Today we have a slight departure from usual, diving in to review ALL of the new cards from the first of the Fallout preconstructed Commander decks. In the couple of weeks or so we will be giving our thoughts on all four of the decks being added to our favorite format. While many of us are big Fallout fans, we’re mostly focusing on the cards and their use in the game of Magic in and out of the deck itself.

 

Dogmeat, Ever Loyal

Steel Mentor: What a good dog. Dogmeat is an early game companion you can meet in the original Fallout, and some variant or distant relation to them has been in every numbered game since. A loyal pup who’s totally ready to throw down with a Deathclaw for some headpats. Flavourwise then its absolutely baffling that they’re not a Partner or Companion keyword, their rules seemingly riffing off their ability in some games to scavenge items, or get used as a loot caddy when their effectiveness as a fighter falls off towards the end of a game. Cute art though.

BPhillipYork: Nice to see Dogmeat right away but I’m super confused that he doesn’t have um… partner. I mean companion, probably, like companions can partner with a vault dweller. Oh well. A 3/3 for 3 that creates Junk tokens when equipped or enchanted creatures attack is fine, milling for an aura or equipment is, well fine. This seems fine.

Marcy: On the surface I think this is is ‘fine’, and I think in the deck works fine. Outside of it, I’m not sure if Dogmeat would be a great commander in a deck that is looking to cheat annoying/awful equipment and artifacts into play, but it certainly could at least give you something new to play with. Also, because the card’s biggest benefit is on ETB, he’s cheap and efficient and wasting removal or counters on him feels bad.

FromTheShire: Right out of the gate we can see that we’re opening some new design space with Naya Equipment, which is fantastic. Naya Auras exists with Uril, the Miststalker and Mazzy, Truesword Paladin but those are the only two, so getting additional support for that as well is also nice. You’re likely not going to go particularly wide since that’s not how Voltron decks function best so you won’t be making a TON of Junk to get card advantage with, but you will at least be getting SOME. Really great to see Wizards acknowledging one of the big drawbacks with this style of deck, suiting something up with a bunch of things and then it dying, and actively talking about mitigating it.

 

Preston Garvey, Minuteman

Steel Mentor: Fallout 4’s most infamous busybody. Leader of the Minutemen, a militia group lending aid to independent settlements throughout post-war Boston, players help Garvey rebuild and rearm after a disastrous slaughter, helping to bring a lil’ more peace to the Wasteland. But lets be honest, the only reason people remember him is from his incessant pestering to found more settlements and defend them in bone-grindly boring procedurally generated defence missions. Something that’s delightfully realized through his rules on cardboard.

BPhillipYork: This is actually pretty dangerous, if you’re untapping enchanted lands you can use that to cast extra combat spells, and pretty much win the game. Can throw this in a deck like Najeela, but um, shouldn’t this guy do something really annoying, to be on brand? Like I dunno making your creatures block for your opponents or something like that.

Marcy: “Another Settlement Needs Our Help!” 

Aside from the fact that the ramp potential here is kind of bonkers especially in these colors, Cares About Enchantment Decks that aren’t specifically Tom Bombadil might find Preston an interesting commander or even addition to the deck despite not being an enchantment himself. I think he’s the better of the two 3 color commander options in this deck, though, compared to Dogmeat.

FromTheShire: Untapping a bunch of lands couldn’t possibly go wrong when combined with red right? Aggravated Assault? Never heard of it. Even played “fairly”, untapping your Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is still really damn good.

 

Cait, Cage Brawler

Steel Mentor: After they announced this crossover set, I went about replaying the Fallout series to refresh myself, and despite having most recently played 4 I legit did not remember Cait was a character. She’s a pit fighter, the card follows along Magic’s usual rules tropes for gladiator characters. Cool, she exists!

BPhillipYork: This seems like a nice execution, the mechanics match up to cage brawling okay. This would be solid if you want to discard big creatures, and have some way of reanimating them, but green and red don’t do that well.

Marcy: I think the biggest downside to this card is that Cait starts out so weak. Yes, she can probably grow to a 3/3 really fast, but that’s still pretty low Power and Toughness, and I’d be worried about her just dying immediately to a lot of things without having contributed a lot of value.

 

Cass, Hand of Vengeance

Steel Mentor: Chris Avellone’s original character donut steel. Rose of Sharon Cassidy, or just Cass because c’mon now, is a foul-mouthed hard-drinking Caravaner players meet drinking her sorrows away in New Vegas. The card here represents her main questline, where you help Cass uncover who’s been targeting her caravans and wreak vengeance upon them. A pretty fine design for her cardboard depiction.

BPhillipYork: This is a weird card, I mean, you don’t really want your enchanted or equipped creatures to die, unless you are like using Brion Stoutarm to throw huge creatures equipped with a Colossus Hammer or something. Okay well that is a thing you could do.

Marcy: This certainly feels like flavor over extreme use or niche. For example, I was thinking about the Role Auras, but they are tokens and don’t ‘go to the Graveyard’ in a way you can get them back. However, this would make Audacity really annoying (if you played her in a deck that also ran Green), but the biggest thing Cass seems to do for you is make removal ‘feel bad’, but I think I’d still rather remove something than get hit by a big equipped/enchanted thing and worry about what to do the next time.

FromTheShire: I actually really like this as removal protection. Especially with Auras, there are few things that feel worse than spending a bunch of mana and cards suiting up your big threat only for it do die and watch everything fall to the graveyard. Admittedly it doesn’t protect you from a full on wrath without an indestructible creature but it’s still a nice piece, and these kinds of decks have a solid selection of ways to make at least one thing indestructible as well.

 

Codsworth, Handy Helper

Steel Mentor: Your character’s robot butler and potential companion character from Fallout 4, poor Codsworth got left on his own for 200 years and his programming just can’t quite grasp how much has changed. Card suits his role as a butler pretty fine, a neat lil’ support and utility creature.

BPhillipYork: This is a solid equipment enabler, some of them are rather pricy to equip, and this also protects your commander, and really supports building a deck around your commander with equipment.

Marcy: I do like this but does it not feel weird that he doesn’t have Partner?

FromTheShire: Love this, protects your commander a little, is a mana dork for your theme, and also lets you cheat on big equip costs on things like Argentum Armor that are balanced around being expensive to attach.

 

Commander Sofia Daguerre

Steel Mentor: An astronaut sent up into space under cryogenic sleep before the Great War, who ends up crash landing in post-nuclear Appalachia in Fallout 76. Aaaaand that’s pretty much it. She sure is a character in that game.

BPhillipYork: Destroying legendary permanents is solid, especially at flash speed, especially in like, commander, since everyone is virtually guaranteed to have legendary permanents. Goes really well in Azorius flicker decks.

Marcy: Really solid card. Good for flicker decks, good for spot removal, and even a deceptively decent body to block something small, but you’re really looking to take advantage of her ETB effect over her as a body.

FromTheShire: Very nice removal if a bit situational. You’re always going to have a multitude of targets.

 

Duchess, Wayward Tavernkeep

Steel Mentor: Duchess is another weird one, a bar-owner introduced in a DLC update to Fallout 76 after it was panned on release for its lack of quest-giving NPCs (and in this writer’s opinion, ruins the eerie atmosphere of early 76 by turning the vibes from “exploring the ruins of post-human Appalachia” to “camping out outside a dive bar and doing odd jobs”.) She’s fine, I guess. She’s a quest giver and rewards you with junk resources to build things, as reflected on the card. It’s fine.

Marcy: Quest counters are kind of odd. They showed up in Zendikar and then kind of never again, and now they’re back in Fallout because thematics. I don’t know if that makes them good or bad, but I think Duchess could potentially do some interesting things with them. Certainly, creating Junk which lets you loot is a very Red flavored mechanic.

FromTheShire: Again you’re not going to get a ton of these since you’re trying to go tall but it’s not terrible or anything. Probably a solid source of some extra cards if you’re playing the unaltered precon that gets replaced with some of the great green card draw once you upgrade.

 

Ian the Reckless

Steel Mentor: One of the original set of companions from the first Fallout game, Ian’s design here doesn’t so much harken back to his original characterization, but more what his AI tended to do during fights. Namely, if you gave him an automatic weapon, he’d absolutely hose down everything in front of him regardless of any friendlies between him and his target. Including the player’s character. A very funny lil’ callback to base a card around.

BPhillipYork: Suicide red is okay, really funny if you are doing some kind of reflection deck, aside from that seems kind of like a weak inclusion.

Marcy: If you had Ian in a deck with Duchess and similar cards that want to focus on giving him buffs to trigger his ability, I think he could be kind of fun, but I also think he’s so squishy that many people are likely to simply blow him off the board before he gets to do something destructive.

