Howdy, all! Welcome back to the Artisan Brewery! It's been a little while, but we're back and brewing again. We've seen that there are all sorts of ways to build a deck: certain challenges, like our Scrabble deck, or absurd mechanics, like our Shadow Fog deck. We've built based on colors, or themes like thirst. One thing we've never done is build a deck solely to tell a story, until today!
The modern Magic: The Gathering story came to a climax in 2019 with the War of the Spark storyline, closing out roughly a decade of storytelling focused on Nicol Bolas. In this deck (and with the help of noted Bolas Apologist HobbesQ of the Goblin Lore Pod), we're going to tell Bolas's story from his hatching to his ultimate defeat at the hands of a whole heckin' lot of planeswalkers. We'll use cards to represent as much of this story as we can, as well as the major characters in it, but due to the 100 card limit we may have to leave some characters out.
Bolas's Beginnings
Thousands of years ago, The Ur-Dragon flew through the Blind Eternities, touching on multiple planes. On the plane of Dominaria, long before the ancient Thran built their machines, the Ur-Dragon's wings touched the plane and sent multiple eggs hurtling through the skies. From those eggs, the Elder Dragons of Dominaria were born. There were six eggs dropped from its wings, but one was special: it contained two dragons, Nicol Bolas, and his twin brother, Ugin. One of their first joint experiences was watching an unnamed sibling be killed by a group of humans. Out of fear, the two of them flew away to hide together, and ran into the rest of their siblings, each of whom rejected them. Finally, their brother Arcades Sabbath allowed them to stay with him in his city.
Several years passed, and both twins began learning their own forms of magic, with Nicol Bolas always holding on to his rage and fear over the death of their sister. Eventually, he left to hunt the man who killed her, taking Ugin along with him for the ride. After getting his vengeance, Bolas began to amass an army using his mental magic, eventually deciding to use that same magic to turn his siblings against one another, and causing the event known as the Elder Dragon War. This led to ruin and calamity across all of Dominaria, and caused Ugin's Planeswalker spark to ignite. While Ugin explored the mulitverse, Bolas consolidated his power throughout the end of the Elder Dragon Wars. Many more years later, Ugin returned to Dominaria, only to find Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen about to launch his final campaign of the Elder Dragon War against Arcades Sabbath. This led to Bolas discovering the existence of the multiverse, and caused his own spark to ignite, leading to a battle between himself and Ugin, ultimately ending on the Meditation Realm. Ugin was cast down, but the waters of the Meditation Realm lead to him being reborn as Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Ugin saw the danger his brother represented to the multiverse at large, decided to stay in hiding, and went off across the multiverse to work on a plan to bring him down.
A large part of what Bolas did over the next few millennia is hidden from the historical record of the Mulitverse. We do know that he continued to accrue power, and had a special fascination with Dominaria. There, he fought a creature known only to history as a demonic leviathan planeswalker, killing it above the continent of Madara. This fight lasted for a month and nearly destroyed Madara, but when all was finished, Bolas feasted on its corpse and absorbed its power as a result. This battle also caused a temporal rift above the continent, due to the sheer force of the power used. Its skeleton was so large that the rib cage formed what later were dubbed the Talon Gates, and were considered by Bolas to be his finest trophy. He set himself up as God-Emperor of Madara, and became metaphysically tied to the continent.
The Fall of Bolas
While journeying across the multiverse, Bolas became aware of a plot by the planeswalker Azor (notable for being the author and signatory of the Ravnican Guildpact) and his brother Ugin to trap him on Ixalan by using Azor's spark to activate The Immortal Sun (a card which is not in this deck for obvious reason). After discovering this plan, Bolas tracked Ugin down to Tarkir, where they had a titanic battle that shook the plane to its core and served as the Crux of Fate for Tarkir's history. Ugin used his magic to send dragons en masse to attack his brother, but Bolas, ever the schemer, had planned for this. He used Yasova Dragonclaw to reverse Ugin's spell, turning the dragons back on Ugin, killing him (or so it seemed). Eighteen years later, Bolas would return to Tarkir to confirm that Ugin was truly dead, and Yasova herself bluffed him into believing it.
