advantage engines since they just draw a card whenever a creature we control dies. Now,
Midnight Reaper
does shoot us in the face for it, but it's worth it for having what is essentially a second copy of Haruspex, and we can even benefit from it early on as a way to keep us off of the throne.
While
Magmatic Channeler
doesn't have any kind of ETB or LTB that we can abuse with
Marchesa
, it still functions as a two mana card draw engine, almost like a
Bob
but also affordable. So yeah, not abusable with Marchesa's last line of text, but still a very efficient card advantage engine that can help us find our pieces early on and get set up for the mid to late game.
Everyone loves a
Mully-D
, it's
Divination
on a creature, and yes, it can get quite stupid in a deck looking to recur its creatures over and over again. Two cards every end step, draw eight cards every lap around the table, yeah, it's pretty nice.
We can't rely too heavily on our creatures, especially in the early game, so we need a few spells that can draw us cards as well.
Notion Rain
basically a better
Read the Bones
if you're in Dimir colors, which we are, so naturally, I slotted it in.
Sign in Blood
is two mana two cards two life. Draws us cards, can be cast early on, and keeps us off the throne, I'll take it!
Treasure Cruise
in a deck full of fetches, I think I've heard this story before.
Riverwise Augur
is a repeatable
Brainstorm
for us, and guess what, we're running all nine fetches, so... yeah, it's pretty good in a list like this.
Sea Gate Oracle
is a lot more powerful than it might look at first. Much like Riverwise Augur, this is a spell on a creature, in this, it's
Sleight of Hand
, which, again, is a much more powerful cantrip than you might think. Looking at the top two and picking your favorite is like a strictly better
Opt
, and being able to do that every turn like we can in this deck is, well, pretty incredible. The amount of cards you end up seeing with this little guy is incredible, and he can really help us find whatever it is we need at any given time.
Okay, after a few turns we should have our board set up. We have a way to generate counters consistently, a sacrifice outlet, a card advantage engine, and, of course, our queen,
Marchesa
. Now that we have our board in a state that opponents have no hope of ever getting rid of we need to start going in for the kill. This is where our interaction comes into play, because now that our board is set up and ready to go, it's time for us to start dismantling our opponents' boards.
Much like the card draw we have, we can't completely rely on our creatures. If someone plays something like a
Rest in Peace
or a
Hushbringer
we need a way to deal with it outside of creatures since that will turn them off. So, here we have a few spells that can take out our opponent's hate bears and turn our deck back on.
Abrade
and
Feed the Swarm
are mainly here to deal with graveyard hate.
Grafdigger's Cage
,
Soul-Guide Lantern
,
Rest in Peace
and
Leyline of the Void
can be death sentences for this deck, so we need ways to take them out before we become irrelevant and/or lose everything we've been working for thus far.
Chaos Warp
is the best red removal spell ever printed in commander. It can deal with pretty much any permanent we need gotten rid, and since it can get rid of lands we can even use it to stop someone who might be holding a
Scavenger Grounds
over our head.
Price of Fame
is just doom blade against pretty much every commander and
Tragic Slip
like commander's
Fatal Push
, super efficient removal, and it is very easy to trigger Morbid in this deck.
Every blue deck needs counters... no, for real this time, every blue deck should have a few counter spells.
Arcane Denial
is like a second copy of
Counterspell
in our deck, and it even replaces itself which is great in commander.
Counterspell
is, well,
Counterspell
, it's awesome.
Negate
is super worth it in commander, we can stop things like
Time Warp
,
Omniscience
,
Expropriate
, insert other busted noncreature spell you come across. It can even stop something like a
Terminus
if we're still looking for a sacrifice outlet, or protect
Marchesa
while we wait to untap with her and get a dethrone counter onto her.
Here we have the removal we want to use over and over again with our commander.
AEther Adept
is a good way to erase tokens, reset counters on creatures, or just really annoy your opponents by forcing them to replay the same creature every turn over and over again.
