Mind Seize precon upgrade guide

Jeleva exiles four cards off every library the turn she lands, and the box she comes in gives her twenty red sources, eleven lands that enter tapped and seven cards that cost seven or eight mana.

Commander 2013’s Grixis deck is a spells deck with a very particular commander. When Jeleva enters, each player exiles the top X cards of their library, where X is the mana spent to cast her. When she attacks, you may cast an instant or sorcery from among those exiled cards without paying for it.

The first thing that decides how good the deck is has nothing to do with the spells. It’s whether she arrives on time with all three colours behind her. Red is the weak one: 20 sources in the stock list, which gives a single red pip by turn two an 84.8% chance. Hitting 90% would take 24. Most of this guide is about fixing that, and about trimming a top end that spends its mana on cards that don’t need Jeleva at all.

What are the best Mind Seize upgrades?

Make them in this order:

1. Five lands in, six out: Dragonskull Summit, Drowned Catacomb, Sulfur Falls, Blood Crypt and Steam Vents replace three Guildgates, Bojuka Bog and the two lands that only make colourless mana. Red goes from 20 sources to 25.
2. Arcane Signet, Talisman of Indulgence and Talisman of Creativity: three two-mana rocks that all make red, in a deck whose only mana rocks are Sol Ring and a three-mana Obelisk of Grixis.
3. Cutting the top end: Army of the Damned, Phthisis, Price of Knowledge, Baleful Force and Thraximundar all cost more than the commander does. Cutting is free, and it does most of the work of taking the average mana value from 3.81 to 3.33.
4. Terminate, Go for the Throat and Sheoldred's Edict: three cheap answers, picked to cover the creatures the box’s own removal can’t touch.
5. Young Pyromancer and Murmuring Mystic: two more cards that pay out every time a spell is cast, including the free ones.
6. Cutting Curse of Inertia and Curse of Shallow Graves: two enchantments that pay out to whoever attacks, in a deck that wins through its spells.

Thirteen cards leave and thirteen arrive. The cuts are argued below, after the mana.

Jeleva’s exile count does not grow with your mana

This is the part I’d want to know before buying anything. X is the amount of mana spent, and a creature spell can’t take extra mana unless something instructs it to. So casting her with ten mana available still exiles four cards. As far as her exile goes, ramp only gets her down sooner.

The count rises through the command zone instead. The commander tax is an additional cost, and it counts as mana spent: four cards on the first cast, six on the second, eight on the third. A cost reducer works the other way. Nightscape Familiar makes blue and red spells cost {1} less, Jeleva is both, and the mana you actually pay is what counts, so with the Familiar out she exiles three.

Any given card in your library has a 4 in 99 chance, about 4%, of being among the first four exiled. So I’m not keeping a card in the deck on the chance that Jeleva hands it to you for free. The exile also takes four cards from each opponent’s library, and their instants and sorceries are fair game. That’s upside, and no cut or add below depends on it.

Seven of the box’s 23 spells do nothing when she casts them

Casting without paying the mana cost means choosing 0 for X. Starstorm deals 0 damage, Molten Disaster deals 0 (kicker is allowed, but 0 is still 0), and Prosperity and Skyscribing draw no cards.

Illusionist's Gambit can only be cast during the declare blockers step on an opponent’s turn, and a timing rule like that survives being cast for free, so on your own attack it’s dead. Dismiss and Wild Ricochet need a spell on the stack, and when the trigger resolves there isn’t one.

I’m not cutting any of them. All seven work normally when you cast them yourself, and the count is a reason not to lean on the trigger, which is why nothing in this list does. Soul Manipulation is half in: its second mode, returning a creature from your graveyard, works without a target spell.

Eleven tapped lands and a red problem

The box has 40 lands, 22 of them basic. Eleven enter tapped no matter what: Akoum Refuge, Bojuka Bog, Crumbling Necropolis, Dimir Guildgate, Izzet Boilerworks, Izzet Guildgate, Rakdos Carnarium, Rakdos Guildgate, Rupture Spire, Vivid Creek and Vivid Marsh.

