Rebellion Rising precon upgrade guide

A token that enters already attacking gets Neyali's double strike but can't set off her exile ability. That one rule decides which token makers matter in this box, and it drives eleven swaps that cost $34.46.

Every figure on this page comes from resolving the shipped Phyrexia: All Will Be One Commander decklist card by card, then recounting on the post-swap list. Card text and rulings are Scryfall's, checked against each card named below.

What are the best Rebellion Rising upgrades?

That's the order I'd buy them in, weighted by how much of Neyali's plan each card carries. Prices are October 2026 market prices at the cheapest released printing, which can be a promo, and the eleven add up to $34.46. The cuts that make room are argued further down.

1. Hero of Bladehold ($0.60). Two Soldiers per attack, each entering tapped and attacking with double strike. With the battle cry resolving after the tokens, each arrives as a 2/1 that deals four.
2. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar ($2.55). A 1/1 Human per opponent every time you attack, and her own power is your creature count.
3. Mirror Entity ($1.03). Once it's out, pay X after blockers and every creature you control becomes X/X, which the double strikers then hit for twice over.
4. Cathars' Crusade ($4.51). A +1/+1 counter on every creature each time one enters, and this deck's creatures arrive in groups.
5. Brimaz, King of Oreskos ($7.32). A vigilant Cat token joins every attack he makes.
6. Skullclamp ($4.77). Two cards for a 1/1 token and {1}, with a catch covered below.
7. Swords to Plowshares ($0.99). One mana, any creature, at instant speed.
8. Sacred Foundry ($10.28). The most expensive card here and the only optional one.
9. Inspiring Vantage ($1.99). An untapped dual for the first three land drops.
10. Clifftop Retreat ($0.21). An untapped dual as soon as you control a Mountain or a Plains.
11. Battlefield Forge ($0.21). A dual with no tapped clause, paid for in life.

Why a token that enters attacking is a different card

Neyali does two things. Her first ability gives every attacking token you control double strike. Her second exiles the top card of your library whenever one or more tokens you control attack a player, and for any turn in which you attacked with a token, you may play that card. Scryfall's rulings add the detail that decides this page: the second ability triggers once for each player you are attacking with a token. In a four-player pod, three tokens aimed at three opponents is three cards.

A trigger on attacking is a trigger on being declared as an attacker. A token created tapped and attacking was never declared, and the rulings for Hero of Bladehold, Adeline and Brimaz all say so in those words. Otharri, Suns' Glory, the one card in the box that makes tokens this way, is the same: her Rebels arrive attacking, take double strike from the commander and deal the damage, and none of that makes Neyali exile anything.

So the exile engine runs on tokens that exist before combat, and the box has a few. Legion Warboss makes a Goblin at the beginning of combat that has haste and must attack. Assemble the Legion makes a growing handful of hasty Soldiers every upkeep. Loyal Apprentice makes a hasty Thopter at the beginning of combat as long as you control your commander, which here is Neyali herself. Heroic Reinforcements and Goldwardens' Gambit both make tokens with haste, and Roar of Resistance hands haste to every token you control, so anything made in your first main phase can join the attack.

That is a good reason to leave the box's token makers alone and a poor reason to stop adding to them. Hero of Bladehold, Adeline and Brimaz don't wake Neyali, but they put bodies into a combat she is already in, and every one of those bodies has double strike. Hero's pair is eight damage before blockers if the battle cry lands on them. Adeline hands over a Human for each opponent, so three at a standard table. Hero and Brimaz have to attack to make their tokens. Adeline doesn't, because any attack at all hands her the Humans.

The payoffs are the other half of the add list. Cathars' Crusade puts a counter on the whole team for each creature that enters, so Hero's two Soldiers are two counters on everything, and every counter on an attacking token is worth double under Neyali. Mirror Entity is the finisher: pay X after blockers and every creature you control becomes X/X until end of turn, which for double strikers is 2X each. Its ability overwrites base power and toughness, including Harmonious Archon's 3/3 when you activate it after Archon is on the battlefield, while counters and anthems still stack on top.

