Fish Five-0: Esper Bolas
Core 2021 has now allowed our favorite elder dragon in Nicol Bolas to have an overload of planeswalkers friends!
Gameplan
Without even having to really look into the decklist too much, you can tell this deck is one huge greedy pile of magic cards. We've loaded our deck to the brim with planeswalkers and the mana isn't as bad as it looks. Having access to Savai Triome and Interplanar Beacon, we'll be able to play our red splashes quite often. What red cards are we splashing for?
Narset's abilities are all relevant as gaining life and having any way to ramp is big for us since we lack Growth Spiral and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. And since we are playing an 80 card deck, it's nice to have a -2 that can hit creatures and planeswalkers. Would it really be me if the start of a new set, I played a deck without forcing Nicol Bolas? Definitely not! By now, you're all familiar with my love for Bolas and this card. The +1 is flavorful and card draw. The -3 is exactly what we need as we can kill a planeswalker which will be relevant considering all the Bant decks that are around in the meta. But wait, what new cards did Esper Bolas get?
Teferi is just a solid blue planeswalker and when you're in an 80 card deck, having a card that allows us to filter our draws while also being able to protect itself at instant speed is beautiful. Of course, Eliminate also kills a ton of the planeswalkers and can be used as creature removal. I usually try to use eliminate for Narset as that card is brutal against our deck. This deck cares about Narset a lot more than Teferi, Time Raveler so we must kill that Narset ASAP.
Oh and of course we added Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. This card is our big bomb that helps us get a clean reset on the board. As powerful as this card is for us, we also have to be smart about playing planeswalkers as playing too many onto the board means we get blown out by an opposing Ugin.
With how many planeswalkers are running around in the Bant decks, I went ahead and added The Elderspell. There's only one copy in the main deck but it's a way for us to steal a game when we're behind. It's pretty much Splinter Twin... just kidding. However, The Elderspell and Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God have stolen so many games. Don't be afraid to use this on your own planeswalkers just for additional loyalty.
Gameplan
The deck did a clean sweep in our league but we got extremely lucky that we were able to take down an aggro deck. Our sideboard feels great as we really just board into more ways to interact with Cauldron Familiar decks and Red deck. As long as Simic Flash and hyper aggro decks don't take over the meta, this deck can definitely exist and be playable. If you're looking to craft the deck and climb with it, just know the games will take quite some time. Other than that, go out there and harvest some sparks with bolas!
As always, thanks for watching.
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
Twitter: @TheAsianAvenger || Twitch: twitch.tv/TheAsianAvenger || Email: theasianavenger@mtggoldfish.com
