Nicol Bolas, the Ravager: Our God is an Awesome God

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TheGildedGoose
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 4 years ago

"Let me unburden you of these fatuous hopes."
- Nicol Bolas



Nicol Bolas, the Ravager: Our God is an Awesome God is a Grixis control deck that seeks to stymie its opponents with disruption spells until it can slowly take over the game with its relentless suite of answers and card draw, all while applying pressure to hand sizes with our commander with repeated casts after removal if need be. The idea is to rely on our inevitability to run our opponents out of options while we maintain a steady supply of answers.



Our God is an Awesome God

Commander:

Approximate Total Cost:



It's a control deck, doing control deck things. The primary game plan in the first three turns is to make all of our land drops, hit a mana rock on turn 2, and cast our commander on turn 3 to start running people out of options as soon as possible.

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The odds to do this are around 54% (66.994% x 80.038% = 53.62%), which is pretty reasonable, I think. Failing to accomplish this goal doesn't mean game over, as there are plenty of cheap spells to cast to get you through the early game if this fails.

After that, we either sit back and defend our life total, or aggressively go after the biggest threat with our evasive beats depending on how things are going. Counter anything that directly threatens you, remove what directly threatens you, and board wipe only when absolutely necessary, preferably with counter back up.

The primary win conditions are, of course, Runechanter's Pike, Nicol Bolas, the Arisen, and Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God. If you can protect your life total and ride things out to the 1v1 phase of the game, you're in fantastic shape.
Last edited by TheGildedGoose 1 year ago, edited 27 times in total.

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Outcryqq
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Post by Outcryqq » 4 years ago

I built a Nicol Bolas, the Ravager deck. Although it focuses more on hand destruction, there are a few cards you might consider adding:
Kess, Dissident Mage: Your deck is full of powerful instants and sorceries, and this buys them back.
Nightscape Familiar: Your deck has a lot of red and blue cards, and this should help cut down on the high mana costs. With regeneration, it can also survive a number of your sweepers, like Crux of Fate, Hour of Devastation, Blasphemous Act, and Magmaquake.
The Eldest Reborn: Really backbreaking if you follow up your commander with this card. You're bound to get significant positive card advantage out of it, and the recursion is just gravy. Your creatures would all be fine reanimation targets, and if your opponents discard or sacrifice some juicy targets, that's great too.

A few cards that might be cuttable:
Cryptic Command: we all know this is a great card. As you've already acknowledged, your mana base isn't perfect. Given that, the 3 blue in the cost seems very difficult.
Crosis's Charm: decent card, and modal is nice. but the colors in the cost are restrictive given an imperfect mana base, and you have some other very powerful spells that do all the things this card does, but more efficiently.
Some of your card draw: in these colors, you obviously have access to incredible draw power. I think one that people tend to overlook is Erebos, God of the Dead. This allows you to still play the draw-go style, but you also stop lifegain and might have an indestructible beater. Some of the card draw I'd consider cutting/replacing: Impulse, Brainstorm, and Fact or Fiction.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 4 years ago

Outcryqq wrote:
4 years ago
I built a Nicol Bolas, the Ravager deck. Although it focuses more on hand destruction, there are a few cards you might consider adding:
Kess, Dissident Mage: Your deck is full of powerful instants and sorceries, and this buys them back.
Nightscape Familiar: Your deck has a lot of red and blue cards, and this should help cut down on the high mana costs. With regeneration, it can also survive a number of your sweepers, like Crux of Fate, Hour of Devastation, Blasphemous Act, and Magmaquake.
The Eldest Reborn: Really backbreaking if you follow up your commander with this card. You're bound to get significant positive card advantage out of it, and the recursion is just gravy. Your creatures would all be fine reanimation targets, and if your opponents discard or sacrifice some juicy targets, that's great too.
Kess is interesting. While not recurring countermagic is a downside, keeping her around for 2-3 turns recurring some removal, draw, and finally a board wipe seems good. I'll find room for her. Reborn is also pretty sweet and 100% on flavor. That it's on curve after playing Nicky is a great observation and definitely makes it much better here than in other decks.

