Devour for Power precon upgrade guide

Green has 16 sources in this box against 21 black and 18 blue, and The Mimeoplasm can't be cast without all three.

The Mimeoplasm costs {2}{B}{G}{U}, so a turn-five copy needs all three colours at once. The box has 40 lands and six ramp cards (Sol Ring, Solemn Simulacrum, Cultivate and three Signets), and eight of the lands enter tapped. Black has 21 sources, blue 18 and green 16. Eternal Witness, Lhurgoyf, Troll Ascetic and Yavimaya Elder all want GG, and the chance of having it by turn three is 44.6%.

The commander does nothing without creature cards in graveyards. It exiles two as it enters, copies one, and gets counters equal to the power of the other. Mortivore and Lhurgoyf count creature cards in every graveyard, Avatar of Woe costs 6 less at ten, and Living Death turns everyone's pile into a board. Filling the graveyard is the easy half, with Buried Alive, Shared Trauma and Dreamborn Muse all in the box. Getting a creature back out early is the thin half: Rise from the Grave and Living Death cost five, Stitch Together costs two but only reaches the battlefield with seven cards in your graveyard, and Nighteyes the Desecrator, the flipped side of Nezumi Graverobber, reanimates for {4}{B} once it flips. This guide fixes the mana first and the reanimation second.

What are the best Devour for Power upgrades?

In this order:

1. Overgrown Tomb, Breeding Pool and Watery Grave replace Jwar Isle Refuge, Lonely Sandbar and Tranquil Thicket. Always-tapped lands go from eight to five, and the colour counts move as below. $26.77 for the three.
2. Arcane Signet, Talisman of Resilience, Talisman of Curiosity and Sakura-Tribe Elder: ramp goes from six cards to ten for $1.51 in total, and the Signet and Talismans make the colours the box is short of.
3. Reanimate and Animate Dead put a creature onto the battlefield for one and two mana. $13.32 for both.
4. Night's Whisper and Phyrexian Arena, two draw cards for $2.76.
5. Eight spells and three lands leave, argued below.

Eleven cards leave and eleven arrive, $44.36 in all. Prices are the lowest I found among released printings, promos included, as of October 2026. The three shocklands are reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, so expect them to be cheaper soon.

Fixing the colours the box is short of

Overgrown Tomb makes black or green, Breeding Pool green or blue and Watery Grave blue or black. Each costs 2 life to come in untapped and comes in tapped otherwise. All three have two basic land types but aren't basic, so Cultivate and Sakura-Tribe Elder can't fetch them. The three lands they replace each enter tapped. Jwar Isle Refuge made blue or black and gained 1 life, Lonely Sandbar made only blue and Tranquil Thicket only green, and the last two could be cycled for their own colour. I'm giving up that cycling.

Arcane Signet taps for any colour in the commander's identity, which is all three. Talisman of Resilience makes black or green and Talisman of Curiosity green or blue, each for 1 damage, or one colourless for free. Sakura-Tribe Elder is a creature, so when you sacrifice it for a basic land it also puts a creature card in your graveyard for The Mimeoplasm. The source counts below treat the Signets and Talismans as sources.

• Black: 21 sources to 24. One pip by turn two goes from 86.3% to 90.1%, two pips by turn three from 61% to 69.4%.
• Green: 16 to 20. One pip by turn two goes from 77% to 84.8%, two pips by turn three from 44.6% to 58%.
• Blue: 18 to 20. One pip by turn two goes from 81.2% to 84.8%, two pips by turn three from 51.5% to 58%.

None of the three reaches 90% for two pips, which would take 36 sources each, so I'm not chasing it. The commander itself needs one of each. The double pips sit mostly in black: thirteen cards want BB, against six for GG and six for UU (counting Desecrator Hag, whose hybrid cost counts on both the black and green side).

Three bounce lands stay, Dimir Aqueduct, Golgari Rot Farm and Simic Growth Chamber, with Rupture Spire and Barren Moor. That is the five tapped lands the list still has. Each bounce land returns a land to your hand and taps for two mana, and Rupture Spire enters tapped, asks for {1} on entering and then makes any colour, which is the fixing this deck was short of.

Reanimation at one and two mana

Reanimate costs {B} and returns a creature card from any graveyard. It costs life equal to that card's mana value, so it is cheap on a Gravedigger and a heavy bill on Avatar of Woe. Animate Dead costs {1}{B}, takes from any graveyard as well, gives the creature -1/-0, and the creature is sacrificed if the Aura leaves. Both replace Rise from the Grave, which asks five mana for the same job and adds the Zombie type.

Reanimate and Animate Dead take the places of Rise from the Grave and Artisan of Kozilek's cast trigger, so the list keeps five ways back, with two of them now at one and two mana instead of five and nine. Living Death, Stitch Together and Nighteyes stay. Competition for targets is the thing to watch. The Mimeoplasm exiles two creature cards, and every reanimation spell takes one more, so Buried Alive's three creature cards are worth having in the yard before any of them fires.

Life is where the upgrade charges you. Three shocklands, two Talismans, Night's Whisper, Phyrexian Arena and Reanimate all take it, on top of Sign in Blood in the box. Phyrexian Arena asks for BB, and black already has the most double-pip demand, but it then draws every upkeep.

