Hello folks!

Welcome back to the Hour of Devastation post-preview funk, where everyone is sad that the click fest each day to find out just what cards were spoiled ends and now has to get back to work. Working is so sad. I want spoilers . . .  I need spoilers . . . 

 . . . 

Alright so we’re done with the spoilers. Now what?

Time to build decks!

Because it doesn’t matter what you think of the cards. What matters is their actual usage in decks. Everything else is just talking.

So what inspired my Commander deck today?

Well two of the Gods in HoD sort of pushed my inner-synergy buttons:

The Scorpion God & The Locust God

Take a closer look at The Scorpion God. When a creature dies that had a -1/-1 counter on it, then you get to draw yourself a sexy card. Yay for card drawing! Everybody. Wants. To. Draw. Those. Cards. (To the chorus of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears)

When you draw a card from The Scorpion God, then you trigger The Locust God, and it makes a 1/1 flyer of doom and haste. Note that the flyer is both Red and Blue, and there are some effects that’ll love that, like the conspire keyword. Even a simple Ghastly Discovery is strong with a couple of token creatures to tap as you play it, and you get four cards and discard two for three mana. Anyways, the synergy here with The Locust God is great. Get a 1/1 token creature reach time you draw a card from the dying creature.

And it works in a cycle. You can spend three mana to kill your 1/1 token by giving it a -1/-1 counter from The Scorpion God, then draw another card and replace the 1/1 token.

This is why I am disappointed in the mechanical fail of The Scarab God.

I was expecting it to have major synergy with the two other Gods as well, given their tight mechanical overlap and synergy. And we got . . .  something that exiles creatures from graveyards to make 4/4 token duplicates and in your upkeep you can drain your foes of some life and turn it into scrying good times during your upkeep. That’s pretty non-engaging compared to the other Gods. Why doesn’t it work with the other two as well as the first two do? No clue!

You could have done something like make the upkeep trigger one that triggers when another creature enters the battlefield under your control. Then it triggers for your Zombies and the Insect tokens too.

Something like . . . 

And you could weaken it by making it work only for token creatures. How about this:

I changed the trigger and condition to tokens to give it more fluidity with The Locust God. And if you changed the trigger to make it a little less powerful and work with The Scarab God, you might have something there too. You could give -1/-1 counters instead of forcing the loss of life, or scrying or something.

I feel like that was a missed opportunity, and I just brainstormed a few possible scenarios in five minutes. I’m not even a professional WOTC person who’s skilled at this stuff.

But nevertheless, The Scarab God is very strong on its own, even without the mechanical support of and for the other Gods of Nicol Bolas.

I wanted to build a Commander deck around the three new Gods from Hour of Devastation that appear to work really well together. Obviously, the most flavorful way to do that is to have them in a deck led by a certain God-Pharaoh, right?

Right!

So let’s check out the list first, and then we’ll explore the cards selected in detail.

The Gods of Bolas ? Commander| Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Nicol Bolas

• Creatures (21)
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Augur of Bolas
• 1 Clever Impersonator
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 1 Custodi Lich
• 1 Disciple of Bolas
• 1 Draining Whelk
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Fleshbag Marauder
• 1 Havengul Lich
• 1 Mindclaw Shaman
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Phyrexian Delver
• 1 Skinrender
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Stuffy Doll
• 1 Rakka Mar
• 1 The Locust God
• 1 The Scarab God
• 1 The Scorpion God
• 1 Zealous Conscripts

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
• 1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

• Instants (9)
• 1 Cryptic Command
• 1 Dismal Failure
• 1 Hero's Downfall
• 1 Induce Paranoia
• 1 Ray of Command
• 1 Reins of Power
• 1 Soul Manipulation
• 1 Stroke of Genius
• 1 Undermine

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Acquire
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Choice of Damnations
• 1 Cruel Ultimatum
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Dark Intimations
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Deep Analysis
• 1 Hour of Devastation
• 1 Profane Command
• 1 Slave of Bolas
• 1 Time Warp

• Enchantments (9)
• 1 Black Market
• 1 Collective Restraint
• 1 Imminent Doom
• 1 Monastery Siege
• 1 No Mercy
• 1 Palace Siege
• 1 Propaganda
• 1 Stranglehold
• 1 Treachery

• Artifacts (10)
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Gem of Becoming
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Scroll Rack
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Staff of Domination
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Lands (36)
• 6 Mountain
• 6 Swamp
• 7 Island
• 1 Cascading Cataracts
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crumbling Necropolis
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Grixis Panorama
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Rakdos Carnarium
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rupture Spire
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold

Buy This Deck

And there you have it!

