Hello my fellow Initiates who want to prove themselves worthy to our God-Pharaoh (May his return come quickly).
This is my spin on a Standrad Grixis Control deck using
Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
as our primary wincon. First of all: Help is always approved, if provided constructively. This is just what I figured best in the final jump of deckbuilding, so it's probably horribly unbalanced and will brick everywhere.
Secondly: Bear with me I'm a detailed description writer.
Now let's get into some more detail:
Why on earth...
...would you play a 7 mana slow wincondition?
Style. Flavor. Feeling epic as the God-Pharaoh (may his return come quickly) drains their hand and deck of any hope of winning the game.
...would you still play 3-colored if you have As Foretold to cast Bolas?
We can't be worthy if we don't play all the colors our God-Pharaoh (you know the drill) chose for us!
cough On a serious note I have found thing in all the 3 colors that I want to include in my deck. More elaboration on that later.
...would you play Dark Intimations?!
Ehm. Uhm. I want to make that card work okay? This is probably the best chance for it, since
Tragic Lesson
provides a good discard opportunity for it. In the rare case you may be able to try and force it through with As Foretold, but I wouldn't count on it. 2 provide a total 9 Loyalty Counters for our God-Pharaoh (for Bontu's sake please find us worthy), meaning he can -4 twice and still live to see another face.
Also should your opponent somehow send both your Bolas' to the graveyard you can maybe get one back, who knows.
More on every card later.
As Foretold
I'm not on top of standard meta right now (or ever really, I'm not a competitive watcher let alone player), so I'm not sure how much this is getting played, but I think its insane. It's basically a 3 mana wincon. When As Foretold gets through, you've won. Free Counter/Draw every turn. Get's around Bontu's Last Reckoning. Allows you to go into the counter battle for the wincon with full mana. Dunno seems decent to me.
Color Justification and "Why is this card in the Deck?"
Blue
Okay this ones easy: No blue, no control. Full stop.
Black
Fatal Push is enough to mix black in there. But on top of that we have instant speed edicts, 3 mana hard board wipes and other niceties.
Red
Is probably the hardest one. Apart from the flavor I mixed it in because Sweltering Suns most of the time does the Reckoning's job just as well without the downside, and doesn't sit there uselessly in the lategame since you can cycle it away. Abrade helps us with early Artifacts they might get out and can get nasty, and is also decent removal.
Also if you don't manage to get As Foretold through you can always try to hardcast Bolas cough cough good luck
Now the reasoning behind each and every card (that wasn't mentioned before):
Disallow is the go to counter these days. Generally just really good. You can even counter Planeswalker Ultimates with it, but the Planeswalker will still lose loyalty (but thats a really really fringe case)
Negate against Vehicles (not sure how in they are nowadays), and against slower decks.
Censor is a nice early game counter that doesn't sit around uselessly past turn 4.
Supreme Will is a counter when you need it and a draw when you need it. I'm not sure if I want to run this or Insidious Will, with the former being cheaper and the latter being more flexible and final, but most of the time dependent on other spells. For now im rolling Supreme Will
Pyramid of the Pantheon is a nice turn 1 play, occasionally helps with the mana fix early on, but mostly provides a lot of mana of any one color in the mid/lategame to tighten the lock (and maybe make hardcast Bolas easier. This is ony of my solutions to the 7 mana problem). Can always be used on instant speed in your opponents endstep if you're not going to need the mana.
Sideboard
Dispel in Control mirror.
Hour of Glory to deal with pesky cheated Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hungers and should you want more removal instead of counters.
Lost Legacy against combo (I'm sure some will arise)
Overwhelming Denial to overwhelmingly deny your opponents wincon.
Summary Dismissal
against uncounterable stuff and filthy on cast abilities. Comes in handy against control.
Sweltering Suns for the playset should you need it.
To the Slaughter in case of a random boggle appearing.
... Wait what.
Lands
Since we are 3-colored we want many dual colored lands. I've settled for 14/25. The only lands that don't activate the shadow lands are actually only Mountains for Choked Estuary and Islands for
Foreboding Ruins
since the cycle lands possess basic land types. The many nonbasic lands are also why we're not running -tango- Battlelands.
As mentioned on the top, help and constructive suggestions are always welcome and I assure you that I will take my time to think every suggestion through. If you also want to be found worthy make sure to upvote! ;)
PRAISE NICOL BOLAS!
