The Mimeoplasm Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on April 26, 2023

The Mimeoplasm | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

Everybody comes to a Commander table to play some powerful cards. A core tenet of the format is to play big, scary spells that are too slow for other formats like Modern and Legacy. What could be more fun than playing with your big splashy spells? Playing with your opponents’ big splashy spells!

The Mimeoplasm is a classic commander that offers a unique way to steal your opponents’ creatures. Or at least their text boxes and power. This Commander deck looks to steal your opponents’ spells while reanimating your own monsters.

Let’s dive in!

The Deck

Wrenn and Seven | Illustration by Bram Sels

This deck has a couple different ideas in one Sultai () shell. First and foremost, it’s a reanimator deck. You’re looking to fill your graveyard with expensive creatures and get them back at a steep discount with cheap reanimation spells like Reanimate.

You’ve also got a subtheme of stealing your opponents’ spells, either from their graveyard or their library. It gives this deck lots of variety when you’re playing with it. It’s hard for this deck to feel stale when you can play with new spells from fresh decks every game.

Swiping cards from your opponents also gives you access to tools you might not have otherwise. The combination of green, blue, and black covers a wide range of effects but doesn’t have everything. Your thievery lets you play with cards you might not get.

The Commander

The Mimeoplasm is a great commander for this deck because it works with all these themes. First, it wants you to have a robust graveyard. You need powerful creatures for it to copy, and you want big creatures to give it plenty of power. These desires work beautifully with the general idea of a reanimator deck, which also wants big, powerful creatures in the graveyard.

You’re also not limited to your own graveyard. The Mimeoplasm feeds from all graveyards equally, which is great in the later stages of the game when all your opponents have had their big threats killed and you can prey on them. This doubles as a threat and graveyard interaction. Don’t be afraid to take a smaller creature so your opponent doesn’t get value from it.

The Sultai colors The Mimeoplasm gives you are also a boon. You can get away from playing a reanimator deck with blue and black, or even just black, but adding green to the mix is really powerful. A significant part of green’s color identity is having the best creatures, which gives you some stellar targets to copy or reanimate.

But the best part of adding green is the access to ramp. You get the best and most consistent ramp to power out your big creatures in case your opponents have graveyard interaction for a more balanced, multifaceted strategy.

Fill The Graveyard

These self-mill options let you churn through your library to get your reanimation spells online.

Wrenn and Seven is a great planeswalker that ramps you, helps you hit your land drops, and fills your graveyard. Its +1 ensures you’ll move through your deck quickly without missing any land drops, and the 0 can help you dump a bunch of lands into play to cast a fatty early. The ultimate also lets you get back your best creatures to cast again.

Shigeki, Jukai Visionary fills a very similar role to Wrenn and Seven. It’ll chuck a bunch of cards into the graveyard while ramping you with each activation. It’s also powerful in grindy matchups because the channel ability gives you an uncounterable way to refill your hand.

Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths lets you fill the graveyard while drawing cards and is also just a lot of fun. You can do some interesting politicking with this ETB ability. Atris also doubles as a fine Mimeoplasm target because it’ll give the Ooze an evasive ability and a reasonable ETB.

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant fulfills two roles in the deck: it’s great at filling your graveyard, but it’s also a cheap threat in its own right. This card makes a bunch of Zombies and gets out of hand quickly in a longer game.

One of the coolest cards from Guilds of Ravnica, Underrealm Lich fills your graveyard while filtering your draws. Getting the best card out of the top three cards is absurdly powerful. It’s also a fine card for The Mimeoplasm to copy since it comes with a protective ability.

Necron Deathmark does a bunch of work for this deck. It kills a threat when it enters the battlefield (which you can often steal later) while milling your cards and being a sizable threat to pressure your opponents.

Mulch is a simple card with a simple goal: replace itself with a land, maybe even draw you a card, then pitch a few creatures into your graveyard. It fulfills this role quite well.

Winding Way is like Mulch, but a little more flexible. You can choose to draw creatures or lands and dump the rest. You’ll generally want to choose lands in the early game since hitting your land drops early is super important, while choosing creatures in the late game when you can cast your big spells.

