Marchesa, Dealer of DeathMarchesa, Dealer of Death | art by Ryan Pancoast

Welcome back to Bottom of the Barrel! This is a series where we pick a theme from EDHREC and look at the “bottom of the barrel.” This means that we look at the least played color-combination and pick a commander in those colors to brew a spicy new deck around!

Today's theme is one that came up pretty organically for me, as I've been trying to brew around the old legend, Ramses Overdark, forever.

Ramses is not our commander today, but we are building a deck heavily inspired by the old guy. For that reason, today's theme is: Auras. Auras is extremely popular in decks that have white in their color identity, as white is the primary enchantment support color. This is what made old Ramses so intriguing to me; he was an Aura focused commander not using white.

Thus brings me to the stats: with 176 decks on EDHREC, the Grixis color combination (Red, Black, and Blue) was one of the lowest built color combos for Auras (the lowest overall being Jund (red, green, and black) at 42 decks). I brewed around Jund at first, but I couldn't stop thinking about old Ramses.

On EDHREC, only 5 Aura-based lists are focused around Machesa, Dealer of Death, so that seemed like the perfect option!

Marchesa is great for 2 reasons:

1. We're leaning into Ramses Overdark's want of enchanting our opponents' creatures, so our entire gameplan is built around "committing crimes".
2. She provides terrific card selection when we run out of steam. (There's only 1 "enchantress" effect in Grixis colors, you know!)

Enchanting our opponents' creatures comes at a cost, but that leads us into our first category...

Category #1: Goad/Incentivizing Combat

I know the goad mechanic isn't for everyone, but this style of deck thrives off of it. Why enchant our opponents' creatures if they're just going to attack us with them? Luckily for us, there are a few Auras that goad the creature its attached to.

Shiny Impetus can help us ramp; Ghoulish Impetus is an underrated Aura that can keep recurring itself throughout the game (unless the creature is exiled); Parasitic Impetus can help us drain an opponent who may have a high life total; The Sound of Drums turns an opponent's threat into twice the problem ; and the new Incriminating Impetus gives a creature menace while taking away its ability to block.

Outside of Auras that goad our opponents' creatures, there are other ways that we can incentivize combat. Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant draws us cards when our opponents attack each other; Vengeful Ancestor goads creatures and deals damage when goaded creatures attack; and Bothersome Quasit goads creatures whenever we cast noncreature spells, which is great considering Auras are noncreature spells!

Category #2: Protecting Ourselves

We can't always guarantee we won't be attacked, so we need to have ways that ensure opponents have a hard time attacking us. Baleful Strix is a great blocker that comes down early and draws us a card; Giggling Skitterspike deals damage to our opponents whenever it blocks or is targeted; Brash Taunter is arguably the best blocker ever printed; Backfire redirects any damage dealt to us to the enchanted creature's controller; Propaganda forces opponents to use mana to attack us; and Ragged Veins deals damage to an opponent if their enchanted creature becomes blocked.

Category #3- "Borrowing" Threats

Forcing our opponents' threats to attack is fun, but we need a way to win, eventually. This is where our "borrowing" category is the most important. Cards like: Corrupted Conscience can KO someone out of nowhere; Fealty to the Realm is not a "hard steal" spell, so hopefully people won't be too mad about their creature being borrowed; Willbreaker is a little more mean, but it can finish the game; Fool's Demise is a repeatable way to gain control of creatures; Abduction temporarily "borrows" a creature; and Virtue of Persistence can act as an endgame reanimation haymaker.

Category #4- Secret Spice

As always, we have our "secret spice" for the deck, and to no one's surprise it comes in the form of the old man himself, Ramses Overdark. Ramses is an amazing way to ensure that the creatures we enchant never become too much of a threat to us.

Aside from Ramses, there's another "secret commander" of the deck that we can load up with Auras and pass around the table to sow chaos: Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos.

Alexios is very similar to Slicer, Hired Muscle, but, in my opinion, is a bit stronger. Giving it trample and making it bigger every single turn is hugely effective, even without a single Aura attached to it.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, this deck started as a thought-experiment/love letter to Ramses Overdark, and turned into a very political and interactive deck. I know this kind of deck is not for everyone, but for those that love to be a "political puppet-master", this is the perfect thing to build!

This brings us to the end of our fourth edition of Bottom of the Barrel! I hope you enjoyed exploring a lesser-played color-combination in the world of Auras!

Check out my decklist below!

An important note about budget: I found that if you have a budget-friendly mana base, this deck can be extremely cheap to build effectively. Most of the Auras have either been reprinted into oblivion, or are just forgotten commons from older sets. Ramses is a little on the expensive side, so if you wanted to run the deck without him, that is doable, I just couldn't bring myself to cut the old guy.

Nick Benstead

Nick is a full-time educator of America's youth, teaching them to love stories, and write for expression. Outside of teaching, his life is steeped in Magic the Gathering, whether it be through playing commander with his wife, or coming up with wacky brews to take to Friday Night Magic at his local game store.