A long, long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, Wizards of the Coast decided to print a set of preconstructed decks for this weird new format called Elder Dragon Highlander. They put their own brand on it, renaming the format "Commander" and launching a movement that would change Magic forever.

That first set of Commander precons hit the shelves in 2011 and gave us powerful legendary creatures that still see play. Kaalia of the Vast, Ghave, Guru of Spores, and Animar, Soul of Elements, can still blow the doors off a table, though they are no longer anywhere near the very top tier of decks in the format. Zedruu the Greathearted still sees a little niche play as a weird pillowfort hug deck, and Ruhan of the Fomori recently got a reprint in Sheldon's Spellbook just last year.

Of all the amazing legendary creatures that came into being at the dawn of Commander, the one I may have had the most fun with was The Mimeoplasm. This legendary Ooze would have you exile two cards from graveyards when it entered play, and it would become a copy of one of them with +1/+1 counters on it equal to the power of the other card. It brought out the mad scientist in deck brewers and gave us new ways to use weird old cards that wouldn't normally see play. Skyshroud Behemoth and Krosan Cloudscraper were two of my favorite cards for +1/+1 counters, and I loved to make Mimeoplasm a copy of Blackcleave Goblin so I could swing after a boardwipe with haste and infect.

Aetherdrift has had some interesting surprises for us, but one of the biggest for me was a new version of Mimeoplasm.

Mimeoplasm, Revered One is a legendary Ooze that has a lot in common with his predecessor. It will enter and exile X cards from your graveyard where X is the extra mana you paid when casting it. Mim will enter with three +1/+1 counters for each creature card exiled this way. Instead of becoming a copy of one of the exiled cards when it enters, it has an activated ability. For two mana Mimeoplasm can become a copy of target creature card exiled with it.

This is a major upgrade on the old Mimeoplasm, as it can become a new creature at instant speed and it can activate that ability as many times as you like provided you can keep paying that two mana. The only things you won't be able to respond to are mana abilities, spells with split second, and morph activations, which don't use the stack and can't be responded to.

If The Mimeoplasm was a post-it-note to creative deckbuilders, Mimeoplasm, Revered One is a bona fide love letter to those of us who enjoy finding weird ways to squeeze value out of odd and interesting combinations of Magic cards.

Hungry, Hungry Ooze

Mimeoplasm may be a hungry Ooze, but this deck is also going to be a very mana-hungry deck. Being able to activate my commander's activated ability may only cost 2 mana, but I'll want to exile enough creatures to make Mimeoplasm a decent threat. Playing him for X = 4 will mean it costs 7 mana, so this deck is going to want to be able to make lots of mana.

Making mana can be fun, and decks that can make and use a lot of it generally tend to perform well. The idea of playing mana dorks naturally led me to think about having Mimeoplasm become a mana dork. Going down that path got me thinking about an old card that I never really got to play that often in Commander decks. If you've played an Experiment Kraj deck, some of these cards might look familiar to you.

I've had a soft spot for Gilder Bairn for a long time. This unassuming Ouphe can untap for two and a hybrid Simic mana to double the counters on target permanent. Normally that means you'd be looking for ways to be able to tap the little fellow, but if Mimeoplasm has this Ouphe and a mana dork in exile, you can just pay two mana to turn Mim into a mana dork, tap it for mana, pay two mana to turn it into Gilder Bairn, and then pay three mana to untap it. Remember how I said this deck could get very mana hungry? This is how.

Glimmerbell, Soliton, and Horseshoe Crab are in the list along with Pemmin's Aura and Freed from the Real as additional ways to let me untap Mimeoplasm. Those first two are creatures and would need to be exiled with Mimeoplasm, but the last two are auras I can just cast enchanting my commander to give it the ability to untap. Devoted Druid is also in the list, but untapping will involve putting a -1/-1 counter on it. That works great with Glimmer Bairn, as I'd be doubling my counters, but less well without it, as my commander would get smaller in size.

These creatures are in the 99 to get exiled from the graveyard so Mimeoplasm can become a copy of them. You're not going to get far playing out your Horseshoe Crab and trying to use it as an attacker or blocker.