FromTheShire: Most likely you’re going to toss one random Aura or Equipment on this to  ping off utility creatures, though occasionally you will return a bunch of stuff at once and punch someone out.

 

Moira Brown, Guide Author

Steel Mentor: The Capital Wasteland’s cheeriest ray of sunshine, Moria is the instigator of one of Fallout 3’s better quests where you help her gather data for her Wasteland Survival Guide. Whereas most of Fallout 3’s quest outcomes fall into “Do something cartoonishly evil” or “Be Jesus”, the Wasteland Survival Guide has an entire flowchart of outcomes depending on the depth of your research, how you talk to Moria, what sidequests you agree to do. Hell you can just lie to her each step and end up with a book that’s utterly useless. Her rules here kinda reflect that, with the book getting stronger the more quests are completed, so we’ll count that as a flavour win. Would have been neat to have an alt art of her Ghoulified version.

Marcy: An interesting option for a Boros deck that wants to run or cares about equipments, the biggest problem is you’re going to need to flicker her in order to find some way to get more use out of what she creates. Also, she doesn’t seem to do anything WITH Quest counters, so the inclusion there feels a little weird.

FromTheShire: Good synergy piece in the unmodified deck, kind of slow once you spin the power level up to where Voltron needs to be in order to take out the whole table quickly enough to win.

 

Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ

Steel Mentor: Oh hell yeah. One of Fallout 3’s brighter stars, Three Dog was the DJ of the Capital Wasteland’s Galaxy News Radio. A smooth talking firebrand with a revolutionary fervour, Three Dog would comment on goings on in the Wastes, especially as they pertained to the player’s actions and their reverberating effects. He’d set the stage for later games to have their own DJs covering the same storytelling niche, one of those little details we take for granted at this point.

BPhillipYork: Token cloning auras is pretty fun, but the colors are pretty wrong, green has the best auras for attacking, white has some but they tend to be more protective or defensive. You could use this to clone weird things like pro red granting enchantments then just start leveling the board with Earthquake and its analogs, which would be an okay deck.

Marcy: I have to agree; I think this effect is interesting but he’s in the wrong colors for it, meaning as a commander he’d be very limited in the Auras you could create and copy. As a support piece to an Auras Matter commander, he could be good, but then you’re running into the problem of needing multiple pieces of a puzzle that may not be worth the effort.

FromTheShire: Strong disagree, Boros Auras is great. You’re getting a ton of fantastic things like Ethereal Armor, Unquestioned Authority, Mark of Fury, Etali’s Fury…. Think about going wide with a bunch of tokens and copying a Sage’s Reverie onto each one of them, or an All That Glitters. It’s not even nontoken Aura either, so you can use your Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist or Crown of the Ages do it all over again the next turn as well, drawing tons of cards, giving everything evasion or indestructibility, super powerful.

 

Veronica, Dissident Scribe

Steel Mentor: Lets go Lesbians, lets go. Veronica’s a fan favourite companion from New Vegas, a fan favourite in a game full of fan favourites. A bright-eyed scribe from the isolationist Brotherhood of Steel, trying to find a way to convince her paranoid laser-toting friends and family to rejoin the rest of humanity instead of rotting away in their armoured bunker. This card captures Veronica’s personality and questline pretty well, as you help her sift through ruins and wreckage to find tech and evidence to bring home.

BPhillipYork: Pretty solid, red has a lot of ways to recur or get value out of discarding, and value out of artifacts and sacrificing them, as well as generating value from casting from exile. I feel like she should be punchier than she is.

Marcy: I think she’s an okay card. I don’t mean that dismissively, I just mean it in the sense that a 3 mana 3/3 with mild evasion that loots is good! I’m just not sure she’s good enough to lead a deck, but could certainly be good enough to be in a deck that needs looting.

 

Acquired Mutation

Steel Mentor: Fallout runs on the 50’s Sci-fi conception of radiation and runs on it hard. There’s a handwave about an airborne strain of the series’ other big McGuffin mutagen FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) doing a funky tango with the radioactive fallout to cause extreme mutation, but lets be honest it doesn’t matter. Two-headed cows and humans growing lil’ Total Recall weirdos out their stomachs is the norm in Post-Nukes America.

Marcy: So Rad Counters are a mechanic that causes players to mill cards in their precombat main phase, and you remove Rad Counters for every nonland card you mill, as well as losing 1 life. What I think is slightly weird about this card is that so far this deck does not really seem to care about Rad Counters, I’d kind of think this would almost be better if YOU gained the Rad Counters since red tends to like deck thinning. You could use this to force an opponent to make bad attacks, but that doesn’t feel like the real use for this card.

