(Extended) R/B/U Nicol Bolas Planeswalker Control

[Xanamir]

Hey ya'll!

So I've been kicking around various ideas for how to make an extended deck list that would represent a totally rogue choice (credit to Alex for getting me hooked on the idea of rogue deck lists after so many DC episodes!) One thing I've always wanted to try to play is a deck based around Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker (big surprise, right? ) if only for the "awesome factor" of actually getting him to work. Anyway, I've tried a few different deck ideas before coming across an extended write-up of a Nicol Bolas extended deck on Star City a few months ago (I think... can't find the link right now). I've tweaked it a bit to fit my budget and wanted to see what you guys think.

R/B/U Nicol Bolas (I need a catchier name, I think)

Planeswalkers: 5

3 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
2 Liliana Vess

Sorceries: 13

4 Ponder
4 See Beyond
3 Damnation
4 Thoughtseize

Instants: 10

4 Terminate
3 Repeal
3 Wrecking Ball

Enchantments: 4

4 Blood Moon

Artifacts: 8

4 Lotus Bloom
2 Dimir Signet
2 Rakdos Signet

Lands: 20

5 Island
5 Mountain
6 Swamp
4 Evolving Wilds

Sideboard

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Negate
4 Deathmark
3 Night of Souls' Betrayal

So, obviously the focus here is to lock down the game long enough to get Nicol Bolas on the field and use him to destroy my opponents. Liliana is included mainly for her tutor ability and also acts as something of a lightning rod since she'll hit the table faster than Bolas and hopefully draw out any planeswalker hate my opponent might have.

I was thinking I might exchange Liliana for Sorin Markov, though, since his -2 ability would set up nicely with Nicol Bolas and a Lightning Bolt to the opponent's face. On the other hand, I figure that if I've managed to control the game long enough to get Bolas out and use his ultimate, I've probably put the opponent so far behind that the game will more or less be mine at that point. Still, I'm trying to think of other win conditions I might be able to squeeze in, just in case Bolas isn't enough on his own. Thoughts on this matter would be appreciated.

Blood Moon and Wrecking Ball are my main means of controlling the game. I noticed at my last extended event that a lot of players would crack a fetchland to squeeze by the restriction imposed by Blood Moon, which meant that its effect was more or less negated. I'm hoping that by including Wrecking Ball, I can destroy what is often going to be the sole basic land in a lot of the more expensive decks and lock my opponent out of the game for a while.

Ponder and See Beyond help me get my game in order, although I'm thinking Telling Time might be more useful than Ponder. Not sure, would appreciate some feedback on that.

Otherwise, I think the rest of the choices speak for themselves. Terminate and Repeal help me deal with threats, while Damnation is my board sweeper. I'm a little bit leery of the BB cost on Damnation, but at this point, since it represents no draw backs to me, I think the cost is worth the risk. Thoughtseize will hopefully pluck anything that might threaten my planeswalker out of my opponent's hand.

Finally, the artifacts keep me from getting color screwed; I'd love to run Chrome Mox if I had the money for a playset, so for right now, Lotus Bloom is more or less a substitute, since I already have them in my collection.

The sideboard is likewise pretty self-explanatory, although I'm thinking Negate might be a better spell for the maindeck, maybe switching it with Repeal.

Night of Souls' Betrayal is my answer to Thopter Combos, while Leyline of the Void will defeat Dredge or the dreaded Tarmogoyf in Zoo.

At the moment, I'm running basic lands since I'm on a budget, though I wouldn't mind moving into the more expensive multi-color lands when I come across them. For right now, though, it's just the dirt cheap basics, with the equally dirt cheap Evolving Wilds to fix my mana as needed. I thought about running Terramorphic Expanse alongside Wilds, but I figured that it would be more of a hindrance than help since it'd mean most of my land would come into play tapped.

And that's about it. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated, as always! Thanks for reading.

[browncoat]

The thing that confuses me is that you talk about this being a budget deck and not having the cash for the mana-base but you have a playset of thoughtseize and three damnations.

I would work on the mana-base to start with. Because you are working on a budget, I would start with 4 crumbling necropolis. Then I would probably add painlands and any m10 lands you have if you can't afford a fetchland/shockland mana-base. I would also work towards getting the chrome moxen if you are serious about playing the deck. You may notice I am suggesting a lot of nonbasic land which don't work with blood moon. Blood moon works in mono-red but does not fit with a three color control deck.

I would keep ponder as it is the best of the three spells you list to fix your draw. Ponder is so awesome that I run it in aggro decks (at least the ones that have blue in them).

You also mention lightning bolt in a few places but don't have it in your list. Where has it gone?

