Sorry for the silence of late. I was out of the country with limited web access for a week, then had a ton of things to catch up on when I got back. I hope to do a little updating and response to questions tonight, but for now, I just updated the deck with scans of the Queen Marchesa alter, The Lonely Mountain for my only basic mountain in the deck, and a borderless extension Vampire Nighthawk I recently acquired. Enjoy, and stay tuned.

As an initial question before my updates, this deck has fallen off of the deck search lists. Can anyone tell me why I can't find it through searching? I assume that no one else can find it either, and that is a shame.

hey i have been running Solemnity with great results mainly due to the pairing with Glacial Chasm and Dark Depths

Hexekk, that is a great suggestion. In a meta with a lot of infect or +1/+1 counters, that would be pretty great. It has been on my list of things to try I just haven't tried it yet. It also combos with Delaying Shield, but it has strong anti-synergy with both Selfless Squire and Sun Droplet. It would take a little rearranging to make it work. Removing Sun Droplet, you could replace it with the Glacial Chasm for an arguably stronger Pillow Fort card. Removing the Selfless Squire would be a huge hit to the offense and remove a very good Fog. Replacing it with Dark Depths would be fun, I ran it in the past, but I am not sure it does everything I want. The Thespian's Stage and Vesuva I had in before would help to get the Dark Depths combo out, but takes some set up. Also, we are adding a lot of things in that require two cards to make either any good, and Solemnity is pretty useless by itself. Not sure what I think about it. I think that without a strong Infect presence in your meta, I am not sure I could see it being a game changer.

mintymustache, Bedlam is pretty crazy. It looks like it would have a crazy effect on the game. It would also be anti-synnergistic, as you note, with my defensive creatures. Still, you could easily tune the list to include it. Still, I am not sure I like the fact that, once in play, I would have no control of who can block, unlike similar cards already in the list. Not sure it fits the list perfectly.

Cthulhupoof9797, I love the idea of Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist as an Aikido commander. I would run Tymna the Weaver as the partner. You get and more card draw that actually synergizes well with Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist. If going that way, I would also add in other punisher style cards that just damage opponents each turn. Link a list when you have one.

so i have been getting a lot of play out of Wound Reflection often i hold on to allot of the bombs till its out. so i was wondering how you feel about Bitter Feud. or something like Quest for Pure Flame

Just played my first real game after finally settling on a starting list. Ended up having to drop the wishboard for financial reasons, but I feel I've kept most of the rest of the deck on theme. I won using an Insurrection the turn following a Rise of the Dark Realms. It was a blast! Can't wait to play more.

Just played my first real game after finally settling on a starting list. Ended up having to drop the wishboard for financial reasons, but I feel I've kept most of the rest of the deck on theme. I won using an Insurrection the turn following a Rise of the Dark Realms. It was a blast! Can't wait to play more.

mintymustache, I am not sure I like either one of those cards. Please don't take that wrong, I really appreciate the investment in the deck that you exhibit in suggesting them. I had not seen Quest for Pure Flame, but had considered Bitter Feud and passed it by. Please let me explain.

For Quest for Pure Flame, the build up necessary requires 4 separate damaging effects from you against your enemies to go off, and then you sacrifice it to double a single damage effect. That is a lot of work, may anger people prematurely, and would not be surprising or out of nowhere like I prefer. Boros Charm can sorta do that for a single creature attack, it comes out of nowhere, and it is a modal spell with spectacular other uses, without any meaningful increase in the cost over Quest for Pure Flame. There are probably other cards with similar effects that are instant style combat tricks that would play better than Quest for Pure Flame. I even tried Slumbering Dragon at one point. It was less spectacular than I had hoped due to the build up necessary. Cards with that kind of build up need either a huge payoff to make it worthwhile, or some trick to make it easier to pull of. That kind of build around has no room in this deck.

As for Bitter Feud, if both players agree to ignore it, it is worthless. I don't know about your meta, but in mine, that would be standard operating procedure. That is why Cruel Entertainment didn't work with players I play with. It gives them complete control, and no other advantage. Other cards like Furnace of Rath and Dictate of the Twin Gods do similar things, only they affect every source, not just from the people targeted, and there is no choice to minimize things. I would go for those first.

In any case, I think I have already included the strongest cards in that category with Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, Wound Reflection, and even Duelist's Heritage. Adding more would mean removing something else. It would have to pretty huge to make the slot.

