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Your Fun-Pharoah Has Returned! (GrixisControl)

Standard* Competitive Control Cruel Control UBR (Grixis)

Booch138


Sideboard


Your Fun-Pharoah has returned! Bolas just wants to touch you a little bit. It’s all fun. Promise.

This deck focuses on controlling and lightly annoying your party-friend(s) with a series of great removals in the form of Vraska's Contempt, Fatal Push (even though not much in the way of the Revolt Trigger here) and Harnessed Lightning. AOE effects like Sweltering Suns for early-mid swarms. Dash in counters for more fun! Vraska those yuppie gods and lame planeswalkers. Wipe everything with a trusty Hour of Devestation if needed. Your Gearhulks can party hard.

UPDATE: Recently fell in love with Mastermind's Acquisition. Because of it, I "side decked" a lot fun stuff, as well as situational stuff. With Mastermind's, I can grab whatever I want whenever I need while still keeping all threats at bay. The fundamental's of the deck still remain the same, with Mastermind adding a menacing (even if slower) dimension to the deck. If you can flip a Primal Amulet   that makes this even better. Usually you want to bide your time until the coast is clear to go search for your choice of win-condition (Be it The Scarab God, Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh or the funnest of them all: Torment of Funfire.

Supreme Will and Search for Azcanta   for deck flow when ya need. Pop a Glimmer of Genius before an opponent ends turn if you held out for counters. It's usually best to wait before your opponent's turn ends. In fact, it's not really all that uncommon of a play to put a land down and just end turn. 80%+ of this deck is often played on your opponent's turn (since most things are instant speed or flash). The more information you have on what your opponent is trying to do, the more you know better what to play next, or what you can get away with. I usually seem to have little issue pulling the lands I need, but you can be liberal with the energy if you need, as Harnessed Lightning is the only other "Energy hungry" Card in the deck, and you might not be using it at full power all that often. It’s not a major resource, but helps with early Aether Hubs mostly. All of these wonderful instants and sorceries also play well with Primal Amulet. Speaking of Primal Amulet...

Primal Amulet  !! Honestly it's the unsung hero of this deck when combined with it's best mate Torment of Hailfire (and 99% of the time is the primary win condition with or without the Amulet). Primal Amulet will never leave Nicol's neck. People roll their eyes when they see it on a list like I don't expect it to be removed and dealt with before the fun begins, so I take take things slow. Wait until you have some counters, then play Primal Amulet when it's safe, all while flowing and navigating through your deck. The Amulet immediately makes your instants/sorc spells (Read: Negate/Disallow) cheaper. I will usually unload a couple of cheap spells just to transform it after. By the next turn, if your super-happy-you-are-doing-this-for-them party buddy can't get rid of it (Field of Ruin is definitely becoming a staple because of this level of excitement) and you have a Torment of Funfire in hand... then you have all the ingredients to make fun happen!

With this combo I've managed to throw out Torment of Hailfire for 14+ waves of it. Fun!

  • Update #1: Since adding Azor's Gateway  , I did end a game throwing out 36 waves of it, but don’t expect that often x.x
  • Update #2: hit a tough Merfolk deck at FNM (results posted below) with 68 waves of it with Primal AND Azor flip >.>>>>

Nicol Bolas, God-Pharoah and Torrential Gearhulk (Vraska's Contempt and Glimmer of Genius are beautiful targets) of course will force your friend (and they most certainly love this!) to have fun if they somehow ruin his party favours and favourite necklace anyways. I invited Angrath, the Flame-Chained to the party because he loves to party, but he didn’t quite fit in with the crowd. The Scarab God decides to show up to the party a little late. He needs little introduction: he fits perfectly in the deck, and without a proper answer, will really snowball a victory in your favour, if not pretty much the moment he's dropped. Looking to add a second as soon as I can. They ain't cheap. Enjoy!

And the Sideboard. There are too many options and not enough space, k? Bolas can't help that he wants to love everyone in every way. Swap in more specific counters depending on matchups, even Essence Scatter if you find it necessary, but I've found little need. If up against more aggro, I add a little more creature removal. Against control matchups I'll swap in Lost Legacy and more Counters for assistance. Crook of Condemnation against those pesky Scarab God/Cycle decks. Field of Ruin just in case.