[Xanamir]

Welllll, the Thoughtseize and Damnation comes from me incorrectly assuming that those cards were not as expensive and I had imagined; I don't know why, but I thought Thoughtseize in particular was a common... I think perhaps I might have had Duress on my mind, instead.

Damnation, on the other hand... no excuse there, just didn't take a look at the price before I got all excited about annihilating an entire board. Which is probably the reaction everybody has. Which is why it's expensive.

Crumbling Necropolis is an awesome pick, though, and a card that completely slipped through my notice. Thanks for the suggestion! I'm definitely keeping my eyes open for the Mox, as well as the more expensive lands; been hoping to trade for them at my local card scene, here's hoping I get lucky there!

Lightning Bolt was included in the original deck list, but as I was looking over the list during my editting phase, I had this brilliant moment; why use Lightning Bolt for removal when I could use Terminate?! So I went back, included it, added into the write up... and of course, forgot to remove all mention of Lightning Bolt.

So, no Blood Moon. Hmm, what should I use as my main means of stalling the game? Additional counterspells, more creature removal, or maybe some creatures of my own for defense?

Thanks for the advice!

[browncoat]

(2010-05-24 17:36 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  Welllll, the Thoughtseize and Damnation comes from me incorrectly assuming that those cards were not as expensive and I had imagined; I don't know why, but I thought Thoughtseize in particular was a common... I think perhaps I might have had Duress on my mind, instead.

You can also consider inquisition of kozilek in addition to  Crumbling Necropolis is an awesome pick, though, and a card that completely slipped through my notice. Thanks for the suggestion! I'm definitely keeping my eyes open for the Mox, as well as the more expensive lands; been hoping to trade for them at my local card scene, here's hoping I get lucky there!
Painlands are now pretty cheap at approximately $3 a piece (you can probably find them for less). While they are suboptimal to shocklands and fetchlands they should get the job done.

(2010-05-24 17:36 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  Lightning Bolt was included in the original deck list, but as I was looking over the list during my editting phase, I had this brilliant moment; why use Lightning Bolt for removal when I could use Terminate?! So I went back, included it, added into the write up... and of course, forgot to remove all mention of Lightning Bolt.

So, no Blood Moon. Hmm, what should I use as my main means of stalling the game? Additional counterspells, more creature removal, or maybe some creatures of my own for defense?

You may want lightning bolt in the deck simply as cheap removal and as a possible finisher. A decent quantity of removal, discard and countermagic should be sufficient to get the bolas online. I don't think you need creatures, you can make their removal dead instead of giving your opponent targets. You may want to run some bounce like [c]echoing truth" onclick="return !window.open(this.href,'_blank','width=820,height=600,menubar=no,resizable=yes,s​crollbars=yes'); return false;" title="duress[c] for disruption.

(2010-05-24 17:36 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  Crumbling Necropolis is an awesome pick, though, and a card that completely slipped through my notice. Thanks for the suggestion! I'm definitely keeping my eyes open for the Mox, as well as the more expensive lands; been hoping to trade for them at my local card scene, here's hoping I get lucky there!

Painlands are now pretty cheap at approximately $3 a piece (you can probably find them for less). While they are suboptimal to shocklands and fetchlands they should get the job done.

(2010-05-24 17:36 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  Lightning Bolt was included in the original deck list, but as I was looking over the list during my editting phase, I had this brilliant moment; why use Lightning Bolt for removal when I could use Terminate?! So I went back, included it, added into the write up... and of course, forgot to remove all mention of Lightning Bolt.

So, no Blood Moon. Hmm, what should I use as my main means of stalling the game? Additional counterspells, more creature removal, or maybe some creatures of my own for defense?

You may want lightning bolt in the deck simply as cheap removal and as a possible finisher. A decent quantity of removal, discard and countermagic should be sufficient to get the bolas online. I don't think you need creatures, you can make their removal dead instead of giving your opponent targets. You may want to run some bounce like [c]echoing truth">duress[c] for disruption.

(2010-05-24 17:36 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  Crumbling Necropolis is an awesome pick, though, and a card that completely slipped through my notice. Thanks for the suggestion! I'm definitely keeping my eyes open for the Mox, as well as the more expensive lands; been hoping to trade for them at my local card scene, here's hoping I get lucky there!

Painlands are now pretty cheap at approximately $3 a piece (you can probably find them for less). While they are suboptimal to shocklands and fetchlands they should get the job done.

(2010-05-24 17:36 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  Lightning Bolt was included in the original deck list, but as I was looking over the list during my editting phase, I had this brilliant moment; why use Lightning Bolt for removal when I could use Terminate?! So I went back, included it, added into the write up... and of course, forgot to remove all mention of Lightning Bolt.

