This is a political control commander deck. The main idea is to use political tools to convince your opponents to swing at each other (thus doing your dirty work for you). We are using pillow fort effects to convince our opponent to attack other people and we are also making our opponents' creatures enter tapped so opponents can more easily swing in for damage. Obviously the most important mechanic in this deck is The Monarch. In the early game we are more than happy letting our opponents take The Monarch away from us especially if that means that we get an assassin. As long as we can get the monarch back by the end of our turn we are happy.
Reclaiming The Monarch
Even though we are mostly playing a political control archetype, the existence of The Monarch means that we have to be able to consistently reclaim The Monarch without much issue. The easiest way is with the 1/1 deathtouch haste assassins that Queen Marchesa herself makes. But we cannot always rely on this. The creatures that can get in for damage include Archetype of Aggression, Athreos, God of Passage, Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, Shriekmaw, Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts, and Zurgo Helmsmasher. The creatures that can assist other creatures get in for damage include Archangel Avacyn, Archangel of Tithes, Giver of Runes, and Archetype of Aggression. We also have multiple ways to simply become The Monarch without attacking. I would save these spells for when you actually cannot reclaim the monarch by attacking. These include Custodi Lich, Skyline Despot, Throne of the High City, and of course our commander, Queen Marchesa*. Using all of these tools, let opponents have The Monarch but also make sure you reclaim it by the end of your turn.
Build a Fort
Okay, now we are entering the late game and we want to shift from letting people take the monarch every turn to keeping and maintaining the monarch to guarantee card advantage. We have also most likely taken plenty of damage at this point. So it is time to close off the gates and stop people from attacking us. We can tax our opponent by charging them to attack us with cards like Archangel of Tithes, Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, Ghostly Prison, and Norn's Annex. We can also completely prevent creatures from attacking us by either goading them (more on this later), casting Master Warcraft, or by Orzhov Advokist. Another tactic that we use is slowing down our opponent by having their creatures enter the battlefield tapped. We can become The Monarch, wrath the board, and then cast one of these cards to ensure that we deploy our cards before our opponents do. These cards include Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Authority of the Consuls, and Blind Obedience. Finally we have a card like Crawlspace that prevents several creatures from attacking us at once. With a card like Giver of Runes, Athreos, God of Passage, Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, or Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts,** we can pretty much negate any 2 creatures attacking us.
The Politics
We have a ton of cards that incentivize our opponents to attack people other than ourselves. These are the bread and butter of the deck and really make the deck function. We have already talked about the pillow fort style cards (Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, Orzhov Advokist, Archangel of Tithes etc.). Let's start this conversation with a very interesting card called Xantcha, Sleeper Agent. Xantcha enters the battlefield under an opponents control. It has to attack every turn but cannot attack us. Early game this can swing in for a ton of damage to unsuspecting opponents. Late game, any player can pay 3 mana to draw a card and have the controller of Xantcha lose 2 life. This card creates enemies. Chaos ensues when this card is played and most of the time, we will end up on top. Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor is another card with similar effects. You will build a small army for a player that can attack other people except us. Then when Varchild gets removed we gain control of that army. Curse of Opulence is a great 1 mana investment. It will encourage people to attack the person you curse and you will get free Gold out of the exchange. Then we have Crown of Doom. This card is insane. It turns the game into a game of hot potato. When a player dies while maintaining control of Crown of Doom, the crown will return to the last player that gained control of it. We have 2 goad cards that are great for making our opponents attack each other. Bloodthirsty Blade makes our opponent's best creature even bigger and unable to attack us. And we can do this every turn. Disrupt Decorum is in contention for the best card in the deck. If an opponent does not immediately wrath, the game will pretty much end because multiple opponents will die from this. Our final political card is Mathas, Fiend Seeker. Mathas serves as card draw and removal without us having to do the work.
The Win Conditions
Okay, so our opponents have a low life total from attacking each other but they have gotten smart to our plan and have finally decided on a truce until we are dead. Well at this point in the game we can cast one of our win condition cards to close out the game. Assemble the Legion will slowly build an army. The longer the game goes, the bigger this army gets. Cut / Ribbons lets us kill a creature early in the game and then drain our opponents' remaining life totals all at once. Debt to the Deathless will drain a lot more life while also gaining a lot as well. Rise of the Dark Realms returns all cards from all graveyards and this means lights out for our opponents. Master Warcraft or Brutal Hordechief can close out a game by having an opponent swing all their creatures at their opponents. You can then declare no blockers and kill them. Then, because they tapped all their creatures, you can finish off the survivors.
Alternative Commanders
Because we have several cards in the deck that make us The Monarch (Custodi Lich, Skyline Despot, Throne of the High City, and Queen Marchesa), having our commander provide The Monarch for us is not completely necessary. Yes, having Queen Marchesa makes the deck much more consistent and takes care of card draw for the rest of the game, but there are some alternative commanders that we can explore and experiment with. I will present them from highest power level to lowest in my opinion.
Mathas, Fiend Seeker - With the newest rules change in commander, Mathas actually gets better. The new rule states that if a commander were to die, the owner may choose to put the commander in the graveyard or command zone. Either way, however, any death triggers will resolve. This is different from the old ruling which considered a commander going to the command zone a replacement effect. The death trigger would not resolve in this case. So with this new rules change, Mathas can target an opponents commander. When that commander dies, regardless of if they put it in the command zone or graveyard, we will draw a card and gain 2 life. Mathas will end up playing similarly to the Queen Marchesa play style. The goal is to make friends and get everyone to attack each other. We will draw more cards than everyone else if we give multiple opponents bounty counters. When playing Mathas, the best thing that we can do is to add The Monarch to the game, so that will be our priority.
Zurgo Helmsmasher - So Zurgo takes a completely different spin on the game. Now we are using our stax effects to attack in with Zurgo and deal 21 commander damage. This is very achievable because it only requires 3 hits. Cards like **Authority of the Consuls, Blind Obedience, Archangel of Tithes, Archetype of Aggression, Basandra, Battle Seraph, Giver of Runes, Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Master Warcraft, Brutal Hordechief, Disrupt Decorum, and Bloodthirsty Blade all help Zurgo's strategy.
Piru, the Volatile - A classic elder dragon for the Elder Dragon Highlander format. Unlike other elder dragons with the 3 mana ability to sacrifice itself at the beginning of our upkeep Piru offers a unique advantage to having that ability. Because he can sacrifice himself any upkeep, this reliably becomes a pseudo wrath. Now obviously 8 mana is a lot for this creature. But the lifelink damage is really what makes this card special. Being able to reliably wrath the board AND gain upwards of 42 life in the process is a huge momentum swing. This card also pairs well with Chandra's Ignition to also remove the legendary creatures as well.
Cool Combos
Liliana Vess + The Monarch - This allows us to tutor for any card and draw it at the end of the turn. So we can immediately have an instant available like Master Warcraft and blow out our opponents.
Final Thoughts
When people think of Mardu, they do not typically think of politics and controlling the board. I like this deck because it takes an unorthodox approach to a traditionally aggressive color combination. The best card in the deck is either Disrupt Decorum or Crown of Doom. Both are incredible and can close out the game without you ever having to lift a finger. And isn't that how Marchesa became queen in the first place?
The most difficult part of this deck is the vocal politics. You need to get the table talking. Politicking over the table is actually very difficult. Too much of it and your opponents will stop considering what you say. Use it sparingly and let your political cards do the talking for you. Keep your life total high because your opponents can turn on you at any moment. If you are low on life, do not give them a reason to attack you and wait for your win conditions to close out the game.
