Thanks for a quick reply!

I have a few more questions:

Is there a reason you don't play Imperial Seal over Cruel Tutor? Also, would you replace Diabolic Tutor with Grim Tutor if you had the chance?

Could you give me a recommendation on what to substitute with Rest in Peace in a heavy graveyard recursion/reanimator meta? Or is it enough having one on Burning Wish (in my sideboard)?

And regarding the deck tactics:

What do you usually do with Marchesa the first time you play her, if all of your opponents are open? And even if they are not, do you still attack to tempt somebody to take The Monarch? Or do you protect The Monarch as long as possible?

And do you always attack somebody with the deathtouch tokens and beaters whenever they are guaranteed to land a hit if you don't need more protection? I'm asking, because the damage does not always seem significant, but it does make people hate you way faster, kind of undermining the original plan.

I just realised that Burning Wish only applies to sorceries. Then the question regarding Rest in Peace is even more relevant.

SurpriZe,thanks for taking the time to really get into my head.

Regarding the tutors, I just don't have an Imperial Seal, so what you see is as optimized as I could get it. I would probably play exactly what you outline if I could. I would potentially still run the Diabolic Tutor in the Wishboard, because putting the card into your hand is sometimes key to those surprise plays from the Wishboard.

Graveyard hate is tough. RIP is a perfect go to card. I think it would depend on what the graveyard is doing for them. Alesha is different than Meren is different than Jarad. You may just consider taking out a rock, or potentially the weakest Pillow, Pacification Array.

If everyone is open, I ask myself how well I can sustain aggression vs stabilize behind my fortress, and how soon the counterattack will take to come at me. Getting in an extra 3-9 damage is nice. I often try to not spread that around, since concentrated damage is more valuable in most situations. Get one opponent within striking distance instead of two that are outside of the red zone.

If the damage potential is low, counterattack potential is high, or I am not stabilizing behind a fortress any other way, I keep all my deathtouch creatures untapped, including Marchesa and her tokens, as long as I have the Monarch. I rarely collect more than a few tokens, the point isn't to get a real army, and often, unless it is being actively contested every turn for a good chunk of damage, I would rather have the Monarch than collect another 1/1 deathtouch assassin.

So, put Marchesa out early, start collecting cards. If you can get away with sneaking in some damage, absolutely do that, or if you can incite a war over the Monarch that will be to your advantage. You will have a pretty easy time getting the Monarch back. If aggression will happen without you inviting it, sit back and watch. If your opening hand doesn't give you a strong fortress or a crazy good offense, wait for your opportunity once everyone else has weakened themselves.

In a meta super dependent on the graveyard, or when you are having a hard time with adding Rest in Peace, I would also consider Nihil Spellbomb and Bojuka Bog. That extra card from the pseudo-cantrip of Nihil Spellbomb may be a huge bonus, and the double effect of land plus graveyard hate combined with the uncounterable nature of Bojuka Bog makes it easier to include without missing other important pieces.

Considering the new meta I will be playing in, and the burst of excitement that Kess, dissident mage is getting, including from myself, I may include Bojuka Bog in my list.

Thanks a lot for your insight, precociousapprentice! I truly appreciate the effort.

So far I'm enjoying this deck a bit too much, and I'd say it's expertly crafted, while rewarding you for trying to understand the ins and outs of its strategy. I've already had some really memorable situations with it, so, well done, overall!

Thanks. Again, this is my favorite deck. It requires perfect play and some really interesting draws to compete with true tier 1 decks, but everything else is within it's ability to beat. Even if it doesn't win, it makes the game exciting, and provides a different approach to multiplayer control than most.

I have been thinking about MTG theory a lot recently in context to this deck. I read some about stock mana theory, effective mana theory, card advantage, multiplayer aikido card advantage, and interaction advantage. I am not sure any of these theories account for play like this deck. The closest is probably some combination of multiplayer aikido card advantage and interaction advantage theory. I may have to write up an addition to these theories to account for true aikido play.

Since you've added Treasure Map, how would you look at Sol Ring replacing it now? Do you think there might be better options for the replacement?

And Dowsing Dagger looks like an interesting addition, although there doesn't seem to be anything worthwhile to cut for it as of now.

That spot that Treasure Map is in is flexible, and it will have to prove it's worth. I have had many cars I have been excited about that turned out to not measure up. Slumbering Dragon is a great example. Looks like a great Rattlesnake and wincon. Turns out, it rarely deterred attacks since is can collect a lot of tokens before it activates, and sitting around that long means that it eats boardwipes. It may be better in different metas, but in mine, it never really affected the game. We shall see how Treasure Map plays. The next rock to be potentially cut is Commander's Sphere. A CMC of trumps colored mana, unless it gives significant fixing.

Just revisiting the graveyard hate, given that Marchesa is not really dependent on her graveyard at all, Relic of Progenitus may be even better than Nihil Spellbomb. We don't need to worry about our graveyard too much. They work similarly, but Nihil Spellbomb only removes one graveyard and Relic of Progenitus is either repeatable spot removal for a graveyard or removes all graveyards. Could be meta dependent, but I may lean toward Relic of Progenitus.

Having been playing around with the deck a bit more, I've got a few questions:

What is the ideal starting hand? What should I be looking for during the mulligan? Also, what are the mulligan rules you usually play with?

What do you normally find yourself looking for with the black tutors? Do you ever use the tutors early, or do you usually wait for the right situation to tutor for an answer?

Also, I've been recently looking through the official EDH rules at mtgcommander.net, and under number 13 I found this:

"Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game (Wishes, Spawnsire, Research, Ring of Ma'ruf) do not function in Commander without prior agreement on their scope from the playgroup."

Does it mean that Burning Wish is officially not allowed?

The ideal hand is 3 lands and a CMC rock, some soft Pillow card like Curse of Opulence, Duelist's Heritage, or Sun Droplet, a Rattlesnake, a harder Pillow or Rattlesnake to work toward later, and a draw/filtering card. This sets me up to divert attacks away from me, cast Marchesa on turn 3, and then start working through my deck as the early game unfolds. Having removal early is OK as well, especially against really fast decks, but it often works better to let them explode on my opponents and weather the initial storm behind my fortress. Having a wincon is OK, but often you would rather draw these later when your opponents have weakened themselves and had a chance to develop themselves to a point where the wincon can have full effect. Tutors and Fogs are always nice.

For tutoring, I usually hope to hold them until I can grab a wincon or some life saving hard pillow like Solitary Confinement or Teferi's Protection . I will use them early if I am mana screwed to get myself out of it, but that is pretty rare. If I have a good fortress going and my opponents are not building any aggression, I may tutor for my own aggression in the form of Serra Ascendant, Master of Cruelties, or Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. I try not to let a table play sit and wait without having to deal with aggression early. It is best to react to the board state than to have a standard plan for your tutors.

As for Wishes, you are right, they are not allowed by the official rules "without prior agreement on their scope from the playgroup." I found the rule amusing, given that Demonic Tutor is allowed. Avoiding the common complaints about abuse can make them a fun card that is no worse than any other tutor. I took my time to address this rule with my playgroup and we agreed on some limits. Somewhere in the archives of this deck I had a pretty thorough discussion of this, and address the changes I would make if Wishes are not acceptable in any specific meta within the writeup. The short story is that Wishes are a meta call, mine during the development of this deck allowed them for use with a specifically constructed sideboard for this use. No cards outside of this sideboard were Wishable. Also, the targets should not really be too mean, just normal cards. I excluded color hate and some of the "unfun" hosers and focused on answers and wincons that would shore up problem areas. Talk to your group, look up previous discussion threads regarding Wishes, and if they are not your group's thing, substitute Burning Wish for any other card that your deck may be weak in. This is a good spot to get as mean as you want against abuses in your meta, like serious graveyard hate or anti-Blue or anti-Green cards. Burning Wish and my Wishboard are much less mean than you could get with that slot.

Thanks for such thorough answers, as usual!

Speaking of mean cards, I've recently encountered a few people, who believe Serra Ascendant should activate at 50 life, instead of 30, as they perceive it to be simply too powerful for the cost, and not intended for EDH in any way. However, the same people play Sol Ring in every deck, and I'm unsure how to react to the accusations of playing overpowered creatures such as that. I'm really curious as to what your stance is on this matter.

SurpriZe, my playgroup has banned Serra Ascendant for that very reason. We have also banned Sol Ring as it is essentially a "power 10" card.

Ultimately it's up to each playgroup. My playgroup is good at maintaining an open dialogue about banning or unbanning particular cards. Not everyone agrees with every decision, but at least everyone feels they have a voice.

My suggestion would be to have a discussion about the playgroup having its own ban list and then voting on particular cards. That way any decision seems reasonably fair.

