I like this primer, and I appreciate that you understand some of the stronger Marchesa interactions like the applications of the graft creatures and Mimic. I hope you'll check out my Marchesa list. I think we have a similar outlook though I favor low cost cards for curveouts and I think you might find some of my cards to be "do-nothings." Anyway here are some of my suggestions and thoughts:

Dusk Legion Zealot , Baleful Strix , Alchemist's Apprentice , Seekers' Squire , Preordain , Sage of Epityr , Rix Maadi Reveler : The first three are a slam dunk while the rest are a bit of a harder sell, but all of these cards get cast earlier than Mulldrifter/Disciple of Bolas so they help you hit land drops and find your missing pieces. And something like Apprentice can curve right into a counter enabler and draw 4 cards on turn 4 before you'd even cast the more expensive draw spells. Preordain and some amount of the other cantrips are always worth consideration too, since you're trying to put together specific things to bring a powerful Marchesa engine online.

Altar of Dementia , Spawning Pit , Bloodthrone Vampire , Dross Hopper : A critical mass of sac outlets is important and though the creatures listed aren't exciting they're a lot better for rebuilding if your first boardstate gets broken up. Deploy on turn 2 into value creature on turn 3 to recur on turn 4, or deploy alongside 3-drop on turn 5 to try to rebuild. I dislike using my whole turn to play Grimgrin or Falkenrath which I consider to be pretty mediocre standalones in EDH (Grimgrin is probably fine actually though a little finnicky) and Yahenni not being able to sac itself is a problem for me.

Goblin Cratermaker , Heap Doll , Mausoleum Wanderer , Goblin Trashmaster , Abyssal Gatekeeper , Nevermaker : Personally only run the first three but have included all of these at some point or another. They're all creature-based interaction that Marchesa can recur, but at instant speed. For example, I much prefer Heap Doll to Agent of Erebos since you can stop something like entomb-reanimate or Survival discarding Kiki to find Karmic Guide. The downside to cards like these is that they're rare and not usually efficiently-costed, but they're definitely worth considering. Boompile , Oblivion Stone , Engineered Explosives : Grixis' best enchantment removal. I'd go with these over the Grave Pacts for multiple reasons. First, destroying all nonlands and being left with Marchesa is a bigger power play. Second, it's nice to be able to remove Rest in Peace and other generally pesky enchantments. Third, these cards aren't reliant on your engines being in place to do their job, so they're better for coming back from behind. In the same line of thought:

Sower of Temptation , Grenzo, Dungeon Warden , Hostage Taker , The Eldest Reborn , Demon of Dark Schemes : My topend may look odd to you but each of these cards is strong interaction on its own, and becomes an army-builder alongside Marchesa. Stealing creatures is great for ramping and killing enchantments, or winning with Primeval Titan. Bribery and Phantasmal Image are more cards in this vein, as well as the Puppeteer Clique and Gonti you're already playing. I prefer these to Flayer, Herald of Secret Streams, etc since they help you come from behind when Marchesa isn't out, and having "finishers" that rely on your engine being all in place isn't all that effectively different from just running some combo (Metallic Mimic / Murderous Redcap is the most efficient one for Marchesa imo if you wanted to go the route). Of course, Flayer does act as removal, and is also very fun, but I hope you'll consider cutting Herald, Merchant, and Kokusho. Mikaeus is actually nice as a "backup commander" with great synergy with Marchesa but he's not in my build because I run too many Humans. Luckily we have Grenzo who is an absolutely insane engine card.

Awaken the Erstwhile , Mindslicer : Marchesa can dominate the board but is weak to combo, hate enchantments, the whole table targeting all your stuff with removal, and brick hands. These cards take care of the first three. Landing them early with your value engines already online is like a more reliable sort of "land destruction win" since in either case they can't cast their spells. Trinket Mage , Spellseeker , Phyrexian Metamorph , Mindclaw Shaman , Entomber Exarch , Trophy Mage , Ixidron , Sparring Construct : Miscellaneous other value ETBs. Trinket Mage is the best one, I highly suggest you include him. Construct will surprise you with how strong it is. The baseline is on-board protection for Marchesa the turn you cast her, but the upside is acting like a limited Graft creature by giving each new creature you play a counter.

I think that's just about it for suggestions, maybe consider Spell Pierce , Stubborn Denial , and Fire Covenant , but overall, great primer, very well-written, and I think you'll set people in the right direction when it comes to building Marchesa.

Hi, thanks for your response. I actually quite like your list, I can definitely see the appeal of so many low cost options. At some point I will have to try out something similar. I'll address each of your suggestions in order:

I find your arguments in favor of lower CMC draw permanents very convincing, Zealot and Apprentice are both very appealing to me, and I will definitely test them out. Strix feels a bit restrictive on CMC, but I could definitely see the appeal with a better mana base than mine.

With regards to your suggested sac outlets, I am personally only a fan of Spawning Pit. Altar creates too many resources that I cannot use and my opponents can, and the two creature options are too vulnerable to removal for such a crucial part of my engine. It may interest you that I have found Falkenrath Aristocrat to be of far more use than Grimgrin, and am considering cutting the latter for a better sac outlet.

