Off with the bloody red head!
Far too many times have I seen Marchesa, the Black Rose decks built for purely reanimator, with the "dethrone" mechanic treated like it's just a bonus to her other effects. This is my attempt at making a deck based more around breaking her dethrone mechanic. We can achieve this through making sure our life total is never higher than that of the one we swing on. Some of these cards fit into multiple categories.
Mana Fixing and Ramping
Chromatic Lantern - Probably the best mana fixer in the deck
Gilded Lotus - Doubles both as mana fixing and ramp
Sol Ring - The only deck I don't run Sol Ring in is my Ruric Thar, the Unbowed deck
Burnished Hart - Functions as ramp early game, potential dethrone trigger later on.
Solemn Simulacrum - One of the best ramping cantrips in the game.
Treasonous Ogre
- Get practically as much red mana as you want? Hell yes!
Life Sinks
Part of making Dethrone active is keeping your life total low, and these are the cards that will do it.
Cruel Sadist
- Kind of slow for a life sink, but has the dual feature of abusing the hell out of dethrone.
Mischievous Poltergeist
- A good blocker and a great way to shoot yourself down to 1 life if you really needed to.
Moltensteel Dragon - A good beater that also can shoot you down to 1.
Souldrinker
- Can drop you to 1 and drops +1/+1 counters on himself, win-win!
Treasonous Ogre
- Obviously made for a dethrone deck, trades your life for as much mana as you can pay for.
Unspeakable Symbol - Turns all your dudes into
Souldrinker
s! Probably one of the more important cards in the deck.
And of course there are plenty of lands that do the trick too:
Ancient Tomb, Blood Crypt, City of Brass,
Shivan Reef
,
Steam Vents
, Sulfurous Springs, Underground River, and Watery Grave all will knock you down below your opponents rather quickly for the dethrone triggers.
Panic Switches
Sometimes your life sinks go a little too far, so these cards are what you do when you want to get yourself back on track.
Eternity Vessel
- Life getting you down? Just play a land and all is well.
Soul Conduit
- Life getting low? Why not take something like
Mischievous Poltergeist
, bring yourself down to 1 and switch life totals with someone?
Magus of the Mirror
- A one shot, reanimatable
Soul Conduit
Evasion
What use are all those buffed up creatures if we're not dealing damage? Glaring Spotlight, Archetype of Imagination,
Sun Quan, Lord of Wu
, and Levitation let all of your creatures past those pesky blockers, while Marchesa's Smuggler, Thassa, God of the Sea, and Rogue's Passage can get individual creatures through. On top of that,
Icy Manipulator
,
Cruel Sadist
,
dark imposter
,
Deathbringer Thoctar
,
Falkenrath Exterminator
, Thraximundar, Retribution of the Ancients, Capsize,
Crosis's Charm
, and
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
will move them out of the way.
Interactions
There are plenty in the deck, but I'll list some of the more obvious ones:
Glen Elendra Archmage
+
Ring of Evos Isle
, Glen Elendra Archmage + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
, Glen Elendra Archmage
+
Simic Fluxmage
, or Glen Elendra Archmage
+
Unspeakable Symbol
: Probably one of the most powerful combos in the deck, keeps pesky noncreatures at bay.
Cauldron of Souls + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
: a combo I like that doesn't see much play.
Deathbringer Thoctar + Mer-Ek Nightblade
: I felt like throwing something like Basilisk Collar in a deck like this just for
Deathbringer Thoctar
would be kinda stupid, since it wouldn't have much interaction with anything else. So, Mer-Ek Nightblade both combos off with
Deathbringer Thoctar
and functions well with my other dethrone creatures.
Retribution of the Ancients
+
Unspeakable Symbol
and any creature: Kill anything you want for a chunk of life and some black mana. Kinda slow since it requires black mana but still not bad.
In Conclusion
I'm really excited about this deck, but I'm also open to suggestions! I know there are probably some better choices over the cards I have on this list, so if I missed a card or two, please let me know! My budget is a little on the cheap side, so keep that in mind.
If you made it this far, thank you and please comment! :D