Sometime during his multiversal experiences, Bolas's power had become so great that he was incapable of manifesting on Dominaria without tying himself to local mana lines, or else he would run the risk of destroying the plane itself due to his connection to the temporal rift over Madara. Ley lines of blue, black and red mana met in Madara, enabling him to continue his reign as God-Emporer. There, he trained a servant by the name of Tetsuo Umezawa to be his right-hand man, even teaching him how to manifest on the Meditation Plane that Bolas now ruled. Tetsuo used this against Bolas, tricking him into mentally following him to the Meditation realm, and then using the Meteor Hammer spell, killing Bolas's physical body back on Madara. Bolas's mind was trapped in the Meditation Realm, and it soon became apparent that Tetsuo had trained and learned how to use the Meditation Realm to his advantage, giving himself a vital edge in their battle. Bolas was ultimately defeated there, but a small remnant of his power allowed his conciousness to survive via his connection to the time rift above Madara, and kept his story from ending there.
The Eldest, Reborn
Bolas slowly gained the ability to manifest on the continent of Madara using the alias of Sensei Ryu. During the Time Spiral novel, he managed to separate Venser, Shaper Savant and his friends from Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, bringing them to Madara in a desperate bid to reclaim his body and his power. Using the mental magic he'd honed before the Elder Dragon War, he was able to use Venser and his latent planeswalker spark to refuel his resurrection, leading to a planeswalker duel between himself and Teferi. Teferi's physical form was reduced to a pile of Teferi pieces (which wasn't really a problem for a pre-Mending planeswalker). Bola vanished after this fight, reappearing some time later to battle the planeswalker Leshrac, defeating him and sealing his life force into the mask of the Myojin of Night's Reach. After explaining to Teferi and his companions that he knew of the temporal rifts, Bolas said he'd take responsibility for sealing the Madara rift. He then used the mask full of Leshrac to close the rift, killing Leshrac in the process, and said that in the event the multiverse ripped itself apart before the rifts could be sealed, he had a backup plan. Bolas then left the plane for parts of unknown.
Our next recorded siting of Nicol Bolas comes just after the Mending, on the plane of Amonkhet. Having only recently been at the Apex of Power, Bolas was understandably frustrated with his Fraying Omnipotence and lack of god-like strength. Using the last of his fading power, he fought and defeated the eight Gods of Amonkhet, thanks heavily to the assistance of Bontu. In addition to Bontu, Bolas brainwashed four of them into his willing servants, and mutated the remaining three into monstours echos of themselves, mindlessly obediant to him. He then slaughtered all of the adults on the plane and corrupted the historical records of the plane to set himself up as God-Pharaoh though Patient Rebuilding of the plane, solidifying his imagined legacy as the creator and master of Amonkhet. In this new society, he created a series of trials to hone skilled warriors for as-yet unknown purposes. Leaving the plane to develop along this new pathway he'd created, Bolas disappeared until a prophesied time.
While setting other details of his plans into motion, Bolas doun Liliana Vess, another pre-Mending planeswalker struggling with the loss of her power and immortality. The two struck a bargain. Bolas would put Liliana in contact with four demons, and through her contract with them she would regain her youth and power in exchange for her soul. At the time, his price for being the broker was undisclosed.
The Convergence
Bolas next turned to Alara, a plane that been shattered into five distinct planes, known as the shards. Using the shard of Grixis as a base, and the demon dragon Malfegor as a general, and after giving the planswalker Sarkhan Vol a Cruel Ultimatum, Bolas spread chaos and dissent on all five shards with the intent of causing a planar war that, as the shards began to merge, would fuel a storm of mana at the point of convergence known as the Maelstrom. Bolas hoped to consume the storm of power at the Conflux to fuel his return to godhood. Unfortunately for him, due to his machinations, a leonin leader named Jazal Goldmane was murderd, and his brother, Ajani Vengeant came calling. The two planeswalkers dueled in the Maelstrom, with Ajani summoning an avatar that was the essence of Bolas's own soul to battle the dragon. The battle ended a draw, with Bolas leaving the plane having harvested most of the energy from the Shard Convergence.
