Nice addition of the Drownyard! Also, Grafdiggers Cage prevents you from using Flashback too, beware of that.

@Denial048 Depending on the deck, it's a small price to pay.

True enough, and obviously why it isn't mainboard here

@Sweet-Nightmare and Denial048: Tribute to Hunger was just KILLING me at 3 mana sometimes. While the life gain is amazing, in this deck's weakest matchup, against the speediest of aggro decks (RDW is probably indeed its weakest matchup), Devour Flesh is infinitely preferable.

Re: Grafdigger's Cage - True. But only Mystic Retrieval suffers, and if the Cage goes in, Retrieval tends to come out.

Think Twice will also suffer, so you will lose some card advantage, but at the same time, Nephalia Drownyard can give you lots of advantage.

Also, Caley, you helped me you with my mill deck at one stage (creatureless U/B mill with lots of kill) I was thinking of adding in a third colour, but wasn't sure whether I prefer red or white. White will give me access to Rest in Peace, making all mill infinitely better, and Blind Obedience, to slow down aggro decks, whereas Red can get me Dreadbore and other creature kill options, like Annihilating Fire, Searing Spear, etc, which can be cheaper kill in some cases. I'm on the fence about it, and thought I would like your input here too, though it probably won't happen for at least a month.

@Denial048 - Indeed, forgot to mention Think Twice.

I would say go red. Dreadbore is one of the finest cards around and is effective against everything. That card alone wins the argument for me.

Dreadbore is amazing, and planeswalkers are my biggest problem at the moment (apart from aggro/token decks)

Alright, I'll splash in Red at some stage soon, should make the deck better (and more like yours, except instead of Bolas win, its Mill win)

Been reading some of the Articles where you match this against different decks, and I must say, I like the way you write them, plus the way (that it seems) the deck plays!

Coolio! +1!

I'm actually curious why Curse of Death's Hold was dropped for Illness in the Ranks. Were token decks just too fast? Are you sure you can still handle nontoken aggro-heavy decks with that?

@TikiShades - I actually ran into one recently, but it was W/B Exalted, and really I could not ask for a better matchup. So far I'm pleased with Illness, but it might go back in if I get killed by non-token X/1s too often.

I don't think Glaring Spotlight deserves a sideboard slot. Really, the only think it works well against is Sigarda, Host of Herons. Even then, it's card disadvantage because you need to use both spotlight and a kill spell. I feel either more counters(Essence Scatter is a nice generic creature counter), or perhaps another Slaughter Games to deal with her would be ideal.

Perhaps you could put in Jace, Memory Adept into the board as well. I am unsure exactly how well you do vs. other control decks, but if they can deal with Bolas(Slaughter Games would just kill you), than mill with drownyard is your only win-con. A Jace would help diversify your win-cons.

Also, more shocklands would be nice if you can afford more of them.

@Wike900 _

I like all of these suggestions. Essence Scatter especially strikes me as being very wise; it also helps against aggro decks.

Jace, Memory Adept is something I've always considered for inclusion, but I, for now anyway, have a very good record against control decks, and Jace is expensive. He'd probably make it better, but I'll play with this build for a while and see how I feel about how necessary he is.

And yeah, always need shocklands. Blood Crypt and Steam Vents especially are very expensive, though.

So if tou had the shoklands, what would your base look like? I'm swinging themaround and was curious about the built out version.

4x Watery Grave, 2x the other two appropriate shocks. 4x Catacomb, Falls, Summit. 2x Drownyard, 1x Lighthouse. 2x Swamp, 2x Island, 1x Mountain

Wow... That's like 27 lands... Lol. I suppose evening the count, procided I can add tonight, would be dropping a mountain and a swamp I suppose?

Sorry, should be 1x swamp, 1x island, 0x mountain.

Hey Caley

I was wondering. I've read through all your Daily Dosis where you're using Bolas for a better tomorrow, and that Desolate Lighthouse, do you use it enough to justify it as a singleton?

Also I really like this deck, and decided to put together my own budget version of it. Would you mind giving me your thoughts on the manabase? This is Bolas-phemy!

@Dallie - I find myself using it quite a bit, actually. I would include another copy of it if I weren't so worried about colored mana all the time.

Looking at your deck now.

@Dallie See above.

My thought is you could really use a playset of Snapcaster Mage in this deck. Provides a body to block with/lay beat downs and allows you to reuse more of your kill spells or counters.

@DeckBuilder345 - He is handy against fast aggro decks, that's for sure. For the actual card retrieval, though, I actually prefer the fat-but-useful Mystic Retrieval.

I understand you can use the Mystic Retrieval 2x and Snapcaster Mage only 1x but you get both things in a single box with the snapcaster, a creature and a flashed back spell, and you can use it at instant speed which would seem much more powerful, than say the mystic which is sorcery only. 2 mana flashbacks vs 4 mana flash backs are actually significantly different in casting cost as well meaning you can flash back your spells earlier or leave more mana open for other spells / counters. You could also make cuts in other areas and keep some amount of your Mystic Retrieval. Even vs your last matchup which was kinda controlish a couple of snap backed spells with creatures to block could have been extremely helpful.

Where else can you make cuts? i am not sure but maybe these would be possibilities. You could maybe cut one murder, and a lantern as well as one retrieval would give you space for 3 snap casters. Seems like you always have an over abundance of mana with the lotus and lanterns. just tossing out some ideas on making space.

Do you really think it is worth playing Murder over say - Victim of Night? Same thing as your flesh VS tribute discussion. 3 is a LOT more mana than 2.

Well, there are still a few zombie decks floating around. Olivia Voladen and Falkenrath Aristocrat are both bombs in the decks they run in, so Murder is important for taking them out.

I don't trust Victim of Night. There are too many of the excepted creature types in standard right now.