Marchesa: Queen of Pain (100% Altered)

Commander / EDH* Older20

SCORE: 159 | 69 COMMENTS | 20776 VIEWS | IN 70 FOLDERS


A Political Stance —Feb. 11, 2020

We are nearing 100 upvotes! Very exciting and I'm glad people appreciate my build of Queen Marchesa. At the moment I am playing around with a slightly more political and devious playstyle. I have now a fully fleshed out ‘provocative’ package with:

Bloodthirsty Blade

Curse of Opulence

Disrupt Decorum

Duelist's Heritage

With a cheeky addition of

Orzhov Advokist

If I am not literally telling my opponents to attack each other (Goad) I am now beefing up their stuff and rewarding them if they take a swing at each other.

I have also adjusted my Sunforger package to include Arcbond and Fire Covenant. While both work in really cool ways which often people don’t expect, in combination with each other you can do some massive plays: Pay your total life -1 into Fire Covenant and direct it all at a lifelink creature you control with Arcbond and you can just blow out the whole board if not all your opponents. Its a little bit of a pipe dream of a play but certainly a cool interaction.

I’m also playing around with Eldrazi Displacer which is quite flexible as it can tap down an opponent’s creature or exile tokens, protect other creatures from removal, blink Queen Marchesa to regain monarchy without attacking or Dockside Extortionist for major ramp or Selfless Squire to repeatedly fog or Sun Titan for recursion. Not sure whether that is enough to warrant a place, or whether I need to add a few more targets to make it really reliable and consistent. Still testing.

Rankle, Master of Pranks has been great with my playtesting too. A hasty, evasive creature that has a huge amount of utility packed on to him. Loving him.

cgomes says... #1

FYI the list has two mono-red Grenzo, so there's actually a missing card. putting it together for testing right now.

October 31, 2019 12:38 p.m.

Older20 says... #2

cgomes Thanks for letting me know - I have now updated it! Hope you enjoy play testing :)

October 31, 2019 9:22 p.m.

Nice deck, I am building Marchesa myself and happen to have most of the cards, however I do not own either Sword cards. How important are they and what would you suggest?

November 3, 2019 7:38 p.m.

Older20 says... #4

Thanks cheeseycrackers, I appreciate it. The swords are tremendously useful I have found. The sheer power of Sword of Feast and Famine is undeniable as it will give your creatures unblockable against a very high percentage of Commander decks, and the hit really puts you ahead. The hits from Sword of War and Peace can also just deal out brutal hits to players with full hands, and boosts your own life total which can suffer from a lot from self-inflicted incremental damage.

The swords also work tremendously well against over-confident players who have a giant board presences which you can strategically bypass with the relevant sword.

If you couldn't get a hold of them and needed to find 2 cards to fill their spaces you could try a bigger politics package with Curse of Opulence and Duelist's Heritage , both of which are great. Bloodthirsty Blade might be an option, or simply more ramp with Arcane Signet and Mind Stone . Angel's Grace and more fog effects/removal would also be worth trying.

However, I've found the swords to be a really nice tool in my toolbox in many, many games. I can't think of any other cards that fill that exact space (Aside perhaps from other Swords) and solve the problems that Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of War and Peace can solve.

November 4, 2019 4:22 a.m.

Older20 thanks for the response!I'm going to proxy the 2 swords and try them out. I'm making my a few personal adjustments, my playgroup bans Teferi Protection and I'm not quite sold on Hushbringer. Had a game where the other 3 did not rely on ETB, so they purposely kept Hushbringer alive, making Marchesa nothing more than a 3/3 deathtouch + haste. I will try Anya, Merciless Angel or Duelist's Heritage

November 4, 2019 8:41 a.m.
November 4, 2019 10:25 a.m.

Older20 says... #7

cheeseycrackers Yeah I would never play Hushbringer until Queen Marchesa is either on the field or Monarch is already in play. Even if your opponents aren't playing many ETB creatures Hushbringer is quite good at getting monarch back. Nevertheless I'm not entirely sold on it yet - still play testing myself!

November 4, 2019 6:58 p.m.

Older20 so I replaced Ophiomancer with Dragonmaster Outcast and Varchild over Hushbringer. Turns out, a 5/5 flyer that isnt limited to 1 at a time, is a pretty big threat deterrent. With Land Tax + Thaumatic Compass, 6 lands is really easy to get to. Varchild has also been incredible in the past, and Id imagine equipping him with Sunforger + 2 swords would be strong

November 4, 2019 9:38 p.m.

Older20 So I get this list. So far its felt fine but I have only played 2 games with it. What do you think? Cards like yawgmoth will and wheel of fortune were out of my budget

https://archidekt.com/decks/234984#Pillowfort_w/_recursion

December 10, 2019 11:23 a.m.

Older20 says... #10

Hi cheeseycrackers, I really like it. I might consider changing out Besmirch and Fiery Confluence for a bigger Sunforger package and a little more protection (And style points) with cards like Mana Tithe , Apostle's Blessing , Faith's Shield and Rebuff the Wicked which have all worked great for me. Having said all that, I would be more than happy to play your build, looks fun and strong!

December 10, 2019 8:20 p.m.

Older20 thanks! I did think I could add more to the Sunforger package, but I'd still have to test as well. As for Besmirch and Fiery Confluence:

Besmirch: I own both this and Word of Seizing. Word has its advantage in being an instant and fetchable from Sunforger, but Besmirch has been a godsend vs Eldrazi and other big timmy creatures. Going to try both more

Fiery confluence- I took out Price of Progress for this. You have a lot of non basics, but I assume you use Teferi's Protection to stop the damage? Fiery Confluence has utility. It can be a boardwipe, targeted artifact removal, and burn all in one. With Reverbrate and Wound Reflection, that's 24 damage to everyone else. However, I have yet to actually even use it, so I might also replace it with another instant for sunforger

December 11, 2019 8:10 a.m.

Older20 says... #12

cheeseycrackers Word of Seizing isn't fetch able by Sunforger but its still an absolute powerhouse. I've never really had an issues with Price of Progress potentially killing me. Even if it is very late in the game, you may have like 8 non basic lands out? That's only 16 damage which you should be able to weather. Often you want only cast it if you can win the game through additional affects such as Reverberate and Wound Reflection as you mentioned. I can't think of a single game where I couldn't cast Price of Progress because it would kill me. And I've player this decks over a hundred times.

December 11, 2019 8:40 p.m.

Older20 I did think Fiery Confluence hasnt been of much use, so I'll try Price of Progress or Torment of Hailfire. I think Torment of Hailfire can go well with Bloodchief Ascension too, unless they sac a creature theyll lose life no matter what.

December 11, 2019 9:52 p.m.

Last_Laugh says... #14

Have you ever considered Smoke ?

December 26, 2019 10:36 p.m.

Older20 says... #15

I wasn't aware that card existed until now haha. It's certainly an interesting card, but most of the time this deck wants opponents attacking - just for them to attack someone else which that card would restrict - it also wouldn't work with Disrupt Decorum a lot of the time for example. It would hinder decks that rely on mana dorks so that is something to note. Not quite suited to this deck overall I think.

December 27, 2019 2:04 a.m.