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i made this deck because of Nicol Bolas (PRIMER)

Commander / EDH Combo Counters Primer Proliferate Superfriends UBR (Grixis)

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Land (34)

Creature (9)

Enchantment (5)

Planeswalker (17)

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Commander (1)

Commander: Nicol Bolas, the Ravager  Flip

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I mean.. you made this deck because you like Nicol Bolas too, right?

Nicol Bolas, the Ravager   is the helm of a supervillain combo deck that looks to open the field with a plethora of spot removal, stick planeswalkers onto the field, and close out the game with a 3-4 card combo, or generate infinite mana without Isochron Scepter in order to cast Torment of Hailfire. While supervillain (or superfriend) decks are not often associated with combos, there are still planeswalker heavy combos that we can use to shut out our opponents from the game and force a concede. A mean strategy, but we give them plenty of opportunities to react, it is their fault.

Supervillains is primarily a casual-style deck that leaves a lot of room for your opponents because of the defense you need to bolster for your planeswalkers. While this deck is built to hold its own against other power 7-8 go-wide Gruul decks that are played often in my circle, it is recommended that you evaluate if this deck is worth building or modifying it to your group’s needs. If you are playing against a go-fast high-powered deck like Breya, Etherium Shaper or Godo, Bandit Warlord, you may struggle.

Welcome to the Winning Team

In the build-up from Hour of Devastation, the sacking of Amonkhet, the God’s disappearing, to the reveal in War of the Spark of the returned God-Eternal’s, Liliana’s binding contract to Nicol Bolas, the planeswalkers who had their sparks ripped from them, and Nicol Bolas’s ultimate rise becoming a literal God. There is no better contender thematically for the supervillains archetype than Nicol Bolas, the Ravager  .

The addition of to Nicol Bolas, the Ravager  ’s identity gives the deck a boost of power, with the crux of our combos being on Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God and the handful of Chandra planeswalkers. The combo potential without them would plummet, but Nicol Bolas, the Ravager   himself offers planeswalker synergy with his planeswalker side Nicol Bolas, the Arisen that offers further graveyard recursion and combo potential that bumps him above Atraxa, Praetors' Voice in the planeswalker archetype as well.

Draw

While we have a lot of traditional blue draw, it is still worth noting a few picks that can be switched out per personal preference of other pilots.

  1. Sea Gate Restoration   doubles as mana or draw. This card normally is an auto-include because of the insane value it can get, and while this deck does not exclusively focus on card draw, we can still take advantage of it by pairing it with the Sunbird's Invocation combo for more triggers and stacking Eye of the Storm.
  2. Sunbird's Invocation isn't technically card draw, however, it allows us to choose what card we are going to cascade into. It's a great addition for extra gas in later turns, and possibly turning into free combo pieces for a win out of nowhere.
  3. Finale of Revelation doubles as draw or shuffling. We won't need many of these as there's only a handful of combos, specifically with Teferi, Temporal Archmage or Tamiyo, the Moon Sage that force us to draw cards in order to receive other benefits that we use more. Shuffling our deck back into our library is greatly important as we do not run any mill wincons.
  4. Rhystic Study is a large threat in the early game. A turn 2 Rhystic could mean drawing into mana rocks, tutors, or starting to develop strategies with Necrotic Ooze. In the late game, it's less important, as most people have established their own draw engines and just means free cards.
  5. Contentious Plan & Tezzeret's Gambit essentially serve the same purpose of proliferating our Planeswalkers and drawing cards in the process, Tezzeret's Gambit having the always welcomed Phyrexian Mana.
  6. Dig Through Time is an excellent card that is another auto-include for any deck that contains blue. The ability to delve and scry 7 cards makes this a very powerful tool in the late game.
  7. Valakut Awakening   doubles as mana or draw. A wheel that lets us choose which cards we are going to wheel and draw +1, fantastic, auto-include.
  8. Bolas's Citadel allows us to use our life as a drawing engine. With a lot of expensive cards, it can be hard to dig deep into the Citadel, however, we can pull answers right off the top of our library when necessary.

Planeswalkers

While we use planeswalkers often for removal, they are still situational in most cases and up for discussion. A good many of them are here for the throughput they give, or give us untraditional abilities, allowing us to combo off in ways we normally wouldn't be able to.

