How to build Magik, Illyana Rasputin // Darkchild, Demon Uncaged

Magik becomes Darkchild at the end of any turn in which you sacrificed two permanents, and cracking a Treasure or a fetchland counts. That makes the flip a question about the mana base, so this build answers it with lands and Treasure and then makes every one of those sacrifices cost the table life.

Darkchild can be cast from the command zone, so the flip is a discount

Magik is a modal double-faced card, the same kind of card as the Marvel heroes that transform in Marvel's Spider-Man, and a modal double-faced card can be cast with either face up, from the command zone included. Darkchild costs cast directly and Magik costs . Commander tax is counted on the card rather than the face, so both prices rise by two for every earlier cast from the command zone. The transform clause only works because a 2025 rules change let modal double-faced cards transform, which is how a face you were already allowed to cast can also be reached by flipping into it.

So the flip is not the only route to the stronger face. It is a two-mana discount on it, paid in sacrifices. On turn three, cast Magik, take her upkeep card for as long as she stays unflipped, and flip her the first turn the deck has two sacrifices to make. On turn five with nothing to sacrifice, cast Darkchild and skip the question. After a death the arithmetic holds at the higher price: Magik at five plus a flip still beats Darkchild at seven.

A cracked fetchland and one spent Treasure flip her on the turn she arrives

The check comes at the beginning of your end step and counts every permanent you sacrificed that turn, including the ones sacrificed to pay a cost. Spending a Treasure is a sacrifice. Cracking Bloodstained Mire is a sacrifice. So are Lotus Petal, Wayfarer's Bauble, Mind Stone and Chromatic Star, and not one of those is a sacrifice card in the usual sense. In this list the flip is something that happens while the deck makes mana.

Count what carries it. Eight of the 35 lands sacrifice themselves: Bloodstained Mire, Polluted Delta, Wooded Foothills, Verdant Catacombs, Fabled Passage, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Treasure Vault. Five of the cheap artifacts do the same, Experimental Synthesizer included, and fourteen more cards make Treasure, from Strike It Rich at one mana up to Goldspan Dragon and Revel in Riches at five. The turn to aim for is three. Crack a fetchland, cast Magik, spend a Treasure from Strike It Rich or Kalain, Reclusive Painter on anything at all, and Darkchild is waiting when the turn ends. Lotus Petal and a fetchland do it a turn earlier.

Two details catch people out. The sacrifices have to happen during your own turn, since the check only asks about the turn whose end step it is. And Mahadi, Emporium Master makes its Treasures at the beginning of your end step, the same moment Magik checks, so those are next turn's sacrifices rather than this turn's.

Darkchild's upkeep always finds a spell, and a land above it is a free land drop

Darkchild exiles cards from the top until she reaches a nonland card, and you may play every one of them that turn. The spell is guaranteed and the lands are a bonus. With 35 lands in the 99, the top card is a land a bit more than a third of the time, so roughly one upkeep in three also covers the turn's land drop and leaves the land in your hand for later. Only one land a turn can be played without help, and a second exiled land is simply lost, which is part of why the list stops at 35 lands rather than reaching for 37.

Both faces carry the same catch in two words: this turn. A card you cannot pay for that turn stays in exile for good. That is why the list averages 2.66 mana value, and why Treasure earns its slots twice over, as mana you can carry into the turn where the exile turns up a five-drop. It shapes the interaction too. An instant exiled in your upkeep has to be cast before your turn ends, so the removal here is the kind you are glad to fire in your own main phase: Terminate, Infernal Grasp, Go for the Throat, Dreadbore, Bedevil, and Fatal Push, whose revolt clause is switched on by any Treasure or fetchland that left the battlefield that turn.

Four life buys indestructible, which answers destruction and nothing else

Pay 4 life and Darkchild survives anything that destroys her or deals her lethal damage. That covers most of the removal black and red play, wraths such as Damnation, and any blocker with deathtouch. It is the reason this list runs Damnation and Blasphemous Act without hesitating: pay the 4 in response and your commander walks out of her own wrath.

