So I stumbled across a card today, which I believe could be a massive tempo swing that suits Marchesa: Cephalid Constable. You make this guy a 2/2 or 3/3 and if he connects you basically Armageddon someone or get rid of annoying permanents like Ghostly Prison. Personally, I see him being a beast if you drop him T3 and swing for T4 with Marchesa's Dethrone to set someone back two turns. Then if he isn't answered, that's three permanents on the turn after that.
Any thoughts or someone use him?
Another card I've been toying with the idea with is Falkenrath Exterminator. For 3 mana you can shoot, plus he rebuilds himself in case you're on the throne.
I guess it gives us repeated removal and can really body our opponents, especially if it is something like Wight of Precinct Six that comes back big instead of having to grow over time.
So far I only have Combat Celebrant as a must-test card; perhaps the Manticore can be tossed in for testing as well.
Arcbound Ravager is the most expensive piece of the Artifact build of Marchesa. Just throw in all of the Arcbound creatures and you'll have a much scarier deck. For ideas, look at plushpenguin's build.
I had the exact same thought. And the best part is you can Sac him and have him ready to go the next turn. 5 power on a Dethrone swing isn't bad. I think we've found a definite replacement for Scourge of the Throne.
The turn they swing, you get +3 Power from Marchesa Dethrone and two 1/1s for 5 damage. That increases to 10 damage on the turn afterwards (1 +1/+1 counter on the Garrison, 2 +1/+1 counters on the 1/1s and two more new 1/1s). After that it gets even more exponential - 19 power. That's a lot of damage from a little 2/3 for 3. The best part is that all of these 1/1s it generates can be fed into Attrition, Skullclamp and just more poke to punch through opponents.
This is all in theory. I'm going to want to play more with it to see how Magical is my Magical Christmasland scenarios.
@ Alavaster7: I disagree with the Skullclamp cut. I think you just need to lower your curve, which will allow for more 'inefficiencies' that Equipment needs. If you perfectly curve, you don't have time to pay Equipment costs. If you have less expensive cards, suddenly you do. Hell, I'm considering adding a few Swords of X and Y to my Marchesa to give my dorks more punch.
Otherwise, I agree with every cut except for Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch and Swiftfoot Boots. To me, the Witch seems so overrated. Sure, she's a 4/4 with Haste and First Strike that 'never dies' but you can do better than that at four mana. Her other ability of giving creatures with +1/+1 counters Haste does nothing in this deck - if they already have +1/+1 counters, they've already swung at someone to Dethrone. As for the Boots, Marchesa draws a lot of hate. Your whole strategy revolves around having her stick around. If no one in your meta is running any spot removal, sure, you could get away with the Boots. I'm actually looking for even more ways to protect Marchesa - such as with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner.
As for your testing list, I use everything in there except Spellskite but that's because it costs $20, not because I don't want it. There's no Matter Reshaper vs Treasure Keeper, it's use both! If you can get them looping with some combination of Metallic Mimic/Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and a sac outlet, you generate insane advantage. I have started testing Hanweir Garrison, in addition to the Battlements, as a way to go wide, but also because of some digging I did when I played around with an Infect version of Marchesa and discovered Breath of Fury. Garrison and that is an infinite attack step but more importantly, Breath is a psuedo-sac outlet and good even if we're not swinging forever.
I'm looking to add one or two more sac outlets, so I can tell you that Yahenni, Undying Partisan works out perfectly. He's also part of my 'growers' package where I have very large guys that people need to block or they'll take a lot of the face. I use Grave Pact to accelerate his accumulation of +1/+1 counters but to be honest, it's unnecessary. People will naturally try to Wrath the board and that's when Yahenni gets big.
@ Slikwilly: I think Jokulhaups is the definite haymaker. If you're going to piss off the table, might as well win. It's also easy to telegraph with 5 mana open. And since we're playing Aggro, leaving mana unspent is hurtful - specifically with Marchesa being a tempo deck. After all, we don't have the big mana combos or creatures that everybody else in the format does; we grow our beaters.