  1. Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God the crux of the deck. It allows us to combo off by using other planeswalkers abilities to duplicate, proliferate, or ultimately draw our library. His ultimate is also one of the best in the game, as we are able to easily remove select pieces in order to penetrate our opponent's defenses and remove them from the game.
  2. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame synergizes well considering we have a significant amount of planeswalkers containing red. She acts as a free proliferate, or quick blockers. With Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, we are able to infinitely proliferate and activate any planeswalkers ultimate.
  3. Chandra, Awakened Inferno her ultimate being a single target Ugin ability is fantastic, allowing for evasive plays even without our own Bedevil or Dismember. She is a planeswalker board wipe, and if we can keep her loyalty counter above 3, she's a great addition to the board that acts as a constant threat.
  4. Chandra, Torch of Defiance paired with Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God she allows for infinite . With this in mind, another piece of spot removal, and her ultimate is huge for when we do end up casting a card like Toxic Deluge so we can finish off a larger creature without wasting too much life.
  5. Chandra, the Firebrand it's starting to seem like a Chandra deck. But paired with Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, we can cast any spell an infinite amount of times by copying it infinitely. Great for Torment of Hailfire or Nexus of Fate.
  6. Jace, Cunning Castaway is what makes the Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God combo work. Do not use him unless all pieces are ready and there are answers in your hand.
  7. Karn Liberated is expensive for a reason. With his abilities sending cards straight into Exile, regardless if it's his random +4 or spot removal -3. If you are able to +4 him as soon as he comes down, follow up with Deepglow Skate, you are able to force a concede the next turn. His ultimate is so insanely powerful, something not seen in any other card besides Shahrazad, but even then, it gives the added bonus of bringing in cards exiled with him.
  8. Liliana Vess is a recastable Vampiric Tutor and Rise of the Dark Realm. So much value is found in this planeswalker and becomes an immediate threat because of the threat of tutoring up wincons. While her +1 is not all that powerful, she's still an incredible mid game planeswalker that can help us push the game into the final sprint.
  9. Liliana of the dark realm our curve is fairly expensive, which is why we also run a lot of mana rocks. With few fetchlands, she allows us to go and grab _any Swamp_ such as Watery Grave or Blood Crypt, so we can also use her for color fixing. Not only that, but her emblem is insanely powerful for when we don't have an infinite mana engine. You're essentially getting a Dark Ritual per land.
  10. Mordenkainen like Liliana Vess, is a recastable Brainstorm, being able to stack the top of our library from time to time. While this isn't a huge advantage, we're mainly using him to get to the -10, exchanging our hand for our library and no maximum handsize. At this point, we are able to close out the game easily by generating infinite mana, or slap down a combo.
  11. Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh unlike Karn Liberated, we are not restarting the game, but merely exiling everything our opponents control. Another similarity is that if we slap down Deepglow Skate we can ultimate immediately and still have him live. Besides being the best art of Nicol Bolas, his -4 can also be abused by Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God to kill each opponent for infinite damage.
  12. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker I don't know which one is worse, having to exile all your permanents or having to sacrifice 7 permanents, discard 7 cards, and take 7 damage. Regardless, while removal is always nice to continue protecting our board, what really makes him a steal is his -2. For only 2 loyalty, you can take any creature, which includes other players commanders, mana dorks, win cons, etc. While he does come at a hefty price of , it is worth it if you are able to keep him on the board a couple turns.
  13. Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver costing more, but getting more in return. While his ultimate is too expensive to be abused, we still are able to get consistent benefits and drawing cards. His -3 is one of the best from any of the Nicol Bolas planeswalkers, as we get the added benefit of drawing a card per creature removal. While all of his abilities are expensive, his +3 is sadly not that great, especially against token or lifegain decks.
  14. Sorin Markov was most definitely not made for commander, let alone made for the meta now that has cards readily available that can abuse him. Once again, his ultimate is sadly too expensive to abuse with Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, however we can use his CHEAP -3 ability that reduces an opponents health to 10. Completely halt an Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck in its track, or use it as a political move to get rid of a problematic deck.
  15. Tamiyo, the Moon Sage while her +1 is a means to an end, or be used as a political tool, this card excels against tokens or gruul aggro go-wide strategies. The -2 ability can draw you a massive amount of cards, but at the expensive of possibly being removed so you can't pull off the Dramatic Reversal combo. Her ultimate is absolutely insane when paired with Sunbird's Invocation, getting constant value.
  16. Teferi, Temporal Archmage is an obvious choice in many planeswalker decks, his -1 ability is insane when paired with mana rocks and The Chain Veil, his +1 isn't all too great, along the same lines as Mordenkainen. But what we're really looking for is the universal use of his -10 that is essentially a Leyline of Anticipation for planeswalkers.
  17. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon I dont need to say anything about this guy.

