Planar Portal precon upgrade guide

Prosper pays a Treasure each time I play a card from exile, and the box already has 25 cards that put one there. What it lacks is anything that spends that Treasure well, so the swaps add the cards that make it, grow off it or turn it into more cards, then fix the mana under them.

Prosper, Tome-Bound is a 1/4 with deathtouch. At the beginning of my end step she exiles the top card of my library, and I may play it until the end of my next turn. Her second ability is the one that matters: whenever I play a card from exile, any card and not only the one she exiled, I create a Treasure. Casting counts as playing, so cascade, suspend and every “cast it without paying” effect pays out too. Counting the cards whose own text exiles something for me to play or cast, the box has 25 besides her, from Gonti, Lord of Luxury and Etali, Primal Storm to Light Up the Stage, Throes of Chaos, a rebounding Consuming Vapors and a suspended Phthisis.

The engine is built and the spending side isn’t. Four other cards make Treasure (Shiny Impetus, Grim Hireling, Reckless Endeavor and Bucknard's Everfull Purse), and I count three that turn a spare one into something other than mana: Grim Hireling, Marionette Master and Bag of Devouring. Most of what Prosper hands over is ramp for a deck whose average mana value is already 3.62.

The mana is the second finding. Both colours sit below the 36 sources the calculator wants for double pips on turn three, four of the 39 lands always enter tapped, and two of them tap for colourless only. The box reads 29 black sources and 27 red, but one in each is Apex of Power, which adds ten mana of one colour when it resolves. Without it the lands and rocks give 28 and 26.

Eleven swaps cost $37.16 at the cheapest released printing. Four of the eight spells coming in make Treasure (Storm-Kiln Artist, Goldspan Dragon, Professional Face-Breaker and Bonehoard Dracosaur), three more are card flow (Outpost Siege, Reckless Impulse and Night's Whisper), and one is a sweeper that can cost a single red mana. The other three swaps are lands. None of the eleven is a Game Changer, and the floor holds at Bracket 1.

What are the best Planar Portal upgrades?

Read down until the money runs out, because the order is the order I’d buy in. Every price is the cheapest printing out in October 2026, promos counted.

1. Outpost Siege ($0.24). Choose Khans and I exile the top card of my library at each upkeep and may play it that turn. That is a Treasure from Prosper on every turn the card is playable, for four mana. It is an enchantment, so neither sweeper in the list touches it.
2. Bonehoard Dracosaur ($14.99). A 5/5 with flying and first strike that exiles my top two cards at each upkeep for me to play. An exiled land makes a 3/1 Dinosaur and an exiled nonland makes a Treasure, and playing the cards pays Prosper's Treasure on top. It is the most expensive add and it asks for RR.
3. Professional Face-Breaker ($5.00). Any of my creatures dealing combat damage to a player makes a Treasure, and sacrificing a Treasure exiles my top card for me to play that turn. The sacrifice gives no mana, so it works as a way to turn a Treasure into a card, and if I play that card Prosper pays the Treasure back.
4. Goldspan Dragon ($11.21). A 4/4 flying haste Dragon that makes a Treasure when it attacks or is targeted by a spell, and every Treasure I control taps for two mana of one colour. With Prosper and seven other cards making Treasure, each Treasure in the list is worth two mana. The cheapest printing is a promo.
5. Storm-Kiln Artist ($1.75). Every instant or sorcery I cast or copy makes a Treasure, and it gets +1/+0 for each artifact I control. The upgraded list has 9 instants and 13 sorceries, and 10 other artifacts besides the Treasure it makes.
6. Reckless Impulse ($0.87) and Night's Whisper ($0.24). Two mana each. Impulse exiles two cards I may play until the end of my next turn, which can be two Treasures from Prosper. Whisper draws two cards for 2 life with no condition attached.
7. Blasphemous Act ($0.75). 13 damage to each creature, and it costs {1} less per creature in play, down to {R}. It replaces Hex as the second sweeper, and it kills Prosper too.
8. Sulfurous Springs ($0.46), Dragonskull Summit ($0.46) and Haunted Ridge ($1.19). Three black-red lands that mostly enter untapped, replacing three that don't make both colours.

The eight spells and three lands that come out are further down.

Two colours short, four lands tapped, two colourless

The box runs 39 lands with 27 basics, 14 Swamps and 13 Mountains. Four always enter tapped: Spinerock Knoll, Bojuka Bog, Mortuary Mire and Rakdos Carnarium. Two tap for colourless only: Zhalfirin Void and Underdark Rift.

