Machinations Eternal

Commander / EDH Control Multiplayer UBR (Grixis)

KuraiU

Land (38)

• 1x Cascading Cataracts
• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Cinder Barrens
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Crypt of the Eternals
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Highland Lake
• 2x Island
• 3x Island
• 1x Island
• 1x Island
• 1x Island
• 1x Island
• 1x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Painted Bluffs
• 1x Rakdos Carnarium
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Submerged Boneyard
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple of the False God

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Fool's Demise
• 1x Jace's Sanctum
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Warstorm Surge

Creature (18)

• 1x Ammit Eternal
• 1x Archfiend of Depravity
• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Bloodgift Demon
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Hostage Taker
• 1x Magus of the Abyss
• 1x Molten Primordial
• 1x Myojin of Night's Reach
• 1x Neheb, the Eternal
• 1x Nightveil Specter
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1x The Locust God
• 1x The Scarab God
• 1x The Scorpion God
• 1x Wasp of the Bitter End
• 1x Wildfire Eternal

Instant (12)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dark Betrayal
• 1x Desertion
• 1x Dissolve
• 1x Insidious Will
• 1x Magmaquake
• 1x Malicious Affliction
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Redirect
• 1x Reins of Power
• 1x Shunt
• 1x Stifle

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
• 1x Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver

Commander (1)

Artifact (13)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Glaring Spotlight
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Kolaghan Monument
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Silumgar Monument
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Visage of Bolas

Sorcery (11)

• 1x Cruel Ultimatum
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Dark Intimations
• 1x Hour of Devastation
• 1x Mob Rule
• 1x Slip Through Space
• 1x Syphon Mind
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Volcanic Vision
• 1x Wit's End

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Breaking / Entering
• 1x Slave of Bolas

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Reality Acid

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Introduction

With the release of Amonkhet and very soon, Hour of Devastation, I finally decided to build my own version of a Nicol Bolas deck. Inspired by the deck made by rayxomnus (see here). Go about destroying the resources of others while keeping your own resources protected. Using cards such as Swiftfoot Boots, you make sure that not only can Nicol Bolas be protected during your opponents' turns, but that you don't need to fight with Nicol Bolas at all to shatter your opponents' hands. Take their creatures forever using Fool's Demise or Reins of Power and in response to removal or death, sacrifice the stolen creatures to Altar of Dementia for more value. Control the board by denying your opponents their stuff with the many counterspells and removal in the deck. Bring forth Bolas' eternal servants to further advance your board and further impede your opponents'. Death and defeat await your opponents, just as it does for the Gatewatch in Hour of Devastation.

Servants of Bolas

The Eternal servants of Nicol Bolas, Ammit Eternal, Wildfire Eternal, and Neheb, the Eternal aim to destroy the opposition by attacking and putting my opponents into a situation where blocking or not blocking is a conscious concern where if you block, you get hit and if you don't block, you get hit and I get additional effects.

Baleful Strix, Bloodgift Demon, Disciple of Bolas, and Nightveil Specter grant us more value with card draw and the opponents' libraries themselves are not safe.

The Locust God, The Scarab God, and The Scorpion God are loyal servants of Bolas. With The Locust God, there is an infinite combo surrounding it that I can get to with the amount of card draw in the deck. Adding in Psychosis Crawler makes it so that each Insect I make also pings my opponents, Warstorm Surge also accomplishes this. The Scarab God allows me to reanimate all dead creatures into an army of Eternals for my benefit alone that I can use to foresee my top decks, then change it while also annihilating my opponents' life points at the same time. The Scorpion God debilitates the opponents' creatures and helps both Scarab and Locust in getting reanimation targets and drawing cards. Truly, if a triangle of cards that have synergies with each other were to exist, this would be it.

Despite Bolas never truly reaching the plane of New Phyrexia, his loyal servant Tezzeret has, and now in alliance with Bolas is the Soul of New Phyrexia who will grant all my permanents Indestructible and deny my opponents the benefit of their board wipes.

Not even Bolas's enemies are safe as the Myojin of Night's Reach is forced under his servitude and with her, Bolas shall wipe the minds of his opponents quickly, efficiently, and without a second thought. Use the Molten Primordial stolen from Ravnica to steal your opponents' best creatures, then before the end of turn destroy them if they haven't died yet to be reanimated into Eternals

What better way to declare the end of Amonkhet than with the Wasp of the Bitter End, 2/1 for 2 that allows you to destroy whatever creature you want by playing one of Bolas's many Planeswalker forms.

With the Archfiend of Depravity within our ranks, Bolas can force opponents to get rid of their boards, leaving only their strongest to stop your growing army of Eternals. But even they must fall to the Archfiend, for death is all that awaits.

Awaken thy Magus, Magus of the Abyss, descend all into the Abyss and eliminate the threats that Bolas deems unworthy of his time.

Steal your opponents creatures using Hostage Taker, then cast them just for spite.

Spells Against Feeble Resistance

Kill your opponents black creatures with Dark Betrayal, and if they aren't black then they'll die to everything else in this deck just as easily.

Create a Cyclonic Rift to wipe off your opponents' boards and then swing in for the win or set them back a turn or two

Annihilate the field using Magmaquake, Hour of Devastation and Crux of Fate to leave everyone open for attacks.

Classics of the age, Cruel Ultimatum the opponent that's ahead to drop them back while advancing your own plans. For added effect, use Dark Intimations for a more... symmetrical effect to be fair to all players, but you of course.

Return a high cost spell you just used to do massive damage to your opponents creatures with a Volcanic Vision and take their surviving creatures using Mob Rule to further the pain

Protection

The classic form of Protection, the counterspells. Desertion allows us to take any artifact or creature spell that we counter from our opponents. Disallow is a slightly worse cancel, but the scry is pretty useful for getting one of the combos prepared. The all-star counter, Insidious Will is great in the deck, letting us counter a spell, redirect it, or copy it for our own use. Module spell Mystic Confluence let's us tempo play an opponent, card draw, or counter a spell, best of all we can put down the same mode thrice to really piss off an opponent. Redirect and Shunt help us send spells targeting our commander or other permanents in another direction with the final counter spell, Stifle shuts off a trigger that potentially makes us lose the game like in the case of Bory from Ravnica.

Swiftfoot Boots gives Bolas haste and hexproof. With open mana we get to wipe a hand immediately

Glaring Spotlight shuts down hexproof for our opponents' creatures, and as an added bonus we get both Hexproof and Unblockable if needed

Combos

The Locust God + Ashnod's Altar + Skullclamp: Makes insects equal to the amount of cards left in our library, adding Psychosis Crawler kills our opponents quickly via card draw and life total drops. If someone didn't die, swing in with the insects you've just made since they all have haste. If they don't die from that, and the Psychosis Crawler, or if neither are available to you, use a Torment of Hailfire and sac all of the insects you've made for tremendous amounts of mana and force everyone to make bad decisions.

The Scorpion God + The Locust God: Not necessarily a combo, but pretty synergistic. Each creature you kill that has a -1/-1 counter on it nets you a draw with the Scorpion and an insect with the Locust.

The Scorpion God + The Scarab God: Also not necessarily a combo, but also pretty synergistic. Each dead creature made with the Scorpion means an additional Eternal to be made with the Scarab.

Suggestions are greatly appreciated and thank you for reading!

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	WG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.05
Tokens	Copy Clone, Insect 1/1 UR
Folders	Shard/Kahn Manders, Nicol bolas ideas