Fear no Boardwipe AND obnoxious reoccurring ETBs at EVERY player's end step!? Yes please; but, how...?
Mana Ramp (8 cards) and Card Draw (9 cards): If we want to play MTG, we'll need cards and Mana. Our deck has 8 dedicated Ramp cards + 2 bonus incidental ramp cards (Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Talisman of Dominance, Talisman of Indulgence, Mind Stone, Dimir Signet, Worn Powerstone, and Chromatic Lantern. Bonus: Sneak Attack and Mana Drain!). But, all the Mana in the world wont help us when we run out of cards to play. We have 9 dedicated draw cards and 1 for card selection (Skull Clamp, Baleful Strix, Rhystic Study, Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, Grim Haruspex, Toothy Imaginary Friend, Smothering Abomination, Mulldrifter and Sensei's Divining Top for card selection). Now that we have all the sweet sweet mana and card draw we need, lets move on to the other three essential requirements for Marchesa's shenanigans, INSTANT SPEED sacrifice outlets, +1/+1 counter creation, and obnoxious ETbs ahoy! WOOOOOOO!
Sacrifice Outlets (13 Cards): We can't go light on the sac outlets. Even 7 sac outlets only gives us around a 50% percent chance to see one by turn 5-6. To really get the shenanigans rolling we need 10+ to ensure we always have a sac outlet in play, and preferably a backup in our hand, since anyone who understands Marchesa and her bullshit, will blow up our sac outlets given any opportunity. We run 13 sac outlets (P.S., Only 0 cost instant speed sacrifice outlets are acceptable). We have 11 repeatable, zero cost instant speed sac outlets (Greater Gargadon, Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Altar of Dementia, Spawning Pit, Goblin Bombardment, Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, Yahenni Undying Partisan, Grimgrin Corpse-Born, and Phyrexian Plaguelord) and 2 land sac outlets, Phyrexian Tower and High Market. These sac outlets are here either for their bargain basement CMC (Greater Gargadon, Spawning Pit, one and two CMC respectively, and lands are free) or their sac utility effect. Most of these utility effects are famously great, like making mana (altars), Scrying (Viscera Seer), or doing dmg (Goblin Bombardment); but the others will always be useful too. Sacs to Grim-Grim untaps/buffs it + making sure he can always swing to destroy a problem creature and Yehenni punishes board wipes . But, the odd ball Phyrexian Plaguelord deserves some recognition. Its sac ability lets us give target creature -1/-1 and it can sac itself to itself and a target -4/-4; putting even indestructible Avacyn in the cross hairs. The lands made our cut b/c while they can only be used once per rotation; they are instant speed, and only take up land slots. Okay, We we've filled up on Mana and Cards, plus, we got our sac outlets ready to go. But, to really get value out of all our creature cards, we need to make sure they always coming back. Over, and over, and over again. A reliable way to generate +1/+1 counters is the last piece we need to create a royal deluge of bullshit! P.S. Its important to remember that our sac outlets are also an irreplaceable form of protection for our plan. We can respond to any spell or ability that targets our creatures by throwing them into the graveyard before our opponent's spell or ability resolves. The flexibility of instant speed sac outlets not only keeps our ETB value engine running, it protects our most important creature assets from everything but the most devious tricks. I'm looking at you split second spells...
+1/+1 counters (11 Cards): With so many sac outlets in the deck, once we get a +1/+1 counter on something, we can all but assure its coming back. To make sure we always have +1/+1 counters to throw around, there are 11 tools in the deck. (Blade of the BloodChief, Metallic Mimic, Vigean Graftmage, Sage of Fables, Feast on the Fallen, Fervor for the haste + dethrone trigger, Unspeakable Symbol, Sneak Attack for haste and Mana cheating, Cytoplast Manipulator, Helium Squirter, Mikaeus the Unhallowed). Its worth noting that the graft cards (Vigean Graftmage, Cytoplast Manipulator, and Helium Squirter), are probably our best +1/+1 counter manipulators. When we are repopulating the board thanks to Marchesa's ability, we can have the graft creatures enter first and then use graft to add counters onto anything important as it re-enters. Plus, we can sac the graft creatures when they only have 1 counter left, to have them come back at the next end step with all their counters and ready to provide more protection! P.S. Graft guys will allow us to cycle through a good chunk of the ETB creatures we have on the board every player turn. We can sack the ETB creature and the graft creature to make sure everything not only comes back from the graveyard, but almost instantly ends up with a counter on it too! If someone doesn't turn off this loop quick, we can clean the entire board of any threats we see in a single turn rotation. Even exile spells are next to useless when we can just throw everything in the graveyard at instant speed (another reason why all sac outlets must be free and instant speed) and it all comes back at the next end step. Plus once we get a counter on anything with an ETB, we can reoccur it at least once in the rotation, or even EVERY PLAYER TURN, if we have one of our better +1/+1 counter machines online. Note: While its true that Marchesa does provide her own mechanic for generating +1/+1 counters, Dethrone isn't always dependable and alternate ways to generate +1/+1 counters will nearly always be needed. Number of wizards and humans in the deck: 10 Wizards, 7 Humans + Cards that care (Metallic Mimic and Sage of Fables for Wizards, Mikaeus for Humans)
ETB's (15 Cards): Finally, we made it. It's time abuse ETBs! But, what ETB's will we be abusing? Let's meet them all. Bounce Target permanent (Venser Shaper Savant, Sedraxis Alchemist), Take control of target creature (Sower of Temptation, Zealous Conscripts, Molten Primordial, Hostage Taker who can also grab artifacts!), Steal ALL enchantments (Aura Thief), Destroy Lands (Fulminator Mage), Destroy target creature (Ravenous Chupacabra), Destroy target artifact (Manic Vandal), Turn OFF activated abilities of target nonland (Phyrexian Revoker), Return Creature from graveyard or targeted card discard (Entomber Exarch), Making tokens (Chasm Skullker, Reef Worm), and the deck's only tutor (Imperial Recruiter).
Board Wipes and Counter (5 cards): Every deck needs a few board wipes and such like to protect its game plan. Here is what we use (Mana Drain, Glenn Elendra Archmage, Vandal Blast, Damnation, Cyclonic Rift). Its all pretty self explanatory, counter spells for their precision, or mass destruction/bounce to reset the board state. We don't run a ton of Counter Spells/Wipes because we can use our reoccurring ETBs to get most of this done for free. No matter the scary board wipe effect (exile, -1/-1, tuck, or morph) if we have +1/+1 counters on our creatures the board wipe is a temp boost for us. We dump all of our creatures into the graveyard before the threat resolves, and they comes back at the next end step. At worst our opponents spend mana that doesn't impact our board state or improve their own, and rough up a few other players at the table for us. At best, our opponent just reset the board for everybody but us.
Win Conditions (3 Cards): Every deck should have a few cards that just win us the game if our opponents don't take care of them when then hit the board, here are ours. Gravepact/Dictate of Erebos will keep the table clean of any creatures we don't want to see. Even token decks will struggle to keep creatures on the board if we have a sac outlet and one of the dirtier +1/+1 counter engines online. Finally, Grave Betrayal, b/c why shouldn't we have all the creatures?
This deck is a ton of fun to pilot, because no matter whose turn it is or what our opponents are doing, we can usually interact with their play or at least change our board state to minimize any negative impact on us.
Note: This deck was designed to have no infinite combos. That's why Kiki-Jiki isn't in here. So far the only ones i know of involve accidental synergy between Glen Elendra Archmage and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed combined with Goblin Bombardment or Blade of the Bloodchief. Please do not suggest infinite combos. I dislike them and try not to play them.