As I've mentioned, this deck is constantly evolving, adding a smattering of energy was a good. So far working out nicely. I added Azor's Gateway   to help even more with deck flow. It's even possible with as slow as the deck works to flip it, but only if the stars align. It's even more fun with multiple party guests. Any comments or questions and suggestions welcome :3

FNM Results:

  • Round 1: Against B/G/U/R Energy Aggro 0-2-0
    • Match 1 - In an unusual turn of events, I made it to turn 9 or 10 on a whole 4 lands. Needless to say, I don't know how I lived that long. Simply wasn't getting anything I needed to deal with what was going up in the right order. (L)
    • Match 2 - As an omen of just horrible luck, I made it to turn 9 or 10 on mostly 4 lands until things started kicking along and deck flow started happening. However opponent used Gonti, Lord of Luxury to steal what seemed like my only Glimmer of Genius and Hostage Taker to steal my Azor's Gateway  . This deck is so whacky to begin with, but their side-deck is for dealing with control and opponent played it like a dream. Respectable loss. (L)
  • Round 2: Against B/R/G Land Destruction Deck 2-0-0
    • Match 1 - Opponent made interesting use of Wildfire Eternal and my lack of many creatures being able to block it. Was able to pop off expensive cards like Star of Extinction and various removals early in the game. However, I got to a point where I was able to counter and remove everything opponent was trying to do. Torrential Gearhulk was able to smack opponent down until game. (W)
    • Match 2 - Opponent is someone I play with regularly. Needless to say, they sided in Lost Legacy and killed off my Primal Amulet   and Torment of Hailfire, ruining my fun. Despite this, I still managed to keep total control and Gearhulked Opponent again until game. (W)
  • Round 3: Against U/G Merfolk Mid-range 2-1-0
    • Match 1 - First game took me a while to really start going, but I was surprised that I was against a Merfolk deck that wasn't fin-slapping me from the get-go. I was able to flip Azor's Gateway   (with 25 health on deck) and Primal Amulet   before sending 68 freaking waves of Torment of Funfire out, causing opponent to take a moment to grasp that that actually happened before continuing. I have to admit, I was shocked too. Had never gotten it that high before without deliberately trying to stall the game out to see how high I can make it. (W)
    • Match 2 - All the aggressive side of his build ended up on the other side of the deck this time. They got a Mist-Cloaked Herald on turn 1, River Heralds' Boon'ed it +2/+2 the following turn, then turn three played, and got to flip, Hadana's Climb  . I didn't make it past another 2 turns. Beautiful aggro, which is the best way to handle this deck. (L)
    • Match 3 - My god this game took freaking 35 minutes... This is where opponent really shined in the counterspells and bounce spells that really threw my tempo off juuuuuust enough to where we were both playing attrition hard. Azor's Gateway   was my only way of pulling cards, and they would bounce it before it flipped. I had to make some hard sacrifices, hoping they never pulled what creatures they needed, whilst trying to counter things like Deeproot Waters. What ultimately flipped the tide (lol) of battle was getting an uncontested Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh out and using his top ability to fish out (lol x 2) a Nezahal, Primal Tide which I must admit, I did not expect in the least. And, had they gotten it, they probably would have had a good chance to beat me, as I learned after that they had a negate in hand to counter the only Vraska's Contempt I had left to deal with it. While they did manage to slap a Waterknot on it, which at least stopped it from being able to attack, I inevitably managed to wear them down with Bolas' 3rd ability, and finished the game playing a second Bolas to kill the other one, allowing me one more load of 7 damage to kill opponent off. (W)

FINAL NOTES: I feel like I would have had a genuine chance in the first match had I not gotten manascrewed. It happens. Despite the deck's unpredictability, there was nothing in there I didn't have an answer for. Just had to actually pull them, and the mana to play them! This deck is heavily dependent on controlling the flow of your own deck, so when you don't draw into those engines (or they steal them!) or you stall on mana (again, with 24 mana that is really hard to do hahaha) things go awry really fast. I also learned to be very careful what you sac off to Azor's Gateway. I sacced off some things in Match 3 out of desperation that ended up biting me later on. This is usually not the case, but it should be noted. I added a couple more cycle land after this game as, normally, I run into more mana than I need and this helps slightly with that. Other than that, the deck plays out exactly how I want it to most of the time: counter and remove their party buzzes, and keep the party going.

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Revision 21 See all

(5 years ago)

-1 Aether Hub main
+1 Canyon Slough main
+1 Dragonskull Summit main
-1 Island main
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #39 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 6 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is not Standard legal.

Rarity (main - side)

6 - 1 Mythic Rares

26 - 9 Rares

17 - 1 Uncommons

7 - 4 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 3.03
Tokens Copy Clone
Folders Nicol Bolas, Play, grixis, "Stolen" gems, liked decks, grixiss, Interesting Standard Decks
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