So, no Blood Moon. Hmm, what should I use as my main means of stalling the game? Additional counterspells, more creature removal, or maybe some creatures of my own for defense?

You may want lightning bolt in the deck simply as cheap removal and as a possible finisher. A decent quantity of removal, discard and countermagic should be sufficient to get the bolas online. I don't think you need creatures, you can make their removal dead instead of giving your opponent targets. You may want to run some bounce like [c]echoing truth to deal with marit lage tokens. I will admit though that I don't play enough competitive extended to give you an exact idea of what you need.

[Xanamir]

All good suggestions, thanks very much. I've made a bunch of modifications already that have made the deck feel solid; I'll know for sure when I proxy-playtest it sometime this week against a friend of mine who plays Extended as well.

A couple of other questions that I've been pondering; first, is Inquisition of Kozilek a better pick than Duress? I can see arguments being made for either one.

Also, what about running Blightning? It seems like it generates some pretty good card advantage and I feel like if I combined it with Duress/Inquisition, I could rip apart an opponents hand fairly quickly and neutralize a fair number of threats that way. Thoughts?

[browncoat]

(2010-05-24 20:48 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  A couple of other questions that I've been pondering; first, is Inquisition of Kozilek a better pick than Duress? I can see arguments being made for either one.

Inquisition is better against aggro decks being able to hit either creatures or spells. Duress can deal with more expensive spells. You may want a combination of them. It depends on your meta, I really don't know what more expensive spells (apart from jace 2.0) you really need to deal with in the current extended. If you find aggro to be a problem use inquisition, if you are having problems with combo/control then duress is superior.

(2010-05-24 20:48 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  Also, what about running Blightning? It seems like it generates some pretty good card advantage and I feel like if I combined it with Duress/Inquisition, I could rip apart an opponents hand fairly quickly and neutralize a fair number of threats that way. Thoughts?

Blightning is always fun, it probably solid in the deck.

[Xanamir]

Alrighty, been tinkering with the deck list a bit and proxied a few games to see how it holds up. Here's the updated deck list:

Planeswalkers: 4

3 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1 Liliana Vess

Creatures: 4

4 Dragonmaster Outcast

Sorceries: 11

3 Blightning
4 Ponder
4 Duress

Instants: 15

4 Terminate
4 Negate
3 Repeal
4 Lightning Bolt

Artifacts: 6

2 Izzet Signet
2 Dimir Signet
2 Rakdos Signet

Lands: 20

3 Island
3 Mountain
4 Swamp
4 Crumbling Necropolis
2 Sulfurous Springs
2 Underground River
2 Shivan Reef

Sideboard

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Deathmark
3 Night of Souls' Betrayal

At this point, the deck still exists only in proxy form, so I haven't been able to get any data on how it plays against the various decks of the Extended meta. I've been trying to get a better sense of how it draws, how my mana balances out, things like that. It also represents a much more realistic goal, since I had no idea how expensive a few of my card choices actually were.

One change that I included that will probably raise a few eyebrows is the 4 Dragonmaster Outcasts in there. I included her for a couple of reasons; mainly, it's a card that I really enjoy and also because it represents a very cheap alternate win condition. Yeah, she dies to any removal, but worst case scenario, I'm losing 1 mana. Best case scenario; my opponent has to choose between this cheap little dragon producer and targeting Nicol Bolas. Leaving either of them on the board is bad for the other player.

This version of the deck dropped Lotus Bloom, a decision I'm not sure about (Chrome Mox is still out of my reach at this moment). On the one hand, the extra signet really helped smooth over my mana in some games. On the other hand, a Lotus Bloom or two really, really helped get Nicol Bolas onto the play a few turns earlier than I would have expected. Not sure which is going to be better for me in the long run.

Not sure about the ratio of painlands to basics that I have going on. On the one hand, I'm leery of having too many painlands, since this deck is always in for a long game and I don't want to whittle myself down. Tried to strike a balance that won't leave me too vulnerable either to a Blood Moon drop or pinging away my own life. If anybody has any suggestions or tweaks, I'd be appreciative.

So that's the new deck list! I'm really looking forward to playing it; realistically, I know that given my current limitations it won't be a top tier choice, but in proxy it felt fun to play, and that's what I'm going for more than anything.

[browncoat]

My one comment on this version is that you should replace negate with rune snag or mana leak. Both should be affordable and far superior to negate, being able to hit creatures. Otherwise the list looks amusing, I don't know how it would do in a tournament but if that is not the goal, have fun.