The Gods feel very grind-y to me. They are built for the long game and squeeze out card advantage and opportunity again and again, and I wanted to reflect that here. I wanted this to be a control deck built for a variety of situations and running a variety of long-range threats and answers.

I wanted to maximize cards that felt like Nicol Bolas. I steered away from cards that worked with my cards mechanically, but had no tie to Nicol Bolas. Take, as an example, the card Kumano, Master Yamabushi. He is a mechanical all-star in this deck. Him and The Scorpion God are clear best friends. He can deal damage to a wounded en-countered creature to finish it off and get you those cool cards. And you can exile threats as well, since I suspect The Scarab God will often be feared the most and regularly offed more than the other two. But there is Kumano, ready to burn creatures to the ground.

Another great card? Sidisi, Undead Vizier! Another? Geth, Lord of the Vault!

But they aren’t here.

But Kumano is not there in terms of flavor. Now I could toss in anything I wanted to, and say that hey, Nicol Bolas is dominating, controlling, manipulating, bribing, and cajoling Kumano and others often without them realizing it, and just move on. But that’s not my style either. So, I stuck with creatures that were either totally generic in concept (like Solemn Simulacrum and Scroll Rack) or on point flavor-wise. In go Augur of Bolas, Mindclaw Shaman, Disciple of Bolas, Rakka Mar (served Bolas, check out the flavor text) and such.

Now again, I want my creatures to be both grind-y, with a good eye to card advantage, and on-flavor (or in the same vicinity). So take Consecrated Sphinx, Havengul Lich, and Custodi Lich as good examples of card advantage. They play powerfully into what we are looking to do, and have cool effects as well.

Now what about Planeswalkers?

Clearly, we have to run the God-Pharaoh version of Nicol Bolas, and I included the first one as well. But again, unless you served or worked with NB, I’m not running you. And cards like Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Sarkhan the Mad just don’t fit this deck at all. And you can’t just toss in something like Teferi, Temporal Archmage or Dack Fayden into here. It doesn’t work.

I also leaned on support cards in Nicol Bolas’s wheelhouse. I used counters that felt like his, either mechanically or flavorfully, such as Undermine and cards like Reins of Power. Reins of Power is a powerful spell with a central name that fits the grand manipulator. That’s how I feel about NB. He is the best manipulator in the multiverse. So he gets cards like Cryptic Command, Ray of Command, Damnation and such that make total sense. I also included some discarding effects like Dismal Failure that reflect his original touch of madness that leads to dropping your entire hand.

I also gave NB some fun powerful spells that feel like him.

Cruel Ultimatum?

Choice of Damnations?

Hour of Devastation?

Imminent Doom?

And I continued this concept with other cards as well that are grindy, and yet work with NB. Stranglehold and No Mercy. Treachery and Staff of Domination.

Remember that I didn’t feel like Nicol Bolas needs or wants things like Vampiric Tutor. Why is he getting aid from Vampires like that? Demonic Tutor? Nicol Bolas controls and manipulates, not asks for help. If it’s on the nose in terms of flavor, but weak, I’m not running it too often. You won’t find Puppet Master, Chamber of Manipulation, or Puppet Strings here, for example.

I still wanted to run cards in theme though. Scroll Rack, for example, will get you a ton more cads to look at as you pile on the card advantage good times. I’m sure you can figure out cards like Rogue's Passage and Black Market, Propaganda and Chromatic Lantern.

Now I am not running God-Pharaoh's Gift. It’s a big ol’ 7 mana to cast, and I don’t want to self-exile my own stuff in this deck. We want to go the distance, and that often requires the use of cards to recur and reuse stuff from your graveyard a few times. It’s not a bad form of on-flavor grindiness for a Commander deck somewhere, but with the cards already chosen, it’s clearly not a fit for this deck.

And there we have it!

So what do you think? Do you like it way much? Anything you’d want to toss in?

I can see our God-Pharaoh’s arrival any minute now. Get ready at kitchen tables everywhere!