Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Victory, No Matter the Sacrifice
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Table of Contents
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Introduction & Philosophy
Nicol Bolas is a ruthless villain who cares only about his own nefarious schemes at the expense of his "allies". In reality, Bolas has no real allies no matter what those who align with him think. As such, they are expendable to him and he gives no real thought to their well being or even caring about their survival if their death moves him closer to his goals.This deck is intended to put that mind set into deck form. We care about our army just enough to make it to the end of the game and be victorious with just enough support to get them to do what we need them to do. As something Bolas would do, we don't necessarily about keeping all of our Planeswalkers alive. We need to constantly evaluate whether it is worth saving a Planeswalker at risk of dying or if their death is acceptable. Very often we will need to hold back on a wrath or board clear of some sort, which allows for some planeswalkers to die, just to make sure we don't "waste" resources trying to save every planeswalker.
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Deck History
This deck was created out of a desire to do a couple things. To start with, a superfriends deck that wasn't Atraxa (or Green for Doubling Season) felt refreshing. I had an Atraxa deck built as soon as she was released and it was awful to play. I tried to tone down the power level and I tried to make it fun for me as well as my opponents and I wasn't very successful. I am also not a huge fan of 4 color either so it meant the deck was dismantled very soon after putting it together. I was tempted to revisit the idea of Superfriends with the reveal of Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God and I realized creature Bolas would make a good general for this type of deck. Since it didn't have Doubling Season, it meant that the deck would play out as trying to have enough Planeswalkers to take over the game without the game being mostly about trying to ultimate our walkers as soon as possible. Which meant with a slower, grindier game than I experienced with Atraxa since she often just won out of nowhere and really felt more like a combo deck.
And second, I have never really explored the idea of a theme deck. Others have done things like "Art Tribal" or building around the lore of a specific general, but that kind of thing never really interested me. With Bolas though, it seemed like a cool idea (especially with the War of the Spark story) to try to build a deck around the theme of being Bolas's Army. This idea has dictated some of the playstyle or, at least, justified some of the playstyle of the deck but so far it seems to be working out exactly as I wanted it to.
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Analysis/Why Play this Deck
You enjoy long grindy games of Magic
You are confident in your ability to accurately assess board states
You enjoy making legitimate strategic decisions every turn
You feel creatures are overrated
You want a Superfriends deck that isn't just a race to Doubling Season
Why you shouldn't play the deck
You don't think control can be done except with Instants and counterspells
You want to win as fast as possible
You can't stop yourself from spending resources to protect everything
You think Planeswalkers are a mistake and should not be in the game
You are impatient and can't handle your stuff dying
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Alternate Generals
- Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - The "default" Superfriends general. I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention her here. While her playstyle tends to be faster or more aggressive than Bolas, she is still a very good option for a Superfriends player.
- Nicol Bolas - OG Bolas isn't quite as thematic since he isn't a Planeswalker but he still has good stats and a good ability. Being a 7/7 Flyer allows for blocking when needed and, if he connects for damage, can keep an opponent from trying to advance the board. If you can keep all your opponents in top deck mode, you can more easily run away with the game. 8 mana and an upkeep cost make him tough to make work though.
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Current Deck List
Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Approximate Total Cost:
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Card Choices
Overall, the focus on the deck is the Planeswalkers. A number of cards are included to make sure the deck doesn't run out of gas and a number are there for the synergy with Planeswalkers in general. We want to protect our Planeswalkers but we are fine with giving up some when needed so there is very little targeted removal beyond what our Planeswalkers give us. We want to focus on mass removal when possible.The suite of Planeswalkers is likely ever evolving as we only have so many slots for them and we get a lot of new ones each year. Also, the ones listed in this list are certainly not the only, or necessarily the best, for every build so this can play out differently for everyone.
SPOILER
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Lands
Creatures
Instants
Sorceries
Artifacts
Enchantments
Planeswalkers
- Duals and Fetches - This includes the ABU Duals, Shocks, Bicycle, and Tango lands. They are here for mana fixing as being some of the best ways to ensure we get our mana
- City of Brass - This is a very color hungry deck and City of Brass helps a lot to ensure we get the right colors at the right time.
