Who wants to be Queen when you can be THIS?!

Commander / EDH Combo Control Reanimator UBR (Grixis)

ScrOuch

Lands (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Dreadship Reef
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 3x Island
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Rakdos Carnarium
• 1x Shadowblood Ridge
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Steam Vents
• 9x Swamp
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Transguild Promenade
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Watery Grave

Sac (8)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Attrition
• 1x Bloodflow Connoisseur
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Spawning Pit *list*
• 1x Thoughtpicker Witch
• 1x Viscera Seer

Draw (10)

• 1x Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip
• 1x Greed
• 1x Harvester of Souls
• 1x Keeper of Keys
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x River Kelpie
• 1x Sage of Fables

Enablers (10)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Disciple of Griselbrand
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Havengul Lich
• 1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Sneak Attack
• 1x Vedalken Orrery

Theft (9)

• 1x Captivating Crew
• 1x Cytoplast Manipulator
• 1x Grave Betrayal
• 1x Keiga, the Tide Star
• 1x Roil Elemental
• 1x Slave of Bolas
• 1x Spinal Embrace
• 1x Thalakos Deceiver
• 1x Zealous Conscripts

+1/+1-Counters (7)

• 1x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
• 1x Feast on the Fallen
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Necropolis Regent
• 1x Novijen Sages
• 1x Olivia, Mobilized for War
• 1x Unspeakable Symbol

Commander (1)

Removal (10)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Flayer of the Hatebound
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Insurrection
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
• 1x Vandalblast

Ramp (8)

• 1x Black Market
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Crystalline Crawler
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring

Lifeloss/Dethrone (4)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Treasonous Ogre

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Maybeboard

Other (13)

• 1x Baleful Force
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Helm of Possession
• 1x It That Betrays
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Roil Elemental
• 1x Spawning Pit *list*
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Thoughtpicker Witch
• 1x Watery Grave

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"Those of you with a thirst for treasure and wealth, come and join the Rogues Guild and you'll see there will be no boundaries ever again!"

This deck is build around Marchesa, the Black Rose. The Deck building process is based on the 8x8 Theory and a little help from the Commander Deck Building Template of "The Command Zone"(YouTube).

### Game Plan

In one sentence: Take over your opponents creatures and use their own cards against them while constantly reanimating your own creatures.

To achieve this goal I chose the categories seen above for the following reasons.

Ramp

Belongs to the Core Four (See the Source link below for more information). No huge surprise since every good EDH deck needs the right ramp to not lose against their opponents speed.

Draw

The second of the Core Four. Draw is essential to every EDH deck since you don't wanna run out of options.

Removal

The third of the Core Four. I don't use average spot removal though since there are many "removal spells" that are reusable (Grave Pact together with the sac engines) or not only get rid of annoying creatures but also utilize the deck's specific synergies to take control over them. For example, by casting Spinal Embrace and attacking with that creature it gets a +1/+1 counter, dies and gets reanimated under my control at the beginning of my endstep.

+1/+1 Counters

Marchesa is strong but dethrone has the problem that your opponents always need to have more life than you to trigger. Therefore, we need alternative ways to give our creatures those counters.

Sac Engines

Simply sacrifice your opponents creatures after you took control over and attacked with them. There's also a huge range of utility hidden in those sac outlets like additional removal (Attrition) or mana ramp (Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar).

Theft

Those are all kind of cards that enable you to gain control over your opponent's creatures. Just make sure you also have ways to keep control over them after your turn ends (like a sac engine after they got +1/+1 counters).

Dethrone Enabler / Lifeloss

As mentioned before, Dethrone has the downside that it only works when you have less life than your opponents. Cards listed in this category allow you to pay life or damage you to make sure your life isn't too high to disable the dethrone triggers. This category is kind of small but only because there are cards in other categories which overlap with this category as well. For example, Necropotence is not only an awesome draw engine but also grants you dethrone triggers via lifeloss. The reason why I didn't put it in both categories (except lands) is just to keep track of the amount of cards in general.

Enablers

The downside of dethrone is that you constantly have to keep your life total lower than your opponent's. That way it sometimes could easily be possible that your life total is to low to survive your opponent's next attack. Therefore, you can find some nice utility in this category that helps you to compensate those weaknesses and grant you some lifegain like Kukusho, the Evening Star, Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Disciple of Griselbrand. Also cards like Havengul Lich or Phyrexian Reclamation help to reattain your key creature cards from your grave if they died without +1/+1 counters or without Marchesa on the board. Keeper of Keys helps you against tons of creature tokens which block the way and is even more card draw. Additionally, there are some tutors, Vedalken Orrery and Sneak Attack which are always decent standalone cards that help you in every situation.

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The 8x8 Theory is a mathematical approach to deckbuilding for the EDH/Commander format. You start with your commander and 35 land slots, choose 8 different kinds of effects you would like to see played in your deck, and then pick 8 individual cards for each of those effects, yielding a clean total of 64 spells.

After building I switched some things around to improve the efficiency of the deck. (Especially because there are a lot of cards which fit in more than one category).

Source of the idea of and more infos to the 8x8 Theory:

8x8 Theory on tumblr

Video of the deck building template:

The deck building template of the awesome guys from the command zone

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Well, that's it! I hope you enjoy the deck as much as I do. Don't forget to give it a thumbs up if you like it.

Suggestions are more than welcome!

Date added	7 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.80
Tokens	2/2 C Artifact Creature Spawn, Emblem Ob Nixilis Reignited, Monarch Emblem
Folders	Marchesa Idea's, EDH Ideas