Seven Equipment, and three of them bring their own carrier

Seven Equipment in a go-wide deck looks like a mistake until you read the cards. Glimmer Lens, Hexplate Wallbreaker and Kemba's Banner each create a 2/2 Rebel token when they enter and attach to it, so they are token makers that happen to be Equipment. The Rebel is a body for Neyali to give double strike, and it sits on the table before your next combat.

Hexplate Wallbreaker deserves the longest look. Its Rebel is a 4/4 with the equipment on it, and when that creature attacks in the first combat phase, every attacker untaps and you get an additional combat phase. An additional combat has its own declare-attackers step, which is a second chance for a token to set off Neyali's exile ability.

The other four are plain attachments, and I'm keeping only one. Mask of Memory equips for {1}, and its trigger fires in each combat damage step, so an unblocked double striker uses it twice. Maul of the Skyclaves costs {2}{W}{W} to equip, and its first strike adds nothing to a token that already has double strike. Mace of the Valiant and Loxodon Warhammer each cost {3} to move. The Warhammer was the argument. Plus three power, trample and lifelink on a double striker is a real swing, but it is paid for again every time the carrier dies, and the carrier is usually a 1/1.

Skullclamp comes in as the one piece of Equipment that pays for itself. Equip {1}, and a 1/1 token wearing it dies at once and draws two. The catch is that anything adding toughness turns it off: Phantom General and Intangible Virtue give tokens +1/+1, Prava of the Steel Legion gives them +1/+4 during your turn, and Harmonious Archon makes them 3/3. With any of those out, a clamped token survives (3/1 under Phantom General or Intangible Virtue, 3/4 under Prava on your turn, 4/2 under Archon) and nothing dies. It's at its best when you're making Goblins and Spirits and none of those four is on the table.

Eleven cards that don't do the job

Chain Reaction deals damage to every creature equal to the number of creatures on the battlefield. In a deck built to put creatures on the battlefield, that is a sweeper which kills every 1/1 you control along with everything else. The box already has three sweepers made for this plan. Hour of Reckoning destroys only nontoken creatures, Martial Coup leaves you the Soldiers it just made, and Elspeth Tirel's ultimate destroys every other permanent except lands and tokens.

Cut a Deal draws you a card for each opponent, which is three at a full table, and gives each of them one in return. That's an even trade at best in a deck that already gets extra cards from Neyali, Idol of Oblivion, Staff of the Storyteller and Mentor of the Meek, and each opponent's extra card is another chance to find an answer for your board. Soul-Guide Lantern is a one-mana graveyard hoser that can cash itself in for a card. Vulshok Factory taps for {R} only and needs {2}{R} plus a sacrifice to become a Golem sized by its charge counters, which is a slow plan for a mana rock.

The Equipment cuts are above. That leaves four lands, and they go in pairs. Forgotten Cave and Secluded Steppe each enter tapped and make one colour, and Buried Ruin and Temple of the False God make colourless, which is the one thing this mana base has enough of.

The mana: eleven Plains, eleven Mountains, and a white deck

The box splits its 22 basics evenly, but the spells aren't split at all. In the upgraded list 41 spells need white and 17 need red. Sixteen of them want WW by turn three, against twelve in the box, because Adeline, Brimaz, Hero and Cathars' Crusade all ask for it. Casting those on curve 90 percent of the time takes 36 white sources. The upgraded list has 29 and the box had 26, so the figure moves from 74.2 percent to 80.4. Red is shorter on cards, with Goldwardens' Gambit, Hexplate Wallbreaker, Hordeling Outburst and Siege-Gang Commander wanting RR, and it goes from 26 sources to 28.

No honest set of dual lands closes a gap of seven in a 38-land deck, so I'm not claiming the swaps do. What they change is tempo. Always-tapped lands drop from seven to five, and the four lands arriving all make both colours where the four leaving made one colour or none.

Clifftop Retreat enters tapped unless you control a Mountain or a Plains, which is true on most turns after the first. Inspiring Vantage comes in untapped only with two or fewer other lands out, so it's a fast land for the opening turns and a tapland from turn four. Battlefield Forge never enters tapped, and the cost is 1 damage on every coloured mana. Sacred Foundry is a Mountain Plains, so it also satisfies both Castles and Clifftop Retreat, and it costs 2 life to enter untapped. A Star Trek printing of it is listed for 13 November 2026, so today's $10.28 may soften.

