Eldrazi Incursion already has one of the highest ceilings of any Commander precon from Modern Horizons 3. Ulalek, Fused Atrocity does something far more dangerous than simply making your Eldrazi larger: every Eldrazi spell can become an opportunity to copy spells and abilities already waiting on the stack.
That makes upgrading the deck less about stuffing it with every enormous Eldrazi you can find and more about making Ulalek’s turns actually function. You need reliable colorless mana for the commander trigger, enough fixing to cast a five-color commander, Eldrazi that generate useful cast triggers and a mana curve that lets you do more than cast one giant creature and pass.
The stock list already contains an excellent foundation with Glaring Fleshraker, Forsaken Monument, World Breaker, Sire of Stagnation, Mystic Forge and several Eldrazi Spawn and Scion producers. The best upgrades make that engine faster and give Ulalek more worthwhile things to copy.
How Ulalek Actually Copies the Stack
Ulalek, Fused Atrocity has one of those abilities that becomes much stronger once you understand exactly what it is doing. Whenever you cast an Eldrazi spell, you may pay two colorless mana. If you do, you copy every spell you control on the stack, then copy every other activated and triggered ability you control on the stack. You may choose new targets for the copies.
The crucial point is that Ulalek can copy much more than the Eldrazi spell that triggered it. If that Eldrazi has a cast trigger, the trigger can also be copied. If another ability triggered because you cast the spell, that ability can be copied too. If you deliberately have another instant, activated ability or triggered ability waiting on the stack when Ulalek resolves, those can become part of the package as well.
The copies of spells are created directly on the stack rather than being cast again, so they do not generate another wave of cast triggers. When a copied permanent spell resolves, however, the copy becomes a token version of that permanent. This is why Ulalek rewards careful sequencing more than simply casting the largest spell possible.
The other important requirement is mana. Ulalek’s trigger specifically costs two colorless mana, not two generic mana. A five-color land that can cast the commander may still be useless for paying that trigger. Building a good Ulalek mana base therefore means solving two different problems at once: access to all five colors and dependable sources of colorless mana.
Best Eldrazi Incursion Upgrades
Echoes of Eternity is the clearest upgrade for the deck. Whenever a colorless spell or another colorless permanent you control causes a triggered ability to trigger, Echoes can cause that ability to trigger an additional time, and it also copies colorless spells you cast. In a normal Eldrazi deck that is already powerful. With Ulalek, it creates additional triggers and spells that can themselves be caught when Ulalek copies the stack.
This is also a card that can push the deck into combo territory. Together with certain Spawn-producing Eldrazi such as the stock Glaring Fleshraker, Ulalek and Echoes of Eternity can create recursive stack interactions capable of producing infinite tokens, triggers and damage. Current Commander combo data confirms several versions of these Ulalek and Echoes loops. If you want Eldrazi Incursion to remain closer to an upgraded-precon experience, Echoes is still excellent, but it is worth knowing what its ceiling looks like.
Kozilek’s Unsealing is another strong addition at a much lower mana value. Casting sufficiently large colorless creatures can produce Eldrazi Spawn or draw cards, depending on the creature’s mana value. Those triggered abilities give Ulalek more material to copy while helping solve the deck’s two biggest needs: mana and cards.
It That Heralds the End is much less spectacular, but exactly the kind of efficiency upgrade the deck needs. It reduces the cost of larger colorless spells while improving smaller colorless creatures, helping you reach the expensive Eldrazi turns earlier instead of spending the entire early game waiting to do something. Both Kozilek’s Unsealing and It That Heralds the End remain among the higher-synergy cards in current upgraded Ulalek lists.
At the expensive end, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is the type of premium Eldrazi worth adding if the budget allows it. Its cast trigger exiles two target permanents before Ulamog resolves. Ulalek can copy that triggered ability as part of his stack-copying effect, potentially turning one cast into removal for four permanents while also copying the Ulamog spell itself.
Kozilek, the Great Distortion offers a different payoff. Its cast trigger can refill your hand up to seven cards, and the creature gives you a powerful form of interaction by letting you discard cards with matching mana values to counter spells. These Titans are expensive upgrades, but unlike a random twelve-mana creature, they provide valuable cast triggers before opponents even get the chance to deal with the body.
More Eldrazi Is Not Always Better
The temptation with Eldrazi Incursion is to replace every ordinary-looking card with another giant Eldrazi. That usually makes the deck worse. Ulalek costs five mana, the ability asks you to keep another two colorless mana available and many of the tribe’s best creatures cost seven or more. If too much of the deck lives at the top of the curve, you can easily spend the first six turns doing very little.
The stock Spawn and Scion package helps solve that problem. Glaring Fleshraker, Awakening Zone, Sifter of Skulls, Drowner of Hope and Spawnbed Protector either make expendable Eldrazi bodies or reward you for having them. Those tokens can become colorless mana, exactly what Ulalek needs to pay for his trigger.
That makes Glaring Fleshraker particularly important. Colorless spells can create Eldrazi Spawn, while colorless creatures entering can damage each opponent. The card is already in the precon and remains one of Ulalek’s highest-synergy cards in current upgraded lists. It gives the deck an early play, mana generation and a genuine way to turn repeated Eldrazi copies into a win.
The same logic applies to cost reduction. The stock Herald’s Horn is valuable because most of your creatures share a type, while Ugin, the Ineffable reduces colorless spell costs and provides additional value. These cards may look less exciting than another Eldrazi Titan, but they are often the reason you get to cast those Titans before the game is already over.