It does nothing about four other things, and those are the ones to plan around. Exile, such as Swords to Plowshares or Farewell. A return to hand, such as Cyclonic Rift. Toughness loss, such as Toxic Deluge paid for 4 or more. And an edict, which only takes her when she is the only creature you control, one reason the list keeps cheap bodies and tokens around.

The second half of the text reads "Tap her", and on your own turn that is a real cost. Activate it before combat and she does not attack, so attack first and pay afterwards, when she is tapped anyway. On someone else's turn, paying in response to a removal spell leaves her tapped and unable to block for the rest of that turn.

Hela turns the four life into four Zombies, and The Darkhold charges a life a card

Two other cards from Darkhold Destiny made the list. Hela, Mistress of Darkness creates tapped 2/2 Zombies whenever a player loses life during your turn, as many as the life lost, once each turn, and paying life counts as losing it. So the 4 life for Darkchild's ability on your own turn is four Zombies: four bodies for Goblin Bombardment and Viscera Seer, and four Treasures from Pitiless Plunderer as they go. The trigger is optional, so let the 1 life from a fetchland pass and keep it for the 4. And if Hela is discarded to Big Score, Unexpected Windfall or the second chapter of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, her back face is Dark Tutor, a tutor that can be cast only from the graveyard.

The Darkhold puts a sin counter on itself each time you tap it and then draws a card for every counter, so it draws one, then two, then three. Then it costs a life for every card in your hand. Tap it straight after emptying your hand and the price is exactly one life per card drawn, which is a far better rate than the card reads, and on your own turn with Hela out that life is also a row of Zombies. Its second ability sets every player's life to the lowest total at the table. In a deck that spends its own life deliberately, that can be the setup for a kill.

Hela's Arcanum and Rise from the Nether are the other two cards shown so far in these colours, and neither made it. The Arcanum's sweeper mode destroys every non-Zombie creature with power 3 or less, which is most of this deck. Rise from the Nether is a seven-mana sorcery in a list that wants its mana free for whatever it exiled that turn.

Vampiric Tutor costs no card here, because Magik takes the top card before your draw

A tutor that puts its card on top of your library normally costs you the draw it replaces. Under Magik it does not. Cast Vampiric Tutor in your upkeep while her trigger waits on the stack, and the card you found is the one she exiles, yours to play that turn, while your draw step still draws a fresh card. Darkchild works the same way provided the card you put on top is not a land, since she keeps going until she hits one that is not.

That makes Vampiric Tutor one of the three Game Changers in the core list on merit rather than habit. Diabolic Intent is the other tutor in the core list, Hela's back face aside, and it sacrifices a creature as part of its cost, which is half a flip. The bracket 4 rung adds Imperial Seal on the same logic, a turn slower because it is a sorcery: cast it in your main phase and the card it finds waits for your next upkeep.

Every Treasure is also a drain, and Mayhem Devil counts the opponents' Treasures too

Four cards turn the sacrificing into lost life, and they stack. Mayhem Devil deals 1 damage whenever any player sacrifices a permanent, an opponent's Treasure, Clue or fetchland included. Marionette Apprentice drains each opponent when a creature or artifact of yours goes to the graveyard, and a Treasure is an artifact that does. Disciple of the Vault takes 1 life from an opponent whenever any artifact does the same. Nadier's Nightblade drains each opponent and gains you 1 life whenever one of your tokens leaves, and a Treasure is a token. With all four out, one Treasure costs your three opponents 8 life between them.

Reckless Fireweaver adds a point to each opponent on the way in, whenever an artifact enters under your control. Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin and Florian, Voldaren Scion turn those small losses into cards. Ob Nixilis exiles a card for you to play whenever opponents each lose exactly 1 life, which is precisely what the drains do, and Florian looks at one card for each point of life your opponents lost that turn and lets you play one of them.