While most of your cards that fill your graveyard do so in large chunks, Entomb exchanges quantity for quality by putting the perfect card into your graveyard. This gives you some of your best starts because Entomb into Reanimate can put something terrifying into play as soon as turn two.

Grisly Salvage never draws multiple cards but gives you the best creature or land out of five while discarding the rest. This is one of the better mill cards in the deck because it gives you precision in finding the card you want.

Rather like Atris, Fact or Fiction is just a lot of fun to play in a Commander pod. It also fills your graveyard quite nicely. Your opponents can get put in a tricky situation if they have to split reanimation spells and reanimation targets, and you often benefit either way.

Mesmeric Orb is the most efficient self-mill card in the deck. For a tiny investment of two mana, you’ve got a steady stream of cards hitting your graveyard. It also fills your opponents’ graveyard, which lets The Mimeoplasm and some of your other cards steal their resources.

Reanimation Spells

Now that you have the tools to put creatures into your graveyard, let’s look at the ones that bring them back.

Young Necromancer brings back a creature at the cost of exiling two cards from your graveyard. It’s a cost you can easily pay; you’re mainly interested in your creatures, and there will be plenty of spare lands and other spells to exile.

An old classic, Phyrexian Delver reanimates a creature for a little life you're willing to pay. You can often chain this card with another reanimation spell to get multiple creatures into play.

Ancient Brass Dragon doubles as a reanimation spell and a target as a big creature. This card hits really hard and steals from your opponents while putting your biggest creatures into play. You can usually get several cards if this connects once, and the combination of evasion and a powerful ability makes this great for The Mimeoplasm to copy.

There’s not much to say about Reanimate. It’s the best at what it does, and the most efficient way to get one of your creatures from your graveyard onto the battlefield.

This is a fantastic political tool if that’s how you want to play. You’ll basically always want to demonstrate Incarnation Technique. Getting two creatures for five mana is huge. You can give a copy to an opponent you want a favor from later to make the game a little more interesting. If you don’t want to leverage the political aspect, try to pick a player who’s not likely to have giant monsters to go toe-to-toe with yours.

Animate Dead is another efficient way to get a creature back into play. It’s not flashy, but it gets the job done. Giving your creature -1/-0 basically never matters. They already hit really hard, and you’re reanimating most of your creatures for their abilities, not their stats.

Another step up in mana, Necromancy is still an effective reanimation spell. The ability to play it at instant speed gives this card a lot of flexibility, and sacrificing the creature if you use flash doesn’t hurt too much since you can reanimate it again later.

Reanimation Targets

Now that you can put the creatures into your graveyard and get them back, you need the actual creatures to impact the board. You’ve got an emphasis on ETB abilities here to get value as soon as The Mimeoplasm comes into play.

Kogla, the Titan Ape comes out of the graveyard swinging and takes out an opponent’s creature instantly. It also does a great job of pressuring any opponents attempting to build up artifacts and enchantments. You’ve also got some creatures to bounce for value with the activated ability, which could potentially include The Mimeoplasm.

This is another card to reanimate and kill an opposing creature. Noxious Gearhulk also gains you some life to help stabilize. Reanimating creatures that kill opposing threats is a great way to get two-for-ones that put you way ahead.

Wrexial, the Risen Deep is a heavy hitter with some evasive abilities and a powerful triggered ability. Wrexial falls in with your stealing cards to help give you some interesting tools you might not have access to otherwise.

Agent of Treachery is a great reanimation spell that does a great job working with your thievery theme. It’s easy to get to three permanents so you can draw cards. This is also one of those cards that’s great to bounce with Kogla for multiple ETBs.

Hullbreaker Horror is one of the strongest creatures printed in recent sets. It tends to dominate a game unless it’s removed instantly. If you untap with this horror, you’re in a good position to win.

Another reanimation target that also steals, Sepulchral Primordial can easily be a four-for-one if your opponents have anything in their graveyards. It chains some incredible value together and puts a ton of power into play.