I was initially interested in Indomitable Creativity but I think it would cause me to restructure my deck too much to include. I have a Black bias in my Marchesa, being able to get RRR consistently would mean using much more expensive lands. I use the standard ramp package of Sol Ring, the two Talisamsn, the three Signets, Chromatic Lantern and Ashnod's Altar. Yes, I acknowledge Phyrexian Altar would be better but it's $30 so... I'll stick to my two dollar solution.
This means after retooling my deck to getting RRR more consistently, it would have to be without Artifact mana because I wouldn't want to hit that on Creativity resolving. Now, it does seem like my deck might be heading in that way. Especially with the Solrune Hive Mind agreeing that getting early utility drops, but then again, I would need to improve my mana base signifcantly with Shocks, Fetches, etc. If I did that I could probably cut a lot of the artifact mana and could have the bodies that would really be able to take advantage of an Indomitable Creavitivty. But if I'm lacking in artifact mana I couldn't ramp it out as hard, so it seems to be a Catch-22.
That's why I'm not using Indomitable Creativity. Currently I am tempted with adding Kokusho, the Evening Star in place of Scourge of the Throne as there's been times when I'm a dangerously low on life. Notion Thief is another creature I'm thinking of adding in place of the Scourge because aggro needs draw for Gas to keep up the pressure. Marchesa might not take as many losses as other traditional aggro decks, but she still needs to up the threat factor. Marchesa can't allow the Battlecruiser Magic to come online and tries to kill the table before that with her scaling threats. If someone can answer it, we're in trouble.
I'm also realizing that I'm a little light on Sac outlets. Currently, I am toying with Sadistic Hypnotist but I didn't like it. Too often I would sacrifice creatures to strip hands, then someone would topdeck a kill spell and permanently kill a creature because it only resurrected at the end of my turn instead of during an opponent's. Another sac outlet I am toying with the idea of is Culling Dias, we need draw and a way to kill our creatures and it does both.
With all of these factors, I'm currently holding off on making changes. The upcoming set is Nicol Bolas' home plane, I'm hoping for some Grixis goodness.
Otherwise, the last big change was adding Aetherworks Marvel after seeing other Marchesas in my meta really abuse it.
I wholly concur with this. I'm currently using five six drops - Deathrender, Helm of Possession, Scourge of the Throne, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Flayer of the Hatebound. Two of those are 4 cost artifacts with two mana activations, I'm thinking of cutting Helm because it costs too much for its affect and use Aetherworks Marvel instead. Reducing this number is critical, which is why sometimes I ponder of cutting the Dragon even though it has massive damage amounts and when a Deathrender doesn't perform as well I get a little antsy and want to cut it.
Anyway, I've been pushing my creature curve as long as possible but to maintain a midrange, I'm going with more 'brute force' creatures than utility ETBs. A Turn 3 Yahenni, Undying Partisan or Prohphetic Flamespeaker is way more important than some four, five or six drop. I've included Thrummingbird as a way to quickly gain +1/+1 counters to focus down the table and I'm looking for more creatures that scale very quickly for that. The next set that'll be very helpful for Marchesa is the next one that abuses +1/+1 counters as a mechanic.
The only problem my Marchesa is having right now is lack of mana consistently due to not having the Shadowmoor Filterlands and I need to get a card advantage engine going or I'm in big trouble. I'm thinking of putting in Notion Thief as a way to combat other players draws while supplementing my own. I need a ton of card advantage to keep my pain train going, as my creatures' +1/+1 status is continually being reset. This has made me explore other options, like Wight of Precinct Six - no matter how many +1/+1 counters on him, he's going to be bigger than any other starting creature probably.
