Archenemy Nicol Bolas Box (Deck 1 of 4: Gideon Jura)

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Worth the money already

This box of cards was $60 at the local card shop that I frequent. I was looking for something new to do a unboxing / review on and the guy working explained what it was.

The reason all of these decks are bundled together like this is because it is supposed to be an entire game you can play with up to four people. The decks that are included with this box are Gideon Jura, Nissa Revane, Chandra Nalaar, and Nicol Bolas.

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The way that the new "subgame" of MTG, called Archenemy Nicol Bolas, would play out is like this:

• One player is Nicol Bolas, and up to three others can be the planeswalkers Gideon, Nissa, or Chandra
• The player that has the Nicol Bolas deck starts with 40 life and the planeswalkers start with 20 life
• Nicol Bolas has a separate deck for schemes (I will include the scheme cards in the Nicol Bolas deck review). These scheme cards give bonuses to Nicol Bolas throughout the game. Some of these cards have lasting effects and others are only temporary
• The three planeswalkers are all playing against Nicol Bolas. If Nicol Bolas is defeated, all three planeswalkers win. But if Nicol Bolas defeats all three planeswalkers, then that player wins.

Now that we have covered how the new game is played, it is worth mentioning that these decks are all 60 card decks and can be used in casual play! I am not sure what category these decks would fall into, I do know that it is from the Hour of Devastation set.

We are going to be looking at the Gideon Jura deck to start off the four deck series!

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Gideon Jura

This is a pretty decent form of Gideon. I like the ability to become a 6/6 until end of turn for no change in your loyalty counter. A decent combination I've seen with him would be to use his +2 ability when you have complete coverage of Gideon, then use his -2 ability the next turn to destroy your choice of their creatures.

A really mean way to do that would be when your opponent only has one creature and you have more than one creature or any you can do without. This would force them to attack and become tapped, making them available to be destroyed next turn by Gideon! Boom!

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Grand Abolisher

This card only costs two plains to cast! This is incredible because this creatures ability does not allow opponents to cast spells or activate any abilities. In context of the Archenemy Nicol Bolas sub-game, this means that it would cripple the Bolas deck.

But even in the thought of casual and commander multiplayer games, this would still be an incredible card to add to those style of decks.

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Odric, Master Technician

He is a 3/4 creature with First Strike and costs four mana. Those are nice, but I am more interested in his other ability. If three or more creatures attack alongside him, you choose which creatures block and how they block. I know what you are thinking, and yes it does mean you can choose to have creatures not block at all.

I like the way that this card fits into this deck because there are plenty of low mana cost creatures that can get you to the three creature threshold fast.

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Sun Titan

A 6/6 for six mana and it has the vigilance, already it is powerful. But when you take into account when it enters the battlefield or attacks you can return a permanent with converted mana cost three or less from your graveyard to the battlefield (You could return Grand Abolisher !)

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Those were most of the big players in this deck

There are a few honorable mentions as well. Some great all-around cards in here are:

• Gideon's Lawkeeper
• Aegis Angel
• Fiendslayer Paladin
• Aerial Responder
• Relief Captain
• Excoriate

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Hope you enjoyed this deck breakdown!

There are three more decks to write about in this box, I am intending to write about one each day. After all of them, I will make a post with all four decks in the post and have complete decklists.

Make sure you follow so you can keep up with each deck and see if this is a good box for you!

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@iamredbar