Overview:

A political control deck helmed by Queen Marchesa, focusing on forcing combat between opponents while protecting itself through deterrents and reactive spells. The deck aims to win through attrition and political manipulation.

Primer:

This deck employs a sophisticated political strategy centered around forcing combat between opponents while maintaining defensive positioning. The monarch mechanic, combined with cards like Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant and Kardur, Doomscourge, creates forced combat scenarios that keep opponents busy fighting each other. Meanwhile, defensive pieces like No Mercy, Authority of the Consuls, and Blind Obedience help protect your position.

The deck's win conditions are primarily through combat damage after wearing down opponents, using cards like Gisela, Blade of Goldnight or Luminarch Ascension to close out games. The deck also includes numerous "revenge" effects like Deflecting Palm and Inkshield that can punish aggressive opponents and create dramatic swing turns. Card advantage is generated through political cards like Smuggler's Share and Court of Grace, ensuring a steady flow of resources.

Weaknesses:

The deck can struggle against combo-oriented strategies that don't rely on combat. The mana base could be improved with more fetch lands and shock lands for better color consistency. The deck's reliance on political elements makes it vulnerable in 1v1 situations, and it can sometimes struggle to close out games quickly if opponents aren't actively attacking each other.

Top 10 Most Impactful Cards:

• Smothering Tithe
• Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• Kardur, Doomscourge
• No Mercy
• Inkshield
• Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant
• Ruinous Ultimatum
• Luminarch Ascension
• Disrupt Decorum
• Queen Marchesa

Attribute Ratings:

• Speed: 4/10
• Resilience: 7/10
• Consistency: 5/10
• Interaction: 8/10

Rating Justification:

This deck sits firmly in the optimized casual range, with strong interaction pieces and political elements that make it more sophisticated than a basic precon, but lacking the fast mana and efficient win conditions of higher-powered decks. It's too slow and politically-oriented to compete with focused competitive decks (7.0+) but has enough interaction and defensive capabilities to punch above basic casual decks (4.0). The deck's ability to control the board through politics and protection effects while generating value through monarch and other card advantage engines places it solidly in the high-power casual range.

Final power level rating: 5.0 - 5.5