The finish comes out of the same pile. Goblin Bombardment turns creatures into damage at instant speed. Exsanguinate turns a turn's worth of Treasure into X life from each opponent and gains back three times X at a four-player table, which a deck paying 4 life at a time for its commander's protection is glad of. Bolas's Citadel can sacrifice ten nonland permanents for 10 life from each opponent, and Treasures are nonland permanents, so with Mayhem Devil out that activation is ten more points of damage and a flip as well. Revel in Riches wins outright if you begin your upkeep with ten Treasures. It is the backup plan rather than the main one, since it asks you to hoard what everything else spends, but Blasphemous Act with Mahadi, Pitiless Plunderer and Revel in Riches all out turns a board of dead creatures into a pile of Treasure in one go.

Thirty-five lands, and the seven that fetch count for both colours

The strip at the top of the page counts 29 black and 30 red sources, and seven of them are lands that go and find another land. A fetchland makes no mana until it has become a Swamp or a Mountain, yet each of these can find either colour, so each one counts for both. The four fetchlands reach both through Blood Crypt, Smoldering Marsh and Raucous Theater, which are all Swamp Mountains, and the other three take a basic of whichever colour is short. The deck has its first black mana by turn two 94% of the time and its first red 95%, against 88% and 89% with the seven left out.

The double pips are where it strains. Eight cards want two black, from Bloodghast and Exsanguinate at two up to Hela at six, and at 29 sources the deck has two black by turn four 85% of the time. Exsanguinate is a late play by design, so the honest pressure sits on The Darkhold and Bedevil at three. Only three cards want two red (Goldspan Dragon, Unexpected Windfall and Chandra, Torch of Defiance), all at four mana or more, and two red by turn four comes in at 87%.

Raucous Theater is the only land that always enters tapped, and its surveil earns the slot on this commander, because it decides what Magik exiles next. Five more enter untapped once a condition is met, and at a four-player table Luxury Suite always meets it.

Three Game Changers put the floor at 3, and each one is there for Magik's sake

Jeska's Will, Bolas's Citadel and Vampiric Tutor are the three, which is as many as bracket 3 allows and puts the floor at exactly 3. All three earn the slot on this commander in particular. Jeska's Will is Magik's own trigger three times over with mana attached, Bolas's Citadel plays from the same top card she does, and Vampiric Tutor stops costing a card. The budget rung removes all three, and the floor goes with them.

Read the 3 as a minimum. No card from Marvel: Darkhold Destiny is a Game Changer today, Magik included, and the last change to that list came with the bracket update of 9 February 2026, not with a set. A three-mana commander that adds a card to every one of your turns could plausibly join it, and the floor would move with her.

The core list

The list behind Magik, built for bracket 3. Every card name opens a preview when you hover it, and each price is that card's cheapest paper copy.

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All three rungs sacrifice their lands, and the money buys lands that arrive untapped

The budget rung takes the list from at least $420 to at least $103 and leaves the flip alone. Seven lands still sacrifice themselves, because Fabled Passage, Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse stay while Escape Tunnel, Warped Landscape and Myriad Landscape take three of the fetchlands' slots, with Foreboding Ruins in the fourth. Chromatic Sphere replaces Lotus Petal and is still a sacrifice, now with a card attached. What the money was buying is speed. The cheap fetch lands put their land onto the battlefield tapped (Fabled Passage untaps it once you have four lands), and four lands now always enter tapped where the core list had one. Mortuary Mire is the tapped land that earns more here than it would anywhere else, since the creature card it puts on top of your library is the card Magik exiles next upkeep.

The three Game Changers leave, and the floor goes with them. Reckless Impulse stands in for Jeska's Will at two cards instead of three and no mana. Phyrexian Arena replaces Bolas's Citadel as a steady extra card, without the ten-permanent kill. Night's Whisper replaces Vampiric Tutor and Altar's Reap replaces Diabolic Intent, so the only tutor left is Hela's Dark Tutor. Crux of Fate replaces Damnation and is one-sided twice over: choose non-Dragon creatures and Goldspan Dragon survives, and Darkchild pays her 4 life to survive it too. Pirate's Pillage takes the slot Revel in Riches held, and Captain Lannery Storm takes the one Ob Nixilis held.