Proliferation

Our throughput isn't limited to card draw and mana rocks, we need to add to planeswalkers counters in anyway we can before they're gone. While and don't offer us much, gives us full access to a plethora of tools to use in order to ensure we get the most out of our planeswalkers.

  1. Karn's Bastion is the only proliferation land, allowing us to pay and add another counter on any permanent. Any possible advantage we can get, we'll grasp onto.
  2. Inexorable Tide if you are familiar with Storm decks, it'll be simple to track onto how many spells you cast a turn, however, this enchantment can be easily forgotten. That's a lot of proliferating that might not happen! But regardless, due to some of our combos, we can proliferate infinite times. A little note, this also works with 'casts' from Eye of the Storm, as 'cast' and 'play' are the same thing.
  3. Deepglow Skate is an auto-include in any planeswalker deck, and allows us to double counters on planeswalkers to use their ultimate/emblem immediately. Easily abuseable, but we can go further by coupling this with Deadeye Navigator, pushing for infinite proliferation, infinite loyalty, infinite fun (for you!)
  4. Tezzeret's Gambit the best part of this is Phyrexian Mana as said earlier. The one gripe with this card is that it's only at Sorcery speed.
  5. Contentious Plan said stuff earlier, but just a reminder this is used for proliferation and sadly also at Sorcery speed.
  6. The Elderspell if you are able to get a lot of planeswalkers out, you can sacrifice all for one and ultimate for victory, or even destroy other planeswalkers to benefit one of yours.

Counters (Not Those Counters!)

We use counters to stall the game long enough for us to win. There are so many different ways to win in this deck that we can lose a couple of planeswalkers, enchantments, or even a couple of our spells and still pull through. There's only one spell in here that I'd personally use as a traditional counterspell.

  1. Flusterstorm is the only non-traditional traditional counterspell as mentioned. Counterspell wars break out frequently in my playgroup, and while they are fun to watch, sometimes you need to put an end to it, and always make sure it's for your own benefit (such as not losing the game). This spell essentially stacks so much that unless they have infinite mana, it can put an end to any and all wars.
  2. Pact of Negation is for when you are all tapped out, or if you want to concede early on in style. Although the cost can be high, if you are protecting an essential piece, such as Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God or even someone's Approach of the Second Sun, the ends justify the means.
  3. Force of Negation is another free counterspell, and while Force of Will is better, I don't own this one yet. Once again, the ends justify the means, allowing to pitch a spell like Mind's Desire or another combo piece that can no longer be used for whatever reason.

Removal

On the surface, we could be mistaken for a control deck. While we are trying to control the board, there are also a few cards that are put in here for thematic purposes and ultimately bring down the overall efficiency. Please, if you care about efficiency, switch out the named cards.

  1. (Thematic) Last One Standing just like Bolas, we are going to play with our prey. The board is our arena and we shall exercise our power by choosing the boards champion, who really is worthy of surviving the board wipe. This also keeps the board interesting, allowing anyone's creature to survive and not being fully left behind.
  2. (Thematic) Thrilling Encore is what you should play directly after Last One Standing. After choosing the boards champion, we'll put them to the ultimate test by challenging them to round 2. If they truly are the boards champion, they should be able to defeat them again.. right?
  3. Bedevil I love my instant removals, and the ability to destroy nearly any non-land permanent is a blessing. A lot of removal spells specifically target creatures or enchantments, so we get the added benefit of slowing artifact decks or other planeswalkers completely.
  4. Dismember easily the worst removal, needing to pay , gross. Just kidding! This is great, abusing the Phyrexian Mana, we can destroy nearly any creature on the board with -5/-5. Just like we have free counters, we basically have free removal.
  5. Toxic Deluge even more playing with health, if Dismember didn't wipe out a threat, use more health! The worst part of this spell is that it's at Sorcery speed.
  6. Hour of Devastation another spell that should be Instant speed. The majority of Indestructible creatures come in with Flash and lose Indestructible at end of turn. While there is the occasional Avacyn, Angel of Hope + token army, most of the time the first ability gets wasted. If you care about efficiency, remove Last One Standing and add in Leyline of Anticipation, which will give you much better use of spells like this and Toxic Deluge.
  7. Damnation staple black board wipe, and if we were able to run white, this would be replaced with Damn.
  8. Cyclonic Rift while you aren't looking to cast this for its cost, there are situations where you might need to, and that's okay. Pairing this, or really any of these spells with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage's emblem can make the game borderline unplayable for your opponents, especially Cyclonic Rift as you force them to discard to handsize each and every turn.

