Weekly Sale Commander: Heroes and Villains

Posted on February 23, 2026

Hi folks. Welcome to the Weekly Sale Column! This column will show you some cards on sale that might spice up your lists or inspire something completely new. These lists will usually be Commander lists in Bracket 3, you'll be able to play these in any Bracket 3 (or higher) pods.

If you want to play in lower pods, just swap out the Game Changers for other choices; if you want to compete with Bracket 4 and 5 pods, add more along with some other competitive combos.

Keep in mind that the Game Changers in your deck aren't the only thing that moves you up and down a bracket. Your intent with your deck; inclusions of other interactions, engines, and combos; and overall playgroup should all be factors in your bracket!

Remember that the weekly sale ends on Sunday night at 11:59 PM EST, so you have until then to get your cards ordered.

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

For this week's Heroes & Villains sale, we've leaned onto the darker side of things and created a Grixis Superfriends deck featuring Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen as our Commander. Anyone who knows anything about Magic's story knows that Nicol Bolas is a solid choice for an iconic villain. Let's begin.

The "Friends"

Superfriends decks are defined by one thing, and that's Planeswalkers. Our list has a veritable smorgasbord of them, ranging from low-cost utility to high-cost win condition. They all have their uses and each one will help further our goal of beating our opponents with an army of Planeswalkers.

Starting at the low end, we have some solid utility. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame helps to put loyalty counters on all of our Red Planeswalkers. Ashiok, Dream Render prevents our opponents from searching their libraries and also controls their graveyard. Saheeli, Sublime Artificer gives us blockers every time we cast another Planeswalker.

As we move up in cost, we want a little more bang for our buck. The classic Jace, the Mind Sculptor is joined by the likes of Teferi, Master of Time and Chandra, Torch of Defiance for some extremely efficient card draw.

Ashiok, Nightmare Muse and Liliana, Death's Majesty both increase their loyalty to create blockers, which is huge for working toward ultimate abilities. They work well with Ob Nixilis Reignited and Vraska, Betrayal's Sting to control the board while furthering our goals.

It wouldn't be a Bolas deck without Bolas walkers. We have Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God to do everything better than everyone else, Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh for overwhelming abilities that hit each opponent, and the classic Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker for its sheer power in a control deck.

We've also included The Royal Scions themselves, Will Kenrith and Rowan Kenrith. Along with their three-mana Planeswalker, their partner versions have great utility at controlling the board, which will be a great lead-in to Nicol Bolas' twin brother, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, whose ultimate is the mirror opposite of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker.

The Grixis Support

A good Planeswalker deck needs good Planeswalker support. Dreamtide Whale and Flux Channeler are great for some low-cost proliferating whereas Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus and Deepglow Skate do that on the high end.

We don't play too many creatures, so we make up for it with great non-creatures. If your opponent decides to play a Planeswalker, use The Elderspell to deal with it, or even just wrath the board with Blasphemous Act and Crux of Fate.

We've also leaned into the Bolas cards, playing cards like Torment of Hailfire and Deliver Unto Evil for their utility (and fantastic Bolas art) and Dark Intimations, a card that was so subtly printed in Aether Revolt to start teasing Bolas' plan enacting eventually in War of the Spark.

Cards like Ichormoon Gauntlet and The Chain Veil are crucial in Planeswalker decks, making your loyalty abilities faster and more common. Those, along with cards like Ripples of Potential and Radstorm, give us ways to put tons of loyalty counters on our creatures all at once.

Our mana-base is relatively straightforward. Along with the usual Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, we've also got Gem of Becoming, a Bolas-themed card that will search up one of each basic land for us. In our lands, we've got a few utility lands like Karn's Bastion and Interplanar Beacon, but we want most of our utility coming from our Planeswalkers, so the rest are pretty normal.

Modal Double-Faced Cards are also great here, filling both utility and land slots at once. Fell the Profane // Fell Mire and Sink into Stupor // Soporific Springs deal with one-shot threats, Pinnacle Monk // Mystic Peak will let us recast Cruel Ultimatum (a more fun line than you'll ever know), and Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore and Boggart Trawler // Boggart Bog provide impactful abilities for low costs.

Change the Game

For our Game Changers, we just had to start with the only Planeswalker on the list, Narset, Parter of Veils. Narset is great for opponents that are trying to draw tons of cards, stopping them in their tracks while also finding you more Planeswalkers.

Next up we have Bolas' namesake Game Changer, Bolas's Citadel. This one is more of a pet choice for the theme of the deck, but it's also quite strong in decks where you want to flood the board with utility. Even just hitting two Planeswalkers with it can turn the tide of a game in no time, so it's with the slot.

Finally, we went with Ancient Tomb for the last one. A simple, but elegant, choice for our list. We have some higher cost cards, especially with our win-condition Planeswalkers breaching into seven and 8 mana. Having the acceleration that Ancient Tomb provides is huge for our deck.

This list sits pretty firmly in Bracket 3. Dropping it down is as easy as removing the Game Changers, but bumping it up would require a little more beef. Some more fast mana and maybe another combo like Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact and you might have a chance, but I'd stick to Bracket 3 for this one.

Conclusion

I hope you try this list out; Grixis is a super fun color combination when you're trying to flood the board with Planeswalkers. Nicol Bolas will give you your win; trust me. Just trust that big, beautiful Dragon and your opponents will concede in no time.