Bolas's Citadel

Legendary Artifact

You may look at the top card of your library at any time.

You may play the top card of your library. If you cast a spell this way, pay life equal to its converted mana cost/mana value rather than pay its mana cost.

{T}: Sacrifice ten nonland permanents: Each opponent loses 10 life.

Combos

• Bolas's Citadel + Etherium Sculptor + Sensei's Divining Top
• Bolas's Citadel + Leonin Elder + Sensei's Divining Top
• Bolas's Citadel + Magister Sphinx + Sorin Markov
• Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel + Soothsaying

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (47)

clayperce on CEDH Deck Commander

1 week ago

Thinking about this a bit more: You might also want to take a look at Gwenom, Remorseless. If I was ever to try my hand at cEDH, I'd almost certainly start with a Bolas's CitadelGC in the Command Zone.

Cheers!

capwner on How have your EDH games …

1 month ago

Massive and overdetailed game breakdown incoming, be forewarned

I've been testing this mono black control list and had some epic grind fests, I just finished an extremely long and hard fought game against Simic, Izzet Storm, and an upgraded Necron precon Szarekh, the Silent King. You'll never guess who the problem was. Ok this game was absolutely wild, so after about an hour of normal play i.e. simic is simicing and has a rhystic, I have necropotence and bowmasters (2 of my 3 gc's) and I'm keeping the game mostly under control, Mizzix player is totally cucked bc they keep losing their Mizzix, Necron guy is casting Necrons, and it's mostly a fight of Vannifar, Evolved Enigma trying to gain steam and me removing all their stuff except I can't touch the rhystic so we're both full up on cards. First crux of the game, Vannifar player plays Ixidron, I tuck my Crypt Ghast under The Moment. On my turn I pop the moment and get my ghast back, clearing the rhystic but taking a lot of collateral. I tried to completely recover from the moment wrath via Yawgmoth's Will but Vannifar had a counter for it. So I do seem to pull ahead here, Mizzix just quits and I manage to get lethal on Vannifar. So then it's me and Necron guy. Enter the halfway mark of the game, a 1v1 now. He's at full and I'm at half. I have Crypt Ghast, Gauntlet of Power and both coffers so tons of mana, also I have Bowmaster and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. My opponent has Caged Sun and Biotransference, and a good board of Necrons with a Trazyn the Infinite threatening to copy a Bolas's CitadelGC in the yard. I have Dimir Machinations and Languish but most of his stuff is too big, he's mono black so my gauntlet and his sun both pump him lol. I'm so low on life, at this point I need to %100 control the game or lose but I'm in a decent position to do it with the Yawgmoth. Here's my big choice, I use machinations to get Maralen of the Mornsong, then use Talon Gates of Madara to phase her out until my next turn. I take a hit here because I tapped to attack and kill Vannifar. I fumbled a little because I could have used the Yawgmoth and discarded some lands to -1/-1 and reduce my damage. I owned it and go down to 5. My turn, the Maralen phases in, I go down to 2 life. Can you guess what I get with her? Umezawa's Jitte. I needed some kind of life gain and Jitte was just about my last hope. Because I had so much mana and lands in hand, I was able to proliferate Jitte with Yawg and use both modes to perfectly Languish all the Necrons while pumping my board. I draw back up but nothing great. Their turn. They have huge mana too, replay their flying commander and make bonus necrons from Biotransference. Threatening lethal again. Back and forth, I'm CLINGING TO LIFE against these (still pumped +2) necrons, by using yawg ability and Jitte to snipe them and proliffing about 4 times a turn. He gets Bolas's CitadelGC on board, recurred via the commander. I got a harnessed The Soul Stone and recur Maralen to tutor on my turn, then sac her to yawg (she died to languish before). I still don't have enough life to go for the oppo lock because they are going too wide and I have to actively snipe necrons to stay alive AND prevent the lethal Bolas's CitadelGC activation. I have Maha, Its Feathers Night and Night of Souls' Betrayal which does NOT kill the necrons but brings them to X/2, I tutor and asymmetrical sweep again with Nuclear Fallout and finally we are are looking a bit safer. I'm still hovering at 1-2 life each turn (on Jitte life support, allowing me to maralen tutor) and barely keeping them off the lethal citadel activation. But I drew like ass, deck has no wincons only sorc speed removal, and I'm dead as soon as they can get 10 nonland perms which could be any turn. But I do have enough cards and mana to use yawg/jitte to stay alive. Finally, I draw Plague Engineer on a Massacre Girl trigger on their turn (responding to their trigger making the lethal necrons and sniping the existing ones). They pass. I use Soul Stone -> recur Maralen and get Engineered Plague. 39 cards left in my deck. I cast BOTH PLAGUES finally making the Necrons X/0 and they concede on the spot sealing the game. HOLY F*CJKSCING NECRONS!!!! Seriously was the most epic game I've had in a while and not at all who I expected trouble from in that pod. WELL PLAYED. Well PLAYED, Necron dude.

