Hello and welcome to GIHK, a spot on the internet where three nerds talk about Magic: the Gathering in an engaging (hopefully), thoughtful (hopefully), and intelligent (not a chance), way.
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Last time I was writing, I asked you if you wanted a deck that could dominate a table. This time, I have a slightly different list.
If its Red, Blue, Black and Janky, run it.
Nicol Bolas (or, as he’s known to me, Nikki Boras)
The first thing to note is that beyond lands, the deck (currently) runs six cards that cost less than 5 mana. One of them is Prosperity (which is an X spell) and another is Pact of the Titan which costs five on your next upkeep.
The core of this deck is doing nothing until around turn six or seven, and then playing a threat. Then doing that every turn for the rest of the game.
This deck is definitely a battleship deck, perfect for Timmys with a small side for Johnnys. When I play with Nicol Bolas, I feel like I’m cheating, because I get to do really weird things.
DECKLIST
Creatures
Perplexing Chimera
Notion Thief
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Hypersonic Dragon
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
Bladewing the Risen
Kaervek the Merciless
Molten Primordial
Sepulchral Primordial
Prince of Thralls
Mindleech Mass
Baleful Force
Hellkite Tyrant
Dragon Mage
Enchantments
Dream Halls
Omniscience
Guild Feud
Wild Evocation
Possibility Storm
Grip of Chaos
Forced Fruition
Eye of the Storm
Confusion in the Ranks
Mindmoil
Hive Mind
Paradox Haze
Arcane Melee
Havoc Festival
Grave Betrayal
Meishin, the Mind Cage
Sorceries
Warp World
Spelltwine
Whims of the Fates
Thieves’ Auction
Illicit Auction
Scrambleverse
Goblin Game
Blatant Thievery
Time Reversal
Enter the Infinite
Stolen Goods
Mass Mutiny
Acquire
Cruel Ultimatum
Beacon of Tomorrows
Army of the Damned
Insurrection
Decree of Pain
Prosperity
Artifacts
Timesifter
Knowledge Pool
Teferi’s Puzzle Box
Amulet of Quoz
Gate to the AEther
Instant
Pact of the Titan
Planeswalker
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Lands
4 Swamps
7 Mountains
9 Islands
21 Multi-Colored Lands
How to Pilot Your Dragon
So, lets talk about the particulars. As an expensive deck, we get a huge advantage from cheating stuff into play. The biggest two cards that help on this line of play are Omniscience and Dream Halls. Guild Feud, Gate to the Aether and Wild Evocation give everyone free things during their upkeeps. Now, while they are super bad against removal, they’re fun, and if they stick around, they give you a bigger advantage than everyone else, as your stuff is generally going to be more expensive. Warp World, Possibility Storm and Spelltwine just let you get things for “free”.
There are also tons of cards that don’t give you any particular advantage other than making it harder for your opponents, teammates and yourself to plan anything. These cards include (but are not limited to) Whims of the Fates, Thieves’ Auction, Grip of Chaos, Amulet of Quoz, Forced Fruition, Eye of the Storm, Teferi’s Puzzle Box, Illicit Auction, Perplexing Chimera, Goblin Game, Scrambleverse and Confusion in the Ranks.
There are also general powerful board-advantage cards, such as Mass Mutiny, Blatant Thievery, Insurrection and Decree of Pain. These cards effect everyone equally, except for you – you get cool things.
I used to run Bludgeon Brawl (which turns all artifacts into equipment) and Mycosynth Lattice (which turns everything into artifacts) so I could equip Nicol Bolas Planeswalker to Nicol Bolas (my commander), but that’s a four card combo that is funny in the abstract, but doesn’t feel that great to pull together. I would consider running the Lattice with Hellkite Tyrant, as it would steal all of a player’s permanents, but for now, I don’t feel its worth it.
I do run a couple draw 7’s (Dragon Mage and Time Reversal) and Notion Thief, so you can make everyone lose their hand and you draw 7 for each player at the table (Personal record: 56). We also have a pair of 2-card combo’s. One of them is Hive Mind and Pact of the Titan. Hive Mind forces each player to cast any instant or sorcery that anyone else casts, if they cast a Pact and can’t pay for the cost at the beginning of their upkeep (4R) they lose. I’ve knocked 6 players out of a game, as they either didn’t have red in their deck at all, or were off red mana. (You can also run Slaughter Pact or Pact of Negation, depending on your budget). I also run Knowledge Pool and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Teferi’s relevant text says that your opponents can only cast spells when he or she could play a sorcery. Knowledge Pool forces them to cast spells during the resolution of a triggered ability, so they aren’t allowed to cast spells.
Spicy Tech
We have a standard array of theft cards and big beaters (a lot of dragons). I run two pieces of tech that I find fewer people run. The first is Paradox Haze, which gives enchanted player a second upkeep. You usually cast it on yourself, so you can get value out of Gate to the AEther and similar. The other piece of tech is Timesifter. At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, everyone reveals the top card of their library. The player who reveals the card with the highest CMC takes the next turn. While you don’t go infinite, you have a much higher curve than other players, so you get a higher than usual number of turns.
