Basically ever since I saw Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker I have the itch to play with him. He is such a ridiculous card that when resolved demands an answer the next turn or its gg. Therefore, I have played around with Grixis decks for the last couple of weeks and after ROE came out I finally hit on a combo that I really think has the legs to do a decent job in standard.
Had to start with 3 Nicol Bolas because the whole theme of the deck is to overwhelm-->win using this card. Sarkhan is a card draw machine and considering almost all of my spells costs 2 or less he will get a few draws easily. Plus against UW or Polymorph he can dragonize their biggest threat, making it much easier to eliminate. (It is generally easier to kill a 5/5 dragon token than a Baneslayer angel or Emrakul...)
3 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
2 Sarkhan, the Mad
5 Planeswalkers
The Specter makes an excellent harasser and a great discard to a Blightning. His unearth ability makes him a natural in a deck like this because it is cheap and you get great return out of it. (Would you play 4 of a card that does 3 damage and discards one card for 2 mana? I would!)
4 Sedraxis Specter
4 Creatures
The spell section is the real heart of this deck. The deck is revolved around disruption in every possible form. Blightnings and Duress (in the SB) for card disruption, Lightning Bolt for utility, Spreading Seas for Mana disruption and card draw, countersquall as the mainboard counter option, consume the meek as black's best sweeper, and terminate for creature removal. Mind spring is included for crazy card draw and the Chalices get us to Bolas that much faster.
4 Blightning
2 Consume the Meek
4 Countersquall
4 Everflowing Chalice
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Mind Spring
4 Spreading Seas
3 Terminate
25 Spells
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Crumbling Necropolis
2 Dragonskull Summit
3 Island
3 Lavaclaw Reaches
3 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Swamp
26 Lands
The sideboard is designed to be flexible against a variety of decks. Adjust it to fit whatever the popular deck styles are in your area. I decided to fill out Consume the Meek, thrown in some duress, a bunch of counters, or deathmark for any mythic deck. Let me know if you have any additional suggestions.
Sideboard
3 Negate
2 Flashfreeze
3 Deathmark
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Consume the Meek
3 Duress
You have to stall out your opponents for the first 5-6 turns countering their big spells, terminating their creatures, and sweeping anything that needs to be swept. (any starting hand that has spreading seas and the requisite mana is very good btw) By this time you have enough to cast Bolas. If you have two in hand or are very ahead in the board go ahead and cast it right away, if not then wait to have some counterspell back up because a resolved and protected Bolas spells game over for your opponent very quickly. Once Bolas hits the board just make it your priority to protect him and the game should be yours quite quickly. I will be testing this out all weekend and I will let you know how it goes and what kind of SB'ing I did. In the mean time have fun at FNM and other events this weekend. And look for my follow up post on Monday.
Trevor Isham
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