MTG Devour, Amass, Graft, Evolve and Adapt guide image showing a massive creature growing stronger with glowing +1/+1 counters, magical energy, evolving monsters, armies, and Commander counter mechanics.

MTG Devour, Amass, Graft, Evolve & Adapt Guide

Eight Magic: The Gathering mechanics put +1/+1 counters on a creature — and every single one of them earns those counters a completely different way. Sacrifice your allies. Let another creature enter. Wait a turn and pay again. Attack once and stop forever. Confusing the mechanism is where players lose track of what their board can actually do.

This guide covers devour, amass, graft, evolve, adapt, monstrosity, outlast, and bolster — with exactly how each one earns its counters and the rules that decide games.

This is the twelfth article in our series on advanced MTG mechanics, following our guides to unearth and persist and exalted and myriad.

Part One: Growing by Consuming Something

Devour

Devour (CR 702.82) is a static ability: as this creature enters, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. It enters with N +1/+1 counters for each creature sacrificed this way, where N is the devour number.

  • It's a replacement effect, not a trigger. This is the detail that matters most: the creature never exists at its base size and then grows. It enters the battlefield already at its final, larger size. Anything that cares about the creature's power or toughness as it enters sees the boosted version immediately.
  • The sacrifice happens as part of entering, before the creature is fully on the battlefield. You choose how many creatures to sacrifice — including zero — as the devour creature enters.
  • It doesn't matter how the creature entered. Cast normally, put into play by another effect, reanimated — devour still applies.
  • Indestructible creatures can still be sacrificed. Sacrifice isn't destruction, so indestructible offers no protection from being devoured.
  • Devour [quality] variants restrict what can be sacrificed. "Devour artifact," for example, only lets you sacrifice artifacts rather than any creature.

Amass

Amass (CR 701.47) is a keyword action, not a static or triggered ability by itself — it's an instruction that appears inside other abilities. "Amass [subtype] N" means: if you don't control an Army creature, create a 0/0 black [subtype] Army creature token; then choose an Army creature you control and put N +1/+1 counters on it. If that Army is not already the listed subtype, it becomes that subtype in addition to its other types.

  • Army is just a creature type. If you already control any creature with the Army type — even a nontoken one, or one that gained Army from something like changeling — amass puts its counters on that creature instead of making a new token.
  • Existing Armies can change subtype. If you amass Orcs onto an Army that was not already an Orc, it becomes an Orc in addition to its other creature types.
  • You choose which Army gets the counters if you control more than one.
  • The token creation and the counters are two separate steps. If somehow the token creation fails or is impossible, you still consider the amass instruction to have happened.
  • A 0/0 token with no counters yet would die to state-based actions — but the token creation and the counter placement happen as part of the same instruction, so a freshly created Army token always gets its counters before any player receives priority.

Part Two: Growing From Another Creature

Graft

Graft (CR 702.58) does two things: the creature enters with N +1/+1 counters on it, and whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may move a +1/+1 counter from the graft creature onto that creature.

  • It triggers on every other creature entering, controlled by anyone. Graft doesn't care whose creature it is — an opponent's creature entering the battlefield triggers your graft ability just the same as your own.
  • It doesn't target. Because graft moves the counter as part of a triggered ability that simply asks "move a counter onto the creature that entered," it can move a counter onto a creature with protection from creatures or one that couldn't otherwise be targeted.
  • Multiple graft creatures can all move a counter onto the same new creature, stacking value from every graft source you control at once.
  • Losing all its counters can kill a 0/0 graft creature. Most graft creatures are printed as 0/0s that rely entirely on their counters for survival — move the last one away, and it dies to state-based actions unless something else is boosting its toughness.

Evolve

Evolve is a triggered ability: whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has greater power or greater toughness than this creature, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.

  • Either stat qualifies, not both. A creature entering with higher power alone, or higher toughness alone, is enough to trigger evolve — it doesn't need to beat both numbers.
  • It compares to the evolve creature's power and toughness at the moment the other creature enters, counters and all, not its printed values.
  • The comparison happens twice. Evolve checks the entering creature's power and toughness when the ability would trigger, and again as the ability resolves. If the evolve creature grows before the trigger resolves, or the entering creature becomes smaller or leaves, evolve may do nothing.
  • Evolve creatures can trigger off each other. If you control two evolve creatures and cast a new creature that outclasses both, each one triggers separately and gets its own counter.
  • The evolve creature does not evolve from itself. New permanents can be checked for enters-the-battlefield triggers, but an evolve creature entering compares the entering creature to itself. It cannot have greater power or toughness than itself, so its own evolve ability does not trigger from its own entry.

Part Three: Growing by Paying Later

Adapt

Adapt (CR 701.46) is a keyword action typically wrapped in an activated ability: "Adapt N" means if this creature has no +1/+1 counters on it, put N +1/+1 counters on it.

  • Any +1/+1 counters block it, not just ones from adapt itself. If the creature already has a +1/+1 counter from any source — combat, another spell, anything — adapt does nothing when activated.
  • It can work again if the counters go away. Unlike monstrosity, adapt has no permanent "used" marker. You may activate the ability again later, and if the creature has no +1/+1 counters as adapt resolves, it will get the counters again.
  • Activating it is optional and repeatable as long as the condition (no counters) is met each time.

Monstrosity

Monstrosity (CR 701.37) looks similar but works completely differently underneath: "Monstrosity N" means if this permanent isn't monstrous, put N +1/+1 counters on it and it becomes monstrous.

  • "Monstrous" is a permanent, one-way label — not a counter count. Once a creature becomes monstrous, it stays monstrous for as long as it remains on the battlefield, even if every +1/+1 counter is later removed.
  • This is why monstrosity can only ever fire once per object. Activating it again does nothing, because the creature is already monstrous — there's no way to reset that status short of the creature leaving and re-entering the battlefield as a new object.
  • The creature can still gain +1/+1 counters from other sources before or after becoming monstrous; those don't interfere with, or substitute for, the monstrosity ability itself.
  • Some cards care specifically about "becoming monstrous," which only happens when the monstrosity ability actually resolves — simply having counters is not the same event.

Outlast

Outlast (CR 702.107) is an activated ability: "Outlast [cost]" means [cost], {T}: put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. Activate only as a sorcery.

  • The cost includes tapping the creature. Because tapping is part of the cost, a creature with summoning sickness can't activate its own outlast ability — the same restriction that stops any tap ability on a freshly cast creature.
  • Sorcery speed only. You can only outlast during your main phase with an empty stack.
  • Outlast does not grant vigilance or any other ability. It's purely a mana sink that adds a counter; some outlast creatures separately grant bonuses to creatures with +1/+1 counters, but that is a different ability printed alongside outlast, not part of outlast itself.
  • Those bonus-granting effects usually count counters from any source, not only ones placed by outlast — so a creature that got a +1/+1 counter some other way still qualifies.

Part Four: Growing Someone Else

Bolster

Bolster (CR 701.39) is a keyword action, most often triggered by another ability: "Bolster N" means choose a creature you control with the least toughness — or tied for least — among creatures you control, and put N +1/+1 counters on that creature.

  • It doesn't target. The creature is chosen as the ability resolves, not when it's put on the stack, so hexproof, protection, and shroud offer no protection against being bolstered.
  • Toughness is checked at the moment of the bolster action, not earlier — if a creature's toughness changes between the trigger and the resolution, the check uses the final numbers.
  • Ties let you choose. If multiple creatures share the lowest toughness, you decide which one gets the counters.
  • A creature can bolster itself if it happens to have the lowest (or tied-lowest) toughness among your creatures when the ability resolves.
  • All the counters go to one creature — bolster never splits its counters across multiple targets.

Quick Reference

Mechanic How you earn the counters Reusable?
Devour Sacrifice creatures as this one enters One-time, as it enters
Amass Instruction inside another ability Every time it's invoked
Graft Starts with counters, moves them to new creatures Once per counter it has
Evolve A bigger creature enters under your control Every qualifying entry
Adapt Pay a cost while it has zero counters Yes, if counters are later removed
Monstrosity Pay a cost while not yet monstrous No — once ever
Outlast Tap and pay, sorcery speed Every turn
Bolster Applies to your weakest creature, not this one Every time it's invoked

Why These Matter in Commander

Devour and amass turn expendable boards into single must-answer threats. Token-heavy strategies that would otherwise struggle to close a game can convert spare bodies into one enormous creature. The trade-off is real: you become stronger against small combat boards, but more exposed to single-target removal, so protection matters.

Graft and evolve reward a specific deckbuilding order. Both want your smaller, cheaper creatures to come down after the payoff, not before — sequencing your curve deliberately gets far more value than casting them in any order.

Adapt beats monstrosity in the long Commander game. Because adapt can trigger again and again if its counters are stripped, it survives -1/-1 counter effects and counter-removal in a way monstrosity's one-time status never can.

Outlast is a genuine long-game mana sink, which is exactly what Commander's extended turn count rewards — a card that does nothing exciting in a fast format can quietly out-grow the table over many turns.

Bolster is protection for your worst creature, which matters more in multiplayer than it looks: propping up your smallest, most vulnerable body keeps your board resilient against the removal an opponent would otherwise use to pick you apart piece by piece.

You can find the pieces for these strategies in our full catalogue, or import your decklist directly with our decklist search tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does devour let opponents see how big my creature will be before it enters?

Devour is a replacement effect that applies as the creature enters, so it doesn't telegraph anything in advance the way a triggered ability would. Opponents only see the final size once the creature is already on the battlefield with its counters.

Does amass always create a new token?

No. It only creates a token if you don't already control any Army creature. Army is simply a creature type — if you control one for any reason, amass puts its counters on that creature instead of making a new one.

Can graft move a counter onto a creature with hexproof?

Yes. Graft's counter movement doesn't target, so hexproof, protection from creatures, and similar defenses don't stop it. This also means it can move a counter onto an opponent's creature just as easily as your own, since the ability simply cares that a creature entered.

What's the actual difference between adapt and monstrosity?

Adapt checks whether the creature currently has any +1/+1 counters — if you remove them all, adapt can be used again. Monstrosity checks a separate, permanent "monstrous" status that never resets once granted, regardless of what happens to the creature's counters afterward. A monstrous creature stripped of every counter is still monstrous and can never gain its monstrosity bonus again.

Can I outlast a creature the turn it enters the battlefield?

No. Outlast's cost includes tapping the creature, and a creature with summoning sickness can't be tapped for a cost like that unless it has haste. You'll need to wait until it has been under your control since the start of your turn.

Does bolster target my creature?

No. You choose the creature with the least toughness as the bolster action resolves, not by targeting it beforehand. This means bolster can affect creatures with hexproof or shroud, since those abilities only stop targeting.

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