The Nicol Bolas Deck

Commander / EDH* Control Cruel Control UBR (Grixis)

NickyBolas

Land (37)

• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Desolate Lighthouse
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 3x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Shadowblood Ridge
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Throne of the High City
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave

Sorcery (15)

• 1x Blatant Thievery
• 1x Bribery
• 1x Cruel Ultimatum
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Deliver Unto Evil
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Fiery Confluence
• 1x Mana Geyser
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Wheel of Fortune

Artifact (13)

• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence

Enchantment (4)

• 1x As Foretold
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Omniscience
• 1x Rhystic Study

Commander (1)

 ^Flip

Instant (13)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Izzet Charm
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Terminate

Creature (6)

• 1x Kess, Dissident Mage
• 1x Nightscape Familiar
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x The Scarab God
• 1x Thief of Sanity
• 1x Torrential Gearhulk

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
• 1x Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

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The Nicol Bolas Deck

Concept

Build a casual thematic Nicol Bolas deck that plays like the lore of the Forever Serpent.

Development

Driven by the desire to play Omniscience, and the play a Nicol Bolas thematic deck in his styling, I settled on a Grixis Control list with some powerful spell finishers.

The deck, in its current form, is akin to a big-spell kess deck. It could be specialized to be more of a Nekusar draw/discard deck, or even a brutal discard-centric deck, all of which are well within Nicol Bolas's theme.

How It Plays

Using mana rocks and tons of disruption, we stabilize in the late-game in order to overpower opponents with Omniscience.

Card Selection

Control Shenanigans

• With a plethora of boardwipes, counters, and spot removal, it should be easy to disrupt all opponents as long as we keep our card-draw up.

Card Draw Shenanigans

• Notion Thief is one of my favorite hoser cards which when used in conjunction with Wheel of Fortune just strips everyone of their hands while drawing you dozens of cards.
• Consecrated Sphinx is another crazy card which, if not immediately dealt with, will lead to an insurmountable advantage.
• A lot of filtering spells are necessary to prevent us getting stuck with big-dumb-spells in our hands early game, or flooding out with mana rocks late game. Discarding huge spells early on is not problem when we have many ways to recur them.

Graveyard Shenanigans

• Kess, Dissident Mage allows us to ditch powerful spells early on, but field them in the late game.
• Spellseeker is one of my new favorite cards, capable of searching up Ancestral Vision , Wheel of Fate , Cyclonic Rift , or even mimicking Sidisi by grabbing a Demonic Tutor or setting up a Miracle with Vampiric Tutor , Mystical Tutor .
• Goblin Dark-Dwellers has become another favorite of mine capable of casting Ancestral Vision , Wheel of Fate / Wheel of Fortune , Toxic Deluge and many other powerful spells from the graveyard.
• Mystic Retrieval works well with Omniscience because it puts the cards back into your hand so that you can cast them for free.
• Demon of Dark Schemes / The Scarab God allow us to turn of all those dead creatures we board-wiped in the mid-game on their masters.

Postmortem

Coming Soon.

Competitiveness: -/10

Casualness: -/10

Consistency: -/10

Impressiveness: -/10

Overall: -/10

Gameplay

N/A

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 43 - 0 Rares 9 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	92
Avg. CMC	3.05
Tokens	Copy Clone, The Monarch
Based on	Grixis EDH - Nicol Bolas Tribal NickyBolas EDH