MTG Salvation

This is my list for the Conspiracy legendary, Marchesa, the Black Rose. Dethrone as an interesting keyword for multiplayer, and her recursion ability has the potential to be brutal, even with it's fair end step clause.

*Please note that this list is still undergoing testing, so changes will be made frequently.

Suggestions are welcome.

Your list actually looks pretty sweet. I'd maybe add in Phyrexian Tower to the manabase because extra sac outlets are always nice to have, and your manabase doesn't seem to be hurting too badly for slots. I also really like Archaeomancer, Imperial Recruiter, Phyrexian Reclamation, and Carrion Feeder with Marchesa, but really I like your list a lot.

Quote from Mawootad »

Your list actually looks pretty sweet. I'd maybe add in Phyrexian Tower to the manabase because extra sac outlets are always nice to have, and your manabase doesn't seem to be hurting too badly for slots. I also really like Archaeomancer, Imperial Recruiter, Phyrexian Reclamation, and Carrion Feeder with Marchesa, but really I like your list a lot.

Thanks ^.^ I swapped in Reclamation for Viscera Seer already, because I wasn't paying attention to the physical list I have (missed the note I left to remind myself of the swap >.<).

As for the rest, Phyrexian Tower is on my list of cards to look for, but the only copy I have took me a while to track down, so I'm a little skeptical of finding it again. But I'll throw it in the list to show I'm intending to look for it (I really should get better about that). Imperial Recruiter is very much outside of my budget though, especially for one card. Even the ABUR duels/fetches (assuming I end up liking the list) are super sketchy right now, and likely I won't be picking up them up unless the miraculously drop again.

If I end up making room for Viscera Seer, I'll test it against Carrion Feeder, I'm just not sure lookin at it which ability will end up being more useful. Archaeomancer is an odd one though. I'm not sure if I'm currently running enough spells to justify cutting something for it, but I'm happy to try it when I throw the deck together.

Again, thanks for the suggestions. ^.^

I see you have Grimgrin on the consider list...I would seriously double think that. He works great with Marchesa and Undying creatures.

Quote from bigbearlyke »

I see you have Grimgrin on the consider list...I would seriously double think that. He works great with Marchesa and Undying creatures.

I'll make him first in line when I find a card that's just not working for me. ^.^ I figured there would be a few cards to come out, which is why I made that list. Ideally, I'm going to play test the deck as it currently is later today, and I'll make cuts from there. But I'd love for more cards to add to the 'considering' list.

Just wanted to point out that for archaeomancer, you have a 90% chance of hitting a spell before archaeomancer and all of your spells are high impact. Definitely test him out to see if he makes the cut, but the instant/sorcery count isn't really as big of an issue as it seems.

I've got her on the list of cards to mess around with. ^.^

Sadly, I didn't have the deck out together enough to play it today, but I should be able to get some games in tomorrow. Currently I have Sepulchral Primordial, Beseech the Queen, and Purphoros, God of the Forge on a watch list for potential cuts, but that's only from glancing over the deck, as this is my first time venturing into Grixis, and I could be totally wrong. O.o

Edit: I missed like half of my paragraph. >.<

Grimgrin is absolutely disgusting in this deck. My deck is pretty close to yours. I run grimgrin, kikijiki, and necrotic ooze instead of graft dudes. Necrotic ooze is wicked busted in grixis colors btw, and you have his bff already in the deck(havengul lich).

Also, epic plays can be made with sneak attack if you can get your hands on one. Combos well with treasonous ogre too if you can get it.

EDIT: Also see a lack of jokulhops in this deck. It wins so hard in this deck.

How about Insurrection? If there are enough sac outlets, Insurrection should be pretty "fun". It is same as Rise of the Dark Realms but for creatures on the battlefield.

I.e. the plan is to attack with them and then sac them, so they are permanently under your control after that.

Also wouldn't Grim tutor or maybe diabolic intent be better than beseech the queen? Even Diabolic tutor might be better (get anything from deck and no need to reveal it to others).

Quote from theonecalledrune »

Grimgrin is absolutely disgusting in this deck. My deck is pretty close to yours. I run grimgrin, kikijiki, and necrotic ooze instead of graft dudes. Necrotic ooze is wicked busted in grixis colors btw, and you have his bff already in the deck(havengul lich).

I'd rather wait and see what can come out for him, as I mentioned before he'll be the first card to test after I run the initial list to see what cards I can comfortably take out. I'll throw the ooze up there too though. It's not that I'm ignoring the suggestion, I'm just not super experienced with Grixis, so I want to make sure that I don't swap out the wrong card for him. ^.^ as is, I might go edit my list to include Grimgrin, to avoid multiple suggestions of this again.

