Forces of the Imperium precon upgrade guide

The Flesh Is Weak gives every nonartifact creature −1/−1, and six cards in this box make 1/1 Soldier tokens. Cutting it is the plainest of thirteen swaps, and the whole list runs under $30.

Every figure on this page comes from resolving the shipped Warhammer 40,000 Commander decklist card by card: the token-maker count, the land classifications, the pip odds, the bracket floor. Figures about the deck after the swaps were recomputed on the post-swap list.

What are the best Forces of the Imperium upgrades?

Ranked by how far each one moves this particular deck. Prices are September 2026 market prices for default printings, and the whole list totals $29.73. The cuts that make room are argued further down.

1. Divine Visitation ($0.42) — every creature token you would make arrives as a 4/4 Angel with flying and vigilance instead. It is the cheapest card on this list and the largest single change to how the deck wins.
2. Cathars' Crusade ($9.36) — a +1/+1 counter on your whole board every time any creature enters, and this deck's creatures mostly enter in groups.
3. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar ($2.87) — her power is your creature count, and every attack hands you a 1/1 Human per opponent, already tapped and attacking.
4. Secure the Wastes ($4.25) — X 1/1 Warriors at instant speed, which is how a go-wide deck plays around a sweeper.
5. Welcoming Vampire ($3.84) — one free card a turn for the small bodies that keep arriving.
6. Mentor of the Meek ($4.98) — the same conversion, uncapped, at {1} a card.
7. Precinct Captain ($0.32) — a two-mana first striker that manufactures a Soldier every time it connects.
8. Battle Screech ($0.24) — four 1/1 fliers across two castings, and the flashback cost is paid by creatures the commander has already given vigilance.
9. Skyclave Apparition ($0.26) — exile on a three-mana body, replacing removal that cost five.
10. Path to Exile ($1.04) — one mana, any creature, at instant speed.
11. Generous Gift ($0.71) — the only answer in the list that can point at a land or a planeswalker.
12. Unbreakable Formation ($1.20) — protection for the entire board rather than for one named creature type.
13. Castle Ardenvale ($0.24) — the one land change, and the reason white ends up with the source count it wants.

Nineteen ways to make a token, one card that makes them bigger

Nineteen of the ninety-nine make creature tokens under your control, and they arrive in three tidy groups of six plus a straggler. Six make 1/1 white Soldiers: Deploy to the Front, Launch the Fleet, Martial Coup, Entrapment Maneuver, Memorial to Glory and Company Commander. Six make 2/2 white Astartes Warriors with vigilance: Defenders of Humanity, Birth of the Imperium, Belisarius Cawl, Marneus Calgar, Thunderhawk Gunship and Inquisitorial Rosette. Six are Squad creatures that copy themselves for {2} a go: Space Marine Devastator, Ultramarines Honour Guard, Zephyrim, Vanguard Suppressor, Arco-Flagellant and Sicarian Infiltrator. Inquisitor Eisenhorn makes Cherubael. On top of all that, the commander investigates every time she taps something down.

Now count the cards in the 99 that give the whole team a permanent bonus. There is one: Ultramarines Honour Guard. Bastion Protector only pumps commanders. For the Emperor! lasts a turn. And They Shall Know No Fear lasts a turn and covers one creature type. Inquisitor Greyfax herself hands out +1/+0, which is power, not survivability, so a Soldier that walks into a 2/2 still dies.

The box builds an army and then declines to arm it. That is the hole most of the add list fills.

A sweeper that never stops sweeping

The Flesh Is Weak is genuinely strong for exactly one turn. It enters, puts a +1/+1 counter on each of your creatures, and its second line makes anything carrying a counter an artifact. Then the third line shrinks every nonartifact creature on the battlefield by −1/−1. Your board is immune. Everyone else's is not, and a five-mana one-sided shrink is a real card.

The trouble starts on the next token. Anything created after the enchantment resolves has no counter, so it is not an artifact, so it takes the −1/−1: a 1/1 Soldier enters as a 0/0 and is gone before you can respond. Greyfax does not save it, because +1/+0 raises power and the token is dying to zero toughness. The 2/2 Astartes Warriors survive as 1/1s, which is the difference between the two halves of the deck and not much consolation. In a list with six 1/1 Soldier producers, this is a card that taxes its own deck for the rest of the game.

What a 1/1 Soldier ought to be worth

Divine Visitation answers the whole problem for 42 cents. Every creature token becomes a 4/4 Angel with flying and vigilance, so Martial Coup for five stops being five 1/1s and becomes twenty power in the air. Cathars' Crusade takes the other route: a counter on everything each time a creature enters, which the Squad creatures trigger two and three times off a single cast, and which stays on the board after the sweeper you were worried about.

The bodies get cheaper and more frequent. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is three mana for a creature whose power is your board and who adds three tokens a swing in a four-player pod. Precinct Captain is a two-drop the box had no equivalent of. Secure the Wastes holds up mana and dumps a board at the end of someone else's turn. Battle Screech gets cast twice, and its flashback wants three untapped white creatures, which is the resting state of a deck whose commander grants vigilance to everything.

