Welcome Nicol Bolas

sutoLkcalB

New event - first match - Pay to Win deck with Nicol Bolas.
I always have the feeling that the match making is not really random.
But this time at least I see the new PW in action. OK, only as good as the "AI" can do it,
....
Because of the secondary goals to only play 2 creatures - I have a cycle deck with Kiora.
But because of the pay to win deck I am forced to play some of my cycle cards instead of cycling them -
I need to steel his creatures.
And yepee - he plays Relentless Dead.
At least it is a deck with mercy, helping me instead of destroying me.
Ok he has a grave walk deck - lucky me, that I have a cycling deck.
I am faster but he still does 20 points of damage - ouch.

Bottom line - I think the new PW can really be a pain in the       neck. Especially with pay to win cards.
Because of its three colors - all existing combinations of all three colors and new ones (let us see which) can be used.
I am waiting for the next endless loop ...

Furordraco

i guess its inevitable to have some OP versions of Nicol at the beginning. Ive seen that p2w cards are good with any PW with NB better cause he has access to 3 colours of p2w cards.

Mainloop25

What's a pay-to-win deck? Give me an example.

Seems like you came across a pretty weak deck, at least in the hands of the AI. 

babar3355

Relentless dead wasn't for sale.. maybe I'm missing something.

khurram

Lol. No one played relentless dead unless they were really really bored. 

Never would have thought there would be a thread because someone took 20 points of damage from relentless dead.

Have you never faced a prized amalgam -graf harvest- oath of Liliana deck? Because relentless dead is nothing.

Mainloop25

babar3355 said:

Relentless dead wasn't for sale.. maybe I'm missing something.

I think OP considers NB pay-to-win just because you have to pay to use him right now? A planeswalker alone doesn't guarantee a win so I'm also a bit lost as to what the overall point being made is. 

Coilbox

I don't think this game is a P2W game... in any case it would be a 'Pay-to-spend-less-time-grinding' game... since everyone has access to the same cards, paying or not... the ones who pay may get them faster? well yeah, indeed. But even if you don't pay, you can win most of the matches having a few competent cards... Cmon, the AI is a drunk monkey  mate xD

bk1234

I would also be interested in this decklist. 

wereotter

I bought Bolas, and I'll agree that he's potentially more powerful than any other planeswalker currently available to us, and the AI will be able to abuse him considering that his first ability is just "destroy target creature" meaning his deck doesn't even have to run any kill spells and you can still control the board.

Also given the access to cards he has over other planeswalkers means I've been able to uproot my Saheeli deck over to Bolas, add in a few more powerful black cards and now the deck is sitting on a longer win streak than any other I've had in the past.

I would not be surprised if his skills are reassessed in the future to keep him balanced with other walkers. Also I'm surprised no one has mentioned that on top of all the power he has, he also now has the largest health pool of all the planeswalkers.

Edit: my deck does have 3 paid mythics in it.... so I guess I'm pay-to-win now? :P 

Sirchombli

That was a whole lot of the term "pay to win"

On a lighter note, bolas zombies is pretty fun, but I only had enough runes to get him to lvl 54

sutoLkcalB

Oh boys - I was writing the start of this thread while playing.
I take back the "pay-to-win". I only anticipated it to be a deck full of mythic+.
But it was not. As I wrote - it was "only" a grave walk deck. Which actually never triggered.

And this was not about whining or complaining. As you may have read I won easily.
I just had fun to write the comments while waiting for my opponent to finish his turn.

sutoLkcalB

And for those who did not understand my "yepee" - the relentless dead help me, not him.
As I stole it from him (remember the secondary goal was to play only 2 creatures myself) his NB did try to kill that one all the time

Firinmahlazer

Coilbox said:

I don't think this game is a P2W game... in any case it would be a 'Pay-to-spend-less-time-grinding' game... since everyone has access to the same cards, paying or not... the ones who pay may get them faster? well yeah, indeed. But even if you don't pay, you can win most of the matches having a few competent cards... Cmon, the AI is a drunk monkey  mate xD

That's because it's not. I've been mostly free my whole time playing (a few packs and crystals bought, no cards). You could spend $1000 on crystals and packs and still not have a particular card your opponent got for free from a reward booster. Heck I have cards that a coalition mate doesn't have and he's been playing almost as long as the game has been around. I also have Heart of Kiran that I got for free and that was once an exclusive. On another note, there is still some skill required for building decks. Buying every exclusive and finding your most "powerful" cards and cramming them into a deck doesn't mean it will be effective. I don't believe for a second that someone who has spent a ton of money in game has an advantage on someone who has spent none.

sutoLkcalB

Yep, right. Simply stuffing a lot of mythic into one deck does not do something good by itself. It still has to be the right choice of cards.
But then I always imagine these type of players as someone spending money to get the right cards he has seen in some "tutorial". Not bothering about gaming only about winning. It is he does not spent time for building his own may be good deck.

I now play a second time against NB. This time a Sphinx deck. Easy to win again - just kill all sphinx (my Ajani can also kill Glyph Keeper directly). I had shortly worried about the secondary goal to only lose up to 4 creatures. But again I was too fast for the kill feature of NB.