MTG Arena - Standard - Bolas's Citadel Combo 

Since people keep asking about Command the Dreadhorde: Despite being very exciting and flashy when played, it is unneeded to win the game in most scenarios. If it is drawn before all the combo pieces are assembled, it doesn't contribute towards assembling the combo. It is a very bad topdeck with Citadel in the early stages of comboing off, where you can't afford many bad draws. Once the combo is assembled, it is not difficult to have 20 permanents including two Citadels and deal 20 damage on the spot. If you're worried about running out of cards, two copies Gaea's Blessing leads to the same outcome, while not being a liability early. TL;DR Command the Dreadhorde would be a win-more card under most circumstances.

I like that you flash the card you talk about.

I can just picture the opponent sitting over there watching... and thinking "wtf is going on!?".

4:58 "The backup plan is to attack with creatures..." Me at every sealed event lol

Mother of god, this is insane There's no way to play this with real cards, your turn would take 20 minutes of a confusing mess of life, counters and mana

One of the most appealing decks for me from a lot of decks ive seen from you yet, keep coming out with great content like this!

Oh man, this set has some really cool combos. I'm so excited to see what people come up with.

The best combos I find here, I am waiting for more videos, ty

What an awesome deck. Good stuff!

This deck has so much going for it, its amazing! Massive ramp, card draw, life gain, mana gain! Love it!

I've still been using the Emergency Powers deck as my main deck. Good to see youre still making amazing videos of creative decks

"We need to find a second Citadel" (~11:37) Not to be THAT guy, but you've had one extra in your hand the entire game lol

Wow! That is like, spectacular. What a combo.

(7:26) expectation vs reality.

Wow, the deck is insane.

Any chance you will do a vid or two about upgrading competitive pre-WAR decks in the meta with new cards? For those of us that don’t have all the cards or zillion wildcards to spend on new brews? :D

Very cool combo deck.

13:10 It was good of the opponent to let you finish them off with the second citadel after the combo went off. I don't know if I could say the same for myself. Still a great deck to watch and try to build towards, assuming I don't decide to go with a Feather boros deck.

Awesome video. I got another idea for you. If you have "The Wanderer" Planes walker out you can summon all creatures from both graveyards using "Command the Dreadhorde" without paying your life for it.

Insane combo!

nice combo. didnt thought about it

I love your channel ^_^ keep making vids :D

Great deck idea!!!

only one word, great!

I think Samut, Tyrant Smasher would be a great addition. Scry helps controling the top card, and haste allows you to use Mana Elves the turn they come down and win with lots of big dudes the turn you played the Citadel. I'm testing 2 of them instead of the Gift of Paradise at the moment. If it works with explore Verdant Sun's Avatar might be an idea to be a bit less dependant on Wildgrowth Walker. No idea what to cut for it though.

Oh my god. This deck is so cool lol.

OMFG! Other streamers should learn from this guy! This is why I have internet for

Explore now reads: remove your opponent from the game. Combo decks are great. Tried the Infinite Tezzeret Combo yet?

First opponent was like.."😳

I play an abzan version of this citadel explore stuff, and i think it's somewhat better since it doesn't need 2 activations thanks to revival/revenge. Sometimes it doesn't even need 1. And you can still get a lot of life even if opponent controls down the wildgrowths. Or just get back jadelights and wildgrowths from graveyard when needed.

Well, that escalated quickly

awesome video. thx

This deck is dope

My God this deck is insane.

This is hilarious. I am laughing like a mad man while watching this.

That is sick:)

God I love combo decks and a use for my walkers since I didn't like sultai

That combo is amazing. Need a lot of removal to counter.

nice deck

Gotta say, I love Noxious's Command the Dreadhorde tech in this deck.

That city could work in any explored deck? I was waiting tokens to create an explored deck but maybe i will try this one...

That blue player around 17:00 missed lethal, >chart a course before combat >discard anything that's not a land >play a land >Adapt pteramander and hit for exactly 16

This happened to me on day 1 within the first 5 games

im playing a Deck like this with Sorin and Cruel Celebrant. Sorin helps to get Jadelight/Branchwalker back on the Board and gives the Creatures Lifelink on our Turn. Cruel Celebrant is good for pinging the Opponent down and you can instakill the Opponent in just one Activation of Bolas Citadel with just one Cruel Celebrant on the Board.

Went up against this deck yesterday. Sick combo it was really fun to see it go. The guy got really greedy though and lost because he didn't leave any cards in his deck. TBH I just got lucky having a cleansing nova in hand.

Now this is a scary combo.

Holy Shit that deck is spicy.

I built a Citadel deck in Blue Black. Works amazingly well with artifacts, the UB Tezzeret, Sai and Saheeli.

I want to get off of Mr Bolas' Wild Ride

Spark of Genius, no pun intended..

Now i get it. played against this Deck on Arena and wondered what the idea was since i beat it bevore citadel came out. I mean exploration is solid but not breathtaking. With this combo through its fine.

Not quite Necropotence, but still pretty cool.

So how do you play tendrils and weather the storm with citadel in historic

Genius....

