The Commander
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice Nicol Bolas unless you pay 
.
Whenever Nicol Bolas deals damage to an opponent, that player discards their hand.
Guide
Gameplan
Hard-cast an 8-mana 7/7 flyer and grind the table out with Grixis control while protecting your upkeep payment of each turn. Connect with Bolas to strip an opponent's hand, then ride the flying beater plus targeted removal and counterspells to a slow inevitability.
Strengths
- 7/7 flying is a fast, evasive clock that closes games quickly
- Hand-discard trigger devastates control and combo opponents who connect
- Grixis gives access to the best removal, counters, and card advantage
- Excellent at one-on-one or grindy attrition matchups
Weaknesses
- Eight mana and a upkeep tax make him slow and color-screwed if mana stalls
- No built-in protection—dies to any removal after a big investment
- Sacrificed immediately if you ever miss the upkeep payment
- The discard trigger only fires on combat damage, so chump blocks neutralize it
Key Cards
- Lightning Greaves — Haste lets Bolas swing and strip a hand the turn he lands, plus shroud protects your huge investment.
- Whispersilk Cloak — Unblockable guarantees combat damage and the hand-discard trigger every turn.
- Rhystic Study — Stacks card advantage on top of Bolas's discard to overwhelm opponents on resources.
- Cyclonic Rift — Overloaded sweep clears blockers so Bolas connects and resets the board in your favor.
- Dockside Extortionist — Bursts you toward the eight mana plus upkeep tax needed to deploy and keep Bolas.
Upgrade Path
Lean into fast mana (Mana Crypt, ritual lands, Dockside) and protection (Lightning Greaves, Heroic Intervention) so Bolas resolves and survives the turn he lands. Add evasion and double-strike enablers to make combat damage lethal in one or two swings, and pivot toward a Grixis control or stax shell with cheap interaction so the slow commander becomes inevitability rather than a liability.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Repeated 7-damage flying swings while opponents are stuck with empty hands
- ▸Voltron kill via equipment, evasion, and combat damage
- ▸Grinding the table out of cards then closing with any beater or burn
Archetypes
- Control — Grixis counters, removal, and card draw protect Bolas while he provides an evasive win condition.
- Voltron — Equipment and evasion turn the 7/7 flyer into a one-shot hand-stripping, life-draining threat.
- Stax — Pairing the discard trigger with prison pieces and Megrim-style payoffs locks opponents out of resources.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BRU), by popularity.
