Queen Marchesa: Life tax Superfriends (EDH / Commander)

What's the goal of the deck ?

The goal is to control the game by using Planeswalkers in a midrange style while taxing your opponents life and ressources.Your PW will provide you with a lot of token generations, protecting themselves and also provinding you with slow burn damages every turn. You also have some instants that will help to protect you and your permanents by redirecting damages into the ennemy.

If it's not enough, you can still resurrect all your PW and legendaries with one spell or generate an army of angels with Divine Visitation.

Why Mardu Superfriends ?

Queen Marchesa allows a very unique approach of this archetype. She's abble to give you card advantage early in the game while being by herself a good defender. You can allow your ennemies to get the monarchy during some turns to build an army of assassins that will help to protect your planeswalker. When your ennemies will attack you, they will have to think about taking the monarchy or attack your planeswalkers, most of the time, they won't be abble to do both. That's a subtle way to protect your planeswalkers or your card draw. Basically, she's 3 effects in 1. You want to play her as fast as possible. This will be your first goal early in the game.

Some strategies and combos:

Tax them all: Kambal, consul of allocation, Ghostly Prison, Marchesa's Decree, Archangel of Tithes, Baird, Steward of Argive, Blind Obedience, Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, Norn's Annex, Smothering Tithe, Oath of Kaya, Oath of Chandra.

Planeswalkers: Ajani Steadfast, Karn's Bastion and Chandra, Acolyte of Flame will help you get some loyalty counters on your planeswalkers.
The Chain Veil and Chandra's regulator (we have a Chandra package to take advantage of this artifact but use Rings of Brighthearth if you can afford it) will help you to use your planeswalkers abilities multiples times.

Chandra, Awakened Inferno is the star of the deck. She's the one you want to revive multiples times and use her +2 ability as often as possible. Try to protect her as much as possible but if she has to die..
You can resurrect her with The Eldest Reborn, Primevals' Glorious Rebirth , Brought back with others planeswalkers. Brought back is specially good to save ressources, let your ennemy attack a planeswalker and instantly resurrect it without loosing any blocker.

You can also use Gideon's Sacrifice as a fog effect if you use it on one of your tokens but it can also helps you to cast for free one expensive card with Bolas's Citadel or resurrect all your walkers and creatures with Command The Dreadhorde without loosing any life. If you want to play more of a midrange strategy with two cards that will work more on their own : use The Eldest Reborn and Secure the Wastes instead.

Token generation: Oath of Liliana, Oath of Gideon and many of your planeswalkers will generate some tokens. They will help to protect your permanents at the side of Queen marchesa and her assassins but if you hit Divine Visitation, they turn into a win condition by themselves. Anointed Procession will help to build a huge board quickly. Luminarch ascension and Divine Visitation can win the game by themselves.

Aikido: Your ennemies will be tempted to think you have a really slow and unreactive deck. And sometimes, the best way to knock you out is a huge burst or a quick attack before you can set up your planeswalkers army. This is why cards like Comeuppance, Deflecting Palm and Batwing Brum are here. They transform a winning play from your opponent into a really bad turn for them.
Arcbond is a nasty card, just use it on Queen Marchesa or one assassin to wipe the entire board with deathtouch. You can even use it on another creature on the board during the blocking phase of one of your opponents.
Duelist's Heritage is a really subtle control card. Your opponents won't have any interest attacking you if you blockers, especially with deathtouch and if they do. You can give another opponents creatures double strike to help them take down the one who attacked you before.
It's a great political tool that can be use both offensively and defensively and a great way to bargain.
Following the aikido philosophy, you won't try to ultimate your planeswalkers at all cost. Most of the time, you just need to slowly get some value while using minimum ressources to keep them alive, except if they are a key component of the current state of the game you are playing for some reasons. Chandra, Awakened Inferno is the main target you want to protect. Otherwise, use your ressources wisely and let your walkers die if it costs too much to keep them alive. Just prepare for the huge swing turn when you will be ready to resurrect everyone later in the game.

Chaos: Bloodthirsty blade seems really really good, it's a repateable way to turn away from you the most dangerous creature of the game while pushing bad trades and damages among your ennemies. Disrupt decorum follows the same plan.
This chaos can create unique and creative ways to use Arcbond so keep an eye on what's happening every turn !

Boseiju, Who Shelters All is here to help you hit these crucial spells when needed (looking at you, blue players). You really don't want your Primevals' Glorious Rebirth to be countered, it will put into play from your graveyard every legendary permanent and not only planeswalkers ! We have some artifacts and creatures that are worth taking back into action. Notice that Chandra's regulator and the Chain Veil are legendaries..

You will find on the maybeboard some cards that would find a home in this deck and cards that do a similar effect of one card already in the deck but on a budget (like Call of the Gatewatch instead of Arena Rector).

Obliterate can be a red button to push if you are in trouble and have some planeswalkers out.
It costs a lot but it can't be countered. Remember that you can use Primevals' Glorious Rebirth and use Jayah and Chandra abilities to give you 5 red manas by themselves so you can cast Primevals' then Obliterate in the same turn if you have 10 manas. Leaving the board empty for everyone except a huge army of planeswalkers for you and no one has any lands to use their spells. If you cast Primevals' with Boseiju, you have a huge win condition that your opponents can't counter. Jokulhaups does the same and is cheaper to cast, i would prefer this one over obliterate but you will need to have Boseiju on the board or watch carefully about the available mana of your opponents.

Bolas's Citadel can be a huge play with The Wanderer, you will be abble to play almost any card in your deck without paying any life in the process. You can replace these two cards by Thran Temporal Gateway + Elspeth Knight Errant or another planeswalker of your choice (love Rowan Kenrith for the chaos potential) depending of your meta instead of The Wanderer if you want to focus more in cheating legendaries into play and make more tokens. Karn, Scion of Urza is the middle ground, giving you both card draw and some tokens if you need. If you choose to go for Thran Temporal Gateway, don't forget to add Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. Being a huge threat by herself, she will increase the damages of your tax effects and prevent half of the damages dealt to you and your planeswalkers.
You can also use another Boros Signet to make the deck even faster and kind of midrange instead of getting value from the citadel.

The way you choose to tune the deck should depend of the meta of your playgroup.
You have to choose between speed and value depending of the time your opponents will give you with their decks.