This post was edited to replace a few cards (pristine angel, guardian of the guildpact) that didn't work with the en-kor and to add some new cards (condemn, consuming vapors) to take advantage of one of the replacement creatures (Cho-Manno, Revolutionary, Task Force, Fog of Gnats).
Queen Marchesa should ideally be played as a control deck. As a general, her giving you the Monarch when she enters play, which lets you draw a card at the end of your turn (until someone takes it away by dealing combat damage to you) can provide you continuous card advantage over the long game if you can often keep opponents from successfully attacking you. But you have to be able to disrupt combo or enemy control as well, not just defend against creatures.
A Queen Marchesa deck also needs to find ways to recover from the occasional board wipe and find a way to win the game without having to wait too long or give opponents too much of a chance one it makes an attempt at victory. Like an assassin, this deck may only get a few openings to really hurt an opponent.
Protecting against creatures is done in two ways
removing them, and
making their attacks impossible or ineffective
Here’s the removal this deck uses. You could use any mass removal. This deck gets a slight increased advantage though from destruction-based removal. Because it has a way to give its creatures indestructible in Boros Charm. Lower mana cost board-wipes are also easier to combo on your own turn with Boros Charm, Parallax Wave, and Eerie Interlude which can let your creatures stick around after the wipe. Activating Nevinyrral’s Disk and making all your stuff indestructible with Boros Charm is even better. You even get to keep the disk.
Neutralizing creatures can mean:
making them unable to attack you as Disrupt Decorum and Blazing Archon do,
making the damage they deal to you not matter, as Platinum Angel does.
Neutralization can also mean the opponent’s attacks are unable to deal damage to the player or kill anything meaningful because the blocker has nigh-infinite toughness, creature damage prevention or regeneration.
The Queen's favorite advisor, Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts costs a lot more mana than the enchantment No Mercy that mimics the key part of her ability, and and as a creature she’s more fragile. But she can also push through unblockable damage in the late game (especially with equipment) and blocks like a champ. Although sadly the en-kor can't target her to redirect damage to her.
So we have the queen’s territory well-defended against creatures so The Monarch is fairly safe. Now how do we stop combo? Aura of Silence makes the key parts of most combos cost more and then destroys an artifact or enchantment. Forsake the Worldly and Dispeller’s Capsule deal with artifacts and enchantments as well and Nihil Spellbomb plus Leyline of the Void deal with Graveyard shenanigans. Plunge into Darkness is surprise life gain and a way to dig for disruption or kill-now cards. Platinum Angel is a temporary answer to everything.
Similarly, how does the deck resist another control deck that makes it very hard to keep a creature on the board? There’s relief in Parallax Wave used on your own creatures, Eerie Interlude, and Boros Charm used to make your creatures indestructible. But you may well wind up actually winning by non-creature means. Indeed, since you can’t counter their card draw sorceries and instants and you have no discard to remove the large hand they build up, you may want to try and target the other control players since you are least able to hamper their strategy and are better off with them out of the game.
The recovery section that follows means we can prioritize casting the same silver bullets more than once if needed.
So what do you do if it’s mid to late game and if you just had all your permanents except land sent to the graveyard one way or another? How do you start to rebuild? Get back the useful cards that you lost and start effectively drawing more cards per turn than opponents. These cards will do this for you. Land Tax gets a special nod for being oh so on-flavor and keeping the deck dropping land almost every turn unless you’re ahead on land already.
The Leyline of the Void that protected against graveyard combo and value strategies now enables a nine mana combo that exiles a target player’s library. And can do it again on your next turn. This works because the Helm says it mills target opponent until they mill a creature card or X cards are put into that graveyard this way, whichever comes first. But with Leyline of the Void in play cards that would go to the grave are exiled instead, so neither “comes first” condition ever happens. With one activation the Helm just keeps milling cards from the opponent’s library to the exile zone until there’s no library left. Because it was never able to put X cards or a creature in the graveyard. By the way, when you have Helm and Void out together, X should always be 1. And that plus the 4 casting cost of the two halves of the combo is why this deck can eliminate almost any opponent on their draw step starting with nothing on on the board once it gets to 9 mana. If it has those two cards and can get them on the table at the same time. Trading Post can get back the Helm if it’s destroyed and Magus of the Will can get both Helm and Leyline back. If you want to emphasize this combo a cheap tutor for 4cc things is Dimir House Guard. Who also incidentally also finds Crackdown Construct and Flesh-Eater Imp. The first tutor in the deck should probably be one that, like the more common black tutors, can get any card.
The second plan is an arbitrarily large Crackdown Construct pumped up by unlimited untaps of Basalt Monolith (which is not a mana ability), moving Lightning Greaves around, or redirecting a large number of future damage points on en-Kor (note that there doesn’t have to be an immediate source of damage threatening the en-Kor to use the ability).
Hopefully your point removal or one-sided mass removal including Parallax Wave and Crackling Doom can make an opening for the Construct. Note that the Lightning Greaves also gives the Construct the ability to attack the turn you play him if you equip the Greaves to him last. The reason this combo isn’t terrible even though it’s broken by creature removal and blockers is that it has exactly one “combo” card, the Construct. The other cards are all OK to excellent defense or acceleration, depending on circumstances. Note that if you can get a Loxodon Warhammer on a huge Construct and complete an attack the trample will usually make blockers irrelevant and you will now have an arbitrarily high life total.
Speaking of having an arbitrarily high life total, it's also possible to get that and remove most worries about enemy attacks by targeting your Task Force with a Condemn or Consuming Vapors after giving it arbitrarily large toughness with an en-kor or Lightning Greaves. Condemn can also be used on your [card]Crackdown Consrtuct[card] if it's about to be removed while very large.
Plan C is an equipped and double-striking Godo, Bandit Warlord or Flesh-Eater Imp either of which can knock out even a healthy opponent in one swing (or two in Godo’s case since he attacks twice in a turn).
Don’t forget that Queen Marchesa will give you a token at the start of your turn if you lose the Monarch. And that Trading Post makes a token per turn or can sac the creature Silverblade Paladin is paired with so it can now soulbond with the Imp or Godo you’re about to cast. Those token creatures can help deal 10 point hits with Flesh-eater Imp for surprise kills.
It’s probably worth it to squeeze the colorless-producing Rogue’s Passage into the deck just to help get all the very important creatures through.
Finally there’s Ribbons and attacking with the unblockable Teysa (maybe equipped, hopefully with Lightning Greaves to help her stick around) for the last few points of damage needed to win. Not pretty, but it might work.
Conclusion
So that’s it. Protect your territory against enemies who would try to invade it. Be ready to keep mana open to use tricks to stop attempts to break up your defenses through removal. Plan to one-sided wrath or just wrath to stop a known hostile army stronger than your army can deal with. The long game favors you as long as you make sure you get rid of the combo and control enemies first and you pay close attention to how you and others can slow down the combo player.
Use your recovery tools and the card draw from the Monarch to keep the cards coming and return or recast key cards from the grave. Try and assemble your key combos with as much subtlety as you can manage to avoid sorcery speed removal. Then when you get the opening, make your move, play carefully, avoid mistakes, and take the crown.
Queen Marchesa should ideally be played as a control deck. As a general, her giving you the Monarch when she enters play, which lets you draw a card at the end of your turn (until someone takes it away by dealing combat damage to you) can provide you continuous card advantage over the long game if you can often keep opponents from successfully attacking you. But you have to be able to disrupt combo or enemy control as well, not just defend against creatures.
A Queen Marchesa deck also needs to find ways to recover from the occasional board wipe and find a way to win the game without having to wait too long or give opponents too much of a chance one it makes an attempt at victory. Like an assassin, this deck may only get a few openings to really hurt an opponent.
Protecting against creatures is done in two ways
Here’s the removal this deck uses. You could use any mass removal. This deck gets a slight increased advantage though from destruction-based removal. Because it has a way to give its creatures indestructible in Boros Charm. Lower mana cost board-wipes are also easier to combo on your own turn with Boros Charm, Parallax Wave, and Eerie Interlude which can let your creatures stick around after the wipe. Activating Nevinyrral’s Disk and making all your stuff indestructible with Boros Charm is even better. You even get to keep the disk.
Mass Removal:
Crackling Doom
Wrath of God
Day of Judgement
Nevinyrral’s Disk
Point-removal:
Swords to Plowshares
Condemn
Consuming Vapors
Executioner's Capsule
Cut // Ribbons
Note that Trading Post can return the capsules.
Neutralization/Blockers:
Disrupt Decorum
Blazing Archon
Platinum Angel
Bastion Protector
Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
Task Force
Spirit en-kor
Outrider En-Kor
Fog of Gnats
Trading Post
Neutralizing creatures can mean:
making them unable to attack you as Disrupt Decorum and Blazing Archon do,
making the damage they deal to you not matter, as Platinum Angel does.
Neutralization can also mean the opponent’s attacks are unable to deal damage to the player or kill anything meaningful because the blocker has nigh-infinite toughness, creature damage prevention or regeneration.
The Queen's favorite advisor, Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts costs a lot more mana than the enchantment No Mercy that mimics the key part of her ability, and and as a creature she’s more fragile. But she can also push through unblockable damage in the late game (especially with equipment) and blocks like a champ. Although sadly the en-kor can't target her to redirect damage to her.
Disruption:
Aura of Silence
Dispeller’s Capsule
Eerie Interlude
Boros Charm
Parallax Wave
Nihil Spellbomb
Leyline of the Void
Plunge Into Darkness
Syphon Mind
Forsake The Worldly
So we have the queen’s territory well-defended against creatures so The Monarch is fairly safe. Now how do we stop combo? Aura of Silence makes the key parts of most combos cost more and then destroys an artifact or enchantment. Forsake the Worldly and Dispeller’s Capsule deal with artifacts and enchantments as well and Nihil Spellbomb plus Leyline of the Void deal with Graveyard shenanigans. Plunge into Darkness is surprise life gain and a way to dig for disruption or kill-now cards. Platinum Angel is a temporary answer to everything.