I'm not a fan of mana dorks in general since they're so easy to get rid of. Regeneration is a nice way around this, but I think I would prefer a mana rock or even Baral, Chief of Compliance over the Familiar. It's uncommon that I play multiple spells per turn and when I'm doing so, it's usually in the late game when I have a plethora of mana.
A few cards that might be cuttable:
Cryptic Command: we all know this is a great card. As you've already acknowledged, your mana base isn't perfect. Given that, the 3 blue in the cost seems very difficult.
Crosis's Charm: decent card, and modal is nice. but the colors in the cost are restrictive given an imperfect mana base, and you have some other very powerful spells that do all the things this card does, but more efficiently.
Some of your card draw: in these colors, you obviously have access to incredible draw power. I think one that people tend to overlook is Erebos, God of the Dead. This allows you to still play the draw-go style, but you also stop lifegain and might have an indestructible beater. Some of the card draw I'd consider cutting/replacing: Impulse, Brainstorm, and Fact or Fiction.
You're probably right about Command being greedy. However, I'm running 8.5 counterspells (Supreme Will), and I would like to maintain that amount so I would only cut Command for something like Exclude or even Unwind. This is a control deck through and through so while containment is impossible until the end game, I need to make sure I don't get haymakered out of existence. As for Charm, well, you're probably right, but I have a thing for modal spells. Each mode is very good, and while it's somewhat taxing on the manabase it's so good in the late game when my fixing is good enough that I think it's worth running.

On card draw: well, I can't run ol' Erebos, God of the Dead since he's the commander of my MBC list and having him here would be... weird. I do agree that Brainstorm isn't great without fetches. Impulse is solid, digging for an additional land in the early game or digging four deep in the mid or late game for an answer or win condition. I'm a huge fan of the cantrips in EDH, but Brainstorming into dead cards is the ultimate feelbad.

Thanks for the feedback!

I've made some other adjustments to the deck, such as cutting Gonti, Hostage Taker, and Thief of Sanity. Gonti is cute, but wasn't great in practice. Hostage Taker is terrible in Enter the Battlefield Dragon Highlander, and Thief of Sanity is too reliant on the attack step. They're not bad, exactly, but didn't feel right in this deck. I added Necromancy and even old Control Magic to deck to emphasize the theft theme, and changed up the manabase to include the Theros Temples. With the Temples, I have six (and a half if you include Ash Barrens getting a basic) lands that come into play tapped, which is approximately five more than I want. However, the Temples are only bad in the mid game. Early on, coming in tapped is fine if I don't have any plays, and in the late game, when I don't need the mana, the card selection is excellent. I'll keep my eyes on them. I'll update the OP to show my current list.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

You could play Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth considering you have Glacial Chasm and Maze of Ith. Fixes some of your color requirements.

Baral, Chief of Compliance is excellent in your deck. He just such as efficient cost reduction card, and you can even filter some cards with your counterspells. Maybe setup your graveyard with a creature to reanimate.

On that note you have a lot of instants and sorcery and it would be nice to have one more card other than Kess, Dissident Mage to make use of them again.
There is tons of options, so it's figuring out which one would be the best.
You could go really big and use something like Mizzix's Mastery. But most of your spells are reactive, so casting them all in one turn isn't the best going forward.
I think just go for small value with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Again you can use him for filtering, but also use his "[−3]: You may cast target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard this turn. If that card would be put into your graveyard this turn, exile it instead." to cast some of your spells potentially over a series of turns.

I don't like colorless artifact sources in a 3 color deck. Thought Vessel and even Thran Dynamo is better replaced with Firemind Vessel for the color portion. It's going to be colored mana which prevents from casting multiple spells most turns.

I would replace Counterflux and Exclude with more mana efficient counterspells. Arcane Denial and Delay I promise you will serve your better.

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Post by Outcryqq » 4 years ago