Three come out: Bojuka Bog and Mortuary Mire both enter tapped and make only black, and Zhalfirin Void is colourless with a scry 1. Underdark Rift stays, because it is the only land that doubles as removal, and Spinerock Knoll stays because its hideaway card is one more play from exile, once an opponent has been dealt 7 damage in a turn. Rakdos Carnarium stays too. It enters tapped and bounces a land, but it taps for both colours.

Black sources go from 28 to 29 and red from 26 to 29. At 90% on the play, two pips by turn three needs 36 sources, which this deck can't reach, so the figures that matter are the odds. Black moves from 78.5% to 80.4% and red from 74.2% to 80.4%. One pip by turn two moves from 93.8% to 94.5% in black and 92.1% to 94.5% in red. Nine red spells want RR against eight in the box, because Bonehoard Dracosaur and Goldspan Dragon are both RR cards and Apex of Power is gone. Eight black spells want BB, against ten in the box.

Always-tapped lands drop from four to two and conditional ones rise from two to four. Haunted Ridge needs two other lands, Dragonskull Summit a Swamp or Mountain (any land with the type, including Smoldering Marsh) and Foreboding Ruins asks for a revealed Swamp or Mountain from hand. Sulfurous Springs never enters tapped and deals 1 damage to me when it makes a colour, and nothing when it makes colourless.

I left the count at 39. The usual range is 35 to 38, so 39 is high, and with eight rocks it is higher still. But the colour shortfall is the real gap, and cutting a basic gives up a source in a colour already below the line. The lever here is which lands, not how many.

Where the Treasure goes

A cut list built on mana value would take Marionette Master out first, since it is a six-mana 1/3. It stays, because of what a Treasure does when it leaves. Fabricate 3 taken as counters makes it a 4/6, and whenever an artifact I control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, target opponent loses life equal to its power. The rulings confirm that a sacrificed token goes to the graveyard before it ceases to exist, so every Treasure I spend for mana drains 4. In the box, with four other Treasure makers, that is a bonus. With the seven in the upgraded list it is a plan.

Face-Breaker and Marionette Master together make the loop plainest. Sacrificing a Treasure to Face-Breaker costs one Treasure and drains 4. The exiled card is playable that turn, and if I play it Prosper makes the Treasure again. If it is a land and my land drop is spent, the Treasure is simply gone, so the loop is a good one rather than a free one.

Goldspan Dragon is the other half. With it out, each Treasure Prosper makes is two mana toward the next spell. The deck was never short of raw mana, with 14 Swamps, 13 Mountains and ten mana rocks in the box. It was short of ways for mana to become cards, and the three cheap card-flow adds are there for that.

Storm-Kiln Artist is why Night's Whisper and Reckless Impulse are the card-flow picks. Both are sorceries costing two, so each makes a Treasure when cast before it does anything else. The box has 21 instants and sorceries and the upgraded list has 22, so 22 of the 60 nonland cards trigger it.

Eight spells and three lands make room

Apex of Power costs ten with RRR, the only card in the list with three red pips. It exiles seven cards and adds ten mana of one colour if cast from hand, which has to be spent on those cards the same turn, and any land beyond my one drop stays in exile. With 39 lands in 99 cards, about 2.8 of the seven are lands. Etali, Primal Storm and Dream Pillager are the same shape for six and seven mana. Keep it if games at your table run long enough to reach ten.

Hex destroys six target creatures, and the rulings say I can't cast it without six different creatures to target. Any of mine among the six die with them. Blasphemous Act needs no target count and gets cheaper as the board fills, though it can't spare my creatures either, which Hex can when six others are out. That is a narrow case.

Pontiff of Blight is a 2/7 for six with extort. Whenever I cast a spell I may pay {W/B} to drain each opponent for 1, which black pays, and its other creatures have extort too. Each drain costs an extra mana and takes 1 life from each opponent per extort instance, and six mana is a slot Marionette Master and Etali fill better.

Fiendlash is an equipment giving +2/+0 and reach, and when the creature takes damage it hits a player or planeswalker for its power. Nothing else here wants its creature to take damage, and re-equipping costs {2}{R}. Share the Spoils exiles the top card of every player's library, and on their own turn each of them may play one land or one spell from those cards. I get an extra play each turn, and in a four-player pod so do three opponents. Bucknard's Everfull Purse makes between one and four Treasures for {1}, then hands the artifact to the player on my right.

Orazca Relic and Ebony Fly are the ninth and tenth mana rocks, and both make only colourless, in a deck that wants coloured mana more than extra mana. The Relic's city's blessing needs ten permanents, which Treasures might reach. The Fly enters tapped. Eight rocks are enough, and I'd rather use the slot for something that exiles cards.