Eight spells and three lands leave

Vow of Wildness, Vow of Flight and Vow of Malice are three-mana Auras that give +3/+3 and trample, +2/+2 and flying, and +2/+2 and intimidate. All three say the creature can't attack you or your planeswalkers. That is a politics card in a graveyard deck, and an Aura on a creature that gets answered is two cards gone.

Relic Crush is a five-mana instant that destroys an artifact or enchantment and up to one other. It does nothing against a table without them. Acidic Slime and Tribute to the Wild stay for those jobs. Syphon Flesh makes each other player sacrifice a creature of their choice and gives you a 2/2 Zombie for each, but it costs five, and Fleshbag Marauder and Grave Pact are the edicts that stay. Rise from the Grave is covered above.

Artisan of Kozilek is the only nine-drop. Its cast trigger returns a creature card from your graveyard, which Reanimate does for {B}. Patron of the Nezumi costs seven and makes an opponent lose 1 life when a permanent goes to their graveyard. Its Rat offering needs a Rat, and Nezumi Graverobber is the only one in the list.

Average mana value goes from 4.05 to 3.64. Cards at two mana go from nine to fifteen and cards at five from seven to four.

Why Damia, Acidic Slime and Lightning Greaves stay

Damia, Sage of Stone costs seven, has deathtouch and skips your draw step, but at upkeep she draws you back up to seven cards, which suits a deck that spends its hand early on rocks and reanimation. Acidic Slime costs five and has deathtouch, and it lets you choose which land, artifact or enchantment goes, which Tribute to the Wild does not. Lightning Greaves gives haste and shroud for an equip cost of {0}, so a freshly landed Mimeoplasm can attack at once and can't be targeted.

Skipped, and why

Rhystic Study ($67.12) is a Game Changer, so it would end the deck's chance of being a Bracket 2 list as well as costing more than everything else here. Sylvan Library ($26.60) is not a Game Changer, but it costs nearly ten times what Night's Whisper and Phyrexian Arena do together ($2.76). Zagoth Triome ($20.62) makes all three colours and enters tapped, so it's the one I'd add if you own it, in place of Barren Moor. Entomb ($16.67) puts any card into your graveyard for {B} and would set up Reanimate, but the box already has Buried Alive. Three Visits ($5.35) fetches a Forest card, which finds Overgrown Tomb or Breeding Pool but not Watery Grave, though Sakura-Tribe Elder fetches only a basic and costs 31 cents. The difference is that Three Visits can find those two shocklands.

The upgraded decklist

Hover a name to see the card. This is the box with the 11 swaps made, 100 cards.

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

Which creatures make the best Mimeoplasm copies in this deck?

The ones with an enters trigger, because The Mimeoplasm is treated as the creature card entering, so those abilities work. In the box that means Dark Hatchling (destroys target nonblack creature), Mulldrifter (draws two), Eternal Witness and Gravedigger (a card back from your graveyard) and Acidic Slime (destroys an artifact, enchantment or land). You choose which of the two exiled cards to copy, and the other one's power sets the +1/+1 counters, so the larger creature is usually the one to exile for counters.

How much life does this upgrade cost?

More than the box did, and it's the real price of the swaps. Reanimate costs life equal to the mana value of the creature it returns, so Szadek or Damia costs 7 and Avatar of Woe costs 8, while a four-drop like Gravedigger costs 4. Each shockland costs 2 life to enter untapped, each coloured tap of a Talisman deals 1 damage to you, Night's Whisper costs 2 and Phyrexian Arena costs 1 every upkeep. The box already had Sign in Blood at 2. If you're short on life, send Reanimate after cheaper creatures and let Animate Dead take the big one, since it costs none.

Does adding Rhystic Study change this deck's bracket?

Yes. Rhystic Study is a Game Changer, and a single Game Changer rules out Bracket 2. The box has none and neither does the upgraded list, which is why this guide leaves it out, along with its $67.12 cheapest printing. Its trigger offers you a card each time an opponent casts a spell, unless that player pays {1}.

Which swaps can wait if I'd rather spend less than $44?

Start with the five cheapest cards (Arcane Signet, both Talismans, Sakura-Tribe Elder and Night's Whisper), which come to $1.73 together. The whole upgrade is $44.36 for all 11 cards, using the cheapest released printing of each as of October 2026. The three shocklands are $26.77 of that, and all three are reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, so that part of the bill may fall. The rocks and the draw spell are cheap, so the lands and the two reanimation spells are where the money goes.

Should I cut a land now that the deck has ten ramp cards?

The list stays at 40, which the audit calls high against a typical 35 to 38. I left it because black, green and blue each still fall short of a 90% chance of two pips on turn three, and every land cut comes out of a colour. If you'd rather run 39, cut a basic Island or Forest and not a Swamp: 13 spells want BB, against six that want GG and six that want UU (the count treats hybrid Desecrator Hag as both black and green).

Can Reanimate and Animate Dead take creatures from other players' graveyards?

Yes. Reanimate puts target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control, and Animate Dead enchants a creature card in a graveyard. Neither is limited to yours. Animate Dead gives the creature -1/-0 and you sacrifice it if the Aura leaves the battlefield. Remember that The Mimeoplasm draws from the same pile, since it exiles two creature cards from graveyards as it enters.