For changes I have been considering, I have thought about moving Warping Wail to the main deck. I actually used it from the sideboard a few games ago. It made me think, and I may trial it to see how well it plays. A modal non-blue counterspell with flash chump blocker, ramp, and creature spot removal as alternate modes is likely a good fit for the deck.

NotEaster, that game sounds super fun. Insurrection is a beast of a card, it just wins games. Thanks for the update and feedback.

For sure! (The fast reply is just because I'm bored at work, lol). I also wanted to vote in favor of Warping Wail, even though I haven't used it in this list I find it's a great trick card in the vein of Mana Tithe and the colorless requirement should be trivial to meet with sources like painlands.

NotEaster exactly. Pulling out the counterspells in Mardu is amazingly fun. With it being modal with other very useful modes, I am actually surprised I had not tested it yet.

I'm sorry if you've gone over this, but I couldn't find it anywhere myself. Why Crystal Ball instead of Sensei's Divining Top? I know you took Top out of the deck before, just curious why you prefer Crystal Ball.

check this land out Mirrorpool.

still loving this deck. ive been rotating between this deck and a norin the wary deck. and the players at my local shop react to marchessa hilariously every time. usually when i play they all together avoid swinging at me even if my board is empty of rattlesnakes or akido effects. ive played the deck enough in the meta now that people know that if they swing my way its usually gonna be bad for them. ushually if i do losse its to a bad hand or to somone comboing out with somthing like Approach of the Second Sun

mintymustache, I connsidered including Mirrorpool, but it only copies things I control. Good, but not perfectly in line with the deck, and the land slots are tight. If it copied anything, even those controlled by my opponents, then it would be an easy include. As it is, it is a fine option, but not perfect.

HBParabol, the choice of Crystal Ball over Sensei's Divining Top took me a while to work through, and an early list for the deck included Sensei's Divining Top. I switched it much later, and I feel the switch is a good one.

First, we need to consider the function of both. They are card filtering. Many people look at both and think that this is slightly worse than card draw, but in the same category. That is not the right way to think of them. They do not add any more cards to your hand than you started. They filter the top of your deck, so that the draw that you do is higher quality, but the number of cards that you have available to cast is not increased. They also help to dig into your deck, reaching important cards sooner than you would otherwise. When viewed with this perspective in mind, they can be considered to be more like low quality tutors more than draw. You get what you need quicker than normal, but you don't get any more cards to cast than you would normally. Even the draw ability of Sensei's Divining Top only gets you the card sooner, but does not increase the cards you can cast/use, since you give up Sensei's Divining Top and have to use up a draw to get it back. It is a 1 for 1 trade, increasing quality but not number of cards.

So what is the difference, and why did I not choose the more popular option? The first answer is that by choosing the less popular option of the two similar cards has value for this deck all by itself. When I play Crystal Ball, people don't automatically see a powerful piece of my deck. They see an interesting but uncommon card, and pass it over in their consideration of board presence relative to the rest of the players. This is what the deck wants to accomplish. Second, when looking at the cards as low quality tutors, which one accomplishes more? For Sensei's Divining Top, the effect is to look 3 cards into your deck on the first turn, and then you get no further into your deck unless you have a shuffle effect so you get 3 new cards to look at. With 3 Fetch lands, 9 Tutors/Wishes, and 4 Land Tax type effects, we can have a decent chance of shuffling, so Sensei's Divining Top is definitely not a bad option. 16 out of 99 cards shuffle. People who want more could add in more Fetches or even Land Tax. This just requires more build around that doesn't add to the deck much aside from optimizing Sensei's Divining Top, even if the individual cards can be good by themselves. Crystal Ball Scrys 2. On each activation, you either get what you need, or you see 2 new cards and then can draw into a new card (see a total of 3 new cards) each turn until you get what you need. That is as good as Sensei's Divining Top, but each turn, and without needing other cards to optimize it.

The upside of Sensei's Divining Top is that you can occasionally get the card immediately, not requiring another draw, and the Sensei's Divining Top is really hard to kill. The downside is that it can be clogged up with low quality cards, like lands and such, without another synergy. To counter these upsides, I have never had someone try to kill my Crystal Ball, and I usually use both at EOT before my turn, leaving mana available for responses as long as possible, and making the immediate draw and the draw at the start of my next turn identical. The ability to put low quality cards on the bottom of my library removes the clogging downside of Sensei's Divining Top from the equation, and helps me to limit the number of lands in hand late game, and also maximizing the value of my pseudo-Land Tax cards later.