NV_1980 on Lemme Show You My Enchantments

1 month ago

Hi,

Might I suggest some more early mana rocks to get Zur out quicker? I was thinking stuff like Arcane Signet, Azorius Signet, Dimir Signet and Orzhov Signet. The talismans (like Talisman of Dominance and its sibblings) are also great for some earlier mana. And as long as you're using many (expensive) enchantments, you could consider adding Land Tax as well.

With so much lifegain going on, you could also consider adding some cards that allow you to draw based/play cards that use life as their source of power. NecropotenceGC could be awesome in here. Same could apply to Bolas's CitadelGC.

I should also point out that this deck is a bit light on removal; especially when it comes to opposing artifacts/enchantments. At the very least, I'd consider Heliod's Intervention (which also synergizes with the lifegain theme, if you want to use it in this fashion).

theNeroTurtle on Competitive card Draw in Mono …

2 months ago

I am trying to build a competitive early game version of Rat Colony without strictly relying on comboing off. I need draw power and I don't know where to go! Paying two life and drawing two cards isn't going to cut it.

I am already using several cards like the following...

Ad NauseamGC

Bolas's CitadelGC

The One RingGC

Click here to review the deck, please. I need suggestions.

theNeroTurtle on Ratatouille, the Movie - Let's Cook

2 months ago

Buried Ruin for sure needs to go in for recursion. I don't really feel like the tribe CMC is high enough to work with Urza's Incubator.

Imp's Mischief sounds cool. I will have to think on that one a bit. Like you, I feel like draw is my weakest link here. I don't really know what cards would be best outside of Bolas's CitadelGC and The One RingGC. When I look at the draw spells, including the ones already in the deck, I honestly am not that impressed with any of them.

draw is for sure what needs to be focused on.

Profet93

clayperce on Deck_Building_Dude

3 months ago

Just a quick follow-up on my recent comment about lands, over on your Zurgo deck:

Are you familiar with Salubrious Snail's manabase tool? If not, I wanted to strongly rec' checking it out next time you want to fiddle with a manabase. We bascially just plug in a text version of our decklist and it'll spit out numbers for how likely we're able to cast on curve. It took a few interations, but I was able to get the deck down to "strong, playing your spells 0.38 turns late on average".

It also gives us some details on hard-to-cast spells. For example, I looked at adding Bolas's CitadelGC, but even by Turn 8 I had less than a 50% chance of casting it, so I took it back out :-/

Hoping you find it as useful a tool as I have. And sorry for the spam if you don't!

Cheers!

SaberTech on Dissident Storm

4 months ago

Alright. It's harder to pull off a storm deck in Commander but there are things you can do.

