Who would have dreamt that one of the five
original Elder Dragons would become one Magic:
the Gathering's most venerable and ruthless
villains? Whatever happened to the other four?
What probably happened was that their cards
weren't as good as this one, and so the players
forgot about them, so the Creative team made the
one people remembered the villain. I once read a
short story about the five Elder Dragons in an
official Magic novel, and all five of them were
pretty cruel. Any one of them could have been an
excellent recurring villain.
As a card? I mentioned yesterday just how
powerful of a combination flying and high power
are. Eight mana is a lot to ask, but it's part
black-- the color that loves to discard
creatures and reanimate them. The upkeep cost is
really no big deal for what you get, especially
since you only have to pay it if you untap with
this in play. And if you do, well, old Bolas has
an interesting take on "protecting himself from
the opponent's response"-- if he hits you even
once, you're in topdeck mode. Bolas is a perfect
example of a card that must be answered as soon
as it hits the table or the game is over. It's
just a shame he isn't easier to get ON the
table.
Before he became the master manipulator and
driver of many recent expansions' stories, Nicol
Bolas was "just" one of the Elder Dragons who
battled for control of Dominaria, millennia
before the present day shown in 1990s cards. He
is one of the few cards that you can play as
both a creature and a planeswalker, and holds up
well in both forms. It's tempting to reach
immediately for your copies of Through the
Breach and the like, but he actually does well
when played the normal way, too: he has the most
powerful ability of Legends' Elder Dragons,
which makes waiting a turn for it less of an
issue. Lore tells us that Bolas won the war with
the other Elder Dragons, and it's fitting that
his ability makes it hard for anyone to recover
and fight back against him (even an Elder
Dragon).
Today's card of the day is Nicol Bolas which is
an eight mana Blue, Black, and Red 7/7 Legendary
with Flying that forces an opponent to discard
their entire hand if he deals damage to them and
he has an upkeep cost of one Blue, Black, and
Red mana. This requires a great deal of
support to be a threat as it has a prohibitive
mana cost, a multicolor upkeep, and lacks
Trample. While it can wipe out a hand in
one hit the effort needed to make that a
reliable outcome is just too high and this is at
most a centerpiece for a dedicated Casual
design.
In a Limited format with this it could be a rare
draft, but the original elder dragons are very
difficult to work with in a deck as they require
more than a splash of three specific colors
each. The upkeep is less of a concern than
simply getting it on the battlefield in the
first place.
Passing for an uncommon or common in Booster is
viable when drafting to win as this is likely to
be a dead card in hand most of the time.
In Sealed the 7/7 evasive may be tempting, yet
having a pool in all three colors and
successfully casting it is unlikely and working
away from it will usually be the more consistent
design choice.
For those newer to the game, this is Nicol Bolas
the creature, not Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. In
Legends, one of the earliest expansions in
Magic, there was a series of creatures called
Elder Dragons. All of them cost 8 mana, were 7/7
fliers, were three colors, and had an upkeep
costs of one of each of those three colors. All
three of them also had some sort of extra
ability. Nicol Bolas’s ability was usually
considered the best ability of the Elder
Dragons, as it stripped the opponent of
potential ways of dealing with him.
The biggest problem with the Elder Dragons was
the very color-intensive 8 mana cost. The three
mana upkeep hurts a little, but if you can untap
with Nicol Bolas on your side, you don’t mind
paying three for what he can do. You just hope
they don’t have a stream of flying spirit tokens
or something to keep chump blocking him.
The Elder Dragons, and most notably Nicol Bolas,
are much like Shivan Dragon in the fact that
they are more symbolic of Magic than they are
really one of the best cards. They are the
inspiration of the Commander format, which began
it’s life called EDH, or Elder Dragon
Highlander, because the Elder Dragons were
popular choices for the commander.
Of course, today, we rarely play cards for 8
mana, and if we do, we expect to get something
like his planes walker version, or Ugin the
Spirit Dragon, Akroma, Avacyn, Griselbrand, or
Vorinclex. So, if you’re playing Nicol Bolas,
it’s pretty much for the casual nostalgia.
