Making Upgrades to the Eldrazi Incursion Commander Deck | Article by Paige Smith (2024)

Back in 2008 I quit Magic. I simply couldn't find anyone to play with in my area following several years of attempts following a major cross-country move. As these things tend to go, though, I found myself coming back a few years later in 2010 with the release of Urza's Legacy on Magic Online. While back, I decided to check out the latest set at the time and draft that a little as well. That set was Rise of the Eldrazi and it blew me away.

Back in the day, the biggest creatures were the likes of Spirit of the Night, Darksteel Colossus, or Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Each of these was a staple in their own times, with some level of competitive pedigree and dominating forces at casual tables the world over. To come back and see the likes of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in games of Magic was mind blowing. Not only were these eldrazi creatures massive, they had wild abilities as well!

Fast forward fourteen years later and we're now at the release of Modern Horizons 3. We've seen multiple sets and/or blocks focusing on the eldrazi menace, and now we're seeing them once more here in this set. To help celebrate that focus, Wizards has even put together a sweet new Commander preconstructed deck centered around them for the set!

(product images: Ulalek, Fused Atrocity and the Eldrazi Incursion precon)

This list features Ulalek, Fused Atrocity - a new legendary that enables you to use eldrazi alongside all five colors of Magic! This comes in contrast to last year's Eldrazi Unbound deck that focused solely on the Colorless aspect of the eldrazi most people best know the creature type for. Today we're going to going through and discussing possible ways you can upgrade this list, but first we have to check out the contents of the deck itself!

The first thing to mention when looking at upgrading this deck is, well, looking at other eldrazi cards. To start, there's that whole other preconstructed deck to pull from! The Eldrazi Unbound deck from Commander Masters saw a heavier focus on the Colorless side of things, meaning there's some sweet cards you won't find here. This includes powerful eldrazi staples like Rise of the Eldrazi, Flayer of Loyalties, and Darksteel Monolith. It might be a bit much to recommend going in on two premium product Commander decks to upgrade the "main" one, but I'd argue it's worth it for just how many awesome cards you'll be able to pull from and utilize well within this list.

Past that, there's also the handful of sets that specifically featured eldrazi cards: Rise of the Eldrazi, Battle for Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch, Eldritch Moon and the main set of Modern Horizons 3. Many cards from each of these sets are in this deck or the Commander Masters one, but there's still a fair number that don't show up in either. The most glaring of these are naturally the eldrazi titans themselves: Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul. You might not be able to include Emrakul, the Aeons Torn here (it's banned) but there's plenty of other powerful choices among all three of the titans for you to choose from. I know I'm partial to Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Ulamong, the Ceaseless Hunger myself.

Past the titans, there's still a handful of solid options too. Naturally they didn't want to include all the good stuff from Modern Horizons 3 proper into a preconstructed deck like this, so cards like Sowing Mycospwan, Nulldrifter, and Echoes of Eternity are prime choices. When it comes to older sets, it's almost surprising to me that Conduit of Ruin isn't in any of these lists and is an extremely powerful card for any eldrazi deck. Finally, cards like Barrage Tyrant and Decimator of Provinces can give your deck a little more reach in a way that might not be in any of the actual precons. Both give you a powerful way to close out games in a meaningful way.

Beyond the eldrazi themselves, one thing I also really want to touch on is the deck's mana base. Normally this is something I don't really cover in my upgrade articles anymore because of how monotonous the discussion tends to get. After all, there's only so many times I can tell players to add in shock lands, filter lands, check lands, and so on to their lists. As it happens, though, the nature of this precon requires a different approach because of all the colorless mana required to make it function. As such, even though this is still technically a five color deck, it'd be an awful idea to suggest to someone to add a ton of shock lands to it because their value is severely diminished in a deck like this.

Given that, it's almost ingenious that the deck already has all ten pain lands in it. Typically, I'd lambast this for being a relatively weak offering comparatively with low value in terms of finance and gameplay. The damage they deal for colored sources is normally a detriment, so while it's fine in small doses, they get really rough when there's too high of a density of them. Here, though, you're relying on the colorless mana far more than you are the colored sources, so the life loss isn't quite so painful. It's more a supplemental bonus as opposed to your main way to make mana.

This line of thought goes for most of these lands too. Cards like Opal Palace, Corrupted Crossroads, and the new Landscape lands seem pretty underwhelming in most situations, but they excel here. If anything, I'd be looking to find what other kinds of mana sources - and not just lands - might be ideal additions. On the lands, digging through and finding powerful utility Colorless lands like Sanctum of Ugin or Alchemist's Refuge that aren't in the precon might be a good start. As for finding means of getting better options for the colored mana side of things, try cards like Chromatic Lantern, Prismatic Omen, and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. These can all enable you to reliably run your Colorless lands but have a way to make them all provide colored mana. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth both help here too.

From here, it would likely be best to consider your options for spells beyond what's offered in a preconstruced list like this. However, in doing so you really need to be mindful of the constraints of how your mana is. For example, casting something like Counterspell might not be the hardest thing for a typical five-color list to pull off. With a list like this leaning so much more on the colorless side of things, though, it's much harder to hit that double Blue cost, and so cards like Essence Scatter and Negate might be better even if they have a bit less versatility.

This also extends into how you choose your ramp options as well. Traditionally, most five color decks skew a bit more heavily toward Green as a central color, since it enables you to fix your mana base and make sure you hit all of your colors in a timely manner. That makes a lot of your typical ramp spells way better. Even with typically fewer basic lands for something like Cultivate, it's still more than possible to dig up cards like Farseek, Nature's Lore, and Three Visits. Here, with so few basic lands and/or lands with a basic land type on them, none of these are particularly helpful. As a result, looking into artifact ramp should be a larger priority for a deck such as this, at which point you should just use whichever configurations seem best for you.

Two spots you should really try getting a little more of especially, though, is both card draw and removal. Much like the aforementioned Counterspell example, you really have to be careful in how you approach something like this. Many cards that draw you multiple cards have multiple pips (see Phyrexian Arena, Lorien Revealed, Sign in Blood etc.) so instead, look for options that are less mana intensive. Things like Night's Whisper and even the dreaded Rhystic Study will go a long way here. As for removal, many classic options like Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, and Doom Blade aren't mana intensive at all, so it shouldn't be hard to add in a couple here to ensure you have a few extra answers around.

The beauty of a deck like this being both five colors and also having a heavy focus on colorless is that you basically have infinite options available to you! So long as you're mindful of your limitations on how many color pips you use in your spells, there's no shortage of ways to tweak this list, so do so in whatever way seems best for you. No matter how you do it, you'll almost assuredly have an awesome time at your next Commander night! Just don't be surprised if your friends aren't too thrilled as they get swarmed by these massive Eldrazi monstrosities along the way.

Paige Smith

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TAGS articles, casual, edh, commander, preconstructed, decklist, precon, upgrade, paige smith, modern horizons 3, mh3, 07032024