Dungeons of Death precon upgrade guide

The shortest dungeon is three rooms deep and Sefris ventures once a turn, so on his own he needs at least three separate turns to finish one, and usually four. The seven swaps add five creatures that venture the turn they arrive and a cheap way to bring creatures back.

Sefris of the Hidden Ways ventures whenever one or more creature cards are put into your graveyard from anywhere, and the trigger fires once each turn. Completing a dungeon lets him bring one creature card back from the graveyard. Lost Mine of Phandelver is four rooms on every route: Cave Entrance, then Goblin Lair or Mine Tunnels, then Storeroom, Dark Pool or Fungi Cavern, then Temple of Dumathoin. Tomb of Annihilation is three rooms by Trapped Entry, Oubliette and Cradle of the Death God, or four through Veils of Fear and Sandfall Cell. Dungeon of the Mad Mage is seven.

The box has five other cards that venture: Dungeon Map, Immovable Rod, Midnight Pathlighter, Radiant Solar and Thorough Investigation. Only Radiant Solar does it quickly, because its discard ability ventures for {W} from your hand. Dungeon Map costs three to cast and three more to use, Immovable Rod ventures only when it untaps and its own tap ability costs {3}{W}, Midnight Pathlighter needs combat damage, and Thorough Investigation needs a Clue sacrificed. So the shortest realistic route to a finished dungeon is Sefris, a creature card in the graveyard on three or four different turns, and nothing going wrong in between.

The reward side is already built. Doomed Necromancer, Obsessive Stitcher, Karmic Guide, Sun Titan, Unburial Rites, Victimize, Grave Endeavor and Necromantic Selection all put a creature back onto the battlefield, and the box runs 34 creatures to feed them. What it lacks is venture on the front of those creatures. Seven swaps cost $14.02. Five of them venture when they enter, which means every reanimation of one of them is another room.

What are the best Dungeons of Death upgrades?

Each price below is the lowest one on any released printing today (October 2026), promos included. Buy from the top.

1. Acererak the Archlich ($5.49). For {2}{B} he ventures when he enters and returns to your hand, and he keeps doing it every time you cast him until you have completed Tomb of Annihilation specifically. That is a three-mana venture you can repeat each turn, the same price as Dungeon Map's activation without the three mana of setup. Once Tomb is done he stays, and each attack makes a 2/2 Zombie for each opponent unless that opponent sacrifices a creature.
2. Nadaar, Selfless Paladin ($0.36). Ventures when he enters and again every time he attacks, has vigilance, and gives your other creatures +1/+1 once you have completed a dungeon. He costs {2}{W}, so Sun Titan can return him.
3. Barrowin of Clan Undurr ($0.17). Ventures when he enters. After a dungeon is complete, each attack returns a creature card with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. Finishing a dungeon already returns a creature through Sefris, and after that Barrowin returns another on every attack. At mana value 4 he is the one of the five that Sun Titan can't return.
4. Cloister Gargoyle ($0.20) and Eccentric Apprentice ($0.30). Both cost three and venture when they enter. The Gargoyle becomes a flying creature with +3/+0 once you have completed a dungeon, and the Apprentice can turn a creature into a 1/1 flying Bird until end of turn at the start of your combat after that.
5. Animate Dead ($7.25). Two mana returns any creature card from any graveyard, yours or an opponent's, at -1/-0. The cheapest spell in the box that returns a creature to the battlefield costs three.
6. Grave Titan ($0.25). Deathtouch, and two 2/2 Zombies whenever it enters or attacks. Each time Sefris or another card returns it, it makes two more Zombies, and Radiant Solar ventures for it whether it was cast or returned. It asks for {B}{B}, which the mana section below counts.

None of the seven is a Game Changer, which keeps the floor at Bracket 1. The seven cards that make room are further down.

