Nicol Bolas Personified
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on July 30, 2018, 4:17 p.m. by tybonel13
Hello everyone. I am working on a Nicol Bolas, the Ravager commander deck based off of the recent story, his personality, and his character. I was hoping on some insight on what cards fit beyond the obvious. I currently have the 3 gods, all the bolas planeswalkers, the non-transforming creature, dark intimations, and cruel ultimatum. Any and all suggestions are welcome.
Here are a few cards that are potentially worth including depending on your build:
Disciple of Bolas, Crux of Fate, Deep Analysis, Torment of Hailfire, and Hour of Devastation.
I also recently built a Bolas themed deck, but went for more functionality over thematics (although I still think it's thematic). Here's my tech if you want to compare it to yours:
July 30, 2018 6:07 p.m.
If you're just going for pure lore goodness though, I'd suggest going to scryfall.com and go to advanced search and from there search "Bolas" in the lore search field
July 30, 2018 6:14 p.m.
A regular at my LGS has a sweet Bolas-theme deck, with a few deeper references. Some of the highlights are Tetsuo Umezawa (though with his price tag, any Umezawa should work. Bolas has a grudge against all Umezawas after Tetsuo was able to defeat him), judge promo Mana Drain (also pretty expensive, but it’s the only one with Bolas flavor text), Herald of Leshrac, and various cards with names similar to Bolas’s power suite (Psychic Intrusion, Extract from Darkness, etc.). His was very spell-based, and really fun to play against for the lore and thought dedicated to the references. I know some of these are kinda expensive, but I hope this helps!
Caerwyn says... #2
It would be helpful to post a deck link so we can see what you are working with.
To start, what is more important to you, flavour or overall power? If flavour is more important, there are a number of spells with Nicol Bolas quotes you can use. Some top contenders for flavour include:
Neheb, the Eternal - which has the advantage of being a fairly solid card.
Apex of Power - super big, flashy spell that oozes with flavour, but is not the most playable card.
There are the assorted planeswalker defeat cards, which, while quite flavourful, are pretty mediocre.
Fraying Omnipotence - another flavorful card that is not great.
In Bolas's Clutches - there are much better Persuasion effects out there. Related to that, Slave of Bolas is a bit more fun.
Patient Rebuilding is not great as a draw engine, but still kind of fun.
Soul Manipulation provides graveyard recursion and a limited counterspell.
July 30, 2018 4:29 p.m.