So in essence, Sensei's Divining Top and Crystal Ball fill identical roles, they are Card Filtering/Limited Tutors, and not card draw. Sensei's Divining Top gets you 3 deep in your deck on the first turn you use it, and no deeper on subsequent turns without some other synergies. Crystal Ball gets you 2 deeper into your deck on each turn until you get what you want, and the advantage that Sensei's Divining Top has is limited in how it is played in this deck, while the advantages of Crystal Ball can be maximized to great effect, even the effect of the reaction that you had when you were motivated to ask why I would choose Crystal Ball over Sensei's Divining Top. Taking the advantageous option that on casual consideration appears to be suboptimal is a huge advantage for the deck. Sensei's Divining Top would be a fine choice. In my opinion, in this deck, Crystal Ball is much better.

Hexekk, sounds like the deck is affecting your meta in a very interesting way. You are intimidating them instead of flying below the radar, but achieving the same overall effect. With this in mind, you may be able to get away with playing some more overtly powerful cards. If they see you as powerful, show them power. You are gaining advantage out of it. "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War. I am aiming to appear weak, knowing that I often hold power. You are appearing powerful, no matter how powerful you are, so opimizing that may help you.

As a slight aside, there is a deck that plays Approach of the Second Sun in my meta. I am considering playing Warping Wail in the main deck to counter this plan, along with others. More counters seems to be more better in control.

precociousapprentice i also wanted to run some deck ideas by you im planning on building another deck so my meta dosent get usto my rotation and was going to see if you were interested in helping me out. the deck was going to be based of an enchantress shell using the theros gods.

Sure, no problem. I want to create an enchantress deck at some point, and have tried onn a few occasions, but I have never gotten out of it what I was hoping. Powerful, but not in the way I was hoping it would play. I look forward to exploring it with you.

precociousapprentice also in accordance to how my meta has been playing out with queen marchessa. my meta at my local card shops is very competitive with multiple blue combo players running azami and many other running things like food chain combo. so i had trouble winning off of other peoples damage due to the fact there was no way to redirect hate that was non existent, because everyone was waiting to combo off. im still playing the deck 100% reactive in most cases but players locally have began to realize that the amount of combat tricks in my deck isnt worth the danger of swinging at me. in most cases there are around 1 to 2 people at the tables of 5 that can be manipulated by the cards the deck runs. so id subbed out things for the solemnity combos we talked about earlier and lands for dark depths and thespian stage. when ive won usually its from working down the combo players at the table with the other non combo players assistance. which once their dead the other players at the table are strapped for resources and i can swoop in and assassinate for win usually with Acidic Soil or other cards that get past what they have currently. which is kinda cool in my opinion because its extremely political. i make it extremely non-beneficial to swing at me while they widdle down the enemy im worried about for me.

Perfect. As I wrote in the description, punish each opponent for what they do best. Control decks want to fly below the radar, and they are best at taking out the few threats that are sent their way as they wait for their win. In that case, redirect all aggression their way, overwhelming their control, and usurping their political use of other players offense that they may be depending on to win. Being able to muster the offense to take them out early without appearing to be an imminent threat to the rest of the table will be the difficult balance you need to maintain. I would consider cards that support other players offense, the red enchantment that does a damage for each untapped land (cant remember the name right now), and cards like Grand Abolisher. Only sit back and observe decks will be threatened by them.

Btw, Dark Depths goes very well with Mirage Mirror.

i also run that. there is many many ways for redundancy with Dark Depths. i believe i run Solemnity, Thespian's Stage, and Mirage Mirror so usually a good hand to keep so far for an early game kill or at least to eat up a path of exile is keeping a hand with a tutor and one of these three cards then tutoring for dark depths and getting it out turn 3-4

i also run Grand Abolisher in place of Ophiomancer.

I will need to do an update to the description soon. I want to get through with some testing first, to see if these changes stick or not. Stay tuned.

I Love this deck. though, may I ask for your thought process behind removing Sundrop and Selfless Squire? And also adding Blood Tribute? Both of the former seem to fit your philosophy exactly, whilst the latter seems counter to it?

maybe a better card than Phyrexian Unlife to combo with Solemnity is Force Bubble. seeing as you can get value from it right away while the unlife combo only really works when you have already taken lethal damage.

Literally just read the update thing, my bad! Still loving the deck!