Bolas Brawl (all viable series #2) (Brawl)

Attempting to create at least one deck for each quality commander/general in the multiplayer brawl format.

Commander: Nicol Bolas, God-Pharoah

I'm looking at a control based build with a few reanimator undertones. Bolas is not in himself a finisher, but he does hold down your opponents nicely as a control topper.

1) Nicol Bolas, God-Pharoah. (7)
In order to cast Bolas you need the game to go long. You need to not just get to 7 mana but also have mana left up to for a counterspell to protect him.
In multiplayer brawl I expect to using +1 heavily on entry to keep my opponents hand sizes to a minimum. Afterwards, +2 all day long.

A) The first thing I'm going to add is some mass removal. If I'm playing multiplayer control then I need to be able to clear the board of threats. I also have the added bonus of reanimating them later on myself.

2) Hour of Devastation. (5)
kills most the threats we will face, including planeswalkers.
have to time it right to not kill or own PW's (already does not touch Bolas).

3) Bontu's Last Reckoning. (3)
*not always wise to tap out in multplayer, and even worse for multiple turns. There are very few sweepers available to us.

4) Phyrexian Scriptures (4)
allows us to clear the board and save our biggest threat in the process.
it also serves as a pseudo Time Walk since it sits on the board for a turn and no reasonable player is likely to play a creature with a known board sweep coming.
*the graveyard exile is actually a downside for us, however the cards up side is just to high to care about this too much.

5) Time of Ice. (4)
Stalls two threats for multiple turns, then can be used as temporary removal.
You can also use Time of Ice to return your own creatures with powerful ETB's to your hand.
*works well with other sweepers. You can use this to put two of your own creatures back into your hand and then play a sweeper.

6) Vona's Hunger. (3)
snagging two creatures can be game changing if you time this right and the sacrifice effect helps take down threats with evasion (hexproof/indestructible)
the city's blessing is unlikely to come into play, but in a multiplayer format it is not un heard of to hit 10 permanents (even in a control deck).

7) Tetzimoc, Primal Death. (6)
at worst it is a big body with deathtouch to reanimate...at best it could take down multiple creatures as it etb's.
the prey counters stay around, so even if Tetzimoc is countered or you are forced to discard it, you still get the etb when you reanimate it.

B) Next I'm going to look at the best reanimator options (remembering that this is not a pure reanimation deck, so these cards most serve a dual purpose.)

8) The Scarab God. (5)
just the best wincon we could ever want for this deck.
the evasion guarantees it returns to our hand if we need to do a panic board wipe.

9) Yawgmoth's Vile Offering. (5)
reanimation for any players creature or planeswalker, yes please!
a way to kill planeswalkers...there are very few in the format.

10) Liliana, Death's Majesty. (5)
*I'd prefer to be able to target my opponents graveyards but this still works fine since we will be playing some creatures with quality etb's.

(C) Next I'm going to be looking at ways to gain card advantage, preferably on creatures.

11) Gonti, Lord of Luxury. (4)
*it will certainly find juicy cards in this format.

12) Champion of Wits (3)
*major filtering with built in reanimation.

13) Dire-Fleet Daredevil (2)
*really powerful card in multiplayer.

14) Torrential Gearhulk. (6)
*to this point there are not a lot of targets, however much of our spot removal will be instant speed and then there are also counterspells.

15) Bloodwater Entity. (3)
*This gets back a large portion of our deck.

(D) Looking for creatures that have etb removal.

16) Ravenous Chupacabra. (4)

17) Noxious Gearhulk. (6)
*lifegain is always welcomed

18) Hostage Taker. (4)
*exile is important in any format.

(E) I'm going to take a look at possible planeswalkers which I can play. They are just so difficult to deal with in this format that I feel I should play any that are viable to the deck archetype.

19) Karn, Scion of Urza. (4)
*we will not be able to make much use out of the artifact ability, however card draw on a planeswalker that can be cast with colorless mana is a bonus in a format with poor mana selections.

20) Saheeli Rai. (3)
early game planeswalker can do a lot of work in this format.
copying our etb creatures has a big payoff.
*scrying and doing 1 damage to each opponent can also go a long way over multiple turns.