Welcoming Vampire and Mentor of the Meek turn small bodies into cards, and there is a wrinkle worth knowing before you buy them. Both read power 2 or less. With Greyfax on the battlefield her anthem applies as the token enters, so a 2/2 Astartes Warrior arrives as a 3/2 and triggers neither one, while a 1/1 arrives as a 2/1 and still does. Nearly every token this add list introduces is a 1/1, which keeps the draw live; the Astartes half of the box does not feed it.

Removal is a straight downgrade in cost. Skyclave Apparition, Path to Exile and Generous Gift answer at one and three mana what Primaris Eliminator and Grey Knight Paragon were answering at five. Unbreakable Formation is the protection spell this deck actually wants, since it covers the board rather than one named type, and cast in your main phase it also leaves a counter on everything.

Two cards I looked at hard and left out

Anointed Procession ($61.26) and Mondrak, Glory Dominus ($40.52) both double your tokens, and doubling is the strongest effect available to this commander. Neither made the list, and the reason is not squeamishness about spending on a box whose singles run $219.94. It is that Divine Visitation costs 42 cents and, in a deck whose tokens are mostly 1/1s, trading two Soldiers for one 4/4 flier is the better half of that choice. If you want a doubler anyway, buy the Procession first and treat it as a fourteenth card rather than a replacement for anything here.

Intangible Virtue is a 30-cent token anthem I nearly ran and did not. Half of it is vigilance, which Greyfax already grants, and the +1/+1 half switches off Skullclamp by pushing your Soldiers to two toughness.

Seven five-drops, two sixes, two sevens, and a tapland

Reaver Titan is the most expensive card in the box at $22.80, and it is the first thing I take out. Crew 4 has to be paid before attackers are declared, so four power of your creatures stay home to send a 10/10. This deck's creatures are 1/1s and 2/2s. Vigilance is no help either, because crewing taps them regardless of whether they were going to attack.

Sister Hospitaller ($12.16) is six mana to rebuy one creature, and Callidus Assassin ($5.88) is six mana for a copy that only kills something already sharing its new name. Both are fine in a deck that reaches six mana comfortably. This one now averages 3.35.

The five-drops go as a block. Triumph of Saint Katherine, Primaris Eliminator, Grey Knight Paragon, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Sister of Silence and Redemptor Dreadnought are all single bodies that arrive one at a time, on a turn the deck would rather spend making four. None of them cares that the board is wide, and none of them makes it wider.

Exterminatus destroys all nonland permanents including yours, which is a strange thing to ship in a token deck. The box's other two sweepers were built for this list on purpose: Hour of Reckoning destroys all nontoken creatures and is paid for by convoking the tokens it spares, and Martial Coup for five or more leaves you the Soldiers and everyone else nothing. Keeping three sweepers and cutting the one that hits your own board is not a hard call.

Cybernetica Datasmith draws a card and gives a different player a 4/4 that cannot block. In a deck that plans to attack into everyone, handing a 4/4 to one of them is a price, not a bonus.

Only one land moves. Dismal Backwater comes out for Castle Ardenvale, and it matters which tapland goes: the Backwater is the blue-black one, so removing it is what lifts white from 23 sources to 24. Taking Tranquil Cove instead would have cost white a source to save nothing.

The thirteen cards leaving carry roughly $50 of the box's $219.94 of singles, most of it in the Titan, and the thirteen arriving cost $29.73, so the upgraded list prices out at $199.49. That is a market figure and not resale advice: nobody buys cards from you at retail.

Which creature type to name: Human, Warrior, Soldier or Angel

And They Shall Know No Fear is a $10.26 instant and the only card in the deck that asks you to choose. The answer is never obvious here, because the creatures and the tokens belong to different types.

After the swaps the deck runs 27 creatures: 15 Human, 9 Astartes, 9 Warrior, 6 Soldier. The board in front of you is usually tokens, and those are 1/1 white Soldiers from seven sources, 2/2 white Astartes Warriors from six, 1/1 Humans from Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and Castle Ardenvale, 1/1 Warriors from Secure the Wastes, and 1/1 Birds from Battle Screech.

Naming Human protects the most cards you cast and none of your Soldier or Astartes tokens. Naming Warrior covers nine creatures plus every 2/2 Astartes token and the Secure the Wastes bodies, which on a token board is usually the biggest number. Naming Soldier is the read straight after a large Martial Coup. And once Divine Visitation is on the battlefield the question changes entirely, because every token is now an Angel: name Angel and the card covers your whole token board and not one creature you cast.

Why the seven-drop, the Rosette and the Clamp all stay

Deploy to the Front costs seven and I would not cut it. X counts every creature on the battlefield, not just yours, so in a four-player game it is routinely a double-figure number of Soldiers off one card.

