Mari, the Killing Quill

Legendary Creature — Vampire Assassin

Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, exile it with a hit counter on it.

Assassins, Mercenaries and Rogues you control have deathtouch and "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may remove a hit counter form a card that player owns in exile. If you do, draw a card and create two Treasure tokens." (They're colourless artifacts with "{T}: Sacrifice this: Add one mana of any colour.)

Tokens

• Treasure

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (16)

Tsukimi on *RETIRED* Alela These Nuts

6 months ago

Nice looking Alela build! She quickly became one of my favorite commanders. I found pretty quickly that as tempting as Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery are, the deck doesn't really need them - espeically with the variety of good, low CMC instants we have access to, a lot of which you have already. I always suggest Mari, the Killing Quill because she's a perfect fit with this deck, and a lot of fun to play with. Ayara, First of Locthwain is also a lot of fun with a deck like this.

Mind's Dilation is a fun include, have you gotten to playtest it yet? I've found with Alela high CMC cards stick around in my hand too long.

Feel free to check out my deck for any fun options you might have missed! Alela's Huge Goads

Oh also just a heads up your deck is listed as not EDH legal. I poked around your decklist to see if I could figure out why but no dice.

Tsukimi on Fairish Faeries (Alela Budget EDH)

7 months ago

LynxGoddess Haha yea I had come back to suggest Mari, the Killing Quill too but I saw they're on your list! I have been looking for more instant speed protection for Alela and I really like Blessing of Leeches, I'm going to make space for it.

Once you playtest let me know how cards like Slitherwisp work out, I'm interested if there's enough flash synergy- If only Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery were worded differently!

LynxGoddess on Fairish Faeries (Alela Budget EDH)

7 months ago

Tsukimi

Sweet! Kindred Discovery looks a little on the expensive side, both in regards of imaginary money budget and looking at the mana value. This deck grinds very well in though due to goading large threats, and such a stable card engine might be worth the five mana to play it. So maybe it will find a spot in the future!

I did take a look at your deck too, and realized Alexi's Cloak, Raise the Draugr and Mari, the Killing Quill all look super good for the deck, so I added them here too! I also added Blessing of Leeches as an Alexi's Cloak at home, since protective auras with flash seem like such a good idea.

Lokotor on Marchesa, The Black Rose - Primer

9 months ago

dlombart I am mainly using Moxfield these days for deckbuilding, but I do keep this list updated here since a lot of people still use it.

I think Bitterblossom would be a good option if you are leaning more heavily into the rogue theme. As it stands I have ~2 cards that care about rogues and that's not quite enough I think for it to matter that much, so I'd consider it more in a vacuum, and at that point I've always thought of the card as being mostly just "Okay".

1 life and a 1/1 flier every turn is the kind of slow value we are generally looking for, and early game, or when Marchesa isn't out, it can be useful as a source of disposable sacrifice fodder. But since it's a pretty slow card, later in the game you're unlikely to get that much value from it. Especially where you usually have your engines built anyway.

Ultimately I've been thinking leaning into the rogue subtheme isn't the way to go as far as optimization, but I've just got a soft spot for the strategy for whatever reason.

The good news is that Gonti, Lord of Luxury and Faerie Mastermind are testing pretty well (though I am likely going to kick mastermind to another deck of mine), so the strategy isn't wholly without merit. I might give BB a shot if I push more in that direction, but it's just missing a few pieces still i think.

As of now, the only real payoffs I've seen are Mari, the Killing Quill and Prosperous Thief, with the latter not being that great really. There are a couple lords and some marginal payoff cards like Notorious Throng that are perhaps playable, but require a bit more commitment than I think they deserve.

Mari has the upside of being one sided grave hate (and even with nothing else going on that's pretty valuable) and she is self enabling, so even without much support it at least sort of works. Also, since she has deathtouch, she is relatively nice to have out as an attacker or blocker. overall, I find that she's a good enough card to play without supporting cards, but having a few pieces like Bitterblossom, Gonti, Faerie Mastermind, and Dauthi Voidwalker generally is just gravy on top.

Overall, that's a long way of saying Bitterblossom is reasonable to include in your list, especially with cards like Mari, the Killing Quill and Oona's Blackguard hanging around. I'd give it a shot sometime and see how it plays.

dlombart on Marchesa, The Black Rose - Primer

9 months ago

I'm also down on the Rogue subtheme, to make Mari, the Killing Quill work. Even wanted to make Etrata, the Silencer work, with the "3 hit counters and you lose" ability. But to much hassle to win, esp. in my powercrept playgroup. But, I am revisiting Bitterblossom for that rogue-subtheme reason. What's your take on Bitterblossom, for not including it in your list? It keeps you from the throne, has evasive rogue tokens, and therefore synergizes well with other cards in your list (e.g. Oona's Blackguard).

My most updated list MTBR isn't on TappedOut, but I'm still following your primer, since I've always liked your expertise on this commander.

Lokotor on Marchesa, The Black Rose - Primer

11 months ago

scotchtapedsleeves

Glad you found the primer helpful! to respond to some of the suggestions etc:

I actually am running Dockside Extortionist! I have been since it released pretty much. Similarly, I am currently running Scorn-Blade Berserker and Lethal Scheme and they've both played very well so far.

Cards like Terror of the Peaks, Thundering Raiju, Flayer of the Hatebound etc. aren't necessarily bad cards, they're just aimed at a different strategy than I am playing. I run more of a control oriented aristocrats build, whereas they're geared more for an aggro aristocrats strategy. Marchesa can definitely be a home for these kinds of cards and that would be a perfectly fine deck, just like how Threaten based builds work well too, but I think an aristocrats control shell is the strongest over all and so whenever I'm evaluating cards it's usually to ask how they specifically fit into That strategy.

I've considered Ledger Shredder but it's ~$20 and I'm just not convinced it's exactly what I'm looking for (though it's certainly a good option so I'd say go for it if you have one) on a similar note, I'm also looking at Faerie Mastermind which fills a similar role, but also is a Rogue which plays well with my (perhaps foolish) desire to make Mari, the Killing Quill work in this deck.

Reins of Power sounds like a fun trick to pull off, especially if you have a free sacrifice outlet around. You can use it to stop a deadly attack from coming your way, to open someone up to another player's attack, or just to wipe a single player's board. Lots of ways to take advantage of it. Could even re-cast Marchesa after playing it to permanently steal a bunch of creatures from someone. I don't really play into the theft style deck that much as you can see though, since my goal is more to prevent everyone else from having anything to begin with.

SlayaZes on Official missing/incorrect card/token thread

1 year ago

the foil option for Mari, the Killing Quill from NCC is missing.

tinyindividual on Hit counters bb

1 year ago

If you wanna go for another instance of hit Counters, Ravenloft Adventurer provides a similar effect to Mari, the Killing Quill while also turning off all of your opponent's death triggers, with its exile effect being a replacement effect to dying.