Magic: The Gathering’s next major collaboration is coming up soon, as the Fallout preconstructed Commander decks are scheduled to launch on March 8. With MagicCon Chicago kicking off this weekend, we have a look at the full 100-card list for the Mutant Menace deck, which includes exclusive looks at four of the cards within.
Mutant Menace is a Sultai-colored deck (black, blue, and green) that highlights some of the malevolent mutations that populate the Fallout franchise. The deck focuses on two main mechanics:
- Radiation (Rad) counters
- These are special counters which players can accrue throughout a game. After a player draws a card for their turn, they must “mill”–or discard one card from the top of their deck–for each rad counter they’ve accrued. If a land is discarded, nothing happens, but if anything other than a land is discarded, the player loses one life point, but also gets to remove one rad counter.
- Example: A player has three rad counters, proceeds to discard the top three cards of their deck, and see one land and two non-land cards. The player will take 2 damage, and their number of rad counters will decrease from three to one.
- Proliferate
- Whenever a card is played with the “proliferate” keyword, the controlling player adds one counter of every type they control.
- Example: If a player plays a card with proliferate against two players with rad counters, each player adds a rad counter.
Join! Die! Join! Die!
Every preconstructed Commander deck comes with one legendary creature designated as the “commander”–the de facto “leader” of the deck–as well as a second legendary creature which acts as an alternate commander if the player so chooses. Designated commanders occupy a specific zone on the board, and they can be cast at any time.
For Mutant Menace, the “face” commander–or the creature that appears on the box–is The Wise Mothman, but the alternate commander for the Mutant Menace deck–and our first exclusive reveal–is The Master, Transcendent:
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- The Master, Transcendent (Legendary Artifact Creature – Mutant)
- Costs 1 generic, 1 black, 1 green, and 1 blue mana to cast
- 2 power/4 toughness
- Ability 1: Whenever The Master, Transcendent enters the battlefield, target player gets two rad counters.
- Ability 2: Tap (turn sideways) The Master, Transcendent to put any creature card that was milled this turn onto the battlefield under your control. It’s a green Mutant with base power and toughness 3/3. (It loses its other colors and creature types.)
The Master, Transcendent takes advantage of rad counters in a completely different way from The Wise Mothman, as it can take control of any creature either you or an opponent mills due to radiation, meaning you could not only force an opponent to discard one of their biggest threats, but you can then turn around and assume control of it.
One with nature
Outside of the two potential commanders, there are 27 creatures in the deck, with 24 of them being original card designs for the Fallout set. We have exclusive looks at two of those original creatures, starting with Harold and Bob, First Numens:
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- Harold and Bob, First Numens (Legendary Creature – Treefolk Mutant)
- Costs 2 generic and 1 green mana to cast
- 3 power/3 toughness
- Vigilance (does not tap when attacking), reach (can block creatures with flying)
- Ability 1: When Harold and Bob, First Numens dies, if it was a creature, return it to the battlefield. It’s an Aura enchantment with “Enchant Forest you control” and “Enchanted Forest has ‘Tap to add three mana of any one color. You get two rad counters.'” Harold and Bob loses all other abilities.
The iconic tree/man hybrid makes his Magic: The Gathering debut, and while a 3/3 for three mana isn’t great, the vigilance and reach keywords give it a bit more value. Then again, sending Harold and Bob out to die might add more value in the long run, and the card can then make any one of your Forests produce triple the mana at the cost of two rad counters. If your commander is in play, those rad counters are just another perk.
Super fighting mutant, Megasloth
Our other exclusive creature reveal is Lumbering Megasloth:
- Lumbering Megasloth (Creature – Sloth Mutant)
- Costs 10 generic and 2 green mana to cast
- 8 power/8 toughness
- Trample (if this creature is blocked, any excess damage will proceed to the blocking creature’s controller)
- This creature costs 1 generic mana less for each counter among players and permanents.
- Lumbering Megasloth enters the battlefield tapped.