Playing the Crowd
When playing with this type of brew, whether its Bolas or not, where all you have are massive threats and no ramp (I’d run signets and their ilk, but they don’t cost enough) you have to be able to play the table. There will be plenty of games where you lose before you play a single spell. Consequently, this is a very bad style of deck to play outside your playgroup. With people who know the deck, they know how long it is before it will be a threat, and so they might let you live through the first several turns, without having to suffer through any disruption. If you can’t convince the table that there are bigger problems than you (which is easy if people know you’re not doing anything until turn eight while somebody else is threatening a massive board presence) than you’ll die without having done anything.
Be ready to lose a lot, but if you can work the table to where you can cast some spells, you’ll be able to catch up on position relatively fast.
Dancing to Your Own Tune
Something that you’ll come to notice in my decks is that they are all very light on disruption. Arcum is a special case, as that deck is consistent enough and has the necessary redundancy to fit in disruption. However, most of my decks, including Nicol Bolas aren’t very good at keeping your opponents from winning. However, that means you have more gas, and you can continue doing what you want to do, and force your opponents to react to you.
And again, in your playgroup, if they know you don’t have an answer, your opponents will know that they have to deal with each other’s threats, and can’t just leave it to you, causing them to expend resources on not-you. Which is a good thing.
Story Time!
I just wanted to take a minute to highlight a couple of fun experiences with the deck, before closing up.
First, Knowledge Pool makes the game incredibly interesting and much harder to play in a two-player game. Since you (effectively) have full knowledge of what your opponent can do immediately, choices become easier. However, since your opponent has similar knowledge, it becomes harder.
In one situation, I tapped out, casting something irrelevant to get myself a Paradox Haze. I pass the turn, and my opponent taps out to cast Felidar Sovereign, which goes on the Knowledge Pool. He then immediately casts Intervention Pact to get the Sovereign, which would let him win on his next upkeep (he was playing Oloro, and had truly ridiculous amounts of life). I got to cast Pact of the Titan, stealing the Sovereign from him, and leaving him with a couple lands, and some ground beaters to get.
In another game, we were playing an eight person Planechase game (Yeah, that was a strong choice). One of the Planes we had visited allowed me to cheat out a Dragon Mage. On turn four (or so), I swung in, and then flashed in Notion Thief, causing everyone else to discard their hands, and for me to draw 56. I passed the turn, and nobody did anything significant. On my turn, I untapped, dropped a Mountain, cast Dream Halls, which let me pitch a card for Hive Mind, and then I cast Pact of the Titan. I passed the turn again. The next player was playing Vorosh, and died to the Pact. Mayael survived, Galina died, Prossh died, Mayael #2 died (remember, this was only the fifth turn so not everyone had every color of mana available to them), Karador died, Cromat survived.
In one turn, I eliminated 5 players. They thanked me.
Till next time,
-Muscratt
Art from at the beginning is a recolor of http://cryptcrawler.deviantart.com/art/Magic-The-Gathering-Nicol-Bolas-306434936
Let’s talk beat down. No tricky plays, no “on your end step I…”, none of that. Just pure face-punching beauty, like god intended. Let’s talk about Xenagos, God of Revels.
Continue reading GIHK: Xenagos, God of Revels – By Sparrowdoge
Do you want a deck that wins games? Do you want a deck that makes your opponents throw up their hands in frustration? Do you want a deck that your friends don’t allow you to play? Do you want a toolbox deck, voltron, stasis or combo control? And do you want a deck that is fast, reliable, and isn’t just goodstuff?
I’d like to introduce you to my friend Arcum Dagsson.
Intro:
For the first year and a half that I played edh, I built almost exclusively “goodstuff” decks. Just piles of powerful cards with maybe a tiny bit of synergy. The crowning example of this was my Cromat deck, which featured a theme of card advantage, wraths, and every planeswalker I could get my hands on. It won a lot of games in my playgroup, but it did so in a miserable way with games lasting for hours as I wrath’d the board over and over again to set up a favorable position. My friends didn’t like it. Looking back, it wasn’t that good—most truly competitive edh decks would stomp it into the ground, but at the time no one in the group was playing anything of the sort, except for Muscratt’s Arcum Dagsson deck which routinely stomped Cromat’s face. The point I’m trying to make from that digression is that I try not to make goodstuff decks anymore. Now I’m working on exploring what I find to be more interesting: decks with an actual plan. The one I’ve been working on for a few months now is Karador, Ghost Chieftain.
Here’s the catch: I wanted a competitive, toolbox-y deck, with lots of recursion, tutors, and lots of ways of interacting with/policing the board, but I didn’t want to play the same entwined “Tooth and Nail” to fetch up Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion. I wanted to think about each turn more than that.
Continue reading GIHK: Karador, Ghost Chieftain – By Sparrowdoge
Intro:
I figured I’d start the blog off with one of the less well-known commanders I’ve found during my rambles through the pages and pages on Gatherer (Magic’s online card database) of all the creatures with the subtype ‘legendary.’ I have to say Galina is my favorite ‘under-the-radar’ mono-blue commanders. The other, even less well-known is Rayne, Academy Chancellor because she’s the type of general who creeps up on me when I’m sleeping and whispers, “Build around me, I swear I’m awesome,” into my ear until I build the deck and realize that things like single target removal are less prevalent than I thought they were early on in my EDH career, and that I’m cramming a deck with sub-par creature enchantments so that I can maybe draw… wait for it… more sub-par creature enchantments. I’ll cover Rayne eventually, when I have the time to delve into gatherer and do some research to find a way to make her not… bad. In the meantime, let’s just say I built Rayne and she was awful, but then I found Galina and she warmed my heart.
Generals I Have Known 