Ascending Godhood

Commander / EDH* Casual Theme/Gimmick UBR (Grixis) Vorthos

CastleSiege

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Gemstone Mine
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Great Furnace
• 1x Interplanar Beacon
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 3x Island
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of Whispers
• 1x Watery Grave

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Dream Halls
• 1x Omniscience
• 1x Waste Not

Sorcery (18)

• 1x Apex of Power
• 1x Bribery
• 1x Command the Dreadhorde
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dark Deal
• 1x Deep Analysis
• 1x Deliver Unto Evil
• 1x Echo of Eons
• 1x ExpropriateGC
• 1x Hour of Devastation
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Tezzeret's Gambit
• 1x The Elderspell
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall

Creature (11)

• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Deepglow Skate
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x God-Eternal Bontu
• 1x God-Eternal Kefnet
• 1x Mindclaw Shaman
• 1x Neheb, the Eternal
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x The Locust God
• 1x The Scarab God

Instant (6)

• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Evacuation
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Sudden Spoiling

Commander (1)

 ^Flip

Artifact (16)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bolas's CitadelGC
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim MonolithGC
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana VaultGC
• 1x Planar Bridge
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence

Planeswalker (9)

• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
• 1x Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
• 1x Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver
• 1x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
• 1x Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

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This description is a work in progress and will be fully fleshed out at a later date.

Bolas flavor is the name of the game.

I have wanted to make a Nicol Bolas "tribal" deck for a very long time. The first iterations of the deck some number of years ago were built around the OG Nicol Bolas and cheating in damage with cards like Thornbite Staff, Quicksilver Dagger, Dragon Tempest, and Warstorm Surge. I combined Bolas's discard ability with a full reanimator package to steal creatures from my opponents' graveyards. Apart from this, I just shoehorned any Bolas-flavor cards I could into the deck. Needless to say, it wasn't very good.

Hour of Devastation gave Bolas lots of new flavor toys such as Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh, Hour of Devastation, and the insect gods (sorry Scorpion, you're not nearly as good as your brothers) plus the masterpiece versions of Damnation and Omniscience (both depicting the big bad himself). But I still found myself in the same dilemma, there weren't enough on flavor cards that were powerful enough to get the deck where I really wanted it to be.

Enter War of the Spark. Oh boy was this set good to me. Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, The Elderspell, and Bolas's Citadel really put the deck over the top. I could finally make the deck what I always wanted it to be.

At it's heart, this is a Grixis Good-Stuff deck, chock full of Bolas flavor. I knew I wanted to run several planeswalkers since many iterations of the same characters are his minions.

Tezzeret the Seeker and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas tutor for and dig respectively for Bolas's Citadel (the main wincon of the deck) while Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge is just inherently strong - making my planeswalkers and creatures cheaper while also gaining me life to offset casting spells with Citadel. I'm not sure if I would call artifacts a subtheme of the deck (only 3 aren't mana rocks or lands). I just run a significant quantity of them to make the Tezzerets that much more effective.

I need to stress the importance of Bolas's Citadel. It's the linchpin of the deck. Many cards cost a significant amount of mana and I want to make sure I can cast them. Omniscience and Dream Halls act as backups and the deck plays a lot of top-deck manipulation effects to get the most out of Citadel. Insidious Dreams and Lim-Dul's Vault are capable of setting up a primary win (Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God plus The Elderspell and any number of planeswalkers I might need to ultimate Bolas).

There is also a small discard/reanimator package. Nicol Bolas, the Ravager   makes my opponents discard a card on ETB. I've also chosen to include the three 3cmc wheels in Grixis colors: Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, and Dark Deal as well as Time Spiral. Waste Not is fantastic when it comes down before I cast my commander and the three 3cmc wheels make it that much better. Reanimate and Animate Dead are both extremely efficient at what they do and Command the Dreadhorde can be exceedingly powerful. The Scarab God is also powerful and difficult to remove. On the topic of gods, The Locust God loves wheel effects. The insects he creates make excellent blockers for my planeswalkers or sac fodder for God-Eternal Bontu. Bontu can also be a great powerplay late game when you have a DreamHalls or Omniscience in play. Did I mention Disciple of Bolas? It always feels great sacrificing a god and then getting it back the same turn.

God-Eternal Kefnet has great synergy here. with Bolas's Citadel, I can look at the top card before my turn and decide ahead of time if I want to reveal the top card as I draw it. If it's not an instant or sorcery, I won't reveal it! And with plenty of top-deck manipulation, Kefnet is very likely to copy lots of spells. I have included a single extra turn spell in Temporal Manipulation, so it is possible to go infinite, but not likely.

This description is only a rough gist of the deck. I'll try to flesh it out more eventually. Maybe.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	30 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.97
Tokens	Copy Clone, Insect 1/1 UR, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B