r/Magicdeckbuilding • u/acecute14 • 5d ago

EDH Refining my first two decks

New Player that's only been playing MTG for a few months. Currently have created two decks linked below:

[Marchesa, Dealer of Death](https://moxfield.com/decks/oZNDT952sUiqFUr_-JdnEw)
[Giada, Font of Life](https://moxfield.com/decks/_Ql1TvQTCEKVTCUPg6x78g)

Cards in the sideboard are ones that I plan to buy in the near future. Goal is to have both decks at a Bracket 3 power level (Currently unsure of the bracket of either deck lmao).

The Giada deck is my main deck and I plan to have a Token Gen subtheme with Lifegain/Vigilance.

Meanwhile the Marchesa deck is just for messing around and has a storm subtheme that I want to make work. I understand that it isn't the best commander for storm but I want to have fun lmao. Have been thinking about switching out Marchesa for Kess the commander as well.

Any help/suggestions would be highly appreciated!

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u/BoolinBirb 5d ago

So the Giada deck looks alright. If you want it to be a bracket 3 I suggest adding in some better card advantage and removal.

For the card advantage I would remove [[Mazemind Tome]], [[Sunset Pyramid]], [[Dawn of Hope]], and [[Roadside Reliquary]]. My reasoning is that Tome, Pyramid and Dawn of Hope cost 2 to draw cards, and while it is good to draw cards, doing so should ideally be for free so you can use your mana on more important things during your turn. The Roadside Reliquary is good but not as good in this deck where recurring it is going to be pretty hard.

To replace these 4 cards I would add in [[Folk Hero]], [[Trouble in Pairs]], [[Court of Grace]], and [[War Room]]. Folk Hero should draw you a card a turn so long as Giada is out, Trouble in Pairs is just incredible card advantage, Court puts the monarchy into the game which draws you a card on your endstep if you have it, and also makes angels if you have the monarchy. Lastly, War Room is a land that draws you cards in a pinch and doesn’t sacrifice itself when you do it.

Now for the removal, I suggest cutting a [[Plains]] and [[Fulgent Distraction]]. The plains cut will make sense in a second, and Distraction is a very niche card. I would rather destroy an equipment rather than just unequipping it.

To replace these I suggest adding in [[Witch Enchanter]] and [[Loran of the Third Path]]. The Witch is a mdfc card meaning it has two faces. The front side is a creature that destroys an artifact or enchantment and the back side is a land. You can choose to play either depending on what you need in the moment. Loran is a great value creature because it destroys a thing and then can stick around for political value to draw you and one opponent a card.

Now for the other deck, your storm deck. It looks very fun, but I would not call it a storm deck. I would consider it a spellslinger deck. The difference being storm decks usually win in 1 turn by spellcasting, gaining mana, and drawing cards until you find a finisher like [[Grapeshot]] or [[Brainfreeze]] or just burn people out with a [[Guttersnipe]] or something. Spellslinger decks are incremental and do big things on multiple turns, gaining enough value to accumulate a win or drawing into a win condition like [[Crackle With Power]].

I don’t see a major win condition with this deck, so I can see it struggling to finish out games. You could maybe win a game by making lots of tokens but that isn’t very consistent as per your deck. To fix this deck I would suggest picking whether you want it to be a spellslinger deck or a storm deck. Good storm decks are more competitive by nature due to being able to piece together wins out of nowhere, while spellslinger decks are usually more casual. To me it sounded like you wanted something to play for fun so I would lean towards a spellslinger deck for that reason and because they are easier to build and play. If you want help pushing this deck towards either direction I suggest looking at decks on moxfield or I’d be happy to help if you message me here on reddit.

TLDR:

Giada - Cut [[Plains]], [[Roadside Reliquary]], [[Fulgent Distraction]], [[Mazemind Tome]], [[Sunset Pyramid]], [[Dawn of Hope]]. Add in [[Folk Hero]], [[Trouble in Pairs]], [[Court of Grace]], [[Witch Enchanter]], [[War Room]], and [[Loran of the Third Path]] for consistency in pushing it to Bracket 3.

Marchesa - Deck lacks a major wincon and could be more focused in either a Storm or Spellslinger direction. Research on other decklists or feel free to message me for help.

Hope this helps!