I do appreciate the interaction you've suggested, much of it looks useful. I will definitely consider all of these when I next go to order cards.

I have run Sower of Temptation in previous builds of this list, and have generally been unimpressed by it. In the current build it has been replaced with Zealous Conscripts - I intend to reconsider this choice after further testing. I'm not a fan of the rest of these cards. I do intend to cut Herald of Secret Streams at some point in the future, but Flayer / Merchant / Kokusho do too much work for me to consider cutting them.

The discard effects are a direction I intend to explore in the future, although I'd prefer Sire Of Insanity over Awaken the Erstwhile.

Trinket Mage is a great card, but I'm not running quite enough 1 or less CMC artifacts to justify it IMO. I want to like Sparring Construct, but to recur it and thus get the counter out of it I'd need to first put a counter onto it, and I'd rather just cut out the middleman.

As for your removal and counterspell suggestions, I am always trying to find more space for instant speed interaction, so thanks for the suggestions here.

Glad you found the suggestions helpful. My manabase is about the same as yours and supports Baleful Strix well. Some easy and cheap upgrades would be River of Tears , Foreboding Ruins , Choked Estuary , and Path of Ancestry . Also, if you're looking at other sac outlets, consider Greater Gargadon , Attrition , Mind Slash , and Thermopod . If I wanted a value sacrifice engine, Mind Slash would be my first inclusion, and it's been in and out of my build. I definitely understand your thought process behind certain omissions in favor of things that better suit your build. I'd just like to give a bit more reasoning behind a few of my favorites.

Sower of Temptation vs Zealous Conscripts is a debate that could go either way, and I've personally run Conscripts without Sower before so I get where you're coming from. Consider instead Sower as a replacement for Ravenous Chupacabra. The floor is roughly the same. Sometimes you don't have a sac outlet and the owner of the creature you steal kills Sower, but I think that's niche downside compared to the upside of Sower on 4 into Marchesa on 5, attack with Sower and stolen creature, recur them both. I think you can run Conscripts and Sower and cut Chupacabra.

Trinket Mage usually finds Sol Ring but can also find Skullclamp to pull you out of a pinch, and Imperial Recruiter on 3 can find Trinket Mage to get you an artifact land to hit the fourth land drop the next turn. I used to run it with just Sol Ring and Skullclamp but Heap Doll and Sparring Construct are stronger than they appear and a value creature that finds more value creatures has an exponential sort of effect. I slept on the Construct as well, until I tried it. The baseline is pretty close to equivalent with Siren Stormtamer - you play Marchesa, they play removal, you sac the Construct then sac the Marchesa with the counter on it. It doesn't get to do Graft loops but it does take a counter on the Marchesa turn and then pass that counter to the next creature you drop, letting you recur its ETB and protect it a turn earlier than usual. So basically it's doing what Lightning Mauler , etc, would do, but more reliably, and for only 1 mana (which is key when you're drawing a million off Graft loops/Rhystic/Necropotence/Remora).

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden : you have 34 creatures with power 3 or less, so the 1/3rd chance is perhaps less than optimal, but 6 mana flash a random creature in from your deck is not bad when it's attached to a creature that will come with counters. This one, like Construct and my next suggestion, is a lot better in actual games than on paper. Bringing things in at flash speed makes Grenzo a more resilient sort of army-assembler for situations where you're struggling to get a foothold on the board. It may be that just drawing a bunch of cards is better, and I wouldn't fault you for not trying out Grenzo, but if you do, he just might surprise you.

Demon of Dark Schemes - if the Massacre effect isn't strong in your games then I would understand avoiding this inclusion, but being strong on just the initial cast, then singlehandedly building a board of value creatures to recur, including Reclamation Sage effects to take care of things like Wheel of Sun and Moon, makes this guy practically a second commander. We're great at draining opponents' resources so this is more likely to stick and then untap with a ton of activations, and it's the perfect "last card" sort of finisher to turn things drastically in your favor. It does a lot of things and is almost always relevant which is why I prefer it to simpler haymakers like Living Death etc.

Spellseeker only has 4 targets in your deck currently but just finding Cyclonic Rift already makes it an enchantment removal creature. I understand you don't want to go too deep into tutors so I could see leaving this one out, same as Trinket Mage, but their restrictions make them more balanced and crafting the packages around them has made my experience with Marchesa more fun.

Anyway the list and primer looks solid and I'm glad you could get some use out of my suggestions.

Last One Standing can be such a funny card, reminds me of Heartshone RNG ^^
But would you consider running Bedevil as a solid removal spell that hits many many targets because you don't have access to vindicate and anguished unmaking and this is the next closest thing to removing a lot of possible targets!!!

Yeah definitely. I intend to make my next revision sometime this month, and one of the things I want to change is to add more room for instant speed interaction. I've found that after a certain point I don't need to recur my removal because I've gotten any relevant targets already, so I'd prefer the instant speed. Bedevil alleviates the main issue I have with Dreadbore , a spell I have considered in the past.

I see but the fact it can target artifacts as well can put someone really behind or stop certain combos at instant speed I guess :)

But what where the issues with Dreadbore for you if I may ask?

Sorcery speed. If I'm playing a removal card on my own turn it might as well be a creature to recur.