- Command Tower - The quintessential EDH land. Should be an auto-include in basically any 3+ color deck.
- Interplanar Beacon - The colorless mana hurts when trying to cast non-planeswalker spells but gains us some much needed life and fixes our mana for the bulk of our deck.
- Karn's Bastion - Again, colorless can be troublesome but Proliferate on a land gives us a way to use some of our mana that we may not otherwise use each turn cycle.
- Mana Confluence - Same as City of Brass in that it helps ensure we get our colors when we need them.
Creatures
- Archaeomancer - The deck is not super heavy on Instants or Sorceries, but the ones we do have can be very important. This gives us a way to re-use some of those cards. Plus, this and Evacuation is a soft lock while we go off with Walkers.
- Archfiend of Depravity - This is a reasonable way to keep our opponents' boards clear so we have fewer creatures we need to deal with overall. It is also a big flyer that can block and get in some incidental damage when needed.
- Burnished Hart - Without green, we want to make sure we get our land drops and our colors. Burnished Hart helps with these (on top of our mana rocks).
- Deepglow Skate - This is one of our few "instant-win" cards. That is, after building up a board, this can come down to immediately let us ultimate our stuff to potentially win the game on the spot. And, generally, even if we don't win, this will put us pretty far ahead where it becomes difficult for our opponent to catch up.
- Flux Channeler - One of the few Proliferate cards in the deck. Proliferate is, overall, really good with Planeswalkers and this one tends to be on the more useful side since it can trigger more than once per turn.
- Grave Titan - This is just a big beater that potentially creates a bunch of blockers for us. It also gives us an alternate way to win in case we are unable to get our Walkers to stick.
- Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain - Since most of our spells are Legendary, she should trigger quite often which should help keep our hand full. This deck always wants to have cards in hand to ensure it never just stalls out and Jhoira can help with that.
- Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs - There are very few effects we can use to make it unappealing to attack our Planeswalkers. And, since we run few creatures, they can often become vulnerable. Kazuul gives our opponents something to think about when attacking us or our Walkers and, if they choose not to pay, we can get some tokens for blocking or for attacking later on.
- Solemn Simulacrum - Ramp, the same as Burnished Hart but also helps us draw a card if it ever dies. We are more interested in the ramp though.
- Spark Double - We run a lot of Planeswalkers (obviously) so getting a second of one of our better ones can be very helpful. Even creating an additional copy of our General (though Spark Double can't transform if he is a creature) or Jhoira can be value plays that help keep us in the game. There is almost no downside to this card and the ceiling is pretty high.
Instants
- Commit // Memory - This is here mostly for the Memory half, but Commit can be invaluable in helping to protect our Planeswalkers when we need it.
- Counterspell - We are still playing blue so we want to be able to answer any significant threats if we can. There isn't a good reason not to have some form of counter magic and the classic is still really good.
- Crypt Incursion - This deck has a problem against swarms of creatures and can end up at a low life total. This can ensure players can't reanimate creatures en masse and, in a pinch, can just give us some much needed life in response to being attacked for lethal.
- Cyclonic Rift - This is a blue deck. That should be all the justification needed for running Rift.
- Dig Through Time - We want to ensure we don't stall and seeing 7 cards can help make sure we keep our plan moving. We will often have at least some cards we don't care about in our grave so Delving away 6 cards is easy. Even though we only get 2 cards, they are out of 7 which means they should be pretty good.
- Disallow - More counter magic but also with the ability to stop opposing planeswalkers or any other activated or triggered abilities we need to stop.
- Evacuation - Since we run very few creatures, this is almost as good as Rift (for creatures anyway). And, the creatures we do have have good ETB effects so we don't mind casting them again.
- Fact or Fiction - More card selection akin to Dig Through Time. Every so often, you may only get one card but it will probably be pretty good if you are choosing that pile over the other. There are very few situations where this is a whiff and, even if it is, it gets those 5 cards out of the way.