Bolas's next tactic was to send Sarkhan to Zendikar in order to use him, alongside Jace Beleren and Chandra Nalaar, to unleash one of the largest threats the Multiverse has ever known: the Eldrazi. His plan was to bring a horde of Planeswalkers to Zendikar in a gambit to harvest their sparks, but this ultimately didn't play out the way he intended (though as a bonus he got to undo one of his brother Ugin's greatest achievements). Instead, he moved on to a new plan: sending his servant, Tezzeret, to Mirrodin (soon to be New Phyrexia) to spy on the growing Phyrexian presence, and keep them disorganized as long as possible. After sending Tezzeret to New Phyrexia, Bolas stayed quiet for a while, allowing the events he'd already set into motion play out. Unfortunately there was one thing he hadn't planned for: Ugin was alive, thanks to Sarkhan Vol's interference. The Spirit Dragon met the nascent Gatewatch on Zendikar, exchanging information with Jace and giving him the knowledge necessary to imprison the Eldrazi once again. Ultimately, this would fail and the Gatewatch would be forced to destroy two out of three of the Eldrazi Titans.
Meanswhile, Bolas turned his attention to Kaladesh. Kaladesh is home to the largest group of inventors and artificers in the multiverse, and so Bolas sent Tezzeret to see if any of the plane's inventions could be useful to his plans. Tezzeret seized control of the Consulate government and oversaw preparations for the upcoming Inventor's Fair. Tezzeret the Schemer found a small, functional Planar Bridge,, exactly what his master needed, so he tasked the inventor, Rashmi, to create a larger model capable of transporting mutliple objects. The Gatewatch arrived to the plane, and found themselves drawn into local politics: Chandra's mother (who she believed had died when she was a child) was leading a rebellion force against the corrupt Consulate, and Jace and Liliana both had past personal involvements with Tezzeret. After a fierce battle between the rebel forces and the Consulate soldiers, Tezzeret was defeated but escaped, having incorporated the core of the Planar Bridge into his etherium arm. As he left, he gave one final piece of information to Liliana: her third demonic contract holder, and Bolas himself, could be found on Amonkhet. The time had come at last for the showdown between the Gatewatch and Nicol Bolas.
Showdown in Little Amonkhet
When they arrived on Amonkhet, the Gatewatch grew concerned about the willingness of the populace to risk their lives and Nissa, Steward of Elements feeling the soul of the plane in turmoil and pain. The only Gatewatch member who didn't immediately find the plane suspicious was Gideon. He found comfort in the presence of the Gods in the peoples' lives, something that reminded him of his home on Theros. He entered the Trials of the God-Pharaoh in order to test and improve himself, but soon discovered the darker side of this ritual when he watched lifetime friends kill one another in order to become the God-Pharoah's Worthy Dead. After witnessing the horror of these senseless deaths, Gideon went back to the Gatewatch to share what he had seen, and together they started to form a plan. As they began trying to convert the populace to their side, the Hour of Devastation, and with it, Bolas's return, began. The extent of what Bolas did to The Locust God, The Scarab God, and The Scorpion God was finally revealed, as these three gods began to wreak havoc upon the city of Naktamun, killing civilians and three of the other gods. In their death throes, some of the gods regained their supressed memories, revealing that their honored God-Pharaoh was in fact, Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver. Bontu's treachery was then revealed, as Bolas ordered her to kill her sister god, Hazoret the Fervent. After a fierce battle, Bontu emerged victorious--but before she could deliver the killing blow, Bolas turned on her as well, setting his Eternals (zombies made from sixty years of Worthy Dead) to the task of ripping her to shreds. Among all this horror, Bolas simply watched, moving only to unleash a Torment of Hailfire upon the people who had worshipped him their whole lives. The Gatewatch, having defeated Liliana's third demon, turned their attention to the Elder Dragon. This was it: they were ready, they were the heroes, they had to win!
They were each defeated. Gideon's Defeat came by being continually smacked into buildings with Bolas's tail. Liliana's Defeat was driven by intimidation and threats. Chandra's Defeat was accomplished by overpowering her fire. Nissa's Defeat came by destroying her connection to the plane. Jace's Defeat ended in a psychic assault on his mind. Luckily, Ugin had planned for such an attack and implanted a failsafe in Jace's mind when they met on Zendikar, forcing Jace to planeswalk to Ixalan. After thrashing the Gatewatch, Bolas began to relax while enjoying the first true success of his plans to regain his former godhood, and ordered Tezzeret to see how a project headed by Ral Zarek was coming along.
