Live Play Data

Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen

Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon // Legendary Planeswalker — Bolas · Core Set 2019 (M19)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

270

Decks Running

116

Median Cast Turn

5.0

Drawn → Played

63%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

First-cast turn

n=100

16%

21%

19%

29%

T6-9

11%

T10+

Median 5.0 P25 4 · P75 7 · max 15

On curve 41% (21 / 100 cast on T4) Cast same turn as drawn 41%

The "good card" funnel

271 brought · 109 players

Brought to game

271

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

Once cast, 50% of this card is still on the battlefield at game end. This reflects how often it survives removal, not just whether it's a permanent.

≥ +7.5pp

Players who cast this card win 47% of the time (n=44) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=160).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 9% (n=23).

Read this as correlation, not as the card's contribution. Casting a card means you lived long enough to cast it, so this gap widens with mana value across every card we track.

Observed gap +22.5pp; 95% confidence interval +7.5pp to +37.5pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

80 instances

2.5%

Library

28.7%

Battlefield

30.0%

Graveyard

7.5%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 The Ur-Dragon 32 decks
2 Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge 20 decks
3 Kefka, Court Mage // Kefka, Ruler of Ruin 10 decks
4 Sauron, the Dark Lord 8 decks
5 Tam, the Possibility 6 decks
6 Tiamat 4 decks
7 Arzakon 3 decks
8 Jace, Multiverse Architect 3 decks
9 Lord Xander, the Collector 3 decks
10 Marchesa, the Black Rose 3 decks

Card text

Nicol Bolas, the Ravager

Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon

Flying When Nicol Bolas enters, each opponent discards a card. {4}

: Exile Nicol Bolas, then return him to the battlefield transformed under his owner's control. Activate only as a sorcery.

4 / 4

Nicol Bolas, the Arisen

Legendary Planeswalker — Bolas

+2: Draw two cards. −3: Nicol Bolas deals 10 damage to target creature or planeswalker. −4: Put target creature or planeswalker card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. −12: Exile all but the bottom card of target player's library.

Loyalty 7

Core Set 2019 (M19) · Mythic · Illustrated by Svetlin Velinov

Frequently Asked

Why isn't there more data on this card?

Playgroup Live collects per-card gameplay data from real Commander games. Play counts appear once a card reaches 100 tracked games, and the full charts need a sample of at least 25 observed games that is not dominated by a single pilot. Until this card clears those bars you're seeing only the basic counts. Stats refresh nightly.

How is Playgroup Live card data collected?

Players using Playgroup Live import their decklists before a game and log card actions as they play. Each cast, zone change, and resolution is recorded as a real game event. Stats on this site are computed from those events, not from decklist scrapes or theorycrafting. Playgroup has recorded 710,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live seats playing virtual cards, a subset of that corpus.