 

Agility Bobblehead

Steel Mentor: Bobbleheads are rare collectables that can be found hidden in various explorable locations, typically pretty hidden away in some corner or behind tough enemies. They give a permanent boost to a character’s base stats and that seems to be what their card representations are riffing off of. A pretty neat idea for the set’s mana rocks.

Marcy: I love the bobbleheads. I think this is an alright one compared to some of the others in the set, since you’re at the very least spending 3 mana to make 1 creature hasted and evasive. That could be enough to win you the game sometimes, but you’re going to want more Bobbleheads to make this truly valuable in a deck that wants to swing big. It’s also not exactly better than Swiftfoot Boots, which also gives protection to something you want to be hasted.

FromTheShire: 3 mana rocks kind of need to do something extra these days, and I don’t hate this one. A further 3 to give something not only haste but also effectively unblockability is a pretty good rate, this kind of deck is generally going to be running a Rogue’s Passage already as a backup for your evasive Auras and Equipment, and 3 is less than 4, plus you get the haste,

 

Almost Perfect

Steel Mentor: Now this is a card that had non-Fallout players scratching their heads when it was revealed, and I don’t blame them. Almost Perfect is a perk you can select that sets all of your character’s attributes to 9 out of 10, hence almost perfect. And the rules for the card actually reflect this pretty damn well, but then the art and the flavour text are about… a suit of Power Armour? Super weird decision.

BPhillipYork: Well that makes for a very fat creature, you ideally want some monster 0/0 to throw this one (though a Birds of Paradise is pretty fun) but like Stonecoil Serpent suddenly being this fat is scary. There’s also just slinging this onto your commander, one with double strike will nearly instakill then, or you could get it onto Three Dog.

Marcy: Getting this on Three Dog and then swinging with a few creatures would probably end the game for sure. Outside of that, this certainly feels like the type of card you want to find fun ways to abuse, because sure, a 9/10 creature is funny, but not always as scary as it should be.

FromTheShire: Super fun Timmy card that can smash you up real good out of nowhere. Not the best but hilarious.

 

Animal Friend

Steel Mentor: Another Perk as Auras card, in the games Animal Friend will prevent wildlife from attacking you, with higher ranks of the perk affecting the kinds of animals it pacifies and eventually coaxes animals into fighting besides you. Never Radsquirrels though, which so far have been ambient critters and healing kebabs, but it’s a cute lil’ Magic/Fallout blend.

BPhillipYork: Well squirrel creation is good, but this is a lot to pack onto one creature, really begging for it to be blown up in some way, and then you’re making a moderately big squirrel every turn, when you attack. So it’s really just too many steps. Best case scenario is just a way to make a creature for sacrificing every turn.

Marcy: Yeah I think the biggest issue with this is that I’m absolutely finding a way to remove whatever creature this is attached too as soon as possible, even if that means I have to block unfavorably to do so. Ironically I don’t really know if this is even that good for Squirrel decks, as flavorful as it would be perhaps.

FromTheShire: Fun but slow. For the speed of creation, I wish the token came in tapped and attacking.

 

Armory Paladin

Steel Mentor: The first Brotherhood of Steel card we’ve come across and yeah, it’s pretty alright. Certainly shows off their militaristic side and the far more high-intensity combat they’re capable of compared to other Wasteland factions. Passing grade.

Marcy: A solid 3 CMC 3/3 body that gives you value for running large amounts of Auras or Equipment by letting you get a bit of card advantage. I think the only downside is the trigger is ‘cast’, not ‘enter’, and a lot of Commander decks really want to abuse getting Auras and Equipment cheated out. Still, that’s probably fine; you wouldn’t want to self-mill yourself out of the game I suppose.

FromTheShire: Boros has gotten some much better card advantage of late but it’s still the thing the colors are worst at, and this is a perfect on theme engine. Love it.

 

Bighorn Rancher

Steel Mentor: Bighorners are big ol’ mutated rams/goats/what have you that are primarily found in New Vegas’ Mojave Wasteland. Hardy, capable of defending themselves and mostly docile, ranching them’s a pretty stable way to make a living if you don’t mind the occasional Raider gang trying to rustle your herds.

BPhillipYork: Well this is a lot of mana if you have a fattie, so good for fattie decks.

Marcy: I can see this card finding some way of getting abused for infinite mana pretty easily. Size of the creature doesn’t matter as much as having a way to tap/untap him.

FromTheShire: There’s a reason Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is still north of $10 even after reprints, and it’s because this ability is stupid powerful. Bighorn is slightly less good and the mana is slightly less versatile, still going to slot into all of the same decks though.

 

Break Down

Marcy: A pretty expensive Naturalize but you do get a token out of it, so, eh? I think there’s better Enchantment/Artifact removal in Green you could slot into this deck if you had the ability to.

FromTheShire: As far as precon removal goes, this is pretty dang solid.

 

Brotherhood Outcast

Steel Mentor: A splinter group of the Brotherhood of Steel found in Fallout 3, whereas the rest of the East Coast Brotherhood decided to ease off their previous ethos of isolationism, the Outcasts decided to double down on it hard. They’re giant assholes and strut around the Capital Wasteland in their Black/Red Shadow the Edgehog colours. Flavourwise it’s fine, kinda reflects them fixing up old tech and whatnot. Might have been a better fit for the Science! or Caesar decks.

Marcy: This is pretty good, I really like the abilities here. This deck out of the box really wants you to toss artifacts and auras into the graveyard, and if you have a way to flicker her, this could provide some pretty valuable recursive value for your deck alongside a card like Three Dog.

FromTheShire: Another thing Boros is bad at? Graveyard recursion. Even though there are a few tools like Sun Titan, this is still a really useful inclusion. The vast majority of the targets you would want are already 3 or less too.

 

Crimson Caravaneer

Steel Mentor: Caravan companies are the main source of trade and economy in the Wastelands and the Crimson Caravan is one of the largest. Caravaners have to be tough to survive the Wastes, but making their card a combat focused one feels… kinda a waste. Would have used this kind of design for a Raider myself.

Marcy: This sure is a card; I don’t want to make that sound so bad, but I think this really is just kind of whatever for 3 mana.

FromTheShire: The damage trigger is somewhat underwhelming, this suits up extremely well with both double strike and trample already built in though.

 

Gunner Conscript

Steel Mentor: The Gunners are one of the enemy factions featured in Fallout 4 and they’re… just a bunch of mercenary assholes who like guns. There’s not really a lot to say about them really, besides the weirdness of this being a Gunner Conscript, but they’re being kitted out in what looks like salvaged Power Armour in the artwork.

Marcy: Just a very old-fashioned sort of ‘gets bigger’ creature. Not bad, not great, does what it says on the package.

FromTheShire: Not bad at carrying things. The ability isn’t great and it likely gets replaced with a bigger threat when you upgrade.

 

Grim Reaper’s Sprint

Steel Mentor: This kicks ass. Grim Reaper’s Sprint is a late game perk in the later Fallout games that refreshes your Action Points upon killing an enemy. It’s a hell of a buff to your character’s combat potential, letting you point and click through weaker enemies and keep the pressure up on tougher ones. Pretty well translated into cardboard.

BPhillipYork: A 2 cost untap everything and have an additional combat is really good.  Plenty of ways to make sure something dies. Also, since it’s a permanent, there’s ways to recur it repeatedly, so this has a lot of potential to be a game winning card.

Marcy: Yeah this is a card that could certainly win you the game for sure, and there isn’t even much else that has to be said. Card good, especially if you can find a way to sacrifice a creature to make it cheaper first.

FromTheShire: Hey remember what I was saying about Three Dog being powerful? Enjoy all of your extra combat steps, even before you start untapping mana dorks.

 

Idolized

Steel Mentor: One of the standout systems for New Vegas was its Reputations system, where you could earn fame or infamy with the various factions and peoples within the Mojave Wasteland. Rather than the binary Good/Evil typical to video games, your Reputation was more than just a reflection of how much of an asshole or goody two-shoes you were. Helping certain factions made others love or hate you, there were factions that would refuse to work together despite you being buddies with both, you could even help a faction but they’d treat you warily because you’re such an unpredictable gremlin they’re reluctant to ask for your help again. Of course, being Idolized was the best state to be in, and often brought a bunch of free gifts and presents for thankful Wastelanders.

BPhillipYork: This is potentially really scary because you can make a ton of tokens for Treasure, Clues, Food, Junk, Blood etc.. pretty easily now suddenly your commander can be enormous and just take someone out. In an Isshin, Two Heavens as One deck this can get really nasty really fast, anything that already wants to go ham on attacking alone will love this, and that’s definitely a Boros or Mardu thing.

