I adore cards that allow me to have an amazing late game without having to put six or seven mana cards in my deck at all, and Nicol Bolas is exactly that
If you add $25 to the expected value of a Core Set 2019 box, the value of a box increases to about $110, even with the 15% discount, and if you toss out the discount, it jumps to a very respectable $121, which is enough value that you're likely to come out ahead compared to buying singles
We have a couple other powerful tricks up our sleeves, but Thumb is definitely the most important one
Notably, this card was reprinted rather recently in a Secret Lair, and that variant is currently the most expensive version of the card by a decent margin

Absorb Vis Bleak Coven Vampires Blind Hunter Blood Artist Blood-Chin Fanatic Bloodborn Scoundrels Bloodhunter Bat Bloodrite Invoker Buzzing Whack-a-Doodle Cabal Archon Circle of Affliction Collective Brutality Death Cultist Death of a Thousand Stings Devouring Greed Dying Wish Entropic Eidolon Essence Feed Essence Harvest Exotic Disease Falkenrath Noble Foreboding Fruit Game of Chaos Gnawing Zombie Graveyard Glutton Graveyard Trespasser Haunt the Network Infectious Curse Kaito, Dancing Shadow Kalastria Highborn Krydle of Baldur's Gate Last Caress Mind Drain Morsel Theft Needlebite Trap Nihiloor Ob Nixilis, the Adversary Orzhova, the Church of Deals Parasitic Strix Reaper's Talisman Rhystic Syphon Roiling Horror Sling-Gang Lieutenant Sludge Strider Soul Feast Sovereign's Bite Starlit Sanctum Stensian Sanguinist Stormscape Master Suffer the Past Survivor's Med Kit Sweettooth Witch Syphon Life Tempting Witch Tendrils of Agony Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas The Trickster-God's Heist Thunderscape Master Vampire's Kiss Vraska, Golgari Queen Wall of Limbs Witherbloom Command
