Marchesa, Breaker of Armies (EDH / Commander) [Revision 245]

Strategy
This deck wins by assembling a machine that becomes increasingly harder to dismantle as the game goes on.

The creatures in the deck are either sacrifice outlets, ETB creatures that we're going to abuse with Marchesa's ability, or things that reinforce the +1/+1 counters.

Sacrifice
You want to get a sacrifice outlet on the board as early as possible, and the more you have, the harder your creatures are to deal with.

Yawgmoth is the best one in the deck. He does everything we want. He sacrifices, draws cards, and helps us lose life in small increments to keep us off of the throne.

Ranked:

1. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
2. Ashnod's Altar
3. Yahenni, Undying Partisan
4. Everything else

Draw
There is some serious fuckery here, and it's all bursty. The best is Necropotence. Life for cards is what we love. After that, if you can hold Mana up for them, flashing in Thought Sponge on someone else's turn after they've drawn 4 cards makes him come in as a 5/5. If you sac him, you draw 5 cards, and if Marchesa is on the board, he comes back at the end of that turn as a 5/5 again, and you can sac him again on the next person's turn for 5 cards, and he comes back again. Everything else is pretty straight forward but will require good timing

Punishing
We want to deal damage when our creatures leave the battlefield and when they enter the battlefield, because we're going to be doing that a lot. All of these are spendy, so don't feel bad about binning them until late game.

1. Stalking Vengeance
2. Flayer of the Hatebound
3. Terror of the Peaks

Removal
We don't need single-target creature removal, because we're stealing creatures to sacrifice them. If they're not a commander, we get to keep them as long as Marchesa saw them die with a counter on them, so we have board wipes and artifact hate. Our blind spot is enchantments. Feed the Swarm and Chaos Warp can deal with them, but that's about it. Consider countering them or stealing them with Agent of Treachery if they're going to be a problem.

Golden Cards
Unspeakable Symbol

• Best card in the deck. Spend life, add counters, and do it in response to someone's removal

Dockside Extortionist

• He's 2 Mana. Tutor for him and play him on the same turn if you have to. If you can keep recurring him, you'll be swimming in Mana

Imperial Recruiter

• At time of writing this, there are 18 valid targets for him in the deck. Abuse his ability.

Agent of Treachery

• Do you know your own capacity for evil? This guy will show it to you.

Thoughts
This deck is hard to pilot, because you have to make good calls on threat assessment when stealing creatures in every moment. If you pull a tutor, you should be looking either for an answer to an immediate problem or the best missing piece of your machine. Don't tutor for win conditions. Marchesa has no problem closing out the game with or without Mob Rule. Play low to the ground and fill up the battlefield.