I'm actually trying to add more burn to my Marchesa with the goal of always doming the lowest life total. I attack the high life totals to get those sweet +1/+1s but I still want to win and winning involves eliminating players. If someone's life total is too low for you to conceivably attack for a Dethrone, just kill them off.
I think that's why a lot of us are going "We need to lower our curve". We never plan on hitting six-seven quickly, as you'll hit it eventually but not always. Hell, I'm thinking the running Wildfire to make the land counts more even is a decent idea.
The Ballista is an XX mana cost artifact creature that comes into play with X +1/+1 counters which it can remove to deal 1 damage. With Mike, that's remove a counter to ping, it does as a State-Based Effect and comes back from Undying with a +1/+1 counter. Shoot the board.
If you've got an Infinite mana combo, you can use its activated ability of Pay 4 to put a +1/+1 counter on it to shoot everybody in the face.
Also, since it is an XX cost that makes its CMC 0 so that Trinket Mage can search for it up.
Skyship Bandit looks like a potential pick for Marchesa. 2/1 Flyer that doubles any number of counters when it hits a player (but no, we can't call that Proliferate) for 1U.
I was looking to lower my curve by adding cheap creatures so that Marchesa does come down, I've got bodies getting +1/+1s.
Any thoughts or someone use him?
Another card I've been toying with the idea with is Falkenrath Exterminator. For 3 mana you can shoot, plus he rebuilds himself in case you're on the throne.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
I guess it gives us repeated removal and can really body our opponents, especially if it is something like Wight of Precinct Six that comes back big instead of having to grow over time.
So far I only have Combat Celebrant as a must-test card; perhaps the Manticore can be tossed in for testing as well.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
I had the exact same thought. And the best part is you can Sac him and have him ready to go the next turn. 5 power on a Dethrone swing isn't bad. I think we've found a definite replacement for Scourge of the Throne.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
The turn they swing, you get +3 Power from Marchesa Dethrone and two 1/1s for 5 damage. That increases to 10 damage on the turn afterwards (1 +1/+1 counter on the Garrison, 2 +1/+1 counters on the 1/1s and two more new 1/1s). After that it gets even more exponential - 19 power. That's a lot of damage from a little 2/3 for 3. The best part is that all of these 1/1s it generates can be fed into Attrition, Skullclamp and just more poke to punch through opponents.
This is all in theory. I'm going to want to play more with it to see how Magical is my Magical Christmasland scenarios.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Otherwise, I agree with every cut except for Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch and Swiftfoot Boots. To me, the Witch seems so overrated. Sure, she's a 4/4 with Haste and First Strike that 'never dies' but you can do better than that at four mana. Her other ability of giving creatures with +1/+1 counters Haste does nothing in this deck - if they already have +1/+1 counters, they've already swung at someone to Dethrone. As for the Boots, Marchesa draws a lot of hate. Your whole strategy revolves around having her stick around. If no one in your meta is running any spot removal, sure, you could get away with the Boots. I'm actually looking for even more ways to protect Marchesa - such as with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner.
As for your testing list, I use everything in there except Spellskite but that's because it costs $20, not because I don't want it. There's no Matter Reshaper vs Treasure Keeper, it's use both! If you can get them looping with some combination of Metallic Mimic/Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and a sac outlet, you generate insane advantage. I have started testing Hanweir Garrison, in addition to the Battlements, as a way to go wide, but also because of some digging I did when I played around with an Infect version of Marchesa and discovered Breath of Fury. Garrison and that is an infinite attack step but more importantly, Breath is a psuedo-sac outlet and good even if we're not swinging forever.
I'm looking to add one or two more sac outlets, so I can tell you that Yahenni, Undying Partisan works out perfectly. He's also part of my 'growers' package where I have very large guys that people need to block or they'll take a lot of the face. I use Grave Pact to accelerate his accumulation of +1/+1 counters but to be honest, it's unnecessary. People will naturally try to Wrath the board and that's when Yahenni gets big.
