Welcome back wasteland survivors to part 3 of the the precon upgrades for the Fallout commander decks. Here I will be talking about Mutant Menace. In case you missed part 1 or 2, you can find the links here: Scrappy Survivors and Hail, Caesar. But to quickly recap, what I am trying to do here is give you 10 upgrades that won't nuke your wallet. So it's 10 cards for £10. Budget upgrades to give a bit more power and focus the decks. Grab your wasteland survival guide because it's time to start.
You might want to check that geiger counter as well, as we are about to see some funky mutations in the Mutant Menace deck, all lead by The Wise Mothman.
This deck is all about milling and stacking rad counters to cause even more milling. Rad counters are a new type counter that, on the player’s pre-combat main phase, cause the player to kill cards equal to the number of rad counters. Then, for each nonland card milled, remove one rad counters and lose one life. So if you can stack these up quickly they are going to turn into a serious problem. These are similar to the energy counters in the Science! deck in that they can be proliferated, letting you get them stacked fast. This also pairs nicely with the +1/+1 counter from The Wise Mothman.
Table of Contents
Budget Upgrades
Upgrades 1 and 2
The first two cards that I am adding are Evolution Sage and Flux Channeler. I am grouping these together as they are both proliferation engines either from your land drops or your non creature spells. As stated above, proliferation works so well in this deck and will pair nicely with the existing proliferation engines already in the deck. To make room for these two, I am cutting Alpha Deathclaw and Biomass Mutation. While Biomass Mutation can be an absolute blowout and a finisher due to it being instant speed, it works far better in a token deck where you can boost a lot of creatures. This deck just doesn't have that. I also think it was added into the precons due to the name partly as it does fit in really well. Alpha Deathclaw is the other card I am cutting due to it mostly being a big creature. 6 mana for a 6/6 with menace and trample is good and the monstrosity ability to deal with anything is good again. The downside is this card doesn't do anything for the main strategy of the deck. Monstrosity ability also has the downside of being blown out to instant speed removal. As you have to pay for ability first and don't get the effect until the ability resolves, leading to some sad times if your creature is removed.
Upgrade 3
Fathom Mage is a fairly simple card but has the strongest 3 words in magic: draw a card. This is tied to Fathom Mage getting counters out in it but between it's own evolve mechanic, The Wise Mothman being able to put counters on it and proliferate Fathom Mage should be able to keep you with a full hand. Unfortunately, if multiple counters are put on simultaneously you will only be able to draw a single card no matter how many counters are put on. Making space for Fathom Mage is Tireless Tracker. It is a very similar card in terms of getting bigger with the +1 counters and drawing cards with the clue tokens. But this is more limited to being only from land drops and you have to pay to get the card draw.
Upgrade 4
Speaking of land drops, my next card is Karn’s Bastion. I am swapping out a basic Swamp for this one. Karn’s Bastion is an excellent utility land due to the proliferate ability. While quite expensive due to the cost being (4) this is essentially a “free” card due to it being a land.
Upgrade 5
I am also taking out a basic Forest from the precon as it was running 39 lands, which, with a couple of the extra mana rocks, is quite high. I am replacing this with the mana dork Gyre Sage. While it isn't able to produce mana straight away, it will soon stack up to produce excess mana with all the counter shenanigans in this deck.
Upgrade 6
To go along with the counter shenanigans we have Kami of Whispered Hope. Not only does this give extra counters like Branching Evolution and Hardened Scales, it is also a mana dork, so you get to your higher costed cards. I am swapping this for Harold and Bob, First Numens. This is a long winded way to gain a ramp spell as the creature has to die first. Although this is very flavourful if you know the lore and story quest behind this card.
Upgrade 7
The next lot of cards move over to the mill side of the deck now. The first one is The Ancient One. This is a 2 mana 8/8, so it has to have a downside. Magic hasn't been pushed that far just yet. This one has the downside of being unable to attack or block without 8 permanents in your graveyard. This isn't that hard to do with the rad counters causing you to mill as well or just activating it's own ability to self mill. This gives you a sizable creature to start swinging at your opponents. Alternatively, if your opponents are looking like they are running out of cards in their library you can always try to get the alternative loss conditions of drawing from an empty library. I am cutting Watchful Radstag. This is a very interesting card, as it can copy itself. Although unlike cards like Scute Swarm which can exponentially make more copies, Radstag requires bigger and bigger creatures to keep getting copies, as it only triggers off the evolve. If it triggered off counters and could work with The Wise Mothman, then it would be staying in, as it would be a very strong synergy.
Upgrade 8
The next card I am adding in is also a very beefy boy, Consuming Aberration. I would also like to give honourable mention to it's cousin, Lord of Extinction.
While Lord of Extinction can be bigger due to also counting your own graveyard, Consuming Aberration’s second ability will allow you to make up for this. I am swapping this out for the other big creature from the deck, Lumbering Megasloth. While the Megasloth does have trample, that is the only bonus it has over the Consuming Aberration. It is an 8/8 but Consuming Aberration will likely be bigger as it will only take 2 rad counters on everyone to get the Aberration to at least 8/8.
Upgrades 9 and 10
The final two cards I will also talk about in a pair (as these are a combo) but will also work independently as value pieces. These are Syr Konrad, the Grim and Mindcrank. Syr Konrad will double up the damage when your opponent mills a creature. Mindcrank will let you get additional mill when your opponents lose life, which works particularly well with the rad counters as these cause loss of life for all the non land cards milled. If you have both out at the same time it will cause a feedback loop. If an opponent mills a creature Syr Konrad will ping everyone, triggering Mindcrank to mill everyone, then if any of those cards happen to be creatures Syr Konrad will trigger again. Starting to loop again. Unfortunately this isn't deterministic due to the possibility of all your opponents milling non