Also, epic plays can be made with sneak attack if you can get your hands on one. Combos well with treasonous ogre too if you can get it.

I'm already running this O.o not sure how I feel about Treasonous Ogre though.

EDIT: Also see a lack of jokulhops in this deck. It wins so hard in this deck.

Edit: I'm going to revise my answer here; while I doubt my playgroup would have too much of a problem with MLD, I personally don't like playing/playing against it, so as a personal preference, I would prefer to avoid that kind of thing.

Quote from Dthamilaye »

How about Insurrection? If there are enough sac outlets, Insurrection should be pretty "fun". It is same as Rise of the Dark Realms but for creatures on the battlefield.

I.e. the plan is to attack with them and then sac them, so they are permanently under your control after that.

Insurrection could be interesting. I'll throw it in my list of cards to test outside of my initial list.

Also wouldn't Grim tutor or maybe diabolic intent be better than beseech the queen? Even Diabolic tutor might be better (get anything from deck and no need to reveal it to others).

Grim Tutor is a card that I will probably never own so long as Demonic Tutor exists (the price is ridiculous). Diabolic Intent is interesting. I'll throw it in my list of things to test as well, but as I've said above, I'm not necessarily going to swap Beseech for another tutor.

Thank you both for the suggestions though. I actually got all of the cards together (including my test list, though I'll need to make a proxy for Diabolic Intent now) and sleeved up, though I didn't have time to play the deck yesterday. I'll be heading out to my LGS later today, and I'll update with anything I find while play testing. ^.^

I've been itching to build Marchesa since she was spoiled, but I haven't had a lot of time for EDH lately. Your list looks cool, though, and I may end up referencing my own list against it whenever I sit down to build the deck.

If you're running Diabolic Intent, you could potentially get triple value out of Trinket Mage. I think Mana Vault is also worth consideration, since dethrone kind of advocates the losing or paying of life. It would also give you another target for Trinket Mage.

So, I did get to play the deck for a few games.

Out
Beseech the Queen
Sepulchral Primordial (Possibly really good in other groups, awkward the majority of the time in mine. I'll add him back into the top for possible re-inclusion)
Inferno Titan
Vigean Graftmage
Temples (i.e. Temple of Deceit)

In
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born (haven't actually drawn him yet, so I can't attest to his fabled awesomeness)
Diabolic Intent
Decree of Pain
Archaeomancer
Pain Lands (i.e. Shivan Reef)

What I learned is that Marchesa can be terrifying. People drop dead fast. It's a little awkward to keep your life total in check to trigger dethrone for reanimator shenanigans; I got reckless with my life a few times, and it almost cost me. I definitely need more practice with the deck, but it was a blast to pilot. Cards that I was skeptical about like Sage of Fables ended up being all stars, whereas cards like Vigean Graftmage ended up being near dead draws most of the time.

I still need to tweak the deck with cuts/inclusions, but this is where I'm at after the first night of playing.

Quote from WarFoxLT »

This is basicly adding blue to Tymaret deck nice I like it, but you should add more Dethrone creatures from CPY

While dethrone does stack, I find most of the other dethrone creatures underwhelming. I might throw the Ogre up top for testing, but the creature needs to further my deck's goal (in this case, I'm looking more for strong ETB triggers, more than anything). Just looking over them the cards that stood out were Dack's Duplicant (I prefer Phyrexian Metamorph here), Marchesa's Smuggler (I'm using Thassa, God of the Sea, I lose haste but the scry trigger is super useful), Scourge of the Throne (I've got Preyseizer Dragon in his slot. No extra attack steps, but he provides a sac outlet upon entry to the battle field, and can either remove creatures or adjust my life total to enable dethrone, or even just smack someone), and Treasonous Ogre (this needs some testing, I'm not sure how I feel about him). I'm also sadly already desperately trying to squeeze in more cards than I have room for.

And I agree that she is somewhat similar to other reanimation decks in the colors, but her combination of aggro and a strong reanimation engine makes her an absolute power house. I love that she protects herself and is hard to deal with. Thanks for the advice though. ^.^

Go and add Academy Ruins

River Kelpie seems like a cool card for this deck. I have to remember that one.

The lack of Skullclamp seems odd. It seems like a good card for this type of deck. It seems like you could consider adding some graveyard hate as well to the list such as Nihil Spellbomb at which point Trinket Mage is probably viable assuming you were to add those two to your list.

Re: Trinket Mage and Mana Vault, you could also add all four artifact lands to sweeten the pot without altering your decklist. And if you've got slots to free up for more utilities, additional targets such as Everflowing Chalice, Brittle Effigy, Tormod's Crypt, Basilisk Collar, and Skullclamp would ensure that you never whiff again!

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

Go and add Academy Ruins

River Kelpie seems like a cool card for this deck. I have to remember that one.

The lack of Skullclamp seems odd. It seems like a good card for this type of deck. It seems like you could consider adding some graveyard hate as well to the list such as Nihil Spellbomb at which point Trinket Mage is probably viable assuming you were to add those two to your list.

I always forget Skullclamp exists, probably because I never draw it in Marath. >.< anyways, I've rearranged the list to include a Trinket Mage package, while switching Darksteel Plate for either Gilded Lotus or Thran Dynamo (it says dynamo, but I'm undecided). When I initially added Darksteel Plate, I hadn't realized that she brings herself back.

Sadly I haven't seen the Kelpie yet, but it seems like it will do well. ^.^ next major include will be Sower of Temptation, for my theft sub theme. I just need to figure out what to cut first, though I'm thinking about Ogre Battledriver.

What are your thoughts on Repay in Kind? If one player gets dangerously low you can bring the whole table down to size and swing in three directions, with dethrone triggers popping all around.

Quote from spentbullets »

What are your thoughts on Repay in Kind? If one player gets dangerously low you can bring the whole table down to size and swing in three directions, with dethrone triggers popping all around.

It could be really interesting in a Vicious Shadows package in this build, because of the heavy reanimation theme. Or, in a deck that's a bit more suicide-esque, you could just drop youself and play it. Could be interesting. Maybe I'll play around with it. ^.^

Haha, yeah. You're already running Necropotence, so just pay a ton of life and swing for the win. It's risky, but possibly worth it for the laughs.

Quote from spentbullets »

Haha, yeah. You're already running Necropotence, so just pay a ton of life and swing for the win. It's risky, but possibly worth it for the laughs.

I'll experiment a bit with it and Decree of Pain. ^.^ That's really the high cost spot for it.

Instead of decree of pain, you should run Living Death. If your dudes had counters on them you get to keep them, and you get all your dudes from the grave back. It's extra gravy when archaeomancer is one of those dudes.

For Vigean Graftmage and the other graft creatures, are you sure you were using them right? Ideally you're supposed to graft a counter onto another creature you control (leaving at least one on your grafter), and then at every player's second main phase when you get passed priority with an empty stack sac both creatures, bringing them back eot with the grafter entering first and getting you a free etb effect plus two of whatever sac effect you're using. Maybe it's just a difference between the sac outlets we're using, but I'm almost always happy to see graftmage.

Also, Puppeteer Clique is an absolute house with Marchesa. Steals dudes and never dies; the value is insane.

Quote from Mawootad »

For Vigean Graftmage and the other graft creatures, are you sure you were using them right? Ideally you're supposed to graft a counter onto another creature you control (leaving at least one on your grafter), and then at every player's second main phase when you get passed priority with an empty stack sac both creatures, bringing them back eot with the grafter entering first and getting you a free etb effect plus two of whatever sac effect you're using. Maybe it's just a difference between the sac outlets we're using, but I'm almost always happy to see graftmage.

Also, Puppeteer Clique is an absolute house with Marchesa. Steals dudes and never dies; the value is insane.

It wasn't so much the graft, as it was it's ability (untap). If I was completely unhappy with graft itself, I would have pulled out the other one too. ^.^ It's more of an issue that I want to fit a lot of stuff in the deck, but I'm pretty much out of room And the Graftmage felt a bit awkward, so I swapped it for Diabolic Intent.

I'll throw both Puppeteer Clique and Living Death at the top, but like I said, too much stuff, not enough space.

Airithne, have you decided against running the artifact lands Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers, Great Furnace & Darksteel Citadel as backup targets for Trinket Mage?

Quote from spentbullets »

Airithne, have you decided against running the artifact lands Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers, Great Furnace & Darksteel Citadel as backup targets for Trinket Mage?

Yes. Loosing lands to a Vandalblast doesn't feel good, and every red deck in my playgroup runs it. But I did add a couple other targets for it.

Generally, and it's partly because I watched a lot of people in my group get burned by them, I try to avoid the artifact lands unless I'm building an artifact centeric deck, like Sydri, Galvanic Genius.