- Fuel for the Cause - Counter magic that also buffs up our Planeswalkers. It is on the high side for a counterspell but being able to put counters on anything more than 1 planeswalker makes the additional cost worth it.
- Mana Drain - The best counterspell in the game. It counters spells and ramps us (for a turn). We have a high enough curve that this helps out quite a bit.
- Mystical Tutor - We sometimes need a silver bullet now and Mystical Tutor can get it for us. With our other card draw, especially that on our Walkers, we can often tutor for something and cast it the same turn.
Sorceries
- Blasphemous Act - Wraths are important to the deck and, while damage based wraths can be made ineffective, this one will often be cast for 1 or 2 mana which makes it a very cheap option that doesn't generally impact our board in any significant way.
- Command the Dreadhorde - There are not many mass reanimation spells for Planeswalkers and this one is pretty good. It can get creatures or walkers and can get them from our opponents if we need them. Just watch your life total!
- Damnation - Another very good wrath to keep our Planeswalkers safe.
- Deliver Unto Evil - This is here for much the same reason Archaeomancer is: it gives us more use out of a lot of our spells but this can get us our permanent cards back. We may not always have a Bolas planeswalker but even getting the two worst cards of our chosen 4 is likely to be pretty good.
- Tezzeret's Gambit - Card draw and Proliferate are very good. This should almost always be cast by paying the two life as our mana is a precious resource and we want it for whatever we draw.
- The Elderspell - This has two main uses: as a kill spell against opposing Superfriends decks or just dealing with powerful Planeswalkers and sacrificing our own walkers to get another to ultimate.
- Timetwister - We can sometimes run through our deck or want cards in our graveyard back. Memory and Twister both help with this. This can also be tutored up early to refill our hand if we dump our hand early
- Toxic Deluge - A cheap wrath that also deals with indestructible creatures.
- Wheel of Fortune - This is one that may or may not be needed. It is obviously here to give us a new hand of 7 when we need it but our card draw elsewhere is actually pretty solid. We still want one or two of these effects, but this is likely the one to cut if we need to go down on this effect.
- Windfall - Another card draw spell that can help keep our hand full
- Yawgmoth's Vile Offering - Another Planeswalker reanimation spell that also doubles as a removal spell. We should always be able to cast this and this can help turn the game around in the right situations.
Artifacts
- Bolas's Citadel - This is on theme and gives us a way to flood the board with Planeswalkers. This can easily help us rebuild if we are behind (as long as we have the life for it). It does tend to be on the powerful side, which most free spells are, so your meta may or may not be accustomed to something like this.
- Dimir Signet, Izzet Signet, Mana Crypt, Rakdos Signet, & Sol Ring - All the mana rocks. Since we are not running green, we want to have a way to ramp and to get things out faster. There is very little we have that will blow up artifacts so we don't need to worry much about accidentally destroying our own stuff. They are still susceptible to opposing artifact hate, but we are hopefully in a good position when that happens where we don't care as much about these being destroyed.
And, as a caveat, Mana Crypt can eat away at our life total pretty heavily so it is something to watch for as the game moves on. - Heart of Kiran - This is an attacker and a blocker that is cheap so it often comes down before our planeswalkers or can come down on the same turn as one without costing a lot of mana to do so. It is often preferable to take one loyalty counter from a walker to block something rather than letting that attacker deal damage to our walker. It is fairly common for this to die in a block in certain cases but sometimes it is necessary and is the difference between ultimating a planeswalker next turn and never getting to ultimate it.
Enchantments
- Inexorable Tide - Repeatable Proliferate is really good and it triggers for all of our spells. If we can chain spells together, this can sometimes do the same job as Deepglow Skate to get us to our ultimates much quicker and, thus, end the game much quicker.
- The Eldest Reborn - Another reanimation spell for Planeswalkers (or a creature in a pinch) that also helps control our opponents' boards and hands. It may not be as high impact as some other spells in that regard, but the first two chapters do help as we are waiting to get to Chaper 3.
Planeswalkers
- Ashiok, Dream Render - Graveyards and Library searching are two things that are very prevelant in EDH. This one card helps shut them all down while being a (very slow) win condition in itself.