If you really want to focus on the theft more, you could consider In Bolas's Clutches. It's more pricey than Control Magic, but Clutches is way more flavorful, and you aren't restricted to creatures. I'd also consider Dominating Licid as a repeatable source of Control Magic.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 4 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
4 years ago
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Baral, Chief of Compliance
one more card other than Kess, Dissident Mage to make use of [instants and sorceries] again
Tomb is an easy include.
Baral is excellent. I could cut a rock to try him out, I suppose.
I have Deliver Unto Evil, but a third option could be Yawgmoth's Will or possibly just Past in Flames. I could always flash it back for maximum value. Jace is kind of a flavor fail, and I don't own one, but it's probably pretty good. I think I'll wait to try either of these two, though.
I don't like colorless artifact sources in a 3 color deck. Thought Vessel and even Thran Dynamo is better replaced with Firemind Vessel for the color portion. It's going to be colored mana which prevents from casting multiple spells most turns.
I would replace Counterflux and Exclude with more mana efficient counterspells. Arcane Denial and Delay I promise you will serve your better.
Vessel is out for Baral, but Dynamo stays. In the mid and late game it's -1 mana for +3 on your subsequent turns, and with all of the expensive planeswalkers, haymakers, and theft spells, it helps you do stupid things.
Counterflux is great for preempting counter wars, but Exclude is bad. However, I'm putting Cryptic Command back in, as I've adjusted the manabase for the deck to have more Islands.
Outcryqq wrote:
4 years ago
If you really want to focus on the theft more, you could consider In Bolas's Clutches. It's more pricey than Control Magic, but Clutches is way more flavorful, and you aren't restricted to creatures. I'd also consider Dominating Licid as a repeatable source of Control Magic.
6 mana is a lot to ask, even if I could steal a planeswalker that was about to ult or something like Necropotence. Control Magic is reasonably priced and is often a large enough change in the board state. However, I will note that I'm thinking of changing out Control Magic for Clever Impersonator. Cloning really isn't the same as theft, but sometimes something ridiculous is available that you can't pass up.

I retooled the deck to have more Islands since blue mana is the most important color to have available. As such, I decided to give Vedalken Shackles a try and in my limited testing it's been pretty good. Getting to four or five Islands out is common, and while I can't steal too many Eldrazi, there are plenty of powerful creatures in that range. Taking Mizzix of the Izmagnus and loading up on experience counters is fun.

Also, I cut the Temples and City of Brass for 3 Islands and an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. More Islands to support checklands and Shackles, and Urborg to help color fix.

- Thought Vessel
+1 Baral, Chief of Compliance

-1 Exclude
+1 Cryptic Command

- Read the Bones
+ Vedalken Shackles

-3 Temples
-1 City of Brass
+3 Island
+1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Overall, the deck has been playing reasonably smoothly. I occasionally had problems getting blue mana specifically, hence the additional Islands played. Once it gets going, it buries opponents in card advantage and disruption, and it can handle being the table villain to a degree because of this.

EDIT: Upon further reflection I decided to up the basic Island count to 14, cutting 2 Mountain and 2 Swamp. A majority of my spells have blue pips and sit low on my curve, and not having blue mana available for a turn 1 Ponder/Preordain is feelbad. Urborg compensates for a low Swamp count, while the single Mountain remains as an Ash Barrens target. The only spells I have requiring multiple red mana are Hour of Devastation, a board wipe that is possibly getting cut for Earthquake, and Insurrection, an 8 mana sorcery that I will universally only be casting in the late game.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 4 years ago

Got some more testing in today and here are some observations:

1) Vedalken Shackles is really good, even with a tricolor manabase without fetches and no sac outlets. Some decks are very reliant on their commanders and it shuts many of those down cold. Stealing a Tasigur and using his ability a couple of times was a hoot. There were a few big boys I couldn't steal, which is regrettable, but I was very happy with how it performed overall.

2) Kess and Baral both performed admirably. As it turns out, casting your best spells twice and reducing the cost of a quarter of your deck while giving card selection is good. Not much to report, here, they're both obviously powerful cards that synergize well with the deck.

3) The manabase is mostly great. It would be better with fetches and duals, obviously, but between the cantrips, card draw, and mana rocks, I think I've only had one instance out of many games where I had mana issues. I'm even thinking of cutting an Island to free up a deck slot.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with the deck. Beyond drawing cards and blowing things up, I think one of the most satisfying experiences for me in Magic is feeling powerful by playing powerful cards, and this deck is full of those.

How do we feel about Telepathy? It's wonderful in DirkGently's Phelddagrif deck, where it gives you so much information with which to plan your control plays. I think it's less good here, but still might be worth playing.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

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Working on my deckbuilding thread made me remember how much I love windmill slamming Nicky B on turn 3, so while retooling it for the purposes of that thread I decided to revisit this ancient thread and update the decklist. I think it'll be my sleeved up control deck of choice at the moment instead of Phelddagrif. While I adore Dirk's project, this deck feels more my speed, and of course, it's of my own design which is important to me. It's also a better home for my shiny Mana Drain I got for my birthday a while back.

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