Been reading up on this.
I'm wanting to build something new that I haven't seen much of (My god Hulk/Engine is boring) but am wondering how this holds up against top tier decks?
Also what would it look like budgetless?
It isn't really a top tier deck. You're probably still better off playing Breya combos, because at least there you still have utility from your general.
All you get from this general is an engine or a combo piece.. Your combos aren't infinite here for the most part. Other than Time Sieve, which is insane for all the right reasons.. Time Sieve also requires critical mass, which may be hard to achieve.
It is still nonetheless probably the best Marchesa the Black Rose list simply because it doesn't need to attack to win. Or if it does, it is probably for 10 infect.
I think the biggest hurdle to overcome for this list is that it is hard to run interaction. You need a creature, sac outlet and a way to draw cards. That is a lot of cards just devoted to keep the engine going. Many pieces have fairly high cmc too so you can't play them particularly early.
Other problem is that gy hate is most likely game over if you can't get rid of it fast. Green based gy decks have efficient answers to gy hate but grixis really doesn't (counters are pretty much it).
I saw a guy play this pretty cool looking Marchesa Wizard tribal and it seemed strong. I'm not sure this is the best Marchesa list but I don't run this exact list (I run a more eggs and modular focused list) so I can't really say for sure.
Inkmoth nexus seems really sweet. I would run it myself if I could afford it. Even without any extra buffing it kills an opponent in 4 turns (it will always get counters because it makes opponent lose life). With just one extra counter it kills in 3. I used to run mishra's factory and now I run blinkmoth nexus and just being able to dump counters onto an evasive body is value.
Ruins of oran-rief is just bad. Played with it several games and every time I wished it would etb untapped and in practice the additional +1/+1 doesn't matter at all especially because you can't put it on marchesa. It be playable if it could +1/+1 counter on each colorless creature like the original but it can't.
The deck generally revolves around synergy between modular creatures and marchesa. For draw I run bunch "flavor" draw (artificer's epiphany, thoughtcast etc. and some trickets that cantrip) Other big part is the trinket synergy. I once machine gunned opponent's entire board with salvaging station, lotus bloom and executioner's capsule.
I don't think it's very good. Opal Palace filters for colored mana and marchesa enters with the counter so opponents can't respond to the counter.
I think the biggest hurdle to overcome for this list is that it is hard to run interaction. You need a creature, sac outlet and a way to draw cards. That is a lot of cards just devoted to keep the engine going. Many pieces have fairly high cmc too so you can't play them particularly early.
Other problem is that gy hate is most likely game over if you can't get rid of it fast. Green based gy decks have efficient answers to gy hate but grixis really doesn't (counters are pretty much it).
I saw a guy play this pretty cool looking Marchesa Wizard tribal and it seemed strong. I'm not sure this is the best Marchesa list but I don't run this exact list (I run a more eggs and modular focused list) so I can't really say for sure.
It is just bad.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/arcbound-marchesa/
The deck generally revolves around synergy between modular creatures and marchesa. For draw I run bunch "flavor" draw (artificer's epiphany, thoughtcast etc. and some trickets that cantrip) Other big part is the trinket synergy. I once machine gunned opponent's entire board with salvaging station, lotus bloom and executioner's capsule.