@ Slikwilly: I think Jokulhaups is the definite haymaker. If you're going to piss off the table, might as well win. It's also easy to telegraph with 5 mana open. And since we're playing Aggro, leaving mana unspent is hurtful - specifically with Marchesa being a tempo deck. After all, we don't have the big mana combos or creatures that everybody else in the format does; we grow our beaters.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
This means after retooling my deck to getting RRR more consistently, it would have to be without Artifact mana because I wouldn't want to hit that on Creativity resolving. Now, it does seem like my deck might be heading in that way. Especially with the Solrune Hive Mind agreeing that getting early utility drops, but then again, I would need to improve my mana base signifcantly with Shocks, Fetches, etc. If I did that I could probably cut a lot of the artifact mana and could have the bodies that would really be able to take advantage of an Indomitable Creavitivty. But if I'm lacking in artifact mana I couldn't ramp it out as hard, so it seems to be a Catch-22.
That's why I'm not using Indomitable Creativity. Currently I am tempted with adding Kokusho, the Evening Star in place of Scourge of the Throne as there's been times when I'm a dangerously low on life. Notion Thief is another creature I'm thinking of adding in place of the Scourge because aggro needs draw for Gas to keep up the pressure. Marchesa might not take as many losses as other traditional aggro decks, but she still needs to up the threat factor. Marchesa can't allow the Battlecruiser Magic to come online and tries to kill the table before that with her scaling threats. If someone can answer it, we're in trouble.
I'm also realizing that I'm a little light on Sac outlets. Currently, I am toying with Sadistic Hypnotist but I didn't like it. Too often I would sacrifice creatures to strip hands, then someone would topdeck a kill spell and permanently kill a creature because it only resurrected at the end of my turn instead of during an opponent's. Another sac outlet I am toying with the idea of is Culling Dias, we need draw and a way to kill our creatures and it does both.
With all of these factors, I'm currently holding off on making changes. The upcoming set is Nicol Bolas' home plane, I'm hoping for some Grixis goodness.
Otherwise, the last big change was adding Aetherworks Marvel after seeing other Marchesas in my meta really abuse it.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Anyway, I've been pushing my creature curve as long as possible but to maintain a midrange, I'm going with more 'brute force' creatures than utility ETBs. A Turn 3 Yahenni, Undying Partisan or Prohphetic Flamespeaker is way more important than some four, five or six drop. I've included Thrummingbird as a way to quickly gain +1/+1 counters to focus down the table and I'm looking for more creatures that scale very quickly for that. The next set that'll be very helpful for Marchesa is the next one that abuses +1/+1 counters as a mechanic.
The only problem my Marchesa is having right now is lack of mana consistently due to not having the Shadowmoor Filterlands and I need to get a card advantage engine going or I'm in big trouble. I'm thinking of putting in Notion Thief as a way to combat other players draws while supplementing my own. I need a ton of card advantage to keep my pain train going, as my creatures' +1/+1 status is continually being reset. This has made me explore other options, like Wight of Precinct Six - no matter how many +1/+1 counters on him, he's going to be bigger than any other starting creature probably.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Didn't you have to increase your land count to make up for the lack of mana rocks?
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Hell, I forget the fact that Humans that deal damage to me die half of the time. They made Mike with too much goodness.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
The Ballista is an XX mana cost artifact creature that comes into play with X +1/+1 counters which it can remove to deal 1 damage. With Mike, that's remove a counter to ping, it does as a State-Based Effect and comes back from Undying with a +1/+1 counter. Shoot the board.
If you've got an Infinite mana combo, you can use its activated ability of Pay 4 to put a +1/+1 counter on it to shoot everybody in the face.
Also, since it is an XX cost that makes its CMC 0 so that Trinket Mage can search for it up.
This appears to be a very silly card.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
I was looking to lower my curve by adding cheap creatures so that Marchesa does come down, I've got bodies getting +1/+1s.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs