Heyo happy to chime in! +1 m8

-allThreaten effects in favor of payoffs like Mob Rule, etc... or sticks like Big Game Hunter, Evil Twin, etc. Once you hit any of these you'll be doing the same thing (from your opponents' POV): soft-locking the board.

-1 Primordial Mist

+1 Sultai Emissary

+6-10 Dusk Legion Zealot, draw, ETC ...I feel like these are MVP and lend to an aristocrats style.

-1 Curse of Stalked Prey... too conditional in the late game

-1 Captivating Crew... too much mana

+1 Vigean Graftmage, or anything that can put counters on Marchesa

+1 Plaguecrafter, etc... these are oppressive engines

With a lot more draw + lower cmc removal/ removal-sticks this will slap!

Thany you Strangelove I will work on this stuff the next couple of weeks.

Reason for the high count of theft spells ( this you for sure know ) is that you can attack with the stolen creature get a +1/+1 on them via marchesa dethrone, sac them with an outlet of your choice to get that creature permanently via marchesas ability. If marchesa is not there a simple sac will just get rid of it and its very nice. But I see that you advised a more engline like approach.

Will try that out iteratively!

Np marco-online, you got me brewing! I definitely leaned into the aristocrats.

For more thievery, I think you might like Callous Oppressor or Thalakos Deceiver.

I also thought Volcano Hellion was really cool, but I did end up cutting it.