Titanoth Rex is mostly here to give The Mimeoplasm a massive creature to eat, although an 11/11 tends to end games quickly. It puts itself in the graveyard, making it a payoff and enabler in one massive package.

Void Winnower is one of the stronger reanimation targets in the deck. It shuts off a lot of potential plays from your opponents and makes it hard for them to block, which is useful with your cards that care about dealing damage. 11 power also makes this a fantastic threat or a great way to bolster The Mimeoplasm if you choose to copy an evasive creature.

You Made This?

You’ve obviously got a few stealing cards sprinkled throughout your reanimation strategy, but there are also a couple cards that are just here to let you mimic your opponents’ strategies.

Tasha, the Witch Queen gives you a consistent source of your opponents’ instants and sorceries. It also works as graveyard hate, preventing them from getting their best spells. It can also provide an army of Demons.

Dauthi Voidwalker is more than a card that lets you borrow your opponents’ cardboard, it’s just good. It provides early and effective pressure while stalling out opposing graveyard decks. The fact that you can cast your stolen spell for free is the icing on the cake.

Another gem from Guilds of Ravnica, Thief of Sanity does a ton of work for this deck. It steals cards on its own, but it also mills your opponent to help fuel cards like Wrexial and Tasha. As an evasive creature, it’s also great to copy with The Mimeoplasm. Imagine this but as an 11/11!

This is one of my favorite card designs. Gonti, Lord of Luxury steals your opponents' cards while putting down a really effective blocker. This is just a ton of fun to play with.

Fallen Shinobi is another way to swipe a few cards from an opponent. It’s also easy to ninjutsu out. In the early game, you can slip through with a mana dork like Birds of Paradise, but it’s also great in the late game to rebuy some of your bigger ETB effects. You’ve also got a bunch of evasive threats to go along with this.

Stealing a card or two is good, but what if you stole more? Villainous Wealth lets you play as many cards from an opponent’s deck as your heart desires—and your mana base can afford. Any number higher than five generally works and tilts the game in your favor.

Siphon Insight is another way to peek at an opponent’s library and nab a card. It can be interesting as a response to some form of top deck manipulation by your opponent, like a Mystical Tutor. Having flashback also lets this card get some value if milled.

The Mana Base

Ramp and land drops are super important for this deck. You must be prepared to deal with graveyard hate that forces you to play out your creatures fairly. Besides your ramp pieces, you’ve also got a few value lands. You have got a suite of early mana dorks to help you to accelerate fast to start.

Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, and Fyndhorn Elves kick off the mana dorks with a solid number of ways to produce green mana quickly.

Elves of Deep Shadow joins the classic trio to produce some black mana for fixing.

Birds of Paradise is the best mana dork in Magic, and among the best green cards ever printed. It finds a fine perch in this deck as an accelerant and fixing.

Deathrite Shaman is a multifunctional card. It’s primarily in the list as a mana dork, but it works as an effective hate piece to stop your opponents’ graveyard shenanigans. You can fuel it quite easily.

Deranged Assistant and Millikin serve the same purpose in this deck: ramping you while milling just a little bit. Neither of these cards mill a ton of cards, but one good card in the graveyard is all this deck needs.

Nature's Lore is a great piece of ramp in 3-color decks like this one because it fixes beautifully by always going after a Triome, in this case, Zagoth Triome.

You’ve got a pretty typical assortment of mana rocks: the ever-present Sol Ring partners with Arcane Signet and all three of the on-color Talismans to round out your ramp package with fixing you can cast regardless of what colors of mana you have access to.

A modal double-faced card that lets you keep your spell and land counts high, Malakir Rebirth is an important piece of protection in this deck to stop your opponents from killing your creatures once you reanimate them. It’s especially effective with your ETB abilities.

Dakmor Salvage is a value land that helps you get more cards into your graveyard. Once you mill it, it offers you some more self-mill to keep cards flowing into the bin.

Tomb Fortress rounds out the value lands as a reanimation spell tacked onto a mana source. It also mills a few cards in a pinch, though it’s generally best to use this card when you’ve already got a target in your graveyard.