Which dungeon, and what each room costs the table

Venturing from outside a dungeon lets you pick, and Acererak makes the choice matter. He only stops bouncing once Tomb of Annihilation is done, and finishing Lost Mine first doesn't count. Tomb is also the dungeon that feeds Sefris, by either route. The long way through Veils of Fear and Sandfall Cell is paid by every player: each loses 2 life unless they discard a card in Veils of Fear, and again unless they sacrifice a creature, artifact or land in Sandfall Cell. Discarding or sacrificing a creature card puts one in the graveyard. The short way is Oubliette, which makes only you discard a card and sacrifice a creature, an artifact and a land. It saves a room and costs a land and an artifact on top of the card, and the deck has 39 lands and plenty of artifacts to spend.

Cradle of the Death God finishes it with The Atropal, a legendary 4/4 deathtouch God Horror token. Then Sefris returns a creature from the graveyard, and anything that died on the way is a legal target, Nadaar or Grave Titan included.

The graveyard side matters just as much. A token isn't a card, so Sefris ignores it, and a Zombie token dying does nothing. The ruling on the commander also says he must be on the battlefield for the trigger, so he doesn't fire on his own death. What does fire it: a creature dying, a creature discarded to Veils of Fear or to Geier Reach Sanitarium, one milled by Forbidden Alchemy, and one sacrificed to High Market, Plaguecrafter or Victimize.

Blue's double pips, counted again

In the stock deck four blue spells want {U}{U}: Arcane Endeavor, Curator of Mysteries, Minn and Murder of Crows. Minn is the cheapest at three, so the calculator asks for 36 blue sources to have two by turn three at 90% on the play, and the box has 26, which gets there 74.2% of the time. With Minn and Arcane Endeavor out only Curator of Mysteries and Murder of Crows remain, the cheapest costs four, and the same test wants 33 against 25 sources and lands at 77.7%.

White's shortfall gets no better: six spells want {W}{W} by turn five, from Ashen Rider to Sunblast Angel, and the box's 25 sources become 24 once Component Pouch leaves, which moves the odds from 82.4% to 80.3%. Black and blue each lose a source as well, because the count treats Component Pouch as a source of every colour.

Black pays for Grave Titan. Three spells wanted two black pips by turn seven in the box (Ashen Rider, Grave Endeavor and Necromantic Selection) at 89.4%. Grave Titan is a fourth, and as a six-drop it moves the test to turn six, where 24 sources get there 84.5% of the time. I'm taking that trade, because Sefris's dungeon trigger and Karmic Guide can return it without any black mana.

Lands stay at 39, with 19 basics, and the curve gets lighter: five seven-drops become three, and average mana value falls from 3.63 to 3.58. I ran the three Thriving lands against Isolated Chapel, Glacial Fortress and Drowned Catacomb, which cost $0.83 together. The count says each colour would lose a source on top of that, because it treats a Thriving land as able to make every colour, so I couldn't show a gain and left them in.

Seven cards that don't earn the slot

Meteor Golem costs seven to destroy one nonland permanent an opponent controls. Utter End exiles any nonland permanent for four, Hostage Taker takes a creature or artifact for four, and Shriekmaw kills most creatures for five. Reanimated, the Golem is a free removal spell, but the box has plenty of those and no spare slot at seven.

Arcane Endeavor is {5}{U}{U} to roll two d8, draw cards equal to one result and cast a free instant or sorcery with mana value no higher than the other. It is the only blue card at seven mana, it is one of the four asking for {U}{U}, and nothing it does puts a creature card in the graveyard.

Bucknard's Everfull Purse makes up to four Treasures for {1} and then hands the artifact to the player on your right, who can do the same to the next player. Component Pouch can't make mana on the turn it enters, because the first tap rolls a d20 and the mana comes from removing a counter later. Extract Brain lets the opponent pick which X cards I see, so I'm choosing from what they hand over, and from one opponent's hand only.

Rod of Absorption works against this deck. It exiles each instant and sorcery as it resolves, mine included, which takes Unburial Rites and Forbidden Alchemy away from their flashback.

Minn, Wily Illusionist is the dearest card to leave, at $9.41. She makes a 1/1 Illusion when you draw your second card each turn, and Merfolk Looter, Obsessive Stitcher and Wall of Omens would feed her. But the tokens are tokens, so nothing she makes will ever trigger Sefris, and she is one of the four blue cards asking for {U}{U}.

