Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Creature — Zombie

When this enters, each opponent loses X life, where X is your devotion to black. You gain life equal to the life lost this way. (Each {B} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts towards your devotion to black.)

Combos

• Animate Dead + Gray Merchant of Asphodel + Viscera Seer

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Last_Laugh on Black Rose Affairs: Love, Theft, and Sacrifice

1 week ago

Good start but I do have a few suggestions.

Gisa, Glorious Resurrector is EASILY your best theft option for Marchesa as it does both theft and sacrifice repeatedly with no further mana invested. Get it outta the maybeboard.

Feed the Swarm, Chaos Warp, and Canoptek Tomb Sentinel are your only realistic ways to deal with problematic enchantments in these colors. Don't get caught with your pants down vs. Rest in Peace, Solemnity, etc.

Satoru, the Infiltrator is one of the best draw options available to Marchesa bar none. Marchesa's recursion are all separate triggers, so like Thran Vigil, this triggers separately for each creature. Danny Pink is also amazing here. Keep in mind a creature returning from the grave is a new creature so alt +1+1 counter sources like Uncivil Unrest will draw again on resurrection.

Kardur, Doomscourge can feel dirty but goading all your opponents' creatures (and even fresh Haste creatures) repeatedly is highly effective to say the least.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel and the lifegain seem counterproductive here, but with any alternate source of +1+1 counters, he ends games fast. You get that etb 5 times (or more with clones) in one trip around the table. Easily my #1 finisher here.

I also can't recommend it enough... but get your remaining Signets and Talismans in here asap. The difference between a t3 and t4 Marchesa is huge.

Let me know if you're picking up what I'm putting down and I can help suggest a few cuts. Been piloting Marchesa for a literal decade now, so happy to help if you want.

DarkKiridon on Thieves of the Black Rose

2 weeks ago

Last_Laugh, I appreciate all of your suggestions!! I have seen almost every one of these cards too but have yet to add them to the main deck or the maybeboard yet haha.

I do really like the idea of replacing Disciple of Bolas with Liliana's Standard Bearer though. :)

I've also been scaling back on the theft cards a bit lately though and just trying more value creatures on Enters/Death, but just last week I had a game that ended with a Mass Mutiny and took control of an opponent's Solphim, Mayhem Dominus and followed it up with Gray Merchant of Asphodel to win so that was cool :D

Skysurfer on Locthwain Nightmares

1 month ago

You do have enough devotion to run Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and maybe 1 or 2 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

SaberTech on Ideas for an Ayli, Eternal …

5 months ago

I kind of see Ayli as more of a control oriented commander when compared to other potential WB aristocrats style commander options, although the need to gain life and have creatures to sac to her ability does cause a lot of overlap.

The first real hurdle is getting up to 50+ life. Running Ayli means that you opponents have even more reason to default to attacking you so that they can to keep you from using Ayli's removal ability. While being able to pick up life off of Blood Artist and extort type effects is useful, I think that it's worth finding ways to get big swings in life too. Tree of Perdition is one that comes to mind since it has 13 toughness for 4 mana right off the bat and you can increase its toughness even more if it stays on the board. Unhallowed Phalanx offers another high toughness for sac fodder. Serra Ascendant, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and Exsanguinate are also ways to gain a bunch of life. Angelic Chorus, Proper Burial, Rhox Faithmender, and Cleric Class have potential as well. Heliod's Intervention could be worth running as a removal option.

There are a bunch of options for token production but I thought that I would mention God-Eternal Oketra combined with Kor Skyfisher, Whitemane Lion, and possibly Stonecloaker as well. Oketra has reasonably high toughness and comes back quick if sacrificed for life. 4/4 tokens are good for sacrificing if you need to. The white bounce creatures can be used for repeatedly triggering your extort effects and other cards like Angelic Chorus, Oketra's Monument, and Cathars' Crusade.

Prava of the Steel Legion is another token producer that can pump all your little tokens into high-toughness sac fodder to gain life.

EchoSpice on Things Betor Left Undead [Primer]

8 months ago

Cool deck! Maybe Greed to help with life loss triggers and card draw? And youve got quite a bit of black mana pips, Gary might also be good. Gray Merchant of Asphodel

SaberTech on Make It Work

9 months ago

I think that at this point the deck list doesn't have a solid plan for ending the game. It has Gray Merchant of Asphodel but doesn't have a focus on building up your black devotion to really make it hurt your opponent when it lands. Torment of Hailfire could be a game-ender but without any big mana ramp in the deck it will be pretty late in the game before it can really do damage. I think that, going by the list, the deck's default is to try to play a control game by using Ketramose to cantrip a bunch of exile-based removal to help your big fliers get through. Ketramose is a strong card draw engine but you've focused so much on triggering it with removal spells that you haven't planned out a solid winning strategy or combination of cards.

Maybe the deck could be shifted into more of a Blink deck? BW has all sorts of good ETB effects for generating value and tokens. Cards like Teleportation Circle, Conjurer's Closet, and Eldrazi Displacer could be the core engine cards of the deck alongside Ketramose.

There are also a variety of creatures that let you exile cards from graveyards. Withered Wretch is pretty efficient since its ability is only 1 mana and it only removes one card, giving you more opportunities to draw cards off of Ketramose.

PhyrexianPraetor on Mono Red Devotion

9 months ago

kamarupa I cut Braid of Fire due to not being sure if I can make it work 100% of the time. I can look at adding it again.

I was considering on making each of my devotion lists two colours in the long run. The thing that helps Fanatic of Mogis is that it is easier to cast than Gray Merchant of Asphodel, it also helps that red is a rather aggressive colour compared to black.

Thanks for the suggestions.

kamarupa on You Go Squirrel

11 months ago

This deck won 2 of 3 in 1v1v1 this week against mono-black aristocrats and mono-blue merfolk/mono black Waste Not. (We play that a player can change decks after winning or losing twice) It lost the first match to Harbinger of the Seas as I only had non-basic lands in play (though it was mono-black aristocrats that got the win). In the second match, Valley Rotcaller quickly whittled away both opponents' life totals. The third match turned into a real grind as mono-black kept a Tainted Remedy in play despite repeated removals on my part while also removing our own Tainted Remedys. In total, TR was cast 6 times, 3 each from two decks. In the end, though, Squirrels were victorious. It was quite funny when in the end, the mono-black Waste Not deck was finally able to cast Gray Merchant of Asphodel to almost no effect and still lost.