Following this devastating attack by Nicol Bolas, Jace lost his memories but was still able to safely planeswalk to Ixalan. Once there, he met up with Vraska, Relic Seeker, who had been contracted to find the Immortal Sun on behalf of Nicol Bolas. Her prize was to be control of the Golgari on Ravnica, so she was more than happy to find this seemingly random artifact for Bolas. Once Jace regained his memories, their pooled knowledge allowed them to piece together more of Bolas's plan, and showed them that Ravnica was his next conquest target. They knew where, but they didn't yet know when or why, so they agreed to let Bolas have the Immortal Sun and start preparing for his inevitable invasion.
While Jace and Vraska were working on a counterplan for the invasion, Liliana, Gideon, and Chandra were on Dominaria, working with some old heroes to kill Liliana's fourth demon. Their plan was to have her able to access her full power without someone controlling her the next time they challenged Bolas. They had a secondary motivation, as well: to get the sword of the ancient Planeswalker Dakkon Blackblade, who was rumored to have killed an Elder Dragon. The remnants of the Gatewatch harbored hope that since it had killed one Elder Dragon, they could use it to kill another. With the help of Jhoira, Teferi, Jaya, and Karn, they launched an attack on the demon Belzenlock and his Cabal. After a fierce battle, with all manner of legendary opponents, they were finally able to slay the demon and acquire the sword they sought. At last, victory seemed but a stone's throw away! Five Planeswalkers left to meet at Chandra's mother's house on Kaladesh, but Liliana found she couldn't. Nicol Bolas manifested beside her, revealing his price for brokering her deal all those years ago: Liliana herself. The contracts had a stipulation that if the four contract holders all died, control of the contract reverted to the broker, and if Liliana disobeyed, she would die. In addition to Tezzeret, Ral Zarek, and to the best of his knowledge, Vraska, Liliana Vess was now In Bolas's Clutches.
War of the Spark
In the meantime, Nicol Bolas had begun placing his own agents into the Ravnican government. Dovin Baan, whom Tezzeret had recruited on Kaladesh, claimed the long-vacant title of Grand Arbiter of the Azorius, and set up the Immortal Sun in New Prahv, the Azorius guildhall. Bolas contracted Kaya, Orzhov Usurper to kill the Obzedat, knowing that she would be then take on all of their contracts and debts. Ral Zarek was set up as the functional head of the Izzet, as Niv-Mizzet was working on his own secret project. Finally, Bolas was counting on Domri Rade, the new head of the Gruul clans, to side with him upon his arrival. After returning from Ixalan to take control of the Golgari, Vraska, Golgari Queen waited for her next set of orders from Bolas, all the while feeling guilty about her involvement.
When all the pieces were in place, Bolas launched his assault on Ravnica. Niv-Mizzet was prepared. He set off a series of magical rocket launchers to weaken Bolas, then attacked the elder dragon himself. Their battle raged across the city, with Bolas slowly but surely gaining an edge over the other dragon. Niv went so far as to drop an entire building on Bolas, but it wasn't enough. Bolas emerged, sparking fear inside of Niv for the first time in the ancient dragon's life. Although he fought to the bitter end, Niv-Mizzet was defeated. leaving behind nothing but his skeleton. Those who discovered what Bolas was up to, including Ral, Izzet Viceroy and Kaya, thought that there was only one chance left for them to survive: ignite the Planar Beacon the Izzet had constructed and summon as many planeswalkers as they possibly could to unite against Bolas. Unfortunately, this was exactly what Bolas wanted.
As the host of planeswalkers arrived, an explosion shattered the Chamber of the Guildpact, breaking the Guildpact itself. This forced Jace, Wielder of Mysteries to be just another planeswalker defender, coordinating the attempt to save Ravnica alongside warriors like Ajani, the Greathearted, masterful mages like Teferi, Time Raveler, and old friends like Chandra, Fire Artisan. Across the battlefield, they saw the looming structure of Bolas's Citadel, and at its summit, Liliana, Dreadhorde General. As the defending force had no way to know that she was simply a Slave of Bolas, part of their plans inevitably revolved around having to defeat her. Liliana led the army of Eternals that was set against the populace. The planeswalker alliance, alongside the citizens of Ravnica, starting making serious progress, until four giant beings strode through the Planar Bridge: the God-Eternals. God-Eternal Bontu, God-Eternal Kefnet, God-Eternal Oketra, and God-Eternal Rhonas turned the tide of battle, and Nicol Bolas began to Commence the Endgame.