Why the six-drops and the tapped lands stay

Sun Titan costs six, which looks like a cut until you count what it fetches. It returns a permanent card with mana value 3 or less when it enters and again each time it attacks, and Nadaar, Acererak, Cloister Gargoyle and Eccentric Apprentice are all three. Every attack is a trip back for one of them, plus a venture when it enters.

Unburial Rites costs five, and its flashback costs {3}{W}, so it is two reanimations from one card. Grave Endeavor costs seven at instant speed, brings back a creature with counters, and drains for the other die. Nihiloor taps one of my creatures to take an opposing creature with no more power, and it drains two each time I attack with a creature an opponent owns, so the creature it steals pays for it.

Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker stays, with a caveat. He makes a room's ability trigger twice but doesn't move you to the next room, so the Temple of Dumathoin draws two cards. In Tomb of Annihilation he wastes half the payoff: Cradle of the Death God makes two legendary Atropals and the legend rule removes one. Wand of Orcus is the dearest priced card in the box at $13.41 and costs {3} to equip. It stays because the Zombies from Grave Titan and Acererak gain deathtouch from it.

Seven of the 39 lands always enter tapped: Arcane Sanctum, the three Thriving lands and the Azorius Chancery, Dimir Aqueduct and Orzhov Basilica. The bouncelands return a land when they enter and tap for two, so they pay the tempo back.

The venture cards I'd rather be recommending

Entomb ($16.93) puts any card from your library into the graveyard for {B} at instant speed. With Sefris out that is a creature card, a venture and a reanimation target at once. It would cost more than all seven of the swaps put together, so it goes first on any second order. Reanimate ($6.90) is {B} and returns a creature from any graveyard, but costs life equal to its mana value, so Ashen Rider would cost 8 life. Animate Dead does the same job at two mana without the life.

Displacer Beast ($0.22) ventures when it enters and can return to hand for {3}{U} to do it again, which is four mana against Acererak's three. Fates' Reversal ($0.33) returns a creature card to your hand and ventures, but the card goes to your hand and not the graveyard, so it can't fire Sefris. Neither is a Game Changer.

The upgraded decklist

All 100 cards after the swaps. Hover a name to see the card.

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“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena, with no account needed.

FAQ

Does Sefris trigger when a Zombie token dies?

No. His first ability looks for creature cards, and a token never becomes a card in the graveyard. The same goes for the Goblin that Goblin Lair makes and for the Atropal. It also doesn't trigger when Sefris himself dies, because he has to be on the battlefield when the card hits the graveyard.

Which dungeon should Sefris and Acererak venture into?

Tomb of Annihilation, if Acererak is in the deck, since he keeps returning to your hand until that specific dungeon is complete. It is three rooms through Oubliette, which costs you a card, a creature, an artifact and a land, or four through Veils of Fear and Sandfall Cell, which every player pays. If you start in Lost Mine you can't switch, and finishing it won't stop Acererak from bouncing.

How many rooms does a dungeon take?

Four on every route through Lost Mine of Phandelver, three or four through Tomb of Annihilation, and seven through Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Sefris adds one a turn at most, so the ventures from Nadaar, Barrowin, the Gargoyle, the Apprentice and Acererak are what speed it up.

What do the seven swaps cost?

$14.02 at the cheapest released printing, as of October 2026. Animate Dead is $7.25 and Acererak $5.49, which leaves $1.28 for the other five. None of them is a Game Changer, and the bracket floor holds at 1.

Does Hama Pashar help or hurt in this deck?

It helps in Lost Mine, where Temple of Dumathoin draws two and Mine Tunnels makes two Treasures. It hurts in Tomb of Annihilation, where Cradle of the Death God makes two legendary Atropals and the legend rule removes one. Hama doesn't move you through rooms any faster.

Is Animate Dead worth $7.25 here?

It's the most expensive of the seven by a margin, and what it buys is speed. The cheapest reanimation spell in the box costs three, and Animate Dead costs two and can take a creature from an opponent's graveyard. The cost is that removing the Aura sacrifices the creature.