Marcy: So basically a Royal Bunicorn on a stick, it’s important to remember this deck does generate a LOT of Junk tokens, and I think this card is one of the best ways to utilize that, and would work really well in other White+ decks that generate a lot of tokens.

FromTheShire: Now that’s one hell of a Voltron payoff.

 

Inventory Management

Steel Mentor: Very cute little meta reference. Shocked it doesn’t have some sort of lifegain to represent pausing to cram a dozen healing items into every cavity when the going gets tough, but that’d probably break this card even harder.

BPhillipYork: Well, this is a really funny reference to me, so no matter what it does.  Really pretty good job of grabbing a game mechanic too and split second spells are often interesting.

Marcy: Split Second is back baby! I actually find this really funny, and reminds me of all the times mid game in Fallout where I just open my menu and do a ton of things on the fly to survive an encounter or abuse some sort of mechanic. In Magic, I actually think this is a really cheeky way to suddenly flash around a bunch of things, like taking Auras/Equipment off something that is going to die and putting them elsewhere, or moving them to something to save it from removal, or even punish an opponent for not blocking properly.

FromTheShire: Outstanding flavor, and knowing that this in your deck makes letting ANYTHING through unblocked a terrifying decision for your opponents. Love cheating equip costs as well.

 

Junk Jet

Steel Mentor: Ah the Junk Jet. Introduced as the Rock-It Launcher in Fallout 3 it’s… certainly a weapon. Don’t get me wrong its fun to brain a Supermutant with a velocity speed Stapler, but damn did Bethesda put so much marketing focus on it for some weird reason. Pretty decent representation of its in game use of turning random crap into ammo.

BPhillipYork: Solid with some of the cards in this deck, also just kind of a funny way to jack up a creatures power.

Marcy: This card makes some sense in taking advantage of a ton of Junk and other tokens, so that does give some utility to generating them when it may seem like you’re going to have a lot of them laying around. A Fling deck using this would be kind of funny.

FromTheShire: Another scary as hell Equipment for your big beaters, this threatens to get lethal extremely quickly. Plus I loved this idiot thing in game, because c’mon, of course.

 

Junktown

Steel Mentor: One of the early towns you visit in the original Fallout, Junktown’s one of those locations that really encapsulates the game’s writing strengths. Shortly after entering you can find yourself drafted into a conflict between the town’s sheriff and a local gangster (an entire questline you can permanently miss if you’re not paying attention!), and where as on the surface there’s some clean cut moral lines, it’s not so clear when you start digging under the surface and watch the consequences of your actions unfold. So then to have this card end up just being a kinda generic token generator? Pretty disappointing.

Marcy: I suppose as a desperation play in late game to find things, 5 mana to filter your deck a bit isn’t so bad, but there are better lands for sure you could easily slot into the deck.

FromTheShire: It’s not costing you much of anything to have in the deck but it’s not very impressive either.

 

Megaton’s Fate

Steel Mentor: Megaton’s the first town you encounter in Fallout 3 and just like Junktown it’s pretty indicative of its own game’s writing. A wasteland settlement built around an unexploded nuke, which you’re given the choice to disarm for the townspeople, or detonate for a rich old bastard who feels the town spoils the view from his tower. Whole quest’s pretty representative of Fallout 3 as a whole, great set ups with dull binary payoffs. This card owns though.

BPhillipYork: Really solid game reference, and two decent strong modal abilities, pretty expensive at 6, but there are times you can afford this, or really want to make a bunch of Treasures, such as Galazeth Prismari

Marcy: This is pretty good and flavorful for sure; you also get good value in both choices, even though the card is expensive. If you’re using it to remove a hate target, you get a slight refund, and if you are using it as a board sweeper, you force all other players in the game to deal with a potential board wipe, milling cards, and eventually losing 4 life from the Rad counter mill.

 

Mister Gutsy

Steel Mentor: We saw Codsworth the Mr Handy up above, this is his military grade counterpart. Rogue robots are a common sight in the Wastelands, either having gone berserk due to degraded systems, following their last orders to the last, or having been reprogrammed by some faction or the other. Mr Gutsys have a drill sergeant attitude and can come equipped with a bunch of different weapons, which is pretty cutely represented by its first ability, the second reflecting the decent scrap loot the average robot drops.

