Suns_Champion Here's the deck! Thanks for the help!

Hi! No problem! Got some ideas for ya!

I'm thinking this is a good start to a steal, dethrone, sack, gain control of a creature deck. Threaten effect, attack triggering Dethrone, sac to Ashnod's Altar, you end up with permanent control of the creature. P.S. I really like your Unspeakable Symbol in here. Brilliant!

So for what I'm thinking we'll need a bunch of stuff: Steal spells, ways to lose life(to activate dethrone), and sac outlets. Let's get to work!

Steal Spells: Slave of Bolas, Mass Mutiny, Insurrection, Mark of Mutiny(holy moley you don't even need dethrone :D), Act of Aggression, Word of Seizing, Zealous Conscripts, Kari Zev's Expertise, Act of Treason, Traitorous Instinct, Harness by Force, Hijack, Threaten.... these are all decent options. I think you should capitalize on the cost-efficiency of the red Threatens to leave room to do other things the same turn. Others like Insurrection are just game winners, especially if you end up with control of all of the stolen creatures in the end :)

Sac outlets: Fling(for the lolz and to deal some damage), Phyrexian Altar($$$$ I know), Attrition, Goblin Bombardment, Viscera Seer, Greater Gargadon, Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Phyrexian Tower, Carrion Feeder, High Market... that's a good start. Hopefully find sac outlets with added utility. I also really like the lands, definitely run those.

Ways to lose life: Necropotence(commander staple, nice because you can pay only as much life as you need), Phyrexian Arena, Dark Confidant, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Bloodgift Demon, Sign in Blood & Night's Whisper, Dark Tutelage, Greed, Reprocess.... wow! luckily, black has us covered in this category! Take your pick! These are all amazing because they enable the strategy of the deck and draw you cards! Perfect!

Hopefully this will give you a good jumping off point! Good luck friend!

Hammer of Purphoros instead of anger? even if you don't use the land sacrifice part, it's still a mana less AND you don't have to worry about Anger being in your graveyard

KumaLKS Much better idea, thanks! When you commented that I just realized that it might actually be pretty hard to get Anger in the graveyard anyway!

Sun's Champion Thanks for all the help! I decided on using Mass MutinyHarness by Force, Act of Aggression, Greater Gargadon, Greed, Hijack, Kari Zev's Expertise, Night's Whisper, Slave of Bolas and Zealous Conscripts!

Looking at my list now, I actually don't have that many ways to put +1/+1 counters on my creatures. Are there any cards like Cathars' Crusade for Grixis that you can think of?

Press into Service is +1/+1 counter steal spell that I forgot!

Hmmm. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed,Drana, Liberator of Malakir, and Feast on the Fallen seem like good options. Maybe Simic Fluxmage or Olivia, Mobilized for War, though I don't like the discard, but if you have Necropotence and the like that can be mitigated somewhat. It also occurred to me that Herald of Secret Streams and Flayer of the Hatebound might be good in here!

Armory of Iroas Curse of Stalked Prey Deathbringer Thoctar Flesh Carver Grave Strength Herald of Leshrac Necroplasm are some random ideas

Suns_Champion, Most of the cards you suggested were already in the deck, but Simic Fluxmage and Feast on the Fallen weren't! (We don't talk about Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, he's money) Decided on using those two, thanks for all the help!

My bad, I was going off the top of my head and didn't look at the decklist :)

KumaLKS, thanks for the suggestions! Curse of the stalked Prey is a good one for isolating threats and Grave Strength which could go crazy late-game. I'll slot them in right away!

Suns_Champion No problem, everyone does it!

Captivating Crew and Noosegraf Mob might help

Mob Rule is good at stealing things; Custodi Lich gets you extra card draw and additionally forces your opponents to sacrifice things.

Sage of Fables for an immediate counter on Marchesa and to abuse any other wizards etb/death triggers you have on every turn instead of once per round.

Metallic Mimic for more of the same but let's you pick the creature you want to abuse the most (i.e. name Zombie and sac Vindictive Lich over and over.)

Haste is also huge here as you get your +1+1 counter asap. Look into Urabrask the Hidden, Ogre Battledriver, and Anger.

I'd also find room for Grim Haruspex... this guy will draw you a ton of cards.

Anyways, trying to keep your budget in mind is probably my biggest challenge here. Feel free to check out my list, it should give you plenty of ideas for both budget and not so budget cards. He who controls the Spice controls the Spice Girls

doc_brietz I'm gonna include Captivating Crew in my next update! Thanks for commenting!

Zehk About Mob Rule, I have other board affecting stealy spells, so I don't think I'll be including that. I might include Custodi Lich though, the card draw would be pretty snazzy and flavourful!

Last_Laugh I don't think Sage of Fables is very usable, I have some wizards but I don't think I have enough to make a big effect, I only have seven. Metallic Mimic could be good though, I think I'll wait for Kaladesh to rotate before I buy though, they're too big in metas right now.

Haste could be good but I don't think I really want to use it THAT much. I might include Anger because I have it in my Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, so I could move it into this deck, not sure about Urabrask the Hidden. Too much hate will happen.

He_Who_Hungers I actually have a Puppeteer Clique, so I might put them in in place of one of the cards that I haven't bought yet, thanks for the help!

I second putting in Custodi Lich and Noosegraf Mob. The deck looks really fun and pretty tuned. I had a hard time finding what to suggest.

Sweet list, I've always kind of wanted to build Marchesa, so I might be stealing some of the list here :)

I have to ask though, how is the mana in this deck? Excluding the cards that are skewing the curve (Gargadon, Blasphemous Act), it seems like you have a high curve compared to the number of lands and ramp you are running.

SteelSentry I know it seems like the list has a really high curve, but honestly it works really, really well. I tend to keep hands that have at least one 2-3 mana creature, to cast early and protect no matter what it is, then drop marchesa on T4 and attack the threat. It works really well!

I'd say the deck isn't that weak to exiling board wipes or cyclonic rift?

Just do a mass sacrifice in response if that happens, you have so many sac outlets :)

RobsJourney That’s the plan! :)

This is a pretty solid version of a traditional Marchesa deck! I like it! I really like easy sac outlets like Spawning pit. Another one I recommend would be Sneak Attack! The Deck looks awesome, though!

What about Panharmonicon to exploit all those ETB effects?

jpsuchecki Hmm nice idea... I haven't gotten around to putting that in though, we'll see!

It doesn't look like you have many ways to make sure you don't have the most life (because then you can't activate dethrone). Probably have some cards with activated abilities activated by life.