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Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God

Legendary Planeswalker — Bolas

Nicol Bolas has all loyalty abilities of all other planeswalkers on the battlefield.
+1: You draw a card. Each opponent exiles a card from their hand or a permanent they control.
−3: Destroy target creature or planeswalker.
−8: Each opponent who doesn't control a legendary creature or planeswalker loses the game.

CMC
5
Mana cost
{U}{B}{B}{B}{R}
Color identity
BRU
Rarity
mythic
Set
War of the Spark
Price
$2.86
EDHREC rank
#4354
Buy on TCGplayer
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God card art
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God hits the board with five loyalty, steals your opponents' planeswalker abilities, and threatens an ultimate that exiles every nonland permanent and hand — all for five mana. The cost is real: three colored pips across three colors makes casting him outside a dedicated Grixis shell a genuine build-around constraint, but Aminatou, the Fateshifter and five-color goodstuff lists have found ways to pay it. If you can hit UBBR reliably, he earns his slot every time.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Nicol Bolas, the Ravager

83.2% of decks · synergy 0.80

Nicol Bolas, the Ravager is the thematic and mechanical spine of the archetype — when he transforms into Nicol Bolas, the Arisen, his static lets Dragon-God absorb abilities from every other planeswalker in play, creating a value engine that compounds each turn.

02
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain

Sisay, Weatherlight Captain

37.0% of decks · synergy 0.34

Sisay, Weatherlight Captain can tutor Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God directly onto the battlefield as a five-legendary-power search target, effectively skipping the color-pip problem entirely and dropping a five-loyalty planeswalker into a board state already full of legendary permanents to copy abilities from.

03

Esika, God of the Tree

27.5% of decks · synergy 0.24

Esika, God of the Tree's back face, The Prismatic Bridge, cheats Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God into play off the top of the library, sidestepping the three-pip mana cost — and in a five-color permanent-based shell, Dragon-God's ability to copy any planeswalker activation on the table becomes immediately backbreaking.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

In Commander, Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God is a high-ceiling midrange threat in any Grixis or five-color list — the ability to copy opponents' planeswalker activations scales directly with table count, and the ultimate is a practical game-ender in a pod. Pioneer is where he saw his most sustained competitive use, anchoring Esper and Grixis control shells that leaned on his +1 for card advantage and his -3 as versatile spot removal. In Modern he's legal but largely absent — five mana is too slow without dedicated ramp, and the format's threats are cheaper and more resilient. Legacy and Vintage lists have no interest in a five-mana planeswalker with no built-in protection. Oathbreaker is arguably his best format outside Commander: as the Oathbreaker himself, his color identity defines the deck and his static becomes the engine.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

750 decks
Jace, Cunning CastawayNicol Bolas, Dragon-GodThe Chain Veil

Jace, Cunning CastawayNicol Bolas, Dragon-GodThe Chain Veil

Exile all permanents opponents control; Infinite card draw; Infinite creature tokens; Infinite draw triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite copies of a specific planeswalker; Mass Land Denial

View on Commander Spellbook ↗
441 decks
Jace, Cunning CastawayNicol Bolas, Dragon-GodOath of Teferi

Jace, Cunning CastawayNicol Bolas, Dragon-GodOath of Teferi

Exile all permanents opponents control; Infinite card draw; Infinite creature tokens; Infinite draw triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite copies of a specific planeswalker; Mass Land Denial

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$2.86 cheap tier

At $2.86, Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God sits firmly in the budget-mythic tier — wide reprint availability has kept him accessible despite consistent demand across Commander and Pioneer. That price is stable; there's no scarcity floor pushing it higher, but a card this playable across multiple formats rarely craters further.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.