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. I mean...it was happy throw up...point is, this is a filthy creative combo. Good job man

God this is cool

THAT WAS NASTY

I’ve been running this deck since war of the spark came out I find without some removal it gets difficult to go against early threats and without card draw it gets hard vs teferi control decks

Damn, that's a joy to watch, probably not to experience as the opponent hahaha

So, you think citadel would still be viable after rotation? no more explore pack

Very nice life gain combo, better than white life link combos, maybe throw an Ajani's pridemate in there just for fun...?

What do you think about Samut for this deck? When you go off your creatures have haste, and scry helps putting lands out of the top.

Font of agonies is very good in this deck

nice

How can I get my hands on these WAR card sleeves?

That's a lot of life. Nice win against mono blue, glad to see these decks are finally falling out. Also, do we still have to import decks to get different land arts?

You really should enable auto-stacking of triggers if you play this deck.

No way... im half way and i was crazy with that combo... i will definity do this deck...

It can be pretty easy to get pinched on green mana it seems like, maybe it would be good to switch some branchwalkers for seeker's squire?

discovering the citadel

cool! do you think it will appear in meta?

What do you think of replacing one or two copies of Citadel with Command the Dreadhorde? It would let you get back all the stuff you sac'd and save you from running out of permanents like you almost did in that first game. Either way, sweet deck and love your content.

you can fit 2 Command the Dreadhorde instead of the gift of paradsie You can sacrifice the 10 permanents, then you'd have enough life at this point to get back a couple of wildgrowths and explorers, then sac again.

Is it woth to craft this dack for bo1 standard?

holy FUUUUUUUHHHHH...

Was dissapointed to see Bolas's citadel as my promo. After the first game I changed my mind...

I had to put gaea's blessing in this since I ended up milling myself a couple times before I could win.

How do you change the land art to the new one i got ixalan by default

Would a couple of copies of Epicure of Blood fit in here? with all that life gain from the Wildgrowth Walkers this could machine gun the opponent's life total down very quick. at least to the point where you might only need to Bolas's Citadel once. I really like this deck, if only i hadn't spent all my wild cards already

If you combine this with the new Jace that would definitely give you a second win condition...

white lifegain cantrips + bolas' citadel + thousand year storm is pretty impossible to pull off, but that's quite the jank if pulled off.

Noob question, where or how do you get the sleeve LVD is using?

I’ve never seen a deck play so many creatures and attack so little lol.

Nicol bolas, Jace cunning castaway, bolas citadel

this deck can play the standard contest?

What about Font of Agonies to kill stuff with Bolas Citadel or Shock lands?

Mono blue OP- never tap out on turn 3 for a djinn.

this deck is the MTG way of going trigger-happy LUL

Your pc requisite? Because my pc dont open magic live Arena

Torgarr would be a good combo in here, 10 your OPP then if you have enough Permanents Activate citadel for another 10.

how do you order your deck when you look at it like this? 3:19

I saw Noxious played similar deck, but I like this version a bit more, the only thing I think hid deck did better was Command the Dreadhorde combo (since when you pay a bunch of life to return creatures from your graveyard, Wildgrowth Walker will heal you for all of them with path of discovery on board, so as long as you don't kill yourself immediately, you will heal more than you spend.

Hey LVD, I saw noxious use command the dreadhorde to very good effect in this deck. I was wondering, what are your thoughts on this idea?

I thought Ixalan, and with it the walker, would rotate out of standard now?

That deck was well thought out. Good work. Who agrees?

that game 1... who's the mill deck here

I have a similar list but with more tools for consistency: aetherhub.com/Deck/Gallery/103181 Samut: Her passive is a nice win condition, giving all creatures haste. Usually you go through your deck in 1 or 2 turns so this comes in quite handy, your opponent won't have time to wipe your board the next turn - since this deck doesn't have a Banefire like the Experimental Frenzy version, your haste creatures become the "surprise banefire" . Her -1 is also good to either look for Citadels or to scry lands away once you have one, so she functions as another Treasure Map. Sorin: Lifelink on creatures saved my rear a handful of times, when the game is close and you are low on life (can't go any further), you can simply attack with your creatures and get all the life you need back to feed the engine, this is mostly for urgencies but still a very good safety buffer. His -X also works as a "scry" for pockets of lands, by getting a creature from your graveyard it'll explore away the land(s), it's also very good in situations where your board gets wiped (usually the first turn you play Citadel and hit a wall soon after) you can start your next turn my rezzing a Wildgrowth Walker as the first creature and safely gain life once more. Goreclaw: Recent addition, this ensures the "Haste attack" win condition if their board is wide by trampling over it. He also combos with Sorin, as it costs 4 so you can trade your Planeswalker with Goreclaw instantly in case it died previously. Again, only for edge cases but it's neat nonetheless, nothing feels better than watching your 34/34 Wildgrowth Walker actually hit the opponent isntead of getting blocked by a single token. Other misc. alterations: Paradise Druids instead of Llanowar Elves, I'd rather pay 1 extra to not get my creature erased by cheap removal, she can also give you Black mana for Citadel just in case you didn't have 3 black on board. 1 Wand of Vertebrae instead of Treasure map, for the edge case where you run out of deck and your opponent won't die that turn (hey, can happen), you still get 5 cards back, and in the other 99% of cases it works to get rid of extra lands just like a treasure map would.

You should play evolution sage I think

Green control

I will play this once in historic but iam too scared to find more broken decks