Are those all the combos in the deck? I'm relatively new to modern and commander, but I'm super interested in the deck. Can you tell me how to play the deck/how to do all the combos so I can go wreck some faces? ;)

Hi MoizyBoy. I'm not sure specifically which combos you're talking about, but if you let me know I can go over any details you need help with. The deck has gone through quite a few iterations, especially with the release of War of the Spark, but the deck description should be current.

The deck plays as a combo/control deck mostly. The idea is to slowly build up mana and interact (using removal) with opponents when needed to stay alive, until we can pull off a game-ending combo or other win condition. The most important resource for a combo/control deck is cards, so we run a ton of card draw effects to help us keep interaction in hand and to draw into a win condition. This has strong synergy with making our opponents discard (which is what teh Commander's ETB effect does), so we use Geth's Grimoire and Waste Not as ways to draw even more cards whenever we make our opponents discard.

There are many turns where I draw, play a land, maybe draw some additional cards or make a token, and then pass turn. Typically I'm holding up some instant speed interaction like Capsize or Mana Drain so I can disrupt a play that threatens me, and I play politics, trying to pit my opponents against each other. If teh board gets too scary, I'll sometimes wipe it with Damnation . But largely I'm looking for a way to draw a few dozen cards in a single turn, or a line of play that will let me win directly.

I guess a better question would be "what are all the combos/win cons in this deck. Sorry, I'm a newbie

MoizyBoy, the main combo is casting Isochron Scepter and imprinting Dramatic Reversal . This requires having enough mana rocks (not lands) to produce at least 3 mana, preferably including one or more colors. When you activate the Scepter for 2 generic mana, you get to cast a copy of Dramatic Reversal, which untaps all your nonland permanents, including the mana rocks and the Scepter. Since it costs 2 to activate but you make 3 mana each time, you can generate infinite mana. With Torment of Hailfire , this makes an infinitely large Torment, which will win the game on the spot if it resolves. You can also cast a not-infinite but still really big Torment using Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth .

You can also cast Omniscience , which lets you cast spells from your hand without paying any mana. If you follow that up with Obliterate , you'll be able to cast spells (because Omniscience), but nobody else can because you blew up all the lands and artifacts and creatures. You should be able to capitalize on that to win, even just with combat damage by casting creatures for free and attacking, or by reanimating dead creatures out of your opponents graveyards if they have something better.

There's a small amount of reanimation to let you grab threats from opponents graveyards and win that way, with or without the above. The Scarab God could potentially even drain teh table by making 4/4 Zombie token copies of creatures in the grave, and with additional Zombie tokens from Waste Not .

All of the card draw can combine with The Locust God to make enough flying hasty Insect tokens to swarm the table and win through combat damage.

And of course with Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God and The Elderspell you can potentially win from Bolas's ultimate ability. You'll need to Damnation or similar to kill all teh Legendary creatures first, and you need at least 2 other Planeswalkers on teh board (they can be yours or another players, doesnt matter) to do it all in one turn, but the Elderspell killing at least 2 other walkers will let Bolas hit his ultimate, and if there are no other players with a Planeswalker or Legendary creature, you just win. It's like if Nicol Bolas won the War of the Spark storyline, which is perfect.

Those are the main options. Most everything else is an enabler to get one of those things to happen.

This gives me some ideas for my Bolas themed oathbreaker deck. I'm using the usual Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God and The Elderspell for my oathbreaker and signature spell of course.

Unfortunately, being only 20 life and 60 cards, I'm finding it difficult to balance the deck right. So far, it's been too slow (but I did win once with The Elderspell into Bolas's ultimate).

I think I might try a trimmed down version of your deck, but it'll be tough since, again, it's only 60 cards lol.

Greetings friend, I found your deck at Nicol Balls (Draconic Overlord) very interesting, I would like to know if it is possible to make the deck cheaper. I love Nicol Bolas's theme and wanted to play with a Budget commander, so you could make a list like that. If possible.

Hi TxZeref - You can definitely make it a lot cheaper than it is now. Just removing the foil, the promo versions, and the dual lands will drop it by a few thousand right away, without even substantially changing the deck.

What budget are you looking for, and what specific elements of this deck do you find most appealing?

Thanks for responding, good regarding the deck I really want to use Nicol balls the ravager as commander. And use all the other nicolball planeswalker. To play casually (multiplayer). Being a budget list, and the few will be updated as letters. Until you get to or near your list. But by the time my city plays this commander format, and I'm coming back to play now. And with that I thought about the theme of Nicol Balls tribal. Then I wanted to know how to make the deck cheaper. And gradually upgrading to the same or equal level with it. However or deck budget being possible to play. Great work with deck

Hey TxZeref - just wanted to let you know I havent forgotten about your request for a budget version. I've been working on it for a while, and while I'm still not done, I do have an in-progress list you can look at.

Draconic Overlord - Budget