Yeah, nothing much to say about Serra Ascendant. Crazy bomb in your opening hand, pretty weak later. There was some grumbling about it at first, but most decks can still play their game, unlike things like MLD, Stax, or even creature bombs like Iona, Shield of Emeria and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, which could be played in this deck, or Seedborn Muse, which is played in just about every green deck. For some reason, I have never needed to defend it much against people who want it banned. If people didn't like it, I would sub it out for something that was more tolerable. I have very few creature bombs, and really, it is almost an undercosted vanilla creature more than a true bomb, because it doesn't really fundamentally change the game when cast, it is just a threat. I rarely cast it when it is the most threatening thing on the board. Sometimes I will cast it to draw out the boardwipe prior to casting Master of Cruelties or Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, since those can fundamentally change the nature of the game. It's nice, and I prefer it to most cards that would fit in that category, but it would be replaceable.

All right, that makes sense. Few more things:

What mulligan rules do you usually play with?

Have you ever considered Phyrexian Obliterator? Seems to fit the theme, while being a decent beater as well. Or is it on the level of the mentioned "bombs"?

In most of my games, even after establishing a decent pillow/rattlesnake-fort, other players simply don't want to attack each other. They wait to get answers against my boardstate and target me primarily. A good example would be a board, where I only have Solitary Confinement, Marchesa with the Monarch, and a soft pillow, say Duelist's Heritage, out. So, I don't overextend. What do you do in such situations?

Dig for aggression. Don't let the board sit peacefully. In this instance, you have become the archenemy, and so you must act accordingly. They are threatening you by not threatening each other. This is not an infrequent board state.

I am not sure what the mulligan rule that we use is called. We frequntly have kids playing with us, mine and/or others. We have a sort of gentleman's agreement that if kids are there, the first mulligan is free, every one after costs a card (redraw 7, then 6, then 5, ...). If no kids are there, every mulligan costs a card (redraw 6, then 5, ...).

Phyrexian Obliterator is super mana intensive. It would make an interesting blocker and rattlesnake, but looking down at that may be too scary, and I would bet it gets wiped out quickly. I usually want cards that make people think, "Hmmm, if I just don't mess with it, it will probably be fine." This sorta screams, "I'm about to wreck you." I would be interested in hearing your take on it if you have actual play experience. I can't justify a $30 card that I can't see forwarding the core mission.

Great deck, had lots of fun with it, thanks for creating it!

Just one question: if you had to, which lands would you use to replace the ABU duals? Ive got the rest of the manabase down, but Im too cheap to buy true dual lands.

I'd be interested to hear that too! personally I quite like the "pain lands (e.g. Caves of Koilos) but I would be interested to hear your thoughts

The pain lands are great, but I would also think about things like Mana Confluence, Path of Ancestry , and Canyon Slough. It would be hard to weigh them all against each other. The bicycle land is nice late game for it's cycling effect, and as an initial land it is often OK to come into play tapped. This also makes Path of Ancestry just fine, and the added Scry is gravy. The pain lands are good, and their painless colorless mana ability may make them equal to the triple land nature of Mana Confluence. Nomad Outpost would be a decent inclusion, it comes into play tapped, but that can be a non-issue if played right. Any of the Tainted lands are good, but you need to ensure that your supply of swamps is high enough. I am not sure I could recommend either the Battle Lands or Shadow Lands, even if Smoldering Marsh is a swamp/mountain, and it and Foreboding Ruins can both come into play untapped if played right. They will often come into play tapped, and in that case, the Nomad Outpost is a better fixer. Given that playing around the comes into play tapped clause is not a game breaker, you could even run the appropriate lifegain taplands and be fine. You don't need either the basic land type or comes into play untapped to make it good. I feel like the color fixing is more important than either, so I would weigh it that way. I would go Mana Confluence, Path of Ancestry , and Nomad Outpost. That is a relatively budget replacement for the ABUR Duals, but with even more fixing.

What are your thoughts on Axis of Mortality ? It punishes those who attack you while also giving a significant political advantage that keeps everyone in check. Isn't that what we are trying to do?

Boda, I am going to take my time to respond, probably this weekend. I don't feel Axis of Mortality will advance the deck the way you think, and could backfire. I need to really think about it though. As an insight into how I usually think about new cards like that, I ask myself what I would do if I was playing against it, and how I would handle it. This is often how I think about politics in EDH. How would this make ME behave? I don't think that Axis of Mortality will make people do what you want for the game state, but I need to take a little time to really get to the heart of what I think it will do. I didn't include it for a reason, but I want to make sure that I have a well reasoned position to give you. Please bear with me.