Marneus Calgar is a five-mana legend outside the deck's dominant creature type, and he is also its best draw engine. He reads tokens, not creature tokens, so Greyfax's Clues count: tap down a blocker, investigate, draw. Every activation of the commander becomes a card.

Inquisitorial Rosette asks two to cast and three to equip, which is a lot to attach to one creature. The trigger is not about one creature though. A 2/2 arrives attacking every combat, and every attacking creature gains menace, which is how a board of 1/1s gets through.

Skullclamp stays, with a note about the order you play things in. Clamping a 1/1 draws two, and three of the adds raise your tokens above one toughness, so the Clamp is at its best before Divine Visitation or Cathars' Crusade reaches the table and mostly decorative afterwards. That is a conflict which only turns up on turns you were already happy about.

Two of the tapped lands keep their slots. Path of Ancestry scrys on any creature sharing a type with Greyfax, a Human Inquisitor, and 15 of the remaining 27 creatures are Human. Memorial to Glory is a land that turns into two Soldiers when the game goes long.

The curve, the mana and the bracket, recounted

Average mana value falls from 3.81 to 3.35. Cards costing three or less go from 24 to 32 of the nonland list, five-drops from 13 to 8, six-drops from 3 to 1, seven-drops from 4 to 2. Creature count slips from 31 to 27 while legends rise from 7 to 8. The land count holds at 37.

The mana is worth spelling out, because the box is a white deck wearing an Esper mana base. In the stock list 38 spells want white, 21 want black and 14 want blue, and the lands supply 23, 21 and 22 sources respectively. After the swaps white reaches 24, which is exactly the count the turn-two check asks for at 90% on the play, and blue and black settle at 21 and 20.

Two honest caveats. Double white demand goes up, not down: 10 spells now want {W}{W} against 4 in the box, and 24 sources is a long way short of the 36 that a turn-three double would want. Only Precinct Captain actually wants it on turn two; everything else at {W}{W} costs three or more, where the odds are much kinder. And Reconnaissance Mission is still the deck's only {U}{U} card against 21 blue sources, which the numbers say is a stretch. It cycles for {2}, and that is the release valve.

Always-tapped lands drop from 6 to 5 and conditional ones rise from 4 to 5, since Castle Ardenvale enters untapped whenever you control one of the eight Plains. The draw count reaches 13 against a typical band of 8 to 12, which is deliberate: most of it is gated on tokens arriving, so it is conditional draw rather than card advantage you can bank on. Neither list carries a Game Changer, so nothing pushes the deck off Bracket 1 in either direction.

The upgraded decklist

The full 100 after the thirteen swaps. Hover any name to see the card.

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FAQ

Is Forces of the Imperium any good before you change anything?

It plays. The token count is real and Inquisitor Greyfax is a genuinely good commander for it, handing the whole board vigilance so you can attack without opening yourself up. What it lacks is payoff: one permanent anthem in the 99, and an average mana value of 3.81 that makes the fifth and sixth turns slower than the board wants them to be.

Which creature type should I name with And They Shall Know No Fear?

Warrior most often, because the 2/2 Astartes tokens and the Secure the Wastes bodies are both Warriors. Name Human when the board is creatures you cast rather than tokens, and Soldier straight after a large Martial Coup. If Divine Visitation is out, name Angel: every token is one, and no card in your deck is.

Why cut The Flesh Is Weak when it shrinks everyone else's creatures too?

Because it does not stop. The enchantment protects the board that was there when it resolved, then applies −1/−1 to everything you make afterwards, and six cards in this box make 1/1 Soldiers that die on arrival under it. One good turn is not worth taxing the deck's main plan for the rest of the game.

What do the thirteen upgrades cost?

$29.73 in total at September 2026 market prices for default printings, and eight of the thirteen are under $2. The expensive one is Cathars' Crusade at $9.36. The cards coming out carry roughly $50 of the box's value, most of it in Reaver Titan.

Is Reaver Titan worth keeping because it is the box's most valuable card?

No, and the two questions are unrelated. Crew 4 has to be paid before attackers are declared, so four power of your creatures sit out the attack to send a 10/10 with no vigilance of its own. In a deck whose creatures are 1/1s and 2/2s, that is most of a swing traded for one big one. Its $22.80 is a reason to sleeve it separately, not to play it.

Could Marneus Calgar lead this deck instead?

He can, and he is the same three colours. He draws a card whenever one or more tokens you control enter, which this deck triggers constantly, and double strike on a 3/5 is a real threat. What you give up is the thing holding the deck together: Greyfax hands the whole board vigilance, and a token deck that can attack and still block is much harder to race. I would run Calgar in the 99 and keep her out front.

Is Skullclamp still worth running once the tokens get bigger?

Yes, with a caveat about sequencing. Clamping a 1/1 for {1} draws two cards, and that is the best rate in the deck. Divine Visitation and Cathars' Crusade both push your tokens past one toughness, so the Clamp does its work early and goes quiet once the payoffs land. Play it accordingly rather than cutting it.