Mana Rocks

Because of our extremely high mana curve, a good amount of our cards pushing into the 7-8 CMC range, we need a lot of rocks to help boost us early on. We also are using them in an attempt to color fix early on so that we have a smoother transition and potentially cast our commander ahead of the curve.

  1. Talisman of Creativity // Talisman of Indulgence // Talisman of Dominance all of these are pain rocks, but the biggest benefit over something like Izzet Signet, which costs the same, is that they are able to be used immediately. This gives us far more power on turn 2 than, being able to hold up a Flusterstorm so early, or even spiraling into a Sol Ring.
  2. Sol Ring // Palladium Myr while we are looking for more color than colorless, we have a lot of planeswalkers that have a high colorless cost as well. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker for example has a cost of colorless, which can be met via Sol Ring + Palladium Myr, saving colored mana for other costs. It is a huge waste of colored mana to pay colorless costs, this can come to bite us later by not being able to hold up Cyclonic Rift on someone else's turn.
  3. Gilded Lotus // Pili-Pala both of these allow the production of one type of mana. There is a majority cost in this deck, which allows us to use our dual lands for other colors.
  4. Crystalline Crawler // Everflowing Chalice // Astral Cornucopia all have one thing in common with our Planeswalkers. They benefit from proliferation. While a mana rock like Sol Ring stays at a static per turn, Everflowing Chalice can ramp with us, benefiting greatly from Inexorable Tide or Contentious Plan. Astral Cornucopia and Crystalline Crawler both generate colored mana, and getting them out early can mean ramping quickly into a Omniscience, hard casting Dig Through Time, or setting up for a turn 5 Nicol Bolas, the Arisen. Crystalline Crawler however is far superior as it doubles as a blocker that we can pump up or down (but hopefully always up).

It is the height of your power and all the pieces are in hand, it's time to finish the game in glorious fashion. Each of these combo sections outline cards that you are able to switch out to adapt to any situation you come across. Whether that situation is due to a lack of cards or resource denial, you are able to pull these combos off with most cards in this deck.

A Side Note: A lot of playgroups don't like infinite combos, so please before you use these, check with your playgroup, and even adjust these to your power level. If you are going infinite in a higher power meta, some of these can be modified to work more efficiently, or replaced entirely for the same effect.

The reason I included this over another infinite mana generator like Dramatic Reversal // Isochron Scepter is because of the inclusion of Crystalline Crawler. Necrotic Ooze takes all activated abilities and both to add a +1/+1 and removing a counter to add are activated abilities, meaning we get the full effects of Crystalline Crawler. We can even couple this with a later combo with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage and Dramatic Reversal for infinite mana.

  1. Have Necrotic Ooze on the field and Buried Alive in hand
  2. Cast Buried Alive, targeting Pili-Pala, Palladium Myr, and one more creature in your library that you won't need. Put these all into your graveyard.
  3. Necrotic Ooze now gains these abilities. Tap Necrotic Ooze for , then untap it to generate a colored mana of either , , or .
  4. You now have infinite mana and can cast an infinite Torment of Hailfire

A rather expensive combo but very fun to pull off. It allows you to draw your entire library and cast it for free with Omniscience. If you do not have Omniscience, you can put Mind's Desire in Eye of the Storm and get a lot of free casts from the top of your library, which isn't infinite, but you do get 1 from casting the original spell, casting from Eye of the Storm, casting Mind's Desire specifically from Eye of the Storm, and then a cast from Sunbird's Invocation, for a total of 4 storm. Next spell is 8 storm, 12 storm, add 4 each time.

  1. Have Sunbird's Invocation, Eye of the Storm, and Omniscience on the battlefield
  2. Cast Dig Through Time, exiling it under Eye of the Storm and triggering Sunbird's Invocation
  3. Resolve Dig Through Time, putting an instant or sorcery into your hand.
  4. Resolve Sunbird's Invocation, casting a free spell that is CMC or lower.
  5. Repeat steps 2-4, casting your entire library for free with Omniscience

While you do not specifically need Contentious Plan for this to work, and you can just generate infinite mana with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage and Dramatic Reversal, it is good to have some sort of draw spell on hand. You can also use this to cast Nexus of Fate an infinite amount of times for infinite turns because once it hits the graveyard, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage triggers, returning it to your hand and nullifying the cards original ability of shuffling into your library.

