Deathdancer Xira precon upgrade guide

Six cards in Deathdancer Xira want {B}{B}, and the box gives them 18 black sources.

Xira Arien costs {B}{R}{G} and draws a card for the same three mana every turn, so she wants all three colours on the table early. The box has 37 lands, eight of which always enter tapped, and the sources are lopsided: 18 black, 17 red and 21 green. Black is the colour that's worst served. All Hallow's Eve, Ashes to Ashes, Avatar of Woe, Dread Return, Massacre and Phyrexian Arena all cost {B}{B}, and on the play 18 black sources find two black mana by turn three 51.5% of the time. After the swaps there are 21 black sources and nine {B}{B} cards (Gonti, Living Death and Sheoldred join the six), and the figure is 61%. It gets there with one fewer land that always enters tapped.

The rest of the deck is a graveyard deck with a lot of ways to put creatures in the yard and a lot of ways to get them out again, and it has one sweeper. Magic Online theme decks never had a paper price, so there's no stock figure on this page. Everything below is about what the twelve swaps cost and what they change.

What are the best Deathdancer Xira upgrades?

Ranked by how much each one fixes a problem this box has. Every price is the lowest I found for a released printing on 17 October 2026.

1. Command Tower, Dragonskull Summit and Woodland Cemetery ($0.23, $0.44 and $0.85). Command Tower makes any of the three colours, Dragonskull Summit makes {B} or {R}, and Woodland Cemetery makes {B} or {G}. Both checklands enter untapped when you control a Swamp or Mountain (Summit) or a Swamp or Forest (Cemetery), and the deck keeps 8 Swamps, 7 Mountains and 8 Forests. They replace Rupture Spire and two Forests.
2. Sol Ring and Arcane Signet ($1.25 and $0.38). Ramp goes from 8 to 10, and Arcane Signet counts as a source of all three colours, which is part of why black reaches 21.
3. Toxic Deluge ($4.93). The sweeper that you size yourself. It's three mana for -X/-X, paid in life, in a deck that already has Massacre as its only other way to clear a board.
4. Sheoldred, Whispering One ($18.72). At the start of your upkeep she returns a creature card from your graveyard, and at the start of each opponent's upkeep that player sacrifices a creature. It's the deck's graveyard plan as a single seven-mana card, and it's most of the cost of the whole list.
5. Chaos Warp and Beast Within ($0.33 and $0.57). The box's removal is built for creatures and artifacts: Wickerbough Elder is the only card that hits an enchantment, and only Ghost Quarter touches a land. These two hit any permanent, and each costs three.
6. Living Death ($3.19). A one-card version of the whole plan: every graveyard creature comes back, and every creature on the battlefield is sacrificed first.
7. Gonti, Lord of Luxury ($0.27) and Blasphemous Act ($0.77). A deathtouch body that lets you cast one of an opponent's top four cards with any mana, and a second sweeper that gets cheaper as the board fills.

The twelve adds come to $31.93, and $13.21 without Sheoldred.

Four ways to empty a board, and a creature that gets cheaper when you do

Massacre gives every creature -2/-2, yours included. Twelve creatures in the deck have a toughness of 1, so it clears most of the cheap bodies on both sides and leaves the bigger creatures standing. That's a fine trade for a deck that wants its small creatures in the graveyard, and it's the only sweeper the box has.

The adds give three more settings. Toxic Deluge takes X life for -X/-X, so you pick how far it goes. Blasphemous Act deals 13 damage to every creature and drops in cost by one for every creature in play, so on a board with eight creatures it costs {R}, and on an empty one it costs nine. Living Death is a swap rather than a sweep: it exiles every graveyard's creature cards, sacrifices all creatures, and puts the exiled cards onto the battlefield, so it wants your graveyard to be the better one. Buried Alive finds up to three creature cards for {2}{B} and each dredge card mills several cards whenever it replaces a draw, so the deck builds that graveyard on purpose.

A sweeper does a second job here. Avatar of Woe costs {6}{B}{B}, and while ten or more creature cards are in all graveyards combined it costs {6} less, which leaves {B}{B}. Whose creatures they were doesn't matter, so a resolved Toxic Deluge or Blasphemous Act on a busy board is the quickest way to get to ten. Avatar has fear and taps to destroy a target creature, and Lightning Greaves gives it haste so the first activation isn't a turn late.

The cyclers, Skullclamp and Genesis stay

Chartooth Cougar and Twisted Abomination are six-drops, and six-drops usually need to explain themselves. These two cycle for {2} and fetch a Mountain or a Swamp, which are the two colours with the fewest sources, so they're land-finding that can later be a body. Twisted Abomination also regenerates for {B}.

Skullclamp makes the equipped creature +1/-1 and draws two cards when it dies. Twelve creatures in the deck have a toughness of 1, so equipping any of them for {1} kills it and draws two. That includes Abyssal Gatekeeper, whose death also makes each player sacrifice a creature, you included. Hissing Iguanar pings a player every time any other creature dies, so each of those equips can ping a player for a point.

