Most of the builds of Marchesa that I saw when I built the deck about five years ago were lean and low to the ground, emphasizing a quick, aggressive style. I built mine in a similar fashion but found myself not having much joy in my playgroups, which I put down to the fact that that style of play was overly reliant on Marchesa being on the board. Most players quickly realized that not allowing me to resolve her meant that most of my early aggressive plays quickly burned out.
So my goal was to rebuild the list into a more midrange, value-oriented build that didn't require Marchesa on the field to achieve a win, but that became a lot better if she did hit the board. At the time I was also playing a Karador reanimator list and I found it interesting that this Marchesa deck became a better version of what I was hoping my Karador deck would be. My main motivation for sharing this list is to give an example of a somewhat decent midrange take on Marchesa, also a slightly fresh approach to traditional graveyard based strategies. It feels a lot more resilient to GY hate and also better equipped to recover when people deal with one of the ways I usually carve out a win.
The primary win cons (outside of making it too difficult to deal with my board courtesy of Marchesa's abilities) are the following lines:
- Infinite mana with Glen Elendra Archmage + Phyrexian Altar + Metallic Mimic (wizards)/Sage of Fables
- Repeated combat steps with Combat Celebrant or Scourge of the Throne
- Bolas's Citadel; Usually eventually finding Gray Merchant of Asphodel and cloning him several times, or simply stumbling on one of he other win-cons
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts
- Sage of Hours + Unspeakable Symbol + Whip of Erebos (Provided 15+ life can be gained per combat to put another 5 counters on the Sage)
I'd be very keen to hear about anyone else's experiences with Marchesa, the Black Rose and to hear about cards that they might have had a lot of success with. A few of the cards I think I could replace (mainly because they feel like they've been underperforming) would be Sygg, River Cutthroat, Aura Thief (oscillates between being a blowout or being useless), Sage of Hours, and Fervor. The most obvious improvements I'd like to make are Imperial Recruiter and Toxic Deluge, but opportunities to trade have become rather sparse lately - hopefully they'll happen soon, though!