What to Cut
The first cuts should come from expensive cards that do not offer enough payoff for Ulalek’s specific engine. Ulamog’s Crusher is a classic Eldrazi, but eight mana for a large annihilator creature without a cast trigger is much less appealing once the deck has access to Eldrazi that generate value before they resolve. It can absolutely win casual games, but it is an easy slot to upgrade.
Inversion Behemoth has some interesting combat applications, yet seven mana is substantial for a creature that does not create the kind of cast-trigger value Ulalek most wants. Benthic Anomaly can make unusual copies of opposing creatures, but it occupies another expensive slot in a deck already crowded at the top.
Some of the slower mana rocks can also be tightened. Dreamstone Hedron costs six mana, and while it eventually provides three colorless mana or cards, that is a large initial investment. Hedron Archive is more reasonable because four mana for two colorless mana helps pay Ulalek’s trigger, but even that slot depends on how aggressively you want to lower the curve.
I would avoid cutting Forsaken Monument simply because it costs five. It makes your colorless creatures larger, gains life when you cast colorless spells and increases mana from lands and permanents tapped for colorless mana. That combination is unusually relevant here. Likewise, World Breaker deserves to stay because its cast trigger removes an artifact, enchantment or land before the creature resolves, giving Ulalek something particularly useful to duplicate.
The goal is to remove the high-cost cards that are only big, while preserving the high-cost cards that reward you for casting them.
Fixing Ulalek’s Five-Color and Colorless Mana
The mana base is arguably the hardest part of upgrading Eldrazi Incursion. Ulalek’s mana cost contains five hybrid symbols that can each be paid with colorless mana or the corresponding color, giving the deck some flexibility when casting the commander. His triggered ability is less forgiving: it needs two actual colorless mana.
The stock deck already contains some excellent pieces. Eldrazi Temple, Shrine of the Forsaken Gods, Corrupted Crossroads, Cascading Cataracts, Secluded Courtyard and Unclaimed Territory all solve different parts of the problem. The pain lands such as Adarkar Wastes, Battlefield Forge, Llanowar Wastes, Shivan Reef and Yavimaya Coast are particularly useful because they can produce colored mana when needed or colorless mana for Ulalek.
This is one deck where replacing every colorless-producing land with prettier five-color fixing can actively hurt you. You need enough sources capable of producing colorless mana that holding up two after an Eldrazi spell is realistic. At the same time, cards such as Temple of Malady and Temple of Silence are relatively slow and do not solve the colorless side of the equation, making them reasonable early replacements.
Cavern of Souls is a premium option if the budget allows it. Naming Eldrazi gives the deck another excellent tribal land and can protect important Eldrazi spells from counterspells. Ancient Tomb provides explosive colorless acceleration, although its price and life cost make it far from mandatory. More affordable improvements should concentrate on lands that can provide both reliable fixing and access to genuine colorless mana.
The same consideration applies to ramp. Talisman of Dominance, Talisman of Curiosity, Talisman of Impulse, Talisman of Resilience, Arcane Signet, Everflowing Chalice and Sol Ring are already in the deck. Before adding another huge Eldrazi, improving the early mana is usually the stronger investment.
Our Mana Base Upgrade Guide is useful here, although Eldrazi Incursion has an additional requirement compared with a normal five-color deck: always preserve enough genuine colorless sources to pay for Ulalek.
How the Upgraded Eldrazi Incursion Deck Plays
The early game should be about establishing mana rather than trying to look intimidating. Cheap ramp, cost reducers and Spawn or Scion producers prepare the battlefield so that casting Ulalek does not consume an entire turn. Ideally, you want enough mana available that the first Eldrazi cast after Ulalek can already leave two colorless mana open for his trigger.
From there, sequencing becomes more important than raw creature size. Casting World Breaker gives you a useful cast trigger before the creature resolves. Paying for Ulalek can copy the World Breaker spell and that trigger, giving you considerably more value from the same card. Add Echoes of Eternity or Kozilek’s Unsealing, and a single Eldrazi spell can suddenly create several separate objects and abilities on the stack.
The deck does not need to force those complicated turns every time. Sometimes copying one strong Eldrazi and one cast trigger is already enough. The important upgrade is having the mana to choose when the opportunity appears rather than tapping out for an Eldrazi and leaving Ulalek unable to do anything.
Once the engine is established, the precon’s smaller Eldrazi stop looking like filler. Spawn provide colorless mana, Glaring Fleshraker turns repeated colorless creatures into damage and the expensive Eldrazi become finishers that arrive with several layers of value attached.
PreconForge Verdict
Eldrazi Incursion already contains many of Ulalek’s most important cards. Glaring Fleshraker, Forsaken Monument, World Breaker, Sire of Stagnation, Mystic Forge, All Is Dust, Eldritch Immunity and Eldrazi Temple all belong to the official stock list.
The best upgrades should make that foundation easier to use rather than simply make the average Eldrazi larger. Echoes of Eternity dramatically increases the deck’s copying ceiling, Kozilek’s Unsealing turns larger colorless creatures into cards or Spawn and It That Heralds the End improves the early curve. Premium Titans such as Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Kozilek, the Great Distortion become worthwhile because their cast triggers give Ulalek something powerful to duplicate.
The guiding principle is simple: Ulalek does not need the deck to contain more enormous Eldrazi. He needs enough mana and enough meaningful triggers to make every important Eldrazi spell count twice.
