Archenemy Bolas

Commander / EDH UBR (Grixis)

8protons

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Glacial Chasm
• 1x Grixis Panorama
• 2x Island
• 1x Lavaclaw Reaches
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Spawning Pool
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Dream Halls
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Words of Waste

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

Instant (22)

• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Counterflux
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Crosis's Charm
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Discover the Impossible
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Misdirection
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Overwhelming Denial
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Stinging Study
• 1x Supreme Will
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Wipe Away

Artifact (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Geth's Grimoire
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x The One Ring

Commander (1)

Sorcery (18)

• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Demonic Collusion
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Dream Cache
• 1x Enter the Infinite
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Increasing Ambition
• 1x Mystic Retrieval
• 1x Phyrexian Espionage
• 1x Recall
• 1x Syphon Mind
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Winds of Change
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Creature (6)

• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Dream Devourer
• 1x Nightscape Familiar
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Skirge Familiar
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Command the Dreadhorde
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Hour of Devastation
• 1x Inner Fire
• 1x Insurrection
• 1x Skull Rend
• 1x Unnerve

Instant (4)

• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Mystical Teachings
• 1x Shred Memory
• 1x Silundi Vision  ^Flip

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Ever-Watching Threshold
• 1x Mirrormade
• 1x Waste Not

Creature (4)

• 1x Ertai Resurrected
• 1x Etali, Primal Storm
• 1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Artifact (1)

• 1x Torpor Orb

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A deck built around the Big Bad of Dominaria. This deck is a value engine specifically designed to become more powerful in proportion to the number of opponents that you have, with the formula (you get cards)+(they don't) * (number of opponents). Lots of tutors enabling powerful, general purpose answer cards keeps the board clear. The goal is to reduce your opponent's hand sizes while increasing your own, and then playing Dream Halls to exploit free spells. The typical win is Dream Halls into Enter the Infinite to draw the deck, then discarding cards to Skirge Familiar to generate arbitrary amounts of black mana. Discard Ulamog last, shuffle the graveyard in, cast a free tutor to retreive Enter the Infinite, and keep repeating. Finish them with Torment of Hailfire for the biggest number you can imagine, backed up by free counterspells. The deck's other cards are carefully curated for both maximum utility-per-card and for having multiple color pips that facilitate Dream Halls.

To win without Dream Halls, the deck uses Bolas's Citadel and either Vampiric Tutor or Mystical Tutor to tutor Enter the Infinite to the top and cast it with life. In this case, or in the event that Dream Halls is destroyed in response to Enter the Infinite, even if tapped completely out of mana and no Threshold the deck can still fire with Chrome Mox into Dark Ritual into Cabal Ritual plus Mox Diamond and hardcast the Skirge Familiar.

If all else fails, running out Bolas himself from the command zone and hitting him with Chandra's Ignition will wipe the board and every opponent's hands. Manlands, Glacial Chasm, and regenerator mooks give you defenses to hide behind against fast aggro decks. Then you just grind them out. Go for Cabal Coffers + Urborg to make big mana and start hardcasting Torment of Hailfire for 10-15 and recurring it, or if the skies are clear Bolas will kill a player in 3 hits with commander damage.

Other than that the deck is "hand-stax", using discard spells, Narset and Notion Thief to limit opponent's hands while drawing tons of cards for you. Narset or Notion Thief + Winds of Change is an obscenely powerful play on turn 3 or 4 and will often win you the game on the spot. Similarly a turn 1 play of "land, fast mana, Winds of Change" to screw the other players' opening hands is also often a wincon. Who needs Ad Nauseum, amirite? Any of the draw engines and especially Geth's Grimoire are an absolute house when paired with Words of Waste. Again, the higher the number of opponents you have, the bigger the effect. Draw step? Pay 1, each opponent discards. Geth's says draw for each. Pay 1 for each opponent instead. Now each opponent discards X cards where X is the number of opponents. Now take the draw, and you draw cards equal to your number of opponents squared. In a 4 man pod that's 9 cards and each opponent is down 4. Not bad. In a 7 person Archenemy game that's 36 cards for you and each opponent has an empty hand. Much better.

Date added	1 year
Last updated	8 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.15
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U