BPhillipYork: For equipment aura decks this is okay I guess, I mean you get a medium beater with no evasion ability that makes Junk tokens when it dies. Sounds kind of like uh… junk.

Marcy: While he makes for a good target for your Equipment and Auras, I do think the weakness here is that he doesn’t really have any other sort of evasion, and Junk tokens by themselves might help you filter your deck a bit but getting a lot of them at once may not be overly beneficial. Also, as I’ve mentioned a few times a lot of aura/equipment decks don’t want to cast them, but cheat them into play.

 

Perception Bobblehead

BPhillipYork: The bobble heads seem pretty solid and fun, this is a cool way to cast suspend spells that are normally uncastable.

Marcy: This is a pretty good Bobblehead, especially since a free spell is a free spell, and if you have a few of these, you’re able to get solid value. I like it better than the Haste one for sure.

FromTheShire: I actually think this is significantly worse than the haste one, frequently haste alone is worth the 3 mana to kill someone out of nowhere plus it also effectively gives unblockable, this is 3 mana to hopefully blind flip into something that can easily whiff. In fact I bet that unless you have multiple bobbleheads it whiffs more often than it hits, although I haven’t mapped out the mana curve of the deck.

 

Pip-Boy 3000

Steel Mentor: If you’re looking for iconic Fallout stuff, you can’t go wrong with the Pip-Boy. A wearable computer issued to all Vault dwellers, the Pip-Boy serves as a player’s UI in various capacities in just about every game in the series, with the 3000 model here being the variant for Fallout 3 and New Vegas. It displays your stats, quests, inventory, world map and has a built in radio for tuning into some old big band classics. Pretty cool translation into card form.

Marcy: Hey look it’s mascot of Fallout, Pip Boy! What do you mean that’s not what the little dude is called? Anyway, pretty good cheap little equipment. I like the abilities and honestly it can pay for itself, and doesn’t exactly draw immediate hate towards it.

FromTheShire: Not immediately powerful on the surface but 2 of the 3 modes are low key great, and the counter will be useful from time to time as well. Love it.

 

Pre-War Formalwear

Steel Mentor: Pre-War America’s fashion trends clung pretty tight to the idealized 50’s and all those polyester blends held up pretty good against the nuclear hellfire. Pre-War clothes can be found throughout ruins and being hawked by merchants, with civilian Wastelanders tending to wear them as is, while more rugged and raider sorts like to modify them up with various pieces of armour and the sort, as we can see with the Raider in this card’s art.

Marcy: Good little re-animator card for cheap cards. There is certainly a good amount of low CMC targets that would be solid to re-animate and getting them back with a little buff to power and toughness isn’t so bad for 3 mana. Cute art also.

 

Silver Shroud Costume

Steel Mentor: The Silver Shroud is one of those Golden Age of Comics style masked vigilantes, created by the in universe Hubris Comics. The Bethesda Fallouts typically have a questline related to Hubris’ characters with various weirdos running around dressed as them, and The Silver Shroud is Fallout 4’s entry to that linage, the player character getting in on that murderous cosplay action.

BPhillipYork: I wish Wizards wasn’t so hellbent on not letting you get permanent sources of shroud, flash shroud is okay, but it really seems like it would be okay for the silver shroud to really have shroud.

Marcy: I really don’t get why Shroud can’t stick permanently, I mean, Hexproof exists, and this is basically… Hexproof.

FromTheShire: Best as a combat trick to close out the game or save yourself from spot removal, but unblockable is always nice to have in a Voltron deck.

 

Strong Back

Steel Mentor: Strong Back increases the weight limit of items you can carry with you, and you’d be hard pressed to find a Fallout player who doesn’t steal absolutely everything nailed down, and comes into a fight with an entire armoury of weapons and ammo strapped to them. This is a big flavour/art/rules synergy win, I want a full art one real bad.

BPhillipYork: Nice reference, really want to see this on a Rabid Wombat for reasons. Nasty on Uril, the Miststalker.

Marcy: This almost feels like the ‘win con’ for this deck if you manage to get it to land and stick to something. The biggest problem is that since this card does so much, your opponents are going to absolutely look to get rid of it or prevent you from taking advantage of it.

 

Sunscorched Divide

Steel Mentor: The Divide is a stretch of land between California and the Mojave that was devastated after the war when a stockpile of unlaunched nukes exploded. What’s depicted in the card however isn’t The Divide, it’s the stretch of canyons in the Mojave that leads there. This one’s a big shrug for me, also would have been neat to have included the ominous graffitied barricades that stretch along it if you don’t have the DLC for The Divide in the art.