- Dack Fayden - Sometimes filtering cards is enough to keep you moving and stealing an early Sol Ring or other artifact ramp can be very important to get you further ahead and/or set an opponent behind. The ultimate here is very rarely used as we really want the first two modes.
- Jace, Architect of Thought - This is a way to protect our walkers from *some* damage. In a meta of tokens, this is likely to be even more important. His mini Fact or Fiction can also be useful but there is generally other card draw where you are really trying to get to his ultimate.
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Card draw and "removal" are very good in this deck. For as powerful as Jace is in other formats, he doesn't do quite as much in EDH. But, he is still welcome in this deck for his second and third modes. His ultimate is a bonus if you can get to it but it isn't something we should be actively working towards.
- Jace, Unraveler of Secrets - He is here mostly for the Draw and Scry. Bouncing creatures is also pretty relevant and, if you can get to his ultimate, it can be game over for your opponents. A bit high on the curve but has 3 very relevant abilities.
- Jace, Wielder of Mysteries - This is a tough sell and is here just as card draw. The three Blue mana requirement is tough and he doesn't do much beyond card draw so he may or may not be necessary. He is in here now on a trial basis to see if just card draw is enough. There isn't likely a situation where we win with him.
- Karn, Scion of Urza - Card Advantage with him is great but very often, the tokens he creates are even better. We are not a heavy artifact build in general but even without a lot of other artifacts his tokens can be game changing. And, they because even better if you do go further into including artifacts.
- Liliana Vess - She is here entirely for her tutor ability. This may not be enough but she can help get to our answers when we need them and, since we have other Planeswalkers that draw cards, we can often cast that card the same turn we tutor for it.
- Liliana, the Last Hope - She can kill, or slow down, one opposing creature a turn. Her biggest draw is that she comes down early and her ultimate is game breaking. But, her second ability is useless and her first isn't that great. I have gotten close to her ultimate twice and never got it off. She takes a lot of focus and resources to get her to her ultimate and I think it is more than we really want to spend so she likely isn't worth the slot. But, as her ultimate is game ending, she hasn't been cut yet.
- Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God - He has 3 relevant abilities already and then being able to double up on another ability each turn is just icing on the cake. I am never disappointed to see him and he can be instrumental in closing out games or even just controlling the game as it is.
- Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh - Another Bolas who has great abilities. Free cards, one way or the other, is good and very often I will find myself using his -4 first to get rid of a big threat before ticking him up again to get more value out of him.
- Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker - A bit on the high side for mana cost, but still has 3 good abilities. However, his mana cost can be enough to warrant slotting him out to lower our curve. I happen to like him for his abilities, but he is not an auto-include by any means.
- Ob Nixilis Reignited - Some of our biggest threats are, of course, creatures. Ob helps with this with being a destruction spell on a stick. And he is card draw after that. 5 mana can sometimes be a lot for a kill spell, but he is rarely unwanted.
- Ral, Izzet Viceroy - This is an interesting inclusion from my experience. I like the card selection of his first ability, but his second ability is useless since we don't run enough Instants or Sorceries. However, he is the one who I have Ultimated the most often and his Emblem can be very good. We may not have a lot of spells that trigger it, but we have enough that even drawing 4-6 cards and dealing 8-12 damage over the course of the game can be enough as that damage can be pointed at creatures and the cards keep us going.
- Saheeli, Sublime Artificer - Since we are running almost all non-creature abilities, she will get us an additional token each time. These tokens can help swarm to attack or just act as blockers and they also beef up the tokens from Karn. She is effectively just an enchantment as it is rare to ever use her Loyalty ability.
- Sorin Markov - I personally hate Sorin's second ability so Sorin is likely on the chopping for that reason. But, his ultimate is cool and his first ability can get some much needed life. Realistically though, you either play him for his second ability or you don't play him. I am still waiting for a suitable replacement though. Will Kenrith is probably a better card here.
