@OrionDante - That is true, if I tap out for a gilded lotus, Dissipate still works.

Still. UNCOUNTERABLE is so important these days. I run into a LOT of control decks.

Good deck. +1 from me, although I would recommend 3 Augur of Bolas at least for creatures and add in more Planeswalkers such as Tamiyo, the Moon Sage and Jace, Architect of Thought. Could you check out my Bolas Deck, Bolas, King Of Innistrad And Ravnica?

so do you not run other shocklands simply because you don't have them or is there another reason? I was thinking of constructing this for FNM simply because it hilarious and super fun to play.

@jmallette1 - Don't have 'em, otherwise I'd probably run about 3x or so of each applicable one.

The shocks fit in here well. I so far have personally gotten away without watery grave, though it is the clear preference.

My version runs:4x Blood Crypt4x Steam Vents4x Drowned Catacomb4x Dragonskull SummitEct....

It's able to pretty reliably cast Bolas without a Lantern.

So what happens when I play a T5 Sigarda, Host of Herons off of a cavern? o.O

He grits his teeth and sideboards in Slaughter Games in game 2.

That's what it looks like. Sigarda eats this deck alive.

Cyclonic Rift could do it. or even Mutilate

Yeah. I think we need to tell Caley about this...lol.

Mutilate would require the landbase to become more Swamp committed, which isn't bad if you were to include 4x Watery Graves and 4x Blood Crypts.

Yeah, I don't agree with Mutilate.

I don't know that there's call for changing everything over one threat here, though. She's strong, and she's dangerous, but she's still just one threat. If you try to make a deck answer everything well, you run the risk of ending up with a deck that answers nothing well. He's got it pretty well-tuned at the moment, it seems, and messing with that to squeeze in things that answer Sigarda might mess that tuning up too much.

That said, finding a way to bring back in a sweeper effect would probably be good. I feel like Cyclonic Rift might still deserve a place in the board.

WTB Damnation's standard legality lol

@Salazar968 - I used to have Glaring Spotlight in for Sigarda, but I was talked into using Essence Scatter instead; it does have more wide-ranging appeal.

Guess what kids? I"ve got you a fresh tourney report!

Granted, I eat a lot of visible space on these, so I will patch the deck link through my profile page for my version here in a bit and note what the changes are compared to Caley's.

Major change note: I somehow ended up being talked into dropping 1x Murder for a potential finisher candidate, Mind Grind. HOLY COW IT WORKS. (More on this later)

Sad part about last night is that I finished 2-2, and both wins were byes. One from a traditional bye and one from a timed round loss where the other guy didn't show up. I'm going to assume Bolas' reputation is getting ahead of him now.

Round 1: v. RUG Flash (0-2)

Game 1: Obnoxiously, this deck was VERY unique. After the third Snapcaster, I instantly missed main deck Slaughter Games. The deck basically flashes in EVERYTHING, right down to the Yeva, Nature's Herald and end-step Master Biomancer, through either Yeva's effect or Alchemist's Refuge. VERY annoying and hard to deal with for this deck, but VERY cool.

Basically, he pulled ahead as I was unable to find answers to things in my own end step, and made a critical error, allowing a Wolfir Avenger to stick when I was holding a Counterflux. I was fine until this neat little monster got going. He eventually casted Tarland's Invocation and Wolfir Silverheart during the same end step after I had tapped out to get Bolas out and swept through for the game. I was out of kill spells.

In order to solve this, Slaughter Games instantly made an appearance from the side, along with Essence Scatter.

This was unsuccessful, as I called Thragtusk on Slaughter Games, having not seen his entire deck, and was gleefully informed by the opponent that there was only one in the deck... facepalm

He proceeded to use my face as a punching bag with Snapcasters et al, wrapping the game up pretty effectively. The miserable part was that the deck doesn't run if my second Slaughter Games target, Tarland's Invocation, and the Snapcasters are gone. Really bad play on my part.

Round 2: BYE!

I did some neat trading, setting up to get some of the cards together for another run at a Master Biomancer deck, and securing my first Boros Reckoner. Pretty successful bye.

Round 3: Selesnya Tokens (1-2)

Game 1: Not the same player, but the same game. I had completely frustrated my opponent with Devour Flesh and Barter in Blood, causing him to sacrifice several Armada Wurm, eat two or three Rhox Faithmender and just flat out murder Trostani, Selesnya's Voice.

Nothing, however, stops a player when you're at 20 and they Miracle an Entreat the Angels for 6, and you haven't seen a single counterspell all game... sigh

Game 2:

Wait.... wait... Scuse me...