The easiest way to storm in Commander is with the Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal combo. The Scepter copies the imprinted spell, but you cast the copy so it counts towards your storm count. Running this combo requires you to run a bunch more mana rocks though, because you need to be able to produce at least 2 mana off of the rocks just to get the engine going, plus more mana if you want to produce infinite mana off of the combo. I don't know what your budget is like or if your group allows proxies, but at higher level tables you'd be looking to run cards like Mana VaultGC and Grim MonolithGC since those produce 3 mana all on their own. Beyond that though, you would definitely want to be running the talismans like Talisman of Dominance. Everflowing Chalice is another good option for storm because it's on rate if you only kick it once or you can just play it for free un-kicked to increase your storm count. Whichever rocks you end up running, you'll need a good number in the deck to support the combo.

The Dramatic Scepter combo also works well with Wishclaw Talisman. Activate the Talisman, then with the ability on the stack you activate the Scepter to untap the Scepter, the Talisman, and your mana rocks. While the first ability is still on the stack, activate the Talisman again and repeat the cycle. You'll be able to use up all 3 wish counters yourself and in the end you just pass a useless Talisman to the opponent, although after tutoring three cards you should just be winning that turn. The combo also just kills if Guttersnipe is out.

Running a bunch of mana artifacts (that don't enter tapped) has another benefit in that you can run cards like Paradoxical Outcome, Hurkyl's Recall, and Retract. You get to tap your rocks for mana, bounce them back to hand, and then recast them to increase your storm count and hopefully even net extra mana, although that requires more artifacts that produce more mana than they cost like Sol Ring, Mana VaultGC, and Grim MonolithGC.

Another combo card you could be running is Chain of Smog, which combos with Professor Onyx as long as you keep targeting yourself with the Chain and its copies. The copies won't count towards your storm count, but they will get you a bunch of treasure tokens off of Storm-Kiln Artist. You would have an empty hand, but you would have the mana to cast Kess and then cast a card from your graveyard. Ideally, you would be running wheel effects like Wheel of Fortune to immediately refill your hand and keep your plays going. Storm decks typically like to run wheel effects. On the more budget end of things, you could at least be running Windfall and similar effects so that you can match your opponents' hand sizes after emptying your own.

Chain of Smog + Archmage Emeritus will basically let you mill through your deck at the cost of emptying your hand. You'll be forced to discard the cards that you draw off of Emeritus. However, If you run a copy of Unearth in the deck then you can draw and discard your deck, use Kess to cast Unearth from your graveyard, and bring back Thassa's OracleGC for the win. It's a risky line though because you won't have access to any counterspells to protect it.

Unearth is still worth considering for the deck in general since it can get back several relevant creatures in case they are countered, it's a 1 mana spell for storm count, and at worst you can cycle it away to draw a card.

Another combo I can think of based off of cards already in your deck is God-Eternal Kefnet + Scroll Rack + Time Warp (or any other extra turn card that doesn't exile itself). You use Scroll Rack to make sure that Time Warp is the top card of your deck. When you draw, Kefnet sees it and copies it. You cast the copy, and then before the end of your turn you use Scroll Rack to put Time Warp from your hand back on top of your library. Rinse and repeat for infinite turns.

Beyond that is typical storm stuff:

• Ritual Spells like Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, and Seething Song are good for generating bursts of mana, especially since Kess can cast them again from the graveyard.
• Cheap cantrips like Ponder and Thought Scour help to dig through your deck while adding to your storm count.
• Cards like Bolas's CitadelGC and The Endstone keep the card train rolling.

If all of that is sounding really expensive, Stella Lee, Wild Card and Veyran, Voice of Duality are known commanders for their own unique storm decks. You can find lists at various budget point for them online. Zada, Hedron Grinder can also play as a budget, glass-cannon style goblin storm deck.

firasnake on Soul Siphon

7 months ago

Profet93 awesome thanks, Divining Top is essential for a variety of reasons

"Second Chance" cards (Stunning Reversal, The Golden Throne, Pact Weapon, Platinum Angel) are more strategic than incidental and they almost all have a card advantage / ramp component, but most importantly you want to have them so you can abuse life sinks (Ad NauseamGC, Bolas's CitadelGC, Vilis, Broker of Blood)