Plaguecrafter
is one of the best repeatable removal effects in this deck. They have to sacrifice, good luck getting past that! And sure, it doesn't allow us to target which is a bit of an issue for sure, but after awhile we'll have dwindled our opponent's boards down so much that they'll have no good options left and have to start sacrificing the good stuff.
Ravenous Chupacabra
is
Murder
on a stick, and as it turns out, casting Murder every turn for free is pretty nasty.
Shriekmaw
is just Doomblade on a stick, and, similarly to Chupes, casting a free Doomblade every turn can be pretty degenerate.
Okay, we have a board with a sac-outlet, some card advantage, some removal to keep our opponents in check, and plenty of ways to keep our board full of counters. Our opponents have started to look at us and have quickly realized our board isn't going anywhere, so they've decided to resort to plan B: player removal. It's time to end the game for they end us, so let's get to it then.
It doesn't need an introduction, it doesn't need an explanation, it doesn't need anything, it's freaking
Agent of Treachery
in a flicker deck!
Our opponents can't do anything to us if they don't have a board, so...
Dictate of Erebos
is very stupid when we just keep getting back our creatures. This enchantment basically turns every single one of our creatures into a
Fleshbag Marauder
so you can imagine how quickly this can tear your opponents' boards apart.
Profaner of the Dead
because sometimes dead isn't enough, this is commander after all, some decks want their stuff in the graveyard, but how many decks what all of their creatures in their hand? This can trigger every turn, your opponents will never get a creature to stick unless it's big enough, and even if it is, we can use our counter engines to get an exploit target high enough.
I suppose we can also win with damage, not as fun but it is an option I guess.
Dire Fleet Ravager
is a fun way to just destroy everyone's life total, and yes, this includes our own, but we have a few ways to gain life in the deck so that shouldn't be too much of an issue to sort out once we've gotten to this point. Also, math is always useful, if we're at 12 life and our opponent is at 30, they'll die before we do if we can also stop any other damage coming our way.
Flayer of the Hatebound
is basically a
Warstorm Surge
on a creature, and sure it only triggers if the creature came in from the graveyard, but uh... that's our whole deck, so yeah. Oh, and it also has undying, which is really fun with
Marchesa
, trust me.
Zulaport Cutthroat
is a classic. I like him over
Blood Artist
because he says each so we can take out all of our opponents much quicker with him than with an artist.
Every deck, in my opinion, should have at least one infinite combo so that it can put an end to slog fests when they occur.
Puppeteer Clique
is our infinite combo. Combine this sucker with
Sage of Fables
or
Metallic Mimic
and boom. It'll die, persist will trigger and it will come back, and then the counters with cancel each other out so it can die again for another persist trigger. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But what do we get out of it? Well, for one, it has a helluva nice ETB of just stealing our opponent's stuff from the graveyard. It gives the creatures haste, so we can attack with them straight away, and if we can put counters on them we can keep them for ever by sacrificing them before the end step.
Beyond that, well, the other cards we already went over also combo quite well with this.
Flayer of the Hatebound
does infinite damage, as does
Zulaport Cutthroat
.
Dictate of Erebos
means your opponents will never get to stick a creature ever again. We can also draw our entire deck with
Grim Haruspex
, or scry through it all with
Viscera Seer
.
Infinite doesn't always mean you win, but there are quite a few ways to make sure this one does.
I saved the best for last, the deck's
true win con, the best way to win a game of commander: looping
Bearer of the Heavens
every turn. Need I say more? It destroys all permanents, and we don't give a shit because our creatures will just keep coming back. Even if our opponent tries to screw with by casting something like a
Boros Charm
we'll just do it again next turn and see if they have the same trick. If they go for a
Humility
we can just sacrifice our board in response and Bearer's end step trigger will still happen. The only way out from under it is
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
, or a
Stifle
effect on the trigger to bring Bearer back on the end step. This card is a beast, I love it, it's such a fun win con, I love it.
