Queen Marchesa Aristocrats (Expansion Singleton Challenge)
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 6:01 am
When I saw [mention]Cow31337Killer[/mention]'s Modern Border challenge thread, it reminded me about a deck I built as part of a thought exercise on Magic Twitter a while back. With the nature of singleton it actually felt pretty easy to put together a deck, and I've been tempted to build this list in paper.
At first I was just having a good time reading the back-and-forth of the discussion, but then got the bug to actually try it. One of my local game stores did a Block Challenge a while back, and I managed to put together a pretty decent Selenia, Dark Angel Tempest Block list.
While the rules are mostly self-explanatory, the is one very specific part of the challenge rules to keep in mind when building that determined how my build ended up:
When I thought about the Commander for the deck, the first thing I knew I wanted to do was have three colors. Three colors is perfect for a challenge like this because it let me spread out the better cards across different colors and sets so I wouldn't be tempted to settle for subpar cards I don't want to see in a Commander deck.
Next, I thought about the colors. I didn't want to run anything with Blue, because a lot of the better blue stuff tends to be concentrated in the same sets in the past, so heavily relying on Blue seemed like a bad idea. I knew I wanted Black because Black has had such a long history of powerful cards while sticking to certain themes like recursion and board disruption. It would have the most consistent board wipes while adhering to the deck construction limitations thanks to a large number of various wrath effects.
Ultimately I settled on Marchesa and an Aristocrats style deck because Mardu has access to some of the best removal and payoff effects for recursion and sacrifice effects that Black focuses on. The list below is what I came up with and includes several game ending combos and interactions, and outside of the land base I actually feel it could be pretty decent!
At first I was just having a good time reading the back-and-forth of the discussion, but then got the bug to actually try it. One of my local game stores did a Block Challenge a while back, and I managed to put together a pretty decent Selenia, Dark Angel Tempest Block list.
Expansion Singleton Challenge Rules
- The deck may contain only one card from each expansion.
- The first, original printing is what counts.
- Have fun!
About The Deck
Next, I thought about the colors. I didn't want to run anything with Blue, because a lot of the better blue stuff tends to be concentrated in the same sets in the past, so heavily relying on Blue seemed like a bad idea. I knew I wanted Black because Black has had such a long history of powerful cards while sticking to certain themes like recursion and board disruption. It would have the most consistent board wipes while adhering to the deck construction limitations thanks to a large number of various wrath effects.
Ultimately I settled on Marchesa and an Aristocrats style deck because Mardu has access to some of the best removal and payoff effects for recursion and sacrifice effects that Black focuses on. The list below is what I came up with and includes several game ending combos and interactions, and outside of the land base I actually feel it could be pretty decent!
The Deck: Queen Marchesa Aristocrats
Decklist
Approximate Total Cost: