My goal for this deck is to build something fun and interesting without breaking the bank- but the showstopper is a pretty expensive card on it's own, so a lot of staples aren't going to make it in.
The mana base is equally divided among all colors, with a handful of relevant guildgates to add some flexibility to our opening hand and mana base. This is due for tweaking with initial play testing, as the amount of red in the deck could be expanded, or the amount of available red symbols could be reduced.
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
is the star, or should be.
Desecration Demon
is an old favorite of mine, and applies sac pressure onto the other player every combat. Get more than one on the board, and they're saccing even more.
Archfiend of Depravity
Puts out even more creature hate, but they're both vulnerable to other control and even an easy four damage, which isn't hard to find. To shore up our early turns, we've got
Sprite Dragon
, a very solid card that will be getting boosted every time we counter, burn, or tutor.
For sorceries and instants, we've got
Opt
for scry/draw, and the classic
Diabolic Tutor
to find Nicol Bolas, that last missing land, or crux.
Far / Away
handles removing creatures that have already hit the board, and for five mana hits two targets, one to the graveyard and one to tie up our opponent's mana for another turn. Maybe they're the ones that aren't getting sacrificed to arch-fiend?
Dissolve
is counterspell but we scry too. Nice.
Corpse Churn
puts Nicol Bolas back in our hand for two mana and three cards off the top.
Angrath's Rampage
gives us hate options, but only single targets, but artifacts (grafdigger's cage), creatures, and walkers are a lot of guys.
Breaking / Entering
puts Nicol Bolas back on the board, and mills them for eight if we cast both sides. I count both sides as being good as their own in this deck, so having both is great.
Crux of Fate
resets the board when it's out of hand, but preserves Nicol Bolas. Could be better, but slotting a red boardwipe into the sideboard wouldn't be a bad idea for playing against other dragons.
For our sideboard:
Sign in Blood
swaps for Opt when we just need cards faster,
Noxious Gearhulk
can swap for Archie and a Nicol Bolas if we need more spot removal on legs.
Cruel Reality
can swap for Crux if we don't need to board wipe but would prefer to lay out some oppression.
Cerulean Drake
can swap in for Sprite Dragon if we just need more counterspells, though them hitting our drake with a lightning strike or a shock isn't much better than them hitting us with one.
So far, this deck is completely open to burn or creature removal aside from it's counterspells. It needs more fast mana, which could come from cluestones or other rocks.
