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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!

Queen Marchesa
Image from Wizards.com

Queen Marchesa
- Eldritch Moon

Reviewed Sept. 22, 2016

Constructed: 2.88
Casual: 4.38
Limited: 4.50
Multiplayer: 4.88
Commander [EDH]: 4.88

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale:
1 - Horrible  3 - Average.  5 - Awesome

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Card of the Day Reviews 


David Fanany

Player since 1995

Queen Marchesa
 
One of my old Magic groups used to have a multiplayer rule where a player could gain a designation in the fashion of the monarch. In our case, though, it was awarded to the player who currently had the lowest life total, and that player couldn't be attacked as long as there were more than two players left in the game. Obviously that's not quite as big an advantage as getting to draw an extra card, like Conspiracy: Take the Crown's monarch - but there's no better way to get Magic players as a group to adopt something than to let them draw extra cards.
 
I think it's a little funny that Marchesa makes you become the monarch, when in the storyline she's one who's the queen of Paliano. I didn't think she was really the type to share, to be quite honest. However, everything about her is designed to seize the crown and hold the crown. Remember that you become the monarch when your creature damages the monarch, and a lot of people will find being the monarch hollow when they had to us a Wall of Frost or a dragon to block a 1/1 token with deathtouch. And if that avenue isn't working for some reason, Marchesa's also in the right colors for flickering, reanimation, and other such shenanigans that make it entirely unnecessary.
 
Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 5/5
EDH/Commander: 5/5

James H.

Queen Marchesa (9/22)
 
It’s good to be queen. Or something.
 
Marchesa, having taken the crown from the long-undead ruler of Paliano, has changed a bit, swapping out her colors (from Grixis to Mardu), picking up combat-relevant abilities (deathtouch and haste, replacing the old one's dethrone) and…well, adding a crown. The new ‘Monarch’ mechanic gives you an additional card at the end of turn, with the caveat that someone can become monarch by dealing combat damage to the reigning monarch. Yes, this works in Legacy and Vintage (not that you’d probably play Queen Marchesa in those formats; Mardu is a fairly weak color combination in Legacy).
 
And if someone takes the crown from you, Marchesa churns out tokens to try and get it back. Them being disposable assassin tokens makes them even more difficult to handle safely and efficiently, and throwing enough of them out will make it all the more likely that you can get one in there to get the crown back.
 
Queen Marchesa is a massive bomb in Limited, but I don't think she can get there in Legacy or Vintage; she's a bit too “fair" and slow for the high-powered Legacy and Vintage tables. She’d actually be good in Modern (and absurd in Standard), but Conspiracy isn’t Modern-legal.​
 
Constructed: 2.75
Casual: 4.75
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 4.75
Commander: 4.75


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