The Strategy

You’ve got a pretty simple gameplan: throw some of your big creatures into the graveyard as quickly as you can and reanimate them for less than their mana cost for a mana advantage. A Hullbreaker Horror is fantastic on turn 7, so imagine how good it is on turn 2 with a Reanimate.

Ways to get cards into your graveyard are generally more important for this deck than the reanimation spells. That’s because The Mimeoplasm acts as a reanimation spell in its own right. Most of your big hits cost more than five, so you’re generally getting some amount of a mana advantage.

Don’t be afraid to reanimate some of your valuable creatures instead. Cards like Necron Deathmark and Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths might not be the flashiest cards, but they’re often good in a pinch.

This deck rewards flexibility and adaptability in a game, largely thanks to all the stealing cards. You never know what you’ll get to nab out of an opponent’s deck or graveyard. Be ready to adapt to unexpected resources off cards like Gonti, Lord of Luxury and Thief of Sanity, and don’t be afraid to switch gears rapidly and often. Reevaluate your lines instead of blindly following through with what you were planning at the start of the turn.

Also, keep in mind that this deck really wants to hit land drops and ramp hard. You’re a very mana-hungry strategy. Hands with plenty of land drops and cards like Mulch and Wrenn and Seven that find those land drops are important. You’ve got enough top-end to always have something to do with your mana.

Combos and Interactions

This deck is pretty straightforward and honest. At least, it’s as honest as a reanimation deck can be. You don’t have any infinite combos lurking around the 99.

One of the better interactions in the deck is the combination of Agent of Treachery and Sepulchral Primordial. These two cards work together as one trigger of the Primordial enables the Agent’s second ability.

Rule 0 Violations Check

This deck isn’t crazy with Rule 0 violations. Some opponents might not enjoy reanimation strategies or the thieving subtheme, but those are integral to the decks’ identity and aren’t something you can do away with.

Void Winnower is an individual card some players might find salt-inducing, especially if their commanders have an even casting cost. If that’s the case, you can just eat it with The Mimeoplasm for 111 +1/+1 counters, so the table doesn’t need to worry about its abilities.

Budget Options

Let’s take a look at a few budget options to make this deck easier to pick up.

Ancient Brass Dragon is one of the better reanimation targets thanks to its sheer value, but it’s also the most expensive. You could replace it with something like Diluvian Primordial that lets you steal your opponent’s card.

Void Winnower is another pricy reanimation target that you could replace with another monster like Nezahal, Primal Tide.

Assassin's Trophy is in the deck as a powerful catch-all answer. It could give way to a cheaper option like Go for the Throat or Baleful Mastery depending on what threats you’re concerned about.

Malakir Rebirth offers good protection but could swap out for a Swamp to keep things cheap.

Necromancy is the most expensive reanimation spell in the deck. You could swap it for something cheaper like Victimize.

Other Build Options

This is a pretty straightforward way to build The Mimeoplasm, but there are a few other ways to take it. It would be a great commander for ooze tribal, for example. Sultai is a great combination to catch them, and The Mimeoplasm is a flavorful include.

You could also try for a Voltron build by combining cards that can’t be blocked, like Invisible Stalker and Changeling Outcast, with massive cards like Ghalta, Primal Hunger. There's also the upcoming Yargle and Multani to make The Mimeoplasm into an unblockable force to be reckoned with.

Commanding Conclusion

Sepulchral Primordial | Illustration by Stephan Martiniere

There’s a ton that can be done with The Mimeoplasm. As a commander it mostly asks for you to fill your graveyard with big creatures whose power it steals and powerful ones so it has strong effects. A reanimation strategy is a natural outlet for those deckbuilding requirements.

The ability to copy your opponents’ creatures also gives you room for some interesting plays with cards you might not be able to use otherwise for a deck themed around mimicry to its core. What did you think of the list? How would you have built The Mimeoplasm? Let me know in the comments below, or over on Draftsim's official Twitter.

Thanks for reading, and stay safe!