Similarly, how does the deck resist another control deck that makes it very hard to keep a creature on the board? There’s relief in Parallax Wave used on your own creatures, Eerie Interlude, and Boros Charm used to make your creatures indestructible. But you may well wind up actually winning by non-creature means. Indeed, since you can’t counter their card draw sorceries and instants and you have no discard to remove the large hand they build up, you may want to try and target the other control players since you are least able to hamper their strategy and are better off with them out of the game.
The recovery section that follows means we can prioritize casting the same silver bullets more than once if needed.
Recovery
-
Yawgmoth’s Agenda
Phyrexian Arena
Outpost Siege
Trading Post
Magus of the Will
Land Tax
So what do you do if it’s mid to late game and if you just had all your permanents except land sent to the graveyard one way or another? How do you start to rebuild? Get back the useful cards that you lost and start effectively drawing more cards per turn than opponents. These cards will do this for you. Land Tax gets a special nod for being oh so on-flavor and keeping the deck dropping land almost every turn unless you’re ahead on land already.
Offense
-
Helm of Obedience
Leyline of the Void
The Leyline of the Void that protected against graveyard combo and value strategies now enables a nine mana combo that exiles a target player’s library. And can do it again on your next turn. This works because the Helm says it mills target opponent until they mill a creature card or X cards are put into that graveyard this way, whichever comes first. But with Leyline of the Void in play cards that would go to the grave are exiled instead, so neither “comes first” condition ever happens. With one activation the Helm just keeps milling cards from the opponent’s library to the exile zone until there’s no library left. Because it was never able to put X cards or a creature in the graveyard. By the way, when you have Helm and Void out together, X should always be 1. And that plus the 4 casting cost of the two halves of the combo is why this deck can eliminate almost any opponent on their draw step starting with nothing on on the board once it gets to 9 mana. If it has those two cards and can get them on the table at the same time. Trading Post can get back the Helm if it’s destroyed and Magus of the Will can get both Helm and Leyline back. If you want to emphasize this combo a cheap tutor for 4cc things is Dimir House Guard. Who also incidentally also finds Crackdown Construct and Flesh-Eater Imp. The first tutor in the deck should probably be one that, like the more common black tutors, can get any card.
Crackdown Construct
Basalt Monolith
Lightning Greaves
Outrider en-Kor
Spirit en-Kor
Loxodon Warhammer
The second plan is an arbitrarily large Crackdown Construct pumped up by unlimited untaps of Basalt Monolith (which is not a mana ability), moving Lightning Greaves around, or redirecting a large number of future damage points on en-Kor (note that there doesn’t have to be an immediate source of damage threatening the en-Kor to use the ability).
Hopefully your point removal or one-sided mass removal including Parallax Wave and Crackling Doom can make an opening for the Construct. Note that the Lightning Greaves also gives the Construct the ability to attack the turn you play him if you equip the Greaves to him last. The reason this combo isn’t terrible even though it’s broken by creature removal and blockers is that it has exactly one “combo” card, the Construct. The other cards are all OK to excellent defense or acceleration, depending on circumstances. Note that if you can get a Loxodon Warhammer on a huge Construct and complete an attack the trample will usually make blockers irrelevant and you will now have an arbitrarily high life total.
Speaking of having an arbitrarily high life total, it's also possible to get that and remove most worries about enemy attacks by targeting your Task Force with a Condemn or Consuming Vapors after giving it arbitrarily large toughness with an en-kor or Lightning Greaves. Condemn can also be used on your [card]Crackdown Consrtuct[card] if it's about to be removed while very large.
Godo, Bandit Warlord
Flesh-Eater Imp
Silverblade Paladin
Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder
Boros Charm
Hedron Matrix
Loxodon Warhammer
Plan C is an equipped and double-striking Godo, Bandit Warlord or Flesh-Eater Imp either of which can knock out even a healthy opponent in one swing (or two in Godo’s case since he attacks twice in a turn).
Don’t forget that Queen Marchesa will give you a token at the start of your turn if you lose the Monarch. And that Trading Post makes a token per turn or can sac the creature Silverblade Paladin is paired with so it can now soulbond with the Imp or Godo you’re about to cast. Those token creatures can help deal 10 point hits with Flesh-eater Imp for surprise kills.
It’s probably worth it to squeeze the colorless-producing Rogue’s Passage into the deck just to help get all the very important creatures through.
Cut // Ribbons
Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
Finally there’s Ribbons and attacking with the unblockable Teysa (maybe equipped, hopefully with Lightning Greaves to help her stick around) for the last few points of damage needed to win. Not pretty, but it might work.
Conclusion
So that’s it. Protect your territory against enemies who would try to invade it. Be ready to keep mana open to use tricks to stop attempts to break up your defenses through removal. Plan to one-sided wrath or just wrath to stop a known hostile army stronger than your army can deal with. The long game favors you as long as you make sure you get rid of the combo and control enemies first and you pay close attention to how you and others can slow down the combo player.
Use your recovery tools and the card draw from the Monarch to keep the cards coming and return or recast key cards from the grave. Try and assemble your key combos with as much subtlety as you can manage to avoid sorcery speed removal. Then when you get the opening, make your move, play carefully, avoid mistakes, and take the crown.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
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