Cards that stay, and two I priced and passed on

Ten cards cost six or more in the box. Eight do after the swaps, and one of those is the new Blasphemous Act, which seldom costs anything like nine.

Fevered Suspicion costs eight. Each opponent exiles cards from their library until a nonland card, and I may cast any of them free, then rebound repeats it next upkeep. With three opponents that is up to three free spells now and three more, each a Treasure. Phthisis reads seven and costs {1}{B} to suspend. Cast from exile on its fifth upkeep, it destroys a creature, costs its controller life equal to power plus toughness, and pays Prosper.

Etali, Primal Storm exiles the top card of every player's library when it attacks and lets me cast any number of the spells among them free, so up to four a swing in a four-player pod. Reckless Endeavor rolls two d12 and deals one result to each creature, and the other result is the number of Treasures. Taking the lower die as damage keeps Prosper alive when it is 3 or less, which is true about 44% of the time. Lorcan, Warlock Collector is a 6/6 flier that lets me pay life equal to a creature card's mana value to put it onto the battlefield under my control when it enters an opponent's graveyard. Dream Pillager is a 4/4 flier that exiles cards off the top equal to the damage it deals, and I may cast them that turn.

Below those, Shiny Impetus stays as a Treasure engine that goads, because it makes a Treasure each time the enchanted creature attacks. It is an Aura, so removing the creature costs me the card. Danse Macabre and Ogre Slumlord stay as the sacrifice package, with the Rats from Piper of the Swarm and Chittering Witch.

Jeska's Will ($40.20) exiles the top three cards for me to play, and with a commander on the battlefield I may choose both modes, adding red mana for each card in an opponent's hand. It is the best fit for Prosper I found and it is a Game Changer. One copy would lift the floor to 3, and at $40.20 it costs more than the eleven swaps combined.

Blood Crypt ($9.43) is the other dual I want and its cheapest printing is a promo. Blood Crypt is reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, and I'd wait to see that price. Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway ($5.43) enters untapped but is one colour once played, so it counts as one source of one colour.

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

Which plays from exile give Prosper's Treasure?

All of them, including cards Prosper didn't exile. Casting from exile counts as playing, so the cascade on Throes of Chaos and Bituminous Blast pays, and so does the cascade Wild-Magic Sorcerer gives the first spell I cast from exile each turn. Phthisis pays when it comes off suspend, Etali, Primal Storm pays for each spell it lets me cast, and Gonti's stolen card pays when I cast it. A land played from exile counts too. Flashback or retrace from the graveyard doesn't, because that card isn't in exile when it is cast.

Is Marionette Master worth it with this much Treasure?

Yes, and I'd take the counters from fabricate, which makes it a 4/6. Each time an artifact I control goes to the graveyard from the battlefield an opponent loses life equal to its power, and a sacrificed Treasure does that, so every Treasure I spend for mana drains 4. Three Servos would put 1 power on the board each and drain 1 per artifact, which is a worse trade.

What does Reckless Endeavor do to Prosper?

She has toughness 4, so she survives if the damage I choose is 3 or less. I roll two d12, pick one result as damage to each creature and take the other as Treasures, so the lower die is 3 or less about 44% of the time. When both dice show 4 or more she dies whichever I choose, so the Treasures from the other die are the consolation.

What do the eleven swaps cost?

$37.16 at the cheapest released printing, as of October 2026. The three lands come to $2.11 (Sulfurous Springs $0.46, Dragonskull Summit $0.46, Haunted Ridge $1.19). The eight spells come to $35.05, and Bonehoard Dracosaur is $14.99 of that, with Goldspan Dragon $11.21 and Professional Face-Breaker $5.00 behind it. The cheapest printing can be a promo, so the copy you buy may differ from the one priced.

Is Jeska's Will worth the jump to Bracket 3?

It is the best fit for Prosper I found, and I'd still leave it for later. It is a Game Changer, so a single copy moves the floor from 1 to 3, since Bracket 2 allows none. The eleven swaps on this page include none, so the floor stays at 1, and Jeska's Will costs $40.20 against $37.16 for all eleven.

Why does this list keep 39 lands?

The land count is high for Commander at 39, and eight rocks and a Treasure engine sit on top of it. I left it alone because the gap is colour. Black and red are both under the calculator's line for double pips, and cutting a basic costs a source in a colour already short. A land played from exile still makes a Treasure, so a land Prosper exiles isn't a dead card. If you want to trim, take a Swamp or Mountain for the next card on your list.