It's unknown where Bolas found The Elderspell, a powerful spell capable of drawing out the planeswalker spark. His plan was to use The Elderspell through his Eternal army to suck the spark out of every planeswalker trapped on Ravnica, beginning with Domri, Anarch of Bolas. The planeswalkers' quickly regrouped and came up with a plan of their own. They would send separate strike teams to stop the different pieces of Bolas's strategy: the first would go to New Prahv and shut down the Immortal Sun; the second would assassinate Liliana to stop the Eternals; the third to go through the Planar Bridge and destroy it from the Amonkhet side.
The team sent to disable the Immortal Sun was successful, but the assassination team was not. Once through the Bridge, the third team of quickly defeated Tezzeret and met up with Sarkhan the Masterless and Hazoret. Sarkhan had been working alongside Ugin, who was watching the battle in the Meditation Realm through the Spirit Gem between Bolas's horns. Ugin had discovered that Bolas put a piece of himself into all of the Amonkhet god's weapons, and because of this they could use Hazoret's spear against him.
All the while, Nicol Bolas continued to harvest planeswalker sparks, growing more and more powerful with each one. Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God had finally returned to the multiverse. All seemed lost, until Gideon Blackblade swooped in on the back of the demon Rakdos. As Gideon launched himself at the Dragon-God, the blade shattered, and Gideon fell beneath the Tyrant's Scorn. Bolas revealed he had intentionally inflated the legend of the Blackblade.
The remaining planeswalkers, along with the guild leaders, regrouped in the ruins of the chamber of the Guildpact. There, Sarkhan revealed that Ugin and Niv-Mizzet had another plan running in the background. Niv-Mizzet's soul and consciousness were both still in existence, hiding in the Meditation Realm with Ugin, and the two dragons' plan involved using the magic of the Guildpact to resurrect him. The remaining guild leaders, with the aid of Nissa, used the leylines of Ravnica to put the force of the Guildpact into him, making him Niv-Mizzet Reborn. His first act upon regaining a corporeal form was to take down God-Eternal Kefnet, and his second was to collapse. In desperation, the alliance of planeswalkers and Ravnican citizens did the only thing they could: they waged a final all-out attack. In this, their most desperate hour, came the one thing Nicol Bolas couldn't foresee: Liliana Vess decided she would rather die free than live as Bolas's slave. She turned God-Eternals Oketra and Bontu against him, intending to use The Elderspell against him and strip him of all the sparks he'd stolen.
Bolas immediately sensed what she was doing through their bond, and invoked her contract, causing her to begin disintegrating. Liliana pushed on, but Bontu and Oketra couldn't get through the imperviousness of Bolas's godhood. As Liliana began to die, Gideon stepped forward and put his invulnerability onto Liliana long enough for him to take the backlash fron her contract onto himself. With his sacrifice and her newfound freedom, she kept pushing even harder, but it still wasn't enough. Niv-Mizzet made a triumphant return, impaling Bolas with Hazoret's spear. Though the wound itself wasn't serious, it broke his concentration long enough for Liliana to finally drive Oketra and Bontu to Despark him, sapping him of all his power.
Ugin knew that his brother would have plans against his unlikely death, but would never have imagined himself being simply captured; so, he did just that. Ugin came under the cover of an invisibility spell, and while Jace to use his powers of illusion to fake Bolas's death, Ugin spirited Bolas away to the Meditation Realm, which became Bolas's private Prison Realm. There, Ugin revealed that he was behind NIv-Mizzet's rebirth, as well as being connected to the Spirit Gem, and that he had stripped both names away from his fallen brother so no one could ever summon him again. Thus ended the reign of the most powerful interplanar threat the multiverse had ever known.
That about wraps it up! Thanks for coming on this journey, and a special thanks once again to Hobbes of the Goblin Lore Pod for his help in putting this all together. Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments! Until next time!
The Story of BolasApproximate Total Cost: