Uncommons and Commons Deck against Nicol Bolas

Well done!

I personally will still run creatureless against him even if without rares, and while I haven't give it a try yet (being lazy atm), I can imagine at least the following cards in:

Ramunap Ruin (the game-winner, although ultra-slow)
Cast out (keep that Elemental Away)
Ifnir Deadlands (alternative to Cast Out, to weaken the Wildfire enough)
Sunset Pyramid (card draw)
Some random mana fixing/ramp
Some random cheap cycling creatures

If I use Cast Out, that means Ajani or Nahiri, but if without Cast Out, Chandra 1 is the best bet due to her ability slapping the face directly.

Yeah, creatureless Ob Nix works incredibly reliably against Nicol Bolas and requires no rares whatsoever. Especially with Faith of the Devoted...actually, with Faith you could probably win with any black or partly-black cycling deck, as long as you're careful not to cast any creatures. Add in Sunset Pyramid and Manalith or something to make sure you hit the supports objective. And I like Desert of the Glorified because it can provide a quick mana boost early on and just get cycled later.

evansjay said:

I have also had good luck with Jace as a cycling deck focused around 'Drake Haven' and Thopter Spy Network'.

Er, one, those cards are rare and mythic, two, I admit you're pretty crazy to summon creatures against Bolas.

And thanks for reminding me about Ob. Forgot that Faith of the Devoted is uncommon, so yeah, that's a good idea. Although, avoid Stir the Sands in that case, because you know, creature.


EDIT: Yass, just finished beating Bolas with a no-rare Chandra1 deck.

Flame Javelin (face damage)
Ramunap Ruins (face damage)
Furious Reprisal (face damage)
Ifnir Deadlands (weakening Wildfire Elemental)
Desert of the Fervent (gem destruction)
Hungry Flames (killing Wildfire Elemental)
Demolish (anti support)
Manalith (mana)
Sunscorched Desert (mana and face damage)
Sunset Pyramid (card draw)

The only card I do not like in this deck is Hungry Flames due to the fact that 1) Once Bolas fills up his spells in hand without Wildfire in play, this spell becomes useless, 2) Actually killing Wildfire goes against the objective. I also am considering Jayemdae Tome for more card draw.

Total took me almost 20 minutes though. What a drag.

Barkenspyder said:

Yeah, this fight is absurdly painful.  Now that I've figured out how to beat him, I can't be bothered.  Just takes to damned long.  Why do the devs want to bore us to death?  No match should last this long.

I guess I'll say I agree. Especially since except for that one time I used no-rare deck to eat him, I resot to using Elspeth Goggles + Approach combo to eat him much, much faster.

With Tezzeret 2, Faith of the Devoted + New Perspectives should only take about 5-10 minutes if you swipe quickly enough... I mean, that's still over 100 swipes to kill him, but you can expedite it by using his ultimate, then his first ability to produce fabrication supports.