Slaughter Game 2: I casted a grand total of 6 Slaughter Games this game, hitting two Mystic Retrevals and both sided in copies of Slaughter Games.

The big piece of this game was winning through Mind Grind. This card can wrap up games quickly for this deck if it sticks, routinely being able to be cast at X=6 or greater because we're always primed to cast Bolas. If you count lands and always assume between 22-24, you can time this card pretty effectively. I'm actually inspired to do a dedicated Grixis mill using Mind Grind and Slaughter Games. It feels like it could be insane!

Newcomer Staff of Nin also paid off here, letting me ping off a few Spirits that survived long enough to be relevant and draw into the multiple slaughter games. I'm still not sure how I feel about it being in over the Games, but when it hits, it's BIG for this deck.

Game 3: Reference Game 1, however about six turns earlier. Son of a bitch. When this deck runs out of cards/answers, it hurts. Remind me to stop siding out Think Twice. It's an overall poor choice.

I agree that this deck is incredibly weak to Sigarda, if one is played on me, I usually scoop. Slaughter games/Counter is our only hope. But that is literally one card and it's not seeing a TON of play atm. I recognize that there are decks running it but it's not rampant like Thragtusk. One major glaring weakness in this deck isn't a huge issue considering it fairs so strongly against other things. On MTGO, I find this deck carrying me to wins off stuff I would have never thought possible.

Actually, if you really wanted a good card to take out Sigarda, Clone is standard. Most decks running Sigarda are most likely running Thragtusk as well, so Clone won't always be a deaddraw in matchups against those decks. It kills other legendary creatures to kill them.

Of course, it'd be too situational to realistically use. KrazyCaley doesn't like creatures in his deck because he doesn't want their kill spells to have any use.

If we're talking Clone effects, I'd use Evil Twin instead.

@TikiShades - Exactly. The point is to make much of their deck utterly worthless. Why have a creature when I could have a control tool of my own instead?

@Salazar968 - I used to run Evil Twin in a SOM-INN standard U/B deck, but he was pretty slow. Still, better than Clone, really.

Either way, I prefer the no-creature approach for now.

To reinforce Caley's point, every time I've stuck creatures in the deck, it's done remarkably poorly. Your main focus is getting to Bolas and killing/sacing their stuff, not dropping blockers or whatever. You have a life total for that.

Now that being said, I did run it the first week with Thundermaw Hellkite. That worked out well, but there's such a huge life swing every time he connects, plus the control element he brings, it's worth it.

I don't know if its something you have mentioned previously, as I did a search for the card on this page and turned up nothing, but what are your thoughts on Mercurial Chemister?

I have made some tests with your deck against some of my golgari decks in the form of 4 wins out of 7 games and here are the results:

3-4 against Death by numbers

0-4 against Death makes life beautiful

I came to the conclusion that maybe,:

1- The deck still needs some little upgrade if it wants to be competitive.

2- I've got hard counters for your deck... ; )

or

3- I just don't know how to play your deck... O_o lol

I suppose that if it were you playing against me, instead of me playing against me with 2 decks, your deck would have been much better.

But I still think that your deck is just not fast enough against fast aggro deck. The kill spells were slowing my aggro, but not enough and it still manage to overcome your deck in the 4rth or 5th turn. I know that you don't want to play creatures but I don't see a lot of other way to stop my board full of creatures. The killing spells are just not enough. I still think that with a cards like Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip or Huntmaster of the Fells  ^Flip it would help you survive a little longer or maybe, you could use a planeswalker like Garruk Relentless  ^Flip or Sorin, Lord of Innistrad.

Or maybe by adding more Chromatic Lantern and more Gilded Lotus, you could use cards like Supreme Verdict while getting your Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker faster. I think that you could remove Mystic Retrieval to fit those cards for it was usually just slowing down your deck in my tests.

I know that you understand magic pretty well and I know that you will find a way if it's not just me playing your deck wrong... lol

I hope that it will help you in any way and I still think that your deck is awesome : )

Have you considered Dimir Keyrune over Chromatic Lantern? It wouldn't totally fix your mana, but it would give you a last-defense blocker and a nigh-guaranteed ten-turn clock. Maybe Rakdos Keyrune for its great blocking capabilities?

Considering the mana base and his reliance I'd say that R and U are more important. I really like what zandl is suggesting here but I think that Izzet Keyrune would serve better. Ramp of colors you are short on and card filtering all in one remove all blockers via kill (immune to Barter in Blood) then swing in for 2 and draw a card.

Utilizing a keyrune for blocking/attacking opens it up for removal, which is what the deck is meant to avoid. If the keyrune isn't used to attack, then Chromatic Lantern is obviously better because it color fixes all lands.