Making big mana is one of the goals of this deck, so it makes sense to run mana dorks. Tapping to make one or two mana is fine, but we're looking for much more than that.

My preference in mana dorks will generally be ones that tap for any color of mana, but making lots of mana is important enough that I'm also running a few that just create Green mana.

For Gilder Bairn I'll want two mana to turn Mimeoplasm into Gilder Bairn, three mana to pay to untap it, and two more mana to turn back into my mana dorks. Starting with seven mana I can do all that, double the counters on my commander, and start making positive mana. From there I can make as much mana as I like and I can make Mimeoplasm as big as I want.

Ways to Win

Making mana is great, but it doesn't win games by itself. If this deck wants to win games I need to have some ways to actually do that.

The first issue is that I need to get my target cards into the graveyard. Casting Traumatize on myself will let me mill half of my library. That may or may not set me up to go for the win, but I'm running a bunch of cards that can Entomb a card from my library into my graveyard if I'm missing a key creature. I'm also running Mirror-Mad Phantasm and it's worth noting that if I turn Mimeoplasm into a copy of it and then activate its ability, I'll mill my whole library. Using Mirror-Mad Phantasm on its own is just a neat way to mill yourself a somewhat random number of cards.

If I'm able to get my Mimeoplasm so I can tap and untap it at will, having Arcanis the Omnipotent available as a copy target for my commander means I can draw as many cards out of my library as I like. That in itself isn't going to win me the game. If I can tap Mimeo-Arcanis to draw the last cards out of my library and with that activation on the stack I make Mimeoplasm a copy of Laboratory Maniac, that will win the game. Laboratory Maniac will have me win if I attempt to draw a card from an empty library. My favorite Lab Man wincons are the convoluted or obscure ones, and this is nothing if not convoluted and obscure.

Making Mimeoplasm big enough to kill someone is another way to try to win the game. Turning Mim into a Primordial Hydra before my turn will let me double the number of counters on it at the beginning of my upkeep. Making Mim a copy of Kalonian Hydra before I go to attack will let me attack and double the number of counters on it again. If I had only exiled those two hydras, Mimeoplasm would have six +1/+1 counters, which would double to 12 and again double to 24. That's three more than the 21 points of commander damage I need to knock someone out.

If the problem is getting through blockers, we'll have lots of options for that. The nastiest among them is probably Blighted Agent, which is unblockable and has infect. Invisible Stalker, Dimir Infiltrator, Jhessian Infiltrator, and Trespassing Souleater are also in the list as possible targets to make my commander unblockable. Blackcleave Goblin, Vector Asp, and Pestilent Souleater are in the 99 as ways to give my commander infect. 10 points of damage from a source with infect will kill a player, and Mimeoplasm is a fantastic commander to use for infect kills.

A turn where I pay two mana to make Mimeoplasm unblockable, get through blockers, and then pay 2 mana to deal combat damage in the form of infect shouldn't be that hard, providing I can get the right creatures into the graveyard before I cast my commander. I'll want at least four creatures exiled so my commander swings for at least 12 damage if I'm trying to kill someone with infect.

Odds and Ends

It's possible when playing this deck I'll find I need more ways to load up my graveyard. I've got a Sidisi, Undead Vizier deck that plays heavily with self-mill, so I know what's involved, but I tried to focus on having a high density of good Mimeoplasm targets in this first draft. A high creature count led me to run cards that draw through playing creatures like Regal Force, Beast Whisperer, Guardian Project, and The Great Henge.

The biggest risk in exiling key cards from your graveyard will come with Mimeoplasm getting exiled, killed, or even flickered. A new instance of your commander will not have access to the cards that were exiled by the previous instance. I thought about playing a bunch of indestructible creatures to give my commander the ability to weather a boardwipe, and I still might go back and add more in. Darksteel Myr is in the list, but it's possible the deck needs more indestructible creatures to be able to exile and copy with Mimeoplasm.

I briefly considered adding Sage of Hours into the list. That Blue Human Wizard lets you remove all of the counters on it to activate its ability, and for every five counters you remove you take an extra turn. That's very powerful if you have a zillion counters, but it's not much fun to play against. The other problem is that it will kill your Mimeoplasm, as it has a base toughness of zero.

