Recently I've been playing a lot of Historic, and I've really been enjoying the format. The format doesn't seem super saturated with any one particular deck or another, so it's been really fun to brew things up and try them out. The deck I was planning on playing today was a Demonic Pact list, with a ton of ways to flicker or remove the potentially (eventually?) troublesome enchantment. Unfortunately, our matches didn't go as well as we would have liked. That being the case, I decided to save that list for another day - maybe when we get all the kinks worked out - and show off a deck we did see awesome positive results with, much like the Mono-Black Devotion Historic deck we showed off last week. As with the Mono-Black deck, I'll have some gameplay videos included below for you to check out.

Nicol Bolas comprises some of my favorite cards in Magic. I love Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in Cube. I love Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God in Standard. And I loved Nicol Bolas, the Ravager in previous Standard. Every Nicol Bolas is doing something powerful, and they all have baseline two-for-ones.

Oops, All Bolas | Historic | Frank Lepore

• Creatures (17)
• 2 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 2 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 2 The Scarab God
• 3 Murderous Rider
• 4 Thief of Sanity
• 4 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager

• Planeswalkers (7)
• 2 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
• 2 Ugin, the Ineffable
• 3 Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God

• Instants (11)
• 1 Bedevil
• 2 Abrade
• 2 Cast Down
• 2 Thought Erasure
• 4 Thoughtseize

• Lands (25)
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Blood Crypt
• 4 Dragonskull Summit
• 4 Drowned Catacomb
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls
• 4 Watery Grave

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Bedevil
• 3 Unmoored Ego
• 2 Virulent Plague
• 2 Grafdigger's Cage
• 1 Ashiok, Dream Render
• 3 Ritual of Soot
• 3 Mystical Dispute

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Again, what we're looking at here is the final version of the deck we settled on, but after several matches, we managed to finish our testing with a winning record. As you'll notice, this deck has nine copies of Nicol Bolas across three different versions, and all of them were awesome at different times.

One of the best parts of the deck is that it's mostly removal, disruption, and threats that are two-for-ones. This is the second Historic deck I've played that I've used four Thief of Sanity in, and the card continues to be good. While sometimes there's the downside of milling a Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath into the board, a lot of times you can hit some of the more degenerate cards in the format, like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Gonti, Lord of Luxury is also one of my favorite cards from Aether Revolt that lets us play our opponent's spells. Fortunately, Gonti was released in Jumpstart, which is available in its entirety on MTG Arena, so we have access to Gonti once again. (As an aside, I would love to see some other build arounds, like Aetherworks Marvel.)

As for removal, we have three copies of Murderous Rider, two copies of Abrade, two copies of Cast Down, one Bedevil, and two Ravenous Chupacabra. That doesn't even include planeswalkers like Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God and Ugin, the Ineffable. That's about fifteen ways in the main deck to remove problematic creatures. Abrade and Bedevil give us good answers to artifacts if we happen to need them, while the Bedevil and the Murderous Riders give us solid answers to planeswalkers. I could see having a two/two split between them, but Murderous Rider being a lifelink creature felt better and it's also easier on the mana.

Speaking of mana, our mana base is pretty silly: 12 shocklands, 12 check lands, and 1 basic Swamp. It worked out pretty well. Unfortunately, due to all the colored mana requirements in the deck, we couldn't use something like Field of the Dead, because drawing it in our opening hand as our second, third, or fifth land meant we couldn't cast Thought Erasure, Bedevil, or Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God. We just want to make sure we hit our colors, and enough of them. (Speaking of colors, I would love if we had Cruel Ultimatum in the format!)

The deck also has ten cards that discard in the form of four Thoughtseize, two Thought Erasure, and four Nicol Bolas, the Ravager. While you can't control the card you get from the Ravager, this is still a good amount of disruption and ways to interrupt the opponent's game plan.

Ugin, the Ineffable, aside from being a sweet flavor addition, has become one of my favorite planeswalkers in Historic. I've always loved this card, and I think immediately going up to five loyalty while making a 2/2 that will eventually draw you a card is a strong start. It's also capable of destroying any colored permanent in the format, and it gives Grixis a way to deal with otherwise problematic permanents like enchantments and planeswalkers.

The other powerful win condition in that deck that was a menace for as long as it was in Standard is The Scarab God. This card is overly powerful, and I'm both glad and frightened that it was included in Amonkhet Remastered. This slot originally had The Eldest Reborn, but the card isn't actually that strong in the format due to the number of aggressive decks, and previously, the high concentration of Field of the Dead.

Did we mention that Field of the Dead was finally banned this past Monday? Not just suspended, but full on banned. With the addition of both Hour of Promise and Explore to the Historic format, the choice to take Field of the Dead off suspension began to look extremely suspect. Enough so that something simply had to be done. The card was just miserable to play against. If you don't win by a certain point in the game, every land they play makes three 2/2s. It simply wasn't interactive or thought-provoking gameplay. Thankfully, with the banning of Field of the Dead, we no longer need things like Unmoored Ego or Virulent Plague in our sideboards to stop the card.

If you want to see the deck in action, you can check out the video I uploaded to my YouTube channel, documenting the entire creation of the deck to its current form.

It's a pretty sweet feeling having both Ugin and Nicol Bolas out at the same time. It's like you're living Magic lore. And it doesn't hurt that the cards are actually very powerful as well.

This deck felt strong before Field of the Dead was banned, and I have to assume it should feel a little stronger now that it only has to deal with more fair decks, and not specific lands that amass armies. I'd love for you guys to take it for a spin and let me know what you think. For what it's worth, I got this message the other week about the Mono-Black Devotion deck, so I might be some kind of Historic sage...

So, I'm kind of a big deal.

No, but in all seriousness, taking a brew to Mythic is a grind, and that's awesome to hear! Hopefully someone out there will have the same luck with Nicol Bolas and pals! As usual, let me know what you think in the comments below, let me know what you think of the Historic format in general, and let me know if you've playing any sweet brews in Historic that I should take a look at. Thank you so much for reading, I love you all, stay safe, and I'll catch you next week!

Frank Lepore

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