The bracket 4 rung spends on the same two things, mana that arrives untapped and tutors. Marsh Flats, Arid Mesa and Scalding Tarn replace the three slow fetch lands, so the land count that sacrifices itself is unchanged and every land it finds comes in ready. Mana Vault and Ancient Tomb put Magik down a turn early beside a Signet or Talisman. Demonic Tutor and Imperial Seal join Vampiric Tutor. Necropotence skips your draw step, which costs this deck less than most, because Magik's card arrives in the upkeep before the step it takes away. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer makes a Treasure each time it connects and lets you cast the card it exiles from an opponent's library, which Prosper pays for like any other card played from exile. Orcish Bowmasters and Torment of Hailfire finish it, the Torment over Exsanguinate because at a bracket 4 table every permanent an opponent sacrifices to it is a Mayhem Devil trigger. Nine Game Changers put the floor at 4, and the rung costs at least $1,096, with Imperial Seal, Ancient Tomb and Mana Vault making up more than half of what it adds to the core list.

Three cards a Treasure deck reaches for that this one leaves out

Dockside Extortionist is the first Treasure card most players think of, and it has been banned in Commander since September 2024.

Ancient Copper Dragon can make twenty Treasures in one hit, and it still misses the list. It is a six-mana creature without haste that has to survive a turn cycle and then connect, the six slot already holds Hela and Bolas's Citadel, and this deck wants a steady trickle of sacrifices rather than one large pile. Goldspan Dragon does the job better here. It attacks the turn it lands, makes a Treasure when it does, and doubles the mana from every Treasure on your side.

Torment of Hailfire is the usual Rakdos finisher and sits in the bracket 4 rung instead. Exsanguinate gets the core slot because it gives the life back, and this list bills its own life from several directions at once: Darkchild's protection, Bolas's Citadel, The Darkhold, Black Market Connections and the fetchlands.

FAQ

Can you cast Darkchild, Demon Uncaged straight from the command zone?

Yes. Magik is a modal double-faced card, and a modal double-faced card can be cast with either face up, so Darkchild can be cast from the command zone for without ever flipping. Commander tax applies to the card whichever face you choose, so every earlier cast from the command zone adds to both. Casting Magik for and flipping her is the cheaper route whenever the deck has two sacrifices ready.

How do you transform Magik into Darkchild?

Sacrifice two or more permanents during one of your own turns. At the beginning of your end step Magik checks whether you have, and if so you may transform her. Anything sacrificed counts, including a Treasure spent for mana, a cracked fetchland, Lotus Petal or a creature fed to Viscera Seer. Sacrifices made on an opponent's turn do not count toward yours.

What does a Magik deck cost to build?

This core list comes to at least $420, with 97 of its 100 cards priced at their cheapest paper printing. The budget rung costs at least $103 and the bracket 4 rung at least $1,096. All three are minimums, because Magik, The Darkhold and Hela have no price before release. Most of the gap between the core list and the budget rung is three Game Changers, Lotus Petal and four fetchlands, and nothing the commander needs in order to flip is lost.

Does Darkchild's indestructible ability protect her from exile?

No. Paying 4 life makes her indestructible until end of turn, which stops destruction and lethal damage and nothing else. Exile such as Swords to Plowshares, a return to hand such as Cyclonic Rift, toughness loss such as Toxic Deluge, and an edict when she is your only creature all still remove her. The ability also taps her, so on your own turn activate it after she has attacked.

Is Magik, Illyana Rasputin a good commander?

On paper she is a strong one, because she adds a card to every one of your turns from the moment she lands and asks nothing extra to keep doing it. The flip turns that card into a guaranteed spell, and in a deck built on Treasure the condition costs close to nothing. The weakness is timing. Everything she exiles has to be played that turn, so a list with an expensive curve or no spare mana throws cards away. This is a first read written before release, and it will be checked against the finished set.

What colours is Magik in Commander?

Black and red. Both faces cost plus generic mana, so her colour identity is Rakdos, and a deck built around her can run any black or red card along with colourless ones.

When can you play Magik in Commander?

She is legal in Commander from 9 April 2027, when Marvel: Darkhold Destiny is released. The Darkhold and Hela, Mistress of Darkness, the other two cards from the set in this list, join her on the same day.