Nicol Bolas and the Elderspell

Commander / EDH Control Superfriends UBR (Grixis)

ZacKrell

Land (33)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blightstep Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Riverglide Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Xander's Lounge

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Kaya's Ghostform
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Underworld Breach

Artifact (15)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Chromatic Orrery
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x The Chain Veil
• 1x Voltaic Key

Creature (14)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Displacer Kitten
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Kess, Dissident Mage
• 1x Orcish Bowmasters
• 1x Silent Arbiter
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Talion, the Kindly Lord
• 1x The Locust God
• 1x The Scarab God

Planeswalker (9)

• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Dack Fayden
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
• 1x Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
• 1x Ral Zarek
• 1x Teferi, Master of Time
• 1x Teferi, Temporal Archmage
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Commander (1)

 ^Flip

Instant (14)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Capsize
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Negate
• 1x Resculpt
• 1x Ripples of Potential
• 1x Soul Shatter
• 1x Valakut Awakening  ^Flip
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Jeska's Will
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Temporal Manipulation
• 1x Time Warp
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Vandalblast

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Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 1x God-Eternal Kefnet
• 1x Hullbreaker Horror
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Land (2)

• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary

Instant (2)

• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Tainted Pact

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

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Nicol Bolas is my unrivaled favorite character in all of the Multiverse and I have been determined to work out a build that capture's the essence of Bolas while remaining a competitor at higher powered tables. After a lot of thought and playtesting what I have landed on is kind of a hybrid between Superfriends and Control with an emphasis on flavorful Bolas themes.

Since our goal is to utilize Planeswalkers here it is important to have a resilient board presence so we brought along some of Bolas's minions: The Locust God and The Scarab God. These are formidable threats that are difficult to deal with because we are almost always given the option to bring them back to our hand when removed.

Controlling the board is pivotal in this plan so we need to have ways to get extra value out of our instant and sorcery spells. Kess, Dissident Mage and Archaeomancer allow us to do exactly that.

Bolas's endgame is simple. He just wants to see his spark restored to it's former glory. To achieve that we are going to aim to take extra turns and get a Nicol Bolas ultimate activation to take out our opponents. The easiest way to wrap things up in one shot is by using Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God.

We have a couple ways we can go infinite in this deck to wrap things up in one shot:

Tezzeret the Seeker + The Chain Veil + Chromatic Orrery will produce infinite mana and allow us to activate loyalty abilities an infinite amount of times. With Nicol Bolas, the Arisen   in our command zone that will allow us to draw our deck into a win condition.

Dockside Extortionist + Capsize can get us infinite mana as long as our opponents have a total of 9 artifacts and enchantments on board. This probably won't happen too often, but if it does it's an instant win by way of being able to then cast our commander Nicol Bolas, the Ravager   and transform him into Nicol Bolas, the Arisen   as many times as we want. This means we can usually draw our entire deck and then cast whatever we need to win.

A nice little addition I recently made was Displacer Kitten. This thing is a powerhouse and can help in a number of different ways. Repeating some key ETB effects like Dockside Extortionist or Imperial Recruiter. Flickering Planeswalkers to get extra activations each turn and reset to higher loyalty after utilizing the powerful minus effects. It will flat out end games with Gray Merchant of Asphodel. We can even use it to ramp by flickering our mana rocks. And with a large stable of non-creatures in the deck it will be triggering more often than not.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	2 weeks
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	27 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.19
Tokens	Copy Clone, Elemental 4/4 UR, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Emblem Dack Fayden, Emblem Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Insect 1/1 UR, Orc Army, Treasure
Folders	References, tabletop