Four of those go. The three Guildgates do nothing a better dual doesn’t, and Bojuka Bog’s graveyard exile is a situational extra that doesn’t pay for a tapped land in a deck short of colour. The rest stay because each fixes two or three colours or makes a second mana.

Two more lands leave without being tapped lands at all. Temple of the False God taps for two colourless only if you control five or more lands, and Urza's Factory taps for one. A deck with seven to nine spells wanting double pips in each colour can’t spend two slots on lands that make none.

Their replacements:

• Dragonskull Summit, Drowned Catacomb and Sulfur Falls enter untapped if you control a land of either type, which 22 basics make the usual case. $1.15 together.
• Blood Crypt ($8.55) and Steam Vents ($9.57) enter untapped if you pay 2 life. I picked the two that make red, since red is the short colour.

By the same count the tool uses for the rest of this page, which includes the two lands that fetch basics, the swaps move the sources like this:

• Red: 20 to 25
• Black: 23 to 25
• Blue: 21 to 24

The chance of RR by turn three goes from 58% to 71.8%. Eight spells ask for it, from Wild Ricochet to Terra Ravager to Incendiary Command. Always-tapped lands drop from 11 to 7, and the land count from 40 to 39, which the rocks make up for.

I’m not adding Watery Grave. It would be a third shock at $9.90 for blue and black, which already have 24 and 25 sources. Blood Crypt, Steam Vents and Watery Grave are all in the Star Trek set that releases on 13 November 2026, which could pull their prices down. Waiting costs little, since the three checklands carry the mana until then.

Five cards that cost more than Jeleva does

The stock list has seven cards at mana value 7 or 8. After the swaps it has two: Cruel Ultimatum and Decree of Pain, which stay because each swings a game on its own.

Army of the Damned makes thirteen Zombies for eight mana, tapped. Phthisis asks for BBBB in a three-colour deck with 23 black sources, or five turns of waiting if you suspend it. Price of Knowledge is a seven-mana enchantment that pings a player for the cards in their hand, in a deck where Nekusar, the Mindrazer and Spiteful Visions already turn extra draws into damage for five and four mana. Baleful Force draws you a card at every player’s upkeep for eight mana and costs you 1 life each time. Thraximundar makes the defending player sacrifice a creature each attack, a fine ability on a 6/6 with haste that costs seven.

That’s the honest cost: these are good cards, and if Jeleva exiles one you’d love to cast it. At 4 in 99 that’s a bonus I won’t build the deck around.

The curses are a smaller call. Curse of Inertia and Curse of Shallow Graves pay out to whoever attacks the enchanted player, you or anyone else, and this deck wins through Jeleva’s trigger and its spells. Three of its creatures are defenders (Fog Bank, Guard Gomazoa, Mnemonic Wall). Curse of Chaos stays because a rummage is the mildest thing to hand an attacker.

Three removal spells that cover each other’s gaps

The box’s single-target answers are Annihilate, Crosis's Charm and Grixis Charm with its -4/-4, Phthisis at seven mana, and the edict inside Cruel Ultimatum. Both Annihilate and Crosis's Charm say nonblack, so a Vampire Nighthawk across the table walks past two of the five.

Terminate destroys any creature for {B}{R}, and it can’t regenerate. Go for the Throat does the same for {1}{B} except for artifact creatures. Sheoldred's Edict is the one that matters against hexproof, since nothing is targeted. It also makes every opponent sacrifice a nontoken creature at once. Together they cost $1.75.

Free spells still count as casts

An instant or sorcery cast through Jeleva is cast. Guttersnipe deals 2 to each opponent for it, Charmbreaker Devils gets +4/+0, and Mirari lets you pay {3} to copy it. That’s why Mirari and Charmbreaker Devils stay despite costing five and six, and why Young Pyromancer ($0.25) and Murmuring Mystic ($0.33) come in. A Pyromancer on the table means a free spell off an attack also makes a 1/1 Elemental. Murmuring Mystic does it with a 1/1 flying Bird.

Arcane Melee stays for the spells you cast from hand. It takes two off the generic part of an instant or sorcery, so it does nothing for the free ones, and nothing for Terminate, which has no generic mana to remove.