  1. Have Tamiyo, the Moon Sage's emblem activated and mana rocks that can produce
  2. Tap your mana rocks and cast Contentious Plan, drawing a card and proliferating
  3. This triggers Tamiyo, the Moon Sage's emblem, bouncing Contentious Plan from your graveyard to your hand
  4. With the rest of your mana rock mana, cast Dramatic Reversal, untapping your mana rocks, and bouncing Dramatic Reversal back to your hand
  5. You can now draw your deck, proliferate the size of your deck, and/or generate infinite mana without Isochron Scepter

There isn't much you can change about this combo other than removing The Chain Veil from the equation. But if you do, you'll be a net loss of 1 loyalty a turn. However, because of Inexorable Tide, all you need to do is cast another spell, which isn't hard, unless you spent all of your mana to cast Nexus of Fate. Lands do not count towards Inexorable Tide, so you cannot rely on those. Approach with caution, better safe than sorry!

  1. Have Liliana Vess, Inexorable Tide, and The Chain Veil on the battlefield
  2. Cast Nexus of Fate, proliferating and taking an extra turn.
  3. On the same turn, activate The Chain Veil, allowing Liliana Vess to take an extra action.
  4. Activate Liliana Vess's -2 ability, searching, and putting Nexus of Fate on top of your library.
  5. Then, activate Liliana Vess for +1. Even if all of your opponents have no cards in hand, it still activates. You now have a net loyalty gain of +0.
  6. Repeat steps 2-5 for infinite turns.

Another open-ended wincon, this allows you to essentially get infinite planeswalker activations, resulting in infinite proliferation, resulting in any planeswalker being able to put down an emblem or ultimate, and end the game. The one bad thing about this is that the amount of cards in your deck is your limit, as we need to use Teferi, Temporal Archmage's +1 to draw cards. We could use Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God or Chandra, Acolyte of Flame in order to not draw so many cards, but this also generates infinite mana if you can get a net gain of . So if you really wanted, you can cast your entire deck.

  1. Have Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Mana Rocks (enough to produce ), and The Chain Veil
  2. Tap your mana rocks to produce and activate The Chain Veil
  3. Activate Teferi, Temporal Archmage's -1, untapping your mana rocks and The Chain Veil
  4. You can now loop this until you run out of cards from Teferi, Temporal Archmage's.
  5. Use this loop to get enough activations from other Planeswalkers like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Sorin Markov, or Karn Liberated to force a concede.

The crux of this deck, my guiding moonlight. You can swap out Chandra, the Firebrand for any other planeswalker, or just finish everyone else off with Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God's +1. While I do appreciate the power of that +1, I'd highly recommend, to make games more interesting, use another planeswalkers +1. This will also keep down the toxicity of the game and not alienate yourself from the playgroup.

  1. Have Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, Chandra, the Firebrand, Jace, Cunning Castaway, and The Chain Veil on the battlefield
  2. Activate The Chain Veil, allowing for an additional planeswalker activation
  3. Activate Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God +1, drawing a card and exiling either a card or permanent an opponent controls
  4. Now that Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God is at 5 Loyalty, activate the -5 ability that Jace, Cunning Castaway gives him. This destroys the original and creates two copies of Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
  5. You now are able to do this an infinite amount of times due to The Chain Veil.
  6. Now have all token copies of Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God activate either the +1 or -2 ability given by Chandra, the Firebrand. Either killing all opponents or casting a spell an infinite amount of times.

The great part of this combo is you are able to essentially sub in any planeswalker for Chandra, the Firebrand's position for whatever the situation calls for. Need to generate infinite mana for a Torment of Hailfire? Sub in, Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Want infinite loyalty to then spam Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God's ultimate? Sub in, Chandra, Acolyte of Flame, which stacks exponentially the more Bolas's you have.

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Casual

94% Competitive

Revision 7 See all

(2 years ago)

+1 Astral Cornucopia main
+1 Everflowing Chalice main
Top Ranked
Date added 2 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

23 - 0 Mythic Rares

48 - 0 Rares

9 - 0 Uncommons

4 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.08
Tokens Dog Illusion */* U, Elemental 1/1 R, Emblem Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Emblem Mordenkainen, Emblem Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Emblem Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Illusion 2/2 U w/ Phantasmal, Treasure
Folders My Babies, Commander
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Nicol Bolas, the Ravager - Grixis Control
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