Genesis is the five-drop that works best dead. At your upkeep, if it's in your graveyard, you can pay {2}{G} to take a creature card out of your graveyard and into your hand, and Buried Alive or a dredge mill can put it there on purpose. Animate Dead stays at {1}{B} because it can take a creature from any graveyard. Lightning Greaves does the most for the commander: equipped Xira has haste, so she can pay {B}{R}{G} and tap to draw the turn she lands, and she has shroud so the first removal spell has to find something else.

What I left out, and the lands to buy next

Blood Crypt ($9.35), Overgrown Tomb ($7.79) and Stomping Ground ($7.17) would fix the mana better than the checklands, since each one has two basic land types and can enter untapped for 2 life. I left them out for price, and all three are being reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, so those prices may move. They're also what to buy if 61% on {B}{B} isn't enough. Rootbound Crag ($0.26) is the same check for red and green, and it would replace a third Forest if you want red higher.

Deathrite Shaman ($4.44) makes mana off a land in a graveyard and drains off the spells, but it exiles from any graveyard, including yours, and this deck wants its own full. Farseek ($0.50) finds a Swamp or Mountain, which is the right half of the problem, but ramp is already at 10 after Sol Ring and Arcane Signet. None of these is a Game Changer.

I left card draw alone. Harmonize, Phyrexian Arena, Skullclamp and Xira herself are plenty for a deck that can also dredge.

Nine spells and three lands that were doing less

Rupture Spire goes first. It costs {1} to keep, enters tapped and makes one mana of any colour, which Command Tower does for free. The two Forests go because green has the fewest hungry cards once the cuts are made: its {G}{G} spells drop from seven to four, and it keeps 21 sources.

Elven Cache and Recollect both return any card from your graveyard to your hand. Recollect costs {2}{G} and Elven Cache costs {2}{G}{G}, so Cache is the same spell for more, and it goes. Anarchist is the narrowest of the three: it returns only a sorcery, for five mana, and leaves a 2/2 behind.

Two of the cuts are answers that only hit artifacts. Ancient Grudge destroys an artifact (and flashes back for {G}), and so does Keldon Vandals, which also needs {2}{R} again on the next upkeep or it's sacrificed. Wickerbough Elder and Putrefy stay as the other artifact answers, and Chaos Warp and Beast Within now cover any permanent.

Fires of Yavimaya gives creatures haste for three mana, and the box already has two other sources of haste: Anger gives your creatures haste from the graveyard as long as you control a Mountain, and Lightning Greaves hands it to one creature for {0} to equip. Constant Mists is a fog with a land sacrifice for buyback, which is a stalling card in a deck with no plan to stall. Cauldron Dance costs six, can only be cast in combat, and gives you a creature for one turn. Wirewood Guardian and Rootbreaker Wurm are seven-mana creatures with nothing to do on arrival: the Guardian cycles for a Forest in a deck that has 21 green sources already, and the Wurm has trample and nothing else. Krosan Tusker is the seven-drop that stays, because it cycles into a land and a card.

The upgraded decklist

Xira and the 99 with the twelve swaps made, sorted by card type. Hover a name to see the card and its price.

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

Does Xira's draw ability work with dredge?

Yes. Xira's ability makes a player draw a card, and dredge replaces any draw, so with Golgari Grave-Troll, Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Thug, Shambling Shell or Life from the Loam in your graveyard you can mill cards and return the dredge card instead. You can only dredge if your library holds at least as many cards as the dredge number, which is 6 for Grave-Troll, 5 for Stinkweed Imp, 4 for Golgari Thug and 3 for Shambling Shell and Life from the Loam.

Does Deathdancer Xira have enough black mana for its BB cards?

Not as the box ships it. Six cards cost {B}{B} (All Hallow's Eve, Ashes to Ashes, Avatar of Woe, Dread Return, Massacre and Phyrexian Arena), and on the play 18 black sources find two black by turn three 51.5% of the time. The swaps bring black to 21 sources and add three more {B}{B} cards, and the figure becomes 61%. It's better, not solved. If you want it higher, Blood Crypt and Overgrown Tomb are the next lands to buy.

Will Living Death bring back my opponents' creatures too?

Yes. Each player exiles the creature cards in their own graveyard, then every creature on the battlefield is sacrificed, then each player puts their exiled cards onto the battlefield. Your opponents get their graveyards back along with you, so look at their graveyards before you cast it.

How much does it cost to upgrade Deathdancer Xira?

$31.93 for the twelve adds, at the cheapest printing of each as of 17 October 2026. Sheoldred, Whispering One is $18.72 of that, and its cheapest printing is a Secret Lair. The other eleven come to $13.21, and the three lands and two mana rocks are $3.15 of it.

Are any of the swaps Game Changers?

No. None of the twelve adds, and none of the cards I left out, carry the Game Changer flag on Scryfall. The box and the upgraded list both lack Game Changers and mass land denial, so there's no bracket floor to speak of.

Is Deathdancer Xira a paper product?

No. It's one of the Magic Online theme decks from August 2009, so there was never a paper retail price to compare the singles against, and you build it from individual cards. The decklist here is the Magic Online list, with the swaps above.