One change costs nothing. If you have a spare Plains, swap a Mountain for it. Red falls from 28 sources to 27, still over the 24 that a one-pip spell needs by turn two, and white climbs to 30.

The cards that look wrong and stay

Goldwardens' Gambit has an eight on it and I'd still play it. Affinity for Equipment takes a mana off for each one you control, and the upgraded deck runs five: Glimmer Lens, Hexplate Wallbreaker, Kemba's Banner, Mask of Memory and Skullclamp. Five 2/2 Rebels arrive with haste, each may pick up an Equipment, every one can attack with double strike, and because they exist before combat they set Neyali off against every opponent you point them at.

Hate Mirage reads as a one-creature trick and isn't. It makes hasty token copies of up to two creatures you don't control, so you borrow their best creatures for a turn and they're exiled at the end step. The copies are tokens that exist before combat, so under Neyali they attack with double strike and wake the commander. That makes it a four-mana way to set her off.

Myr Battlesphere is seven mana and arrives with four Myr, all artifacts, which also keeps Jor Kadeen's metalcraft switched on. Adriana, Captain of the Guard hands melee to everything else you control, so each creature you declare as an attacker gets bigger for every opponent you attacked. Tokens that enter attacking don't trigger melee.

The doublers I priced and left out

Anointed Procession and Mondrak, Glory Dominus both double the tokens you create, and doubling is the strongest effect available to this commander. Procession costs about $57 at its cheapest printing and Mondrak $44.13, each more than the whole list above. Neither is a Game Changer. If you add one afterwards, Mondrak is the cheaper and Procession the sturdier, since it can't be killed by creature removal. Mondrak doubling Hexplate's Rebel is a small trap, though: the Equipment attaches to only one of the two.

The upgraded decklist

Hover any card name for a preview. Cards leaving are the eleven listed under the cuts, and the rest of the list is the box as shipped.

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“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena, with no account needed.

FAQ

Why doesn't Hero of Bladehold set off Neyali's exile trigger?

Neyali's second ability reads "whenever one or more tokens you control attack a player", which is a trigger on attackers being declared. Hero's Soldiers enter the battlefield tapped and attacking, so they were never declared as attackers. They do get double strike from her first ability and they do deal damage, but the exile needs a token that is on the battlefield when attackers are declared, such as one made before combat or at the beginning of combat.

How many cards can Neyali exile in one turn?

One for each player you attack with at least one token, so up to three in a four-player pod. Attacking only a planeswalker does not count, because the trigger asks for a player. Hexplate Wallbreaker's extra combat phase is a second declare-attackers step, so a token that survives the first combat can set the ability off again.

When can I play the card Neyali exiles?

In any turn in which you attacked with a token, including later turns, and even after Neyali has left the battlefield. The card is exiled face up and can only be played once. Normal timing still applies, so an exiled sorcery waits for a main phase with an empty stack, and a land waits for your land drop.

Which Equipment in Rebellion Rising is worth keeping?

Glimmer Lens, Hexplate Wallbreaker and Kemba's Banner, because each one makes a 2/2 Rebel token when it enters, and Mask of Memory, which equips for {1} and fires its draw-two-discard-one trigger in each damage step, so twice for a double striker. Skullclamp joins them. Maul of the Skyclaves, Mace of the Valiant and Loxodon Warhammer come out, since none of them builds a body and each costs three or four to move.

How much does the Rebellion Rising upgrade cost?

The eleven additions total $34.46 at the cheapest released printing of each card, with Sacred Foundry's $10.28 making up about 30 percent of it. The eleven cards leaving are worth about $9 of the box's singles value, so the deck's total rises by roughly $25. None of the eleven is on the Game Changers list, which leaves the floor at Bracket 1.

Is Sacred Foundry worth $10 in this deck?

It is the only card on the list I would call optional. Foundry is a Mountain Plains, so it satisfies both Castles and Clifftop Retreat, and it enters untapped for 2 life. A Star Trek printing is listed for 13 November 2026, so the price may soften, and Battlefield Forge or Inspiring Vantage do most of the same work for a fraction of it.