BPhillipYork: Well more enters untapped duals is okay, this is a filter technically but should work well enough if you need it.

Marcy: Pretty solid filter lands in this set.

FromTheShire: This is not at all the place I would have imagined we finally get enemy color filter lands to complete the cycle some 25 years later. Glad to have them, and thank God they’re not in demand for regular play and only available in a limited product like this.

 

Super Mutant Scavenger

Steel Mentor: Our first Super Mutant creature card, so lets introduce them. Supers are a strain of mutant resembling Orcs, created from humans submerged in vats filled with liquidized Forced Evolutionary Virus. They’re bigger and stronger than humans, and if the original subject isn’t too rad-damaged they’re smarter than humans too. Supers were the big threat in the original Fallout, and have appeared as both allies and enemies in every Fallout since, for better or worse. We’ll get more into them proper with the Mutant Mayhem deck.

Marcy: Five mana is maybe a little expensive, but he is also a 5/5 with Trample, so I guess that lets you makes it a little more okay. Still, I think there are probably better ways to get things back out of your graveyard for cheaper.

FromTheShire: Eternal Witness is great, limited Witness that punches real good is pretty solid.

 

Vault 101: Birthday Party

Steel Mentor: So lets talk Vaults. Fallout’s Vaults were massive survival bunkers designed by the sinister Vault-Tec corporation, advertised as a means for to survive the inevitable nuclear exchange for those who could pay. In actuality, all but a handful of Vaults were laboratories that subjected their occupants to cruel and downright bizarre scientific and social experiments. Players can visit a several per game and uncover their stories, as depicted in this set’s cycle of Saga card.

Fallout 3’s tutorial takes the form as various stages of your character’s childhood growing up in a Vault, and those events are pretty well represented in the card. From the cakes and hats from your character’s 10th birthday party, to the Radroach you kill with a BB Gun. It’s a pretty neat design, but as a representation of Vault 101 it doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the cycle.

BPhillipYork: Pretty overcost for what it does, fun card though.

Marcy: If you get this to last until II and III, there’s some potential to get free attachment for big, scary Equipments. Auras are usually less terrifying, but this does technically get Almost Perfect on the field one turn earlier than casting it normally, I guess. (Ignore that this deck has ramp).

FromTheShire: Another way to cheat equip costs, I don’t hate it. Still not a huge fan of Sagas in Commander.

 

Vault 21: House Gambit

Steel Mentor: Vault 21 was sited under the Las Vegas strip and developed a society where major decisions where decided by games of chance thanks to its occupants being pre-selected from compulsive gamblers. They lived pretty well in isolation until the enigmatic Mr House arrived from outside and challenged the dwellers to a bet for control of the Vault, a bet they lost badly. Now Vault 21’s a hotel and tourist trap in House’s New Vegas, a cute side distraction for the player.

BPhillipYork: Neat saga, clever pay off and match up with the game, 2 cost enchantment and saga, neat for enchantress decks that also care about Treasures. Is that a thing?

Marcy: I feel like this is pretty okay; it doesn’t feel especially busted or broken, as the amount of Treasure you’re going to generate is probably pretty small, rather than getting some infinite amount of mana.

 

Well Rested

Steel Mentor: Probably one of the funniest pieces of meta flavour in this set. Well Rested is a status buff players can obtain by sleeping on a proper bed (read; dusty old mattress, torn up sleeping bag, piece of cardboard) out in the Wasteland. While the card effect captures the intended effect of the perk, the art and flavour text really captures the way players tend to use the sleeping mechanics. I.e.: Taking a nap in the middle of hostile territory to refresh their health while enemies sit juuuuuuust outside the radius that the game imposes to try and stop this kind of cheesy immersion breaking. An absolute slam dunk of an art design.

BPhillipYork: Actually a pretty solid ability, particularly if you leverage it with cards that make things untap on each turn.  Given it pays for it’s card cost pretty quickly this is really a solid aura, and it’s a well thought out reference and execution.

Marcy: At least WOTC has the forethought to add ‘once each turn’ to this card, because otherwise this card would just be insane. It is still very good, though, don’t get me wrong.

 

Next Time: Mutant Menace

That wraps up our look at the first preconstructed deck. Join us next time as we review the Sultai Mutant Menace deck, picking out our favorite cards, and talking about the future build-arounds. In the meantime, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.