- Tamiyo, the Moon Sage - Tamiyo's first ability can deal with problematic creatures and her second can (conditionally) draw us cards. Both are good, but neither are stellar. But her ultimate is really good and is worth including even if the other abilities are somewhat mediocre. This is another ultimate where it becomes tough to lose once you have the Emblem.
- Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Teferi basically has 1 ability: his "Untap 4 permanents" ability. Sure, he can get us a card (like Ral can) but we almost always want to keep him around so we can untap our permanents. This allows us to ramp and gives us the opportunity to attack while keeping up blockers. Copying him with Spark Double is also a fun, and powerful, play.
- Tezzeret, Artifice Master - We don't have the mass of artifacts necessary for his second abiliity to be better, but it is still good. We will sometimes get enough to be able to draw 2 cards and his first ability helps for this too. He also gives us flying blockers which are very good in this deck since that is one of the bigger weaknesses. And, again, this is an Emblem that tends to ends games. We may not be able to activate any Planeswalkers we get off of him, but just getting free planeswalkers (or anything else) can be game winning.
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Important Cards
- Cyclonic Rift & Evacuation - These 2 especially become very important as the game wears on because neither one really affects our board and they help keep our opponents' boards clear to prevent them from attacking into our planeswalkers.
- Deepglow Skate - This allows for a quick end to the game if we have a critical mass of planeswalkers. It doesn't do much if we are behind but if we have stalled out or are trying to punch through some opposing board states, this can get us to our ultimates to end the game.
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Notable Omissions
- Jokulhaups, Obliterate, etc. - These cards generally work well with Planeswalkers as they don't affect them. So, you can build up a board state, blow up everything else (including lands) to make sure your opponents can't interact, and then continue ticking up your planeswalkers to get to an evential win. This is not something I enjoy, but they are legitimate inclusions for this kind of deck.
- Narset, Parter of Veils - Narset works well to get us more cards in hand and works really well with our Wheels and Twisters. The latter is the main reason I didn't include it as I don't really like "lock" elements like this. But, again, she can be very good in this type of deck and can work to keep our opponents with very few cards in hand.
- Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver - It would be nice to run all of the Bolas walkers, but this one is just too expensive and does very little. It is an issue with most Planeswalker deck Planeswalkers so this one was excluded even if, flavorfully, he would have made sense.
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Budget Alternatives
The main issue with this deck is that some planeswalkers are expensive. While the planeswalkers in the list are not set in stone and there is a lot of freedom in which are included, there aren't really alternatives for them as they are generally unique. So, beyond playing with different lands instead of duals, the budget considerations move more into choosing different walkers entirely and potentially changing up a bit of the strategy of the deck.
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Deck Strategy
Main StrategyThe main strategy is to build up an army over the course of the game. Since planeswalkers are high costed, and tough to protect (at least, this many are tough to protect) we need to focus on spending our resources wisely. We need to realize that we can't just flood the board and win. We will encounter resistance and we will often have to make a decision of letting a planeswalker (or two) die at certain points of the game.
And this last point is very important. We can't protect all of our planeswalkers, especially early on. We can try to protect them but it generally a bad idea to spend removal or resources trying to save just one or two planeswalkers. We are usually better off letting them die and get new ones on the field to try again. Sometimes it is hard to just let your planeswalkers die if you usually only play a couple in your deck, but with the sheer numbers we have here, we need to be aware that some will die and we need to let them die. In fact, in some cases, you may want to throw out a walker just to let them die so our opponents use their removal on a "lesser" Planeswalker so the path is clear for a better one.
Early Game
While we are not an overly aggressive deck, we still need to play aggressively. Our early game will generally focus on trying to ramp out our general. So, we want to get a mana rock or two, cast Bolas (to get a card out of everyone's hands) and then hopefully have him around as a blocker as we start casting Planeswalkers.
He is still a 4/4 flyer so this will often be enough to protect Ral or Jace as we try to tick them up. Each turn, from turn 4-7 should be about trying to cast a planeswalker (hopefully with our general on the board) and forcing our opponents to interact. We want to get a number of planeswalkers down at this time and focus less on truly protecting them. Some may die, and some may go lower on loyalty, but that is fine.
Mid Game
Here is where we hopefully have 4+ planeswalkers so we want to start to protecting them. Any of our wraths will usually get cast around turn 8 to clear up the boards and leave our Planeswalkers intact. The next couple turns after that should be about casting a planeswalker and leaving up mana for counter magic if needed. We still want to cast Planeswalkers, but we want to start focusing on not over-extending and accepting that our opponents will really start trying to interact with our board. Casting a couple wraths here is not necessarily out of the question.
Late Game
After 12 or so turns, we really want to start putting the pressure on. We have hopefully caused our opponents to either overextend into a wrath in hopes of killing our Planeswalkers in combat or we have successfully taken control of the board with any Planeswalkers that have survived to this point.
This is where we want to have 6+ Planeswalkers and we want to keep ticking them up for value. Hopefully, there is at least one that is close to ultimating that we can fire off to really do damage to at least one opponent. We still want to keep mana up for a counter spell if possible but, otherwise, we want to be aggressive in trying to close out the game with anything we have left.
Generally, this is where Deepglow Skate will come down to end things or even using The Elderspell to sacrifice some of our weaker walkers (or ones with lower loyalty) to get an ultimate off. Generally, one of the Bolas ultimates is what we want here but there are a few that will take over, or outright win, the game.
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Strengths
The deck's main strength is its inevitability. That is, the ability to go long and wait out the rest of the table while they attempt to close out the game earlier. We are able to weather the early beats and use our Planeswalkers to gain us advantage as the game goes longer. If nothing else, our early walkers provide some shielding for our life total since players will be focuses mostly on those.We are also not hindered by almost any mass removal spell. Beyond things like The Elderspell and Merciless Eviction or "destroy all" like Planar Cleansing) we can escape unharmed. While these spells are played, most spells are going to be mass removal for creatures which we don't care much about.
The deck can also be fitted to basically any meta. If you find that too many players are playing the mass removal spells that deal with Walkers, just add more counterspells. If you find players are more aggro, pack in your own, cheap mass removal spells. If certain Walkers just don't match up against other decks well, take them out and replace them with something that will. Our list is ever evolving and ever flowing and I doubt any two lists would ever look identical. Our deck is not locked into a certain list or even a specific play style by virtue of what we can do with Planeswalkers so there is an inherent freedom to the deck that allows for tinkering and experimenting as one wants to do.
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Weaknesses
Super aggro, or super fast, decks can make games tough. We are playing for the long game and we expect to lose life in the early game while we try to build a board. But, planeswalkers are expensive and wraths only do so much. If we play against a deck that is trying to win as fast as possible, especially with creatures, we will have a tough time in the early game. And, even if we don't lose right away, the hit to our life total can be significant.In the same vein, combo can be tough to deal with. Our plan is to make our opponents focus on our board and focus on our Walkers to run them out of resources. A combo player doesn't care about us as they just need to get to a point where they feel they can combo off. While we do have counter magic for this reason, it also means that we haven't affected their resources as much as we have the other players.
As said in the Strengths section though, these issues can be mitigated with the inclusion of more specific hate cards. Even if we need to reduce the quantity of Planeswalkers, we can still be a Superfriends deck. We will just be one that has adapted to the meta.
We also need to be aware of when to protect that one walker we absolutely need to win. Generally, we are fine with most of our Walkers dying if it means others survive to carry on. But, sometimes we need to evaluate the board and make the decision to put a large number of resources into one Walker. Making you think and strategize is not necessarily a weakness, but learning the deck and learning these situations may take some time which could cause frustration in the first few games as you figure things out.
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Credit & Thanks
Thanks to toctheyounger in particular for their input on the deck to get it to where it is. They werre building a similar deck at the same time and their experiences and suggestions were some of the more helpful while trying to focus the deck.And, of course, thanks to any and all posters who have posted (or will post in the future) in this thread with their takes and card suggestions.
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Change Log
Change Log
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04/07/2019
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05/06/19
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05/06/19
ADDS
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06/01/2019
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07/09/19
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