Hi all, building my own Marchesa deck. All the discussion here about refining decklists has been really informative and I have read most (but not all) of the pages. I'm wondering if people can give me a general direction as far as how aggro or control to go before I start digging in. Looking to build a deck that can hold its own in a competitive, but not cutthroat playgroup with a meta slanted slightly towards control over hyper ramp or aggro. Let me know if I need to as this question elsewhere, tks for any suggestions!
@darker3030
The good news is this deck does better in a slower control meta. From my own experience (which admittedly is lacking compared to some frequenters of this primer) it folds to rampy green and hyper aggro strategies.
Another good thing is the deck is a nice split between control and aggro already, but in a controlling meta you'll want a little more counterspell backup (especially on a body like Glen Elendra Archmage, Venser, Shaper Savant, etc) to ensure key cards like Sneak Attack, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, haste enablers, your commander, and sac engines stick and stay stuck.
@darker3030
If you are making this deck if you have a budget then some of the control creatures that are really nice like Spellskite, Glen Elendra Archmage,and Venser, Shaper Savant all cost a good bit of money.
Also for a budget build my friend has a marchesa deck that does a lot of -1/-1 with stuff like Carnifex Demon, Phyrexian Plaguelord, Grim Poppet that has worked pretty good for him.
Hey guys I'm thinking about adding Blade of Selves to my build, and I'm wondering if any of you guys have used it and been successful with it. I'll probably replace Corrupted Grafstone with it if it is useable.
Hey guys I'm thinking about adding Blade of Selves to my build, and I'm wondering if any of you guys have used it and been successful with it. I'll probably replace Corrupted Grafstone with it if it is useable.
Hit or miss. It's cool and we have a lot of ETB creatures but all in all it feels kind of win-more considering it's expensive equip cost and the fact that it does nothing by itself.
However I would definitely cut Corrupted Grafstone regardless. Mana cost wise this deck is cheap and inexpensive, we need very little mana to get going and not much more than that to completely play our game. The one and only time we really need any kind of ramp is right during the opening turn or two to get our game going and established quickly. Even if you play the grafstone turn 2 it's unlikely it will tap for mana for a bit. You need a card of color in your graveyard before it does anything. The only thing we can reliably count on in our graveyard that early is a fetchland and that won't help it. And it comes into play tapped to boot.
I understand if you are just playing what you have but in my opinion you'd be better off with a basic land than the grafstone.
Yeah I was using the grafstone because I didn't have a rakdos signet and I was like screw it just throw this in since I had it in hand got it out once was terrible and imo just a terrible card in general unless your 5 color then maybe... chromatic lantern is still better though.
Unspeakable Symbol is pretty much a staple. Beyond that, I usually find being aggressive is sufficient to get counters going. Spoils of War seems a little awkward since X could easily become a bit prohibitive to cast. Does it work well for you?
Haven't tried it yet. Just finished compiling all the steal, etb, and sac effects. Was just asking about non-attack ways to do counters since I'm not sure how aggro this deck wants to be and I don't plan on using enough wizards for sage of fables to be particularly relevant. No matter how I build this it seems like this deck is highly reliant on Marchesa being in play. Kinda figured even if she's not in play I could at least get a bunch of counters on the creatures in the mean time. If she's not in play it the counters also help negate the -1/-1 counters from persist.
Are there any other Grixis cards like spoils of war to distribute counters?
Spoils of War seems pretty bad; you cannot choose X yourself and it's not instant speed. The great thing about Unspeakable Symbol is the fact you can respond to stuff. If you worry about loosing Marchesa, get stuff that gives haste: that way she gets a counter same turn as cast and is much more likely to stick around.
@darker3030 For me the deck has always been a lot of a swing just for dethrone counters while marchesa is out and generate value out of her by having sac outlets out and one etb creature that I can sac once I put the counter. The deck can perform quite well without marchesa in play sometimes I just don't want to play her cause it just isn't necessary or I have crazier things in mind. With your secondary commanders it makes having marchesa in play great but not necessary other than maybe olivia. My deck although is much of a combo deck of just try to hold my boardstate intact with spellskite, sage of fables, sac outlets, etc till I can get some stupid stuff like re-animate everything 2 times on everyones turn and get 2 cards on each persons turn and have no real downside. BTW a great combo enabler card/removal card that I don't think I've seen on this thread is Retribution of the Ancients. That card alone has let me win so many games by just not allowing anyone to play their commanders cause as soon as they hit the board I just remove a bunch of counters from cards that don't quite need them. Also you guys got any suggestions on a way to power marchesa down cause in my play group marchesa feels like a tier 1.5 and the rest of the peoples decks I play with are like tier 3-2 and they get annoyed when I spam marchesa. So I was wondering if you guys had any good suggestions of like a friendlier marchesa deck that I might be able to draw some inspiration from.
Speaking of "cute", I was thinking of running vampire hexmage to deal with planeswalkers, run dark depths or deal with anything else on an opponents board. Also, anyone run power conduit?
Hey guys I'm thinking about adding Blade of Selves to my build, and I'm wondering if any of you guys have used it and been successful with it. I'll probably replace Corrupted Grafstone with it if it is useable.
I played a game over the weekend using blade of selves, and it's always extra value out of things that wouldn't normally give you more value. In the game I was playing I put it on Venser, Shaper Savant and used the ETB triggers to continuously disrupt a combo my opponent t was trying to set up. The tokens died immediately, but the damage wasn't the important part of that interaction.
In my opinion, blade of selves deserves a spot in every multiplayer deck because of the added value it gives you from staple creatures such as venser or Baleful Strix.
How do we deal with a well-timed Rest in Peace in this deck? Must we rely almost solely on things like Glen Elendra Archmage or possibly Chaos Warp to preemptively fix the problem...? I'm working on making a build of my own (and cannot afford the aforementioned Faerie right now) and there is a fair deal of grave hate in one of the players' decks - the issue is that he plays that deck more often than his other two. I'd say maybe Nevermore or Meddling Mage type effects but those don't happen in nonwhite really... Perhaps Declaration of Naught, but that's a true meta call if we're really just using it on one thing primarily. What else is there in our color availability?
How do we deal with a well-timed Rest in Peace in this deck? Must we rely almost solely on things like Glen Elendra Archmage or possibly Chaos Warp to preemptively fix the problem...? I'm working on making a build of my own (and cannot afford the aforementioned Faerie right now) and there is a fair deal of grave hate in one of the players' decks - the issue is that he plays that deck more often than his other two. I'd say maybe Nevermore or Meddling Mage type effects but those don't happen in nonwhite really... Perhaps Declaration of Naught, but that's a true meta call if we're really just using it on one thing primarily. What else is there in our color availability?
~Lil Kalki
It's color intensive, but I've always enjoyed Sadistic Sacrament as a way to remove combo pieces/hate cards when playing a black deck. It doesn't stop what's in their hand or already on the battlefield, but if you can't find all the grave hate you can always use it to remove threats left in the deck.
Chaos Warp and/or Clutch of the Undercity. Unfortunately Grixis colors are not so great when it comes to enchantment removal. One of the guys in my group, if he pulls out a white deck, I don't even bother with Marchesa because he'll have RIP, Relic, Crypt, and Stonecloaker (and then recycle Crypt w/ Sun Titan). At least.
One way to deal with metas that hate on Marchesa's play style is to just move a bit more control. I had to disassemble my deck a year or so ago and just rebuilt it. I've leaned a little heavier on the control creatures and Archeomancer to allow for some abuse of spells we can't do with our creature selection. I've also learned that life-gain is pretty underrated if you can tune to spend it a lot. I've had roughly the same success as the aggro game. Not saying that this is a better build in any way, but I think it's worth mentioning she can still be threatening without just turning dudes sideways...not that that isn't still a large part of it..
I honestly don't worry about it. Not every game has to be the same level of shenanigans. When you're playing against something like Rest in Peace or Leyline of the void it's important to keep in mind why we choose the creatures we did. Every creature in this deck is a threat on its own, marchesa simply makes them all better and more resilient. We have an extremely strong foundation, what opponents don't realize is that if they remove the fortifications marchesa builds there's still a powerhouse inside there.
I have a friend that runs a complete fun police Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant deck, even going so far as to throw in Humility. When he gets going we definitely slow way down and I've had my far share of losses but more often then not marchesa and friends simply powers through anyway. I actually often go more aggressive against those kinds of deck. I find playing controlly is playing into their hands a bit. That's not to say you shouldn't keep their stuff off the board when you can but trying to out-control a dedicated control deck is not usually a recipe for success.
As for dealing with nasties, I run a few: Glen Elendra Archmage, Venser, Shaper Savant, Nevermaker (leaves play not ETB, sorry Torpor Orb), and the occasional well-timed Dualcaster Mage. But by far the best ways to deal with them are either eliminate the player or play politics. If you can be threatening enough just with pure board then aggressively go for the throat, it permanently deals with all of the problems at once. And if not then look beaten This is the one place politics come into play with marchesa. Remember, everyone who's not playing cards like Torpor Orb hates them. It's very easy to look non-threatening and make allies at this point in time and quietly build up an explosive gameplan the minute the problem is removed.
I guess the one exception would be if everyone in your playgroup is starting to run more and more anti-marchesa tech specifically to neuter you. If that's the case then that's not really a healthy direction for the playgroup. Clearly they have a problem with your deck and maybe its time to switch decks or figure out what changes you can make to make it more fun.
I like the idea, but I am personally really concerned with dealing with the thing after it's come in, since if it happens our collective jigs are up (referring to the lot of us who lead with Marchesa)... I feel like preemptive answers are less necessarily helpful than responsive answers in this case, especially because I have a number of playgroups - one of which fluctuates with an almost volatile speed due to new people entering and leaving all the time. I can't be expected to assume all of the white players will be running Rest in Peace, because that'll get me paranoid, and that will spread to all the black players running Leyline of the Void or Withered Wretch, and all the green players playing Scavenging Ooze... You see how that's a bad line of thinking, I'm sure.
I figure Chaos Warp is a good start for an answer, but it is temporary (and the player I mentioned above has lotttttttts of tutelage for enchantments and general options handy). Declaration of Naught might be the better option but I will be compelled to always leave that UU open for the prevention thereof (it also requires a knowledge of the opposition unless I want to hose a Voltron or whatnot lol). Sadistic Sacrament, Memoricide, and their ilk might be the call, unless something better can be figured out?
I have a friend that runs a complete fun police Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant deck, even going so far as to throw in Humility. When he gets going we definitely slow way down and I've had my far share of losses but more often then not marchesa and friends simply powers through anyway. I actually often go more aggressive against those kinds of deck. I find playing controlly is playing into their hands a bit. That's not to say you shouldn't keep their stuff off the board when you can but trying to out-control a dedicated control deck is not usually a recipe for success.
Thing is, the worrisome player in the group runs Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as exactly that: Fun Police... lol - He built it with the intent to slow the game down to a crawl "so we can all relax and take things slow". There's even a Humility of his own in there. In doing so, Arbiter's plays end up remarkably calculated and most every play he makes goes beyond the pail in terms of putting him ahead of the rest of us. I'm not going to complain because I don't feel comfortable doing so, but he does have pretty much and answer to everything, which is why the question came up at all.
I guess the one exception would be if everyone in your playgroup is starting to run more and more anti-marchesa tech specifically to neuter you. If that's the case then that's not really a healthy direction for the playgroup. Clearly they have a problem with your deck and maybe its time to switch decks or figure out what changes you can make to make it more fun.
Believe it or not this question was asked preemptively haha - I am not even in possession of my Marchesa yet (she's in the mail)! Only one player even knows I am building Marchesa, although by now that might mean they all know? Word of mouth is fun. However, it's not something they can neuter yet since they haven't gotten a look at it at all, as it were (let alone a good look). However, I am certain that with a couple of Merens (one of which is mine lol), my Ayli, and now this in our collective pool of decks, the meta may in fact shift to err against these decks.
~Lil Kalki
EDIT: A short update on the state of things:
I figure RIP isn't that scary as it were. All it does is turn Marchesa.dec into Goodstuff.dec until I get my proper removal. It's scarier than Nevermore naming Marchesa, which only turns Marchesa.dec into GY+goodstuff.dec, which is definitely stronger, but one can muscle through all of this, at least in 1v1. I don't know about multiplayer yet, but RIP is definitely manageable in 1v1, I think. I dealt with both of the aforementioned nightmarish enchantments against a Karlov dec run by a friend of mine, and still managed to get stuff done. The win was highly on the back of Grimgrin, Corpse-Born who killed his way through multitudes of large problem creatures before going for the kill as like a 12/12 by then. Twas a good time.
And without RIP or Nevermore, Marchesa has been more solid, as could be expected.
Nada, Marchesa only comes down with protection via Venser, Glen Elandra, boots or a +1 counter. I have never had the need to put her in my hand. Also decklist is very coloured mana thirsty. Cant squeek enough red/x sources in.
Modern: UUUBlue Man Group
Legacy: UWBMiracles
Edh: UUUThassa Control WWWHokori Stax GGGJolrael, Empress of Land Stompy BBBGriselbrand French List RBGShattergang(Super Villians) RWGHazezon Flicker UBRMarchesa Aggro URGMaelstom Wanderer (Maelstorm)
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The good news is this deck does better in a slower control meta. From my own experience (which admittedly is lacking compared to some frequenters of this primer) it folds to rampy green and hyper aggro strategies.
Another good thing is the deck is a nice split between control and aggro already, but in a controlling meta you'll want a little more counterspell backup (especially on a body like Glen Elendra Archmage, Venser, Shaper Savant, etc) to ensure key cards like Sneak Attack, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, haste enablers, your commander, and sac engines stick and stay stuck.
If you are making this deck if you have a budget then some of the control creatures that are really nice like Spellskite, Glen Elendra Archmage,and Venser, Shaper Savant all cost a good bit of money.
Also for a budget build my friend has a marchesa deck that does a lot of -1/-1 with stuff like Carnifex Demon, Phyrexian Plaguelord, Grim Poppet that has worked pretty good for him.
Hit or miss. It's cool and we have a lot of ETB creatures but all in all it feels kind of win-more considering it's expensive equip cost and the fact that it does nothing by itself.
However I would definitely cut Corrupted Grafstone regardless. Mana cost wise this deck is cheap and inexpensive, we need very little mana to get going and not much more than that to completely play our game. The one and only time we really need any kind of ramp is right during the opening turn or two to get our game going and established quickly. Even if you play the grafstone turn 2 it's unlikely it will tap for mana for a bit. You need a card of color in your graveyard before it does anything. The only thing we can reliably count on in our graveyard that early is a fetchland and that won't help it. And it comes into play tapped to boot.
I understand if you are just playing what you have but in my opinion you'd be better off with a basic land than the grafstone.
4 Marchesa, the Black Rose
1 Sol Ring
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Entomb
1 Viscera Seer
2 Rakdos Signet
2 Izzet Signet
2 Dimir Signet
2 Talisman of Dominance
2 Talisman of Indulgence
2 Diabolic Intent
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Dark Confidant
3 Phyrexian Altar
3 Ashnod's Altar
3 Fervor
3 Grim Haruspex
3 Sage of Fables
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
3 Unspeakable Symbol
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Olivia, Mobilized for War
3 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Anger
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Thalakos Deceiver
4 Profaner of the Dead
4 Disciple of Bolas
4 Erebos, God of the Dead
4 Fleshwrither
4 Dimir House Guard
4 Ogre Battledriver
4 Marton Stromgald
4 Fleshwrither
4 Sakashima the Imposter
4 Clever Impersonator
4 Corpse Augur
4 Sneak Attack
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Dack's Duplicate
4 Grave Pact
4 Graveborn Muse
4 Greed
5 Living Death
5 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
5 Urabrask the Hidden
5 Puppeteer Clique
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
5 River Kelpie
5 Bribery
5 Ob Nixilis Reignited
5 Eldrazi Monument
5 Mulldrifter
6 Flayer of the Hatebound
6 Scourge of the Throne
6 Dragonlord Silumgar
6 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
6 Consecrated Sphinx
0 Bloodstained Mire
0 Polluted Delta
0 Verdant Catacombs
0 Misty Rainforest
0 Wooded Foothills
0 Flooded Strand
0 Blood Crypt
0 Steam Vents
0 Watery Grave
0 Tarnished Citadel
0 City of Brass
0 Mana Confluence
0 Underground River
0 Sulfurous Springs
0 Shivan Reef
0 Hall of the Bandit Lord
0 Drowned Catacomb
0 Dragonskull Summit
0 Sulfur Falls
0 Command Tower
0 Reflecting Pool
0 Opal Palace
0 Cabal Coffers
0 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Island
5 Swamp
4 Mountain
Spoils of War seems pretty bad; you cannot choose X yourself and it's not instant speed. The great thing about Unspeakable Symbol is the fact you can respond to stuff. If you worry about loosing Marchesa, get stuff that gives haste: that way she gets a counter same turn as cast and is much more likely to stick around.
Also Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Drana, Liberator of Malakir and Olivia, Mobilized for War can act as backup generals.
GEzuriG
WURaffUW
WBAyliBW
GOmnathG
URMizzixRU
If you really want to power down the deck, just take out all of your sac-outlets. That makes it much more fair.
I played a game over the weekend using blade of selves, and it's always extra value out of things that wouldn't normally give you more value. In the game I was playing I put it on Venser, Shaper Savant and used the ETB triggers to continuously disrupt a combo my opponent t was trying to set up. The tokens died immediately, but the damage wasn't the important part of that interaction.
In my opinion, blade of selves deserves a spot in every multiplayer deck because of the added value it gives you from staple creatures such as venser or Baleful Strix.
~Lil Kalki
Proud Disciple of the Church of the Wary
It's color intensive, but I've always enjoyed Sadistic Sacrament as a way to remove combo pieces/hate cards when playing a black deck. It doesn't stop what's in their hand or already on the battlefield, but if you can't find all the grave hate you can always use it to remove threats left in the deck.
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls - Knowledge is Power U [Primer]
R Heartless Hidetsugu - The Art of Ending Games R
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - The Cluster HungersBG
URXSurf's Up, Mizz Magnus!XRU
URGWKynaios and Tiro's Multiplayer MenagerieWGRU
I have a friend that runs a complete fun police Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant deck, even going so far as to throw in Humility. When he gets going we definitely slow way down and I've had my far share of losses but more often then not marchesa and friends simply powers through anyway. I actually often go more aggressive against those kinds of deck. I find playing controlly is playing into their hands a bit. That's not to say you shouldn't keep their stuff off the board when you can but trying to out-control a dedicated control deck is not usually a recipe for success.
As for dealing with nasties, I run a few: Glen Elendra Archmage, Venser, Shaper Savant, Nevermaker (leaves play not ETB, sorry Torpor Orb), and the occasional well-timed Dualcaster Mage. But by far the best ways to deal with them are either eliminate the player or play politics. If you can be threatening enough just with pure board then aggressively go for the throat, it permanently deals with all of the problems at once. And if not then look beaten This is the one place politics come into play with marchesa. Remember, everyone who's not playing cards like Torpor Orb hates them. It's very easy to look non-threatening and make allies at this point in time and quietly build up an explosive gameplan the minute the problem is removed.
I guess the one exception would be if everyone in your playgroup is starting to run more and more anti-marchesa tech specifically to neuter you. If that's the case then that's not really a healthy direction for the playgroup. Clearly they have a problem with your deck and maybe its time to switch decks or figure out what changes you can make to make it more fun.
I figure Chaos Warp is a good start for an answer, but it is temporary (and the player I mentioned above has lotttttttts of tutelage for enchantments and general options handy). Declaration of Naught might be the better option but I will be compelled to always leave that UU open for the prevention thereof (it also requires a knowledge of the opposition unless I want to hose a Voltron or whatnot lol). Sadistic Sacrament, Memoricide, and their ilk might be the call, unless something better can be figured out?
Thing is, the worrisome player in the group runs Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as exactly that: Fun Police... lol - He built it with the intent to slow the game down to a crawl "so we can all relax and take things slow". There's even a Humility of his own in there. In doing so, Arbiter's plays end up remarkably calculated and most every play he makes goes beyond the pail in terms of putting him ahead of the rest of us. I'm not going to complain because I don't feel comfortable doing so, but he does have pretty much and answer to everything, which is why the question came up at all.
Believe it or not this question was asked preemptively haha - I am not even in possession of my Marchesa yet (she's in the mail)! Only one player even knows I am building Marchesa, although by now that might mean they all know? Word of mouth is fun. However, it's not something they can neuter yet since they haven't gotten a look at it at all, as it were (let alone a good look). However, I am certain that with a couple of Merens (one of which is mine lol), my Ayli, and now this in our collective pool of decks, the meta may in fact shift to err against these decks.
~Lil Kalki
EDIT: A short update on the state of things:
I figure RIP isn't that scary as it were. All it does is turn Marchesa.dec into Goodstuff.dec until I get my proper removal. It's scarier than Nevermore naming Marchesa, which only turns Marchesa.dec into GY+goodstuff.dec, which is definitely stronger, but one can muscle through all of this, at least in 1v1. I don't know about multiplayer yet, but RIP is definitely manageable in 1v1, I think. I dealt with both of the aforementioned nightmarish enchantments against a Karlov dec run by a friend of mine, and still managed to get stuff done. The win was highly on the back of Grimgrin, Corpse-Born who killed his way through multitudes of large problem creatures before going for the kill as like a 12/12 by then. Twas a good time.
And without RIP or Nevermore, Marchesa has been more solid, as could be expected.
Proud Disciple of the Church of the Wary
Draft it Here!
UUUBlue Man Group
Legacy:
UWBMiracles
Edh:
UUUThassa Control
WWWHokori Stax
GGGJolrael, Empress of Land Stompy
BBBGriselbrand French List
RBGShattergang(Super Villians)
RWGHazezon Flicker
UBRMarchesa Aggro
URGMaelstom Wanderer (Maelstorm)