21) Chandra, Torch of Defiance. (4)
*a toolbox card, however the mana acceleration is probably our main use for her from her second turn on.

22) Angrath, the Flame Chained. (5)
the +1 is just meant for a multiplayer control deck.
the -3 can serve as a nasty multiplayer tool as well. Steal a creature from one player and make another player kill it by attacking them with it or just attack the controller with it.

(F) The deck is full of powerful cards at this point, however the avg casting cost is very high. Now I'm going to look at adding a few ways to help accelerate our mana and to fix it as well.

23) Cultivator's Caravan. (3)
*fixes our mana nicely on turn 3, which is important because our difficult to cast double mana symbol cards start on turn 4.

24) Manalith (3).
*another useful mana rock on turn 3.

25) Azor's Gateway (2)
Takes some work, but the payoff is huge.
at worst it is card filtering every turn.

26) Search for Azcanta (2)
good early filtering, but is best played midgame and flipped.
once flipped this is mana acceleration and decent card draw for the amount of ins/sor we play.

(G) Looking to fill out the remainder of the deck with low costed instants: both as a means to lower the decks curve and to fully utilize cards that target instants. Also, instant speed is always vital, however in multiplayer it is even more so.

27) Unwind. (3)
a little costly for a counter, but untapping your lands is such a big advantage in multiplayer.
a somewhat narrow counter normally, not so in Brawl as it catches planeswalker commanders.

28) Essence Scatter. (2)
*creatures will be everywhere, including commanders.

29) Supreme Will (3)
*versatility

30) Cast Down. (2)
*kills a ton of targets.

31) Never // Return (3)
*have to be able to deal with planeswalkers

(H) Looking at the last two cards in the deck (not counting the 27 lands).

32) Vizier of Many Faces. (4)
*a clone that has reanimator built in.

33) Abrade (2)
*I want a way to destroy artifacts, but I do not want it to be a dead card otherwise.

Changes
i) I swapped out Torrential Gearhulk after looking at the final 33 non-land cards. The deck only plays six instants. While building the deck I forced myself to remember that this is not EDH, there will not be easy combo's that must be stopped immediately or it's game over. With that in mind I went for fewer instant removal cards and counterpells in favor of creatures with etb triggers.
*In its place I considered two alternate cards: Sunbird's Invocation and Torment of Hailfire. Torment has a late game payoff, and while your life total is more important in this format than EDH, you will still have opponents who generally just pay the life or sac outclassed permanents. It gets you value, but not the targets you hope for generally. Sunbird's Invocation is a powerful card and Brawl is a slow enough format that it gets a chance to do work. Enchantment removal will be light in this format so it is likely that you will get multiple activations off of it.

ii) Removed Bloodwater Entity for the same reasons as Torrential Gearhulk.
*added Unlicensed Disintegration. Looking for an instant speed catch all creature removal card.

Lands (27)
Essentially I feel I need at least 17 black and red sources, with at least 12 blue sources to make this deck run well. On turn 4 I may need to make double black or red so the proper number is 17. I tried to avoid double blue all together, so the only case of this is Vizier of Many Faces, and that is not a card you tend to rush out on turn 4. The two mana rocks we are playing help us fix or mana, but cannot be heavily relied upon.

Dual Lands:
Submerged Boneyard
Fetid Pools
Drowned Catacombs
Canyon Slough
Cinder Barrens
Dragonskull Summit
Sulfur Falls
Highland Lake
Spirebluff Canal

Fixers:
Field of Ruin
Evolving Wilds
Unknown Shores
Painted Bluffs

Others:
Memorial to Folly
Memorial to Genius

Basics:
Island 2
Swamp 5
Mountain 5

***As I have found with many brawl decks, meeting the minimum land requirements is near impossible in multi-colored decks. I feel I will need to play at least a couple more mana fixing artifacts to make this deck playable.

IN- Treasure Map, Renegade Map, Traveler's Amulet
OUT- Tetzimoc, Sunbird's Invoaction, Unwind
*These changes do a lot to ease our issues with mana, as well as significantly lower our overall curve. In addition, the three cuts are powerful cards, but are in no way vital to the decks themes.