Early Results

I was able to play this list in one game online. One of the advantages of playing on an app like Tabletop Simulator is that you can easily load in new cards and try them out. You can do that in paper with a basic land and a sharpie marker too, but it's nice to have the real art to look at.

It was a five player game, which was going to be a challenge. Decks that try to win primarily through killing each opponent with a single attacker can be harder to win with in five player pods. As soon as you get scary enough to be a lethal threat to one tablemate, it's very easy for the table to gang up on you.

This match saw me get out a few early mana dorks and a Laboratory Maniac. A tablemate on an artifacts deck and a player with a Rolling Hamsphere both built up their boards until they were looking pretty scary. My biggest early threat was a Primordial Hydra, which went from being a 7/7 to a 15/15 to a 31/31. I ended up trying to get some sort of an agreement that we needed to swing out at the artifacts deck, which was spiraling out of control. In doing so I lost my Hydra, but I wanted it in the graveyard anyways.

Another tablemate had the enchantment Opposition in play, so we were all discarding a card when we cast a spell. After my Hydra had died, I was able to cast Mimeoplasm for X = 4, discard a Darksteel Myr, and then exile Primordial Hydra, Darksteel Myr, Blighted Agent and Gyre Sage with three mana still available. I paid one to equip Swiftfoot Boots and I was poised to kill anyone I wanted on my next turn.

Strangely, that's where things started going wrong.

Knowing I had lethal on anyone and could make my hexproof commander indestructible left everyone feeling understandably nervous about killing anyone but me. It wasn't even about the infect, though infect does tend to get a reaction even in experienced playgroups.

The player after me followed through on the plan to attack the artifacts deck, which was still looking very dangerous and poised to also kill someone if they wanted to. The player after that balked at all the politics and domed me for 7 with their Rolling Hamsphere. I couldn't really blame them that much, but it still felt like a missed opportunity to not pile on the player (artifacts) who had been openly admitting that they were the problem.

On the end step before my turn, I was able to pay 2 mana to turn my commander, who had 16 +1/+1 counters, into a Primordial Hydra so my counters would get doubled. I did it just to do it, as I could already swing Mimeoplasm as a Blighted Agent and that would have been more than lethal as just a 16/16 since Blighted Agent has infect.

In the end, the artifacts deck did win, but I was able to swing lethal on the tablemate who hadn't played ball and joined us in attacking that artifacts player. He had multiple anthems out so his artifact creatures were all like... +6/+6 or so, and they had a few artifacts that had a power and toughness equal to the number of artifacts they controlled.

The table politics were a bit messy and I'm sure I misplayed by not attacking the correct person at least once or twice. With only a few mana dorks, a Lab Man, and a commander who was tapped from attacking, I never felt very secure. With more careful threat assessment, I might have been able to find a path to the win, but I was mostly just happy to have seen my commander get out and have an impact on the game.

After I was killed, I checked and my library was only going to give me lands for two or three turns. I never drew into any of my removal or my draw enablers.

Revered and Feared

When building a deck to be able to kill my tablemates with unblockable infect damage, it's worth asking if this is either fun or fair. This is one of those cases where the deck is playing perfectly legal cards that just happen to work really well with this particular commander. If it works, it won't feel great to anyone who gets killed early by Mimeoplasm, but that's unlikely to happen too early in a game. In my test match I had Swiftfoot Boots and a Darksteel Myr available to protect my commander, so I was a problem that could only be solved through player elimination. Infect decks often succeed in killing one person before getting hated off the table by the rest of the players, and that's exactly what happened to me.

The best thing about a commander like Mimeoplasm is that there are tons of ways to build him. You could just as easily exile a Pathbreaker Ibex to try to win your games by making a big army huge and swinging for regular combat damage. You could also lean more into combo and build the deck around ways to use Mimeoplasm as a one-Ooze combo machine. That's somewhat where my mind was going with Arcanis, the Omnipotent, Gilder Bairn, and Laboratory Maniac.

Mimeoplasm, Revered One EDH | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Mimeoplasm, Revered One

• Creatures (40)
• 1 Ancient Silver Dragon
• 1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Bighorner Rancher
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Blackcleave Goblin
• 1 Blighted Agent
• 1 Caustic Caterpillar
• 1 Circle of Dreams Druid
• 1 Corpse Connoisseur
• 1 Cradle Clearcutter
• 1 Darksteel Myr
• 1 Devoted Druid
• 1 Dimir Infiltrator
• 1 Gilder Bairn
• 1 Glimmerbell
• 1 Gyre Sage
• 1 Heronblade Elite
• 1 Horseshoe Crab
• 1 Invisible Stalker
• 1 Jhessian Infiltrator
• 1 Kalonian Hydra
• 1 Kami of Whispered Hopes
• 1 Karametra's Acolyte
• 1 Laboratory Maniac
• 1 Marwyn, the Nurturer
• 1 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
• 1 Paradise Druid
• 1 Pestilent Souleater
• 1 Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1 Primordial Hydra
• 1 Regal Force
• 1 Selhoff Entomber
• 1 Soliton
• 1 Sylvan Caryatid
• 1 Trespassing Souleater
• 1 Vector Asp
• 1 Vile Entomber
• 1 Viridian Joiner
• 1 Voracious Varmint

• Spells (14)
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Legolas's Quick Reflexes
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Damnation
• 1 In Garruk's Wake
• 1 Traumatize
• 1 Unmarked Grave

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Freed from the Real
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Pemmin's Aura
• 1 Rhystic Study

• Artifacts (5)
• 1 Agatha's Soul Cauldron
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Chromatic Orrery
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 The Great Henge

• Lands (36)
• 7 Forest
• 7 Island
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Deathcap Glade
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Opulent Palace
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Shipwreck Marsh
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium
• 1 Watery Grave
• 1 Woodland Cemetery

Buy This Deck Export text

To tune this deck up you might focus on more streamlined wincons. It might seem scary to swing your commander as a 16/16 Blighted Agent with Swiftfoot Boots equipped, but that isn't enough to make an impact at a cEDH table in 2025. You could probably play high-powered EDH but again, your mileage may vary. Some playgroups might have trouble with a deck like this, but others won't think twice about countering your commander, removing your threats and focusing you down.

If you instead want to make this list a little friendlier for a lower powered meta, you'd start by removing the creatures with infect. I might suggest keeping the unblockable ones, but you'll definitely want to make sure you maintain the ability to put up blockers and survive in a more combat-heavy environment. You could probably even keep a convoluted combo in the list, so long as it isn't too efficient and you aren't loading up on tutors.

Final Thoughts

One of the nice things about Mimeoplasm, Revered One, is that it rewards you for committing to the board. If you get scary enough without casting your commander to inspire someone to wipe the board, they'll be setting you up to have creatures to exile when you cast Mimeoplasm. Blackcleave Goblin is the perfect post-boardwipe Mimeoplasm target, as it has infect and haste. You could easily untap, play Mimeoplasm, exile a few creatures including Blackcleave Goblin, and then swing lethal on somebody.

The other cool thing about this commander is it's just weird enough that I'm sure folks will be uncovering new combinations of creatures to use in the deck for a long time. My own ideas feel a little obvious to me, but I'm sure there are cooler and more powerful things you can do that I didn't even think of. You might love the idea of putting a googolplex worth of counters on Mimeoplasm, making it a copy of Sage of Hours, and then taking all the turns for the rest of the game. Just make sure you have a way to demonstrate the win.

This week I had planned to write a column about another one of the new Aetherdrift Gods, but there was a mixup and I had to switch gears after getting partway through that decklist. In retrospect, that was a lucky break because this was a fun deck to brew up and a fun column to write.

I probably won't go out of my way to build this deck, as I've been leaning away from building decks that present themselves as a huge lethal threat quite as obviously as Mimeoplasm will. I do love the idea of getting some use out of Gilder Bairn, though, so it's possible I'll pick up a copy of Mimeoplasm, Revered One, and take it for a ride.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!