This is a massive creature with what looks like a very expensive entry fee, but think of it like this: If you and your three opponents have two rad counters each, and two of your creatures have +1/+1 counters from The Wise Mothman, then you only need two green mana to summon this behemoth.
Some may also scoff at the fact that Lumbering Megasloth enters the battlefield tapped, but that makes sense too. Mutant or not, it’s still a sloth; it being slow to act is on-brand.
Vault-Tec welcomes you!
Most enchantments offer a permanent boost to your board as soon as they’re cast, but others–like the Saga subtype–offer scaling buffs before being destroyed. Sagas enter the battlefield with a lore counter on them, and the effect at step one immediately takes effect. Each following step takes effect during the controlling player’s subsequent turns, as they add a lore counter after drawing a card for turn, and the next effect immediately triggers.
The Vaults of Fallout lore are represented as Sagas in MTG, and our next exclusive reveal is a great example. Here’s Vault 12: The Necropolis:
- Vault 12: The Necropolis (Enchantment – Saga)
- Costs 4 generic and 2 black mana to cast
- First effect: Each player gets three rad counters.
- Second effect: Create X 2/2 black Zombie Mutant creature tokens, where X is the total number of rad counters among players.
- Third effect: Put two +1/+1 counters on each creature you control that’s a Zombie or Mutant.
This card can put everyone else at the table on a three-turn clock, especially in the later stages of the game. Imagine each player with five rad counters when the second effect triggers, and you immediately get 20 2/2 Zombie Mutants. Next turn, they all become 4/4 Zombie Mutants. That alone could be enough to overwhelm a table.
The full deck list
Finally, here is the full Mutant Menace decklist, separated by card type. Images for each card can be found on the official MTG website’s card library, or via the list of sites previewing cards from the set.
Creature
- Agent Frank Horrigan
- Alpha Deathclaw
- Bloatfly Swarm
- Cathedral Acolyte
- Corpsejack Menace
- Feral Ghoul
- Glowing One
- Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor
- Harold and Bob, First Numens
- Infesting Radroach
- Jason Bright, Glowing Prophet
- Lily Bowen, Raging Grandma
- Lumbering Megasloth
- Marcus, Mutant Mayor
- The Master, Transcendent
- Mirelurk Queen
- Nightkin Ambusher
- Piper Wright, Publick Reporter
- Rampaging Yao Guai
- Raul, Trouble Shooter
- Screeching Scorchbeast
- Strong, The Brutish Thespian
- Tato Farmer
- Tireless Tracker
- Vexing Radgull
- Watchful Radstag
- Winding Constrictor
- The Wise Mothman
- Young Deathclaws
Enchantment
- Branching Evolution
- Fraying Sanity
- Guardian Project
- Hardened Scales
- Inexorable Tide
- Struggle for Project Purity
- Vault 12: The Necropolis
- Vault 87: Forced Evolution
Instant
- Atomize
- Biomass Mutation
- Inspiring Call
- Mutational Advantage
- Putrefy
- Radstorm
Sorcery
- Casualties of War
- Cultivate
- Farseek
- Harmonize
- Nuclear Fallout
- Rampant Growth
Artifact
- Arcane Signet
- Contagion Clasp
- Contaminated Drink
- Nuka-Nuke Launcher
- Power Fist
- Recon Craft Theta
- Sol Ring
- Strength Bobblehead
- Talisman of Curiosity
- Talisman of Dominance
- Talisman of Resilience
Land
- Ash Barrens
- Command Tower
- Darkwater Catacombs
- Drowned Catacomb
- Evolving Wilds
- Exotic Orchard
- Fetid Pools
- Forest (x5)
- Island (x5)
- Hinterland Harbor
- Mariposa Military Base
- Mortuary Mire
- Nesting Grounds
- Opulent Palace
- Overflowing Basin
- Path of Ancestry
- Sunken Hollow
- Swamp (x5)
- Tainted Isle
- Tainted Wood
- Temple of Deceit
- Temple of the False God
- Temple of Malady
- Temple of Mystery
- Terramorphic Expanse
- Viridescent Bog
- Woodland Cemetery