Swiftfoot Boots looked like a cut on paper, an equipment for one creature. Here the creature is Jeleva. Haste means she attacks the turn she lands, and her attack is the trigger. Without them she has to survive a full turn cycle first. With the Boots already in play and five mana, cast her, pay {1} to equip, and the free spell happens on the same turn.

Five mana rocks

The stock deck has two artifacts that make mana, Sol Ring and Obelisk of Grixis, and two that fetch basics, Armillary Sphere and Wayfarer's Bauble. Arcane Signet ($0.40) makes any of Jeleva’s colours. Talisman of Indulgence ($0.47) makes black or red and Talisman of Creativity ($0.45) blue or red, each dealing 1 damage to you when tapped for colour. I left out Talisman of Dominance, the blue-black one, because red is the colour the deck is short of.

A rock on turn two puts Jeleva on turn three, which is when the first exile happens. It still exiles four.

Two cards I skipped

Rhystic Study and Cyclonic Rift are the two blue cards I’d most want here, and both are Game Changers. The deck has none now and sets no bracket floor. Adding either would move it, so they stay out of the list. At a table that plays Bracket 3 or higher they’re the first two I’d look at.

Where the deck lands

39 lands, 22 of them basic, 7 that always enter tapped, and an average mana value of 3.33 against 3.81 in the box. 22 creatures including Jeleva, and 24 instants and sorceries against 23 in the box, because three removal spells replaced two big sorceries. As of 10 October 2026 the 13 adds together cost $22.92 at the cheapest released printing of each, and $18.12 of that is the two shocklands. The other eleven cost $4.80.

The upgraded decklist

Hover any card name to see the card. Prices on this page are the cheapest released printing of each, which can be a promo.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist Playtest the upgraded deck

“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

Can Jeleva cast spells exiled from my opponents’ libraries?

Yes. Each player exiles the top X cards of their library, and her attack trigger lets you cast an instant or sorcery from among all the cards exiled with her, including the ones that came off your opponents’ decks. Each one is free, X spells are cast with X as 0, and a timing rule written on the card, such as cast only during an opponent’s turn, still applies.

Which spells in the Mind Seize box are wasted if Jeleva exiles them?

Seven of the 23 instants and sorceries. Starstorm, Molten Disaster, Prosperity and Skyscribing have X in their cost and X has to be 0. Illusionist's Gambit can only be cast on an opponent’s turn. Dismiss and Wild Ricochet need a spell to target. Soul Manipulation still works for its second mode, returning a creature from your graveyard.

How many cards does Jeleva exile, and does more mana change that?

Four on the first cast, if nothing reduces her cost. X is the mana actually spent, and a creature spell can’t take extra mana unless something tells it to, so ramp doesn’t raise the number. The commander tax counts as mana spent, which makes the second cast from the command zone exile six cards per library and the third eight. Nightscape Familiar works the other way, since it takes {1} off a blue or red spell and Jeleva is both, so with it out she exiles three.

How much does the Mind Seize upgrade cost?

On 10 October 2026 the 13 additions cost $22.92 at the cheapest released printing of each. Blood Crypt ($8.55) and Steam Vents ($9.57) make up $18.12 of that, and the other eleven cards cost $4.80 together. None of these cards is a Game Changer.

Should I wait for the Star Trek reprints before buying the shocklands?

You can. Blood Crypt, Steam Vents and Watery Grave are all in the Star Trek set that releases on 13 November 2026, which could pull today’s prices down. The three checklands in the list (Dragonskull Summit, Drowned Catacomb and Sulfur Falls) cost $1.15 together and enter untapped whenever you control a land of either type, which this deck’s 22 basics make the usual case.

Is Swiftfoot Boots worth a slot in a Jeleva deck?

Here it is, even though it looks like a cut. Jeleva’s free spell comes from attacking, and haste lets her attack the turn she is cast. With the Boots already in play and five mana, you can cast her, equip for {1} and get the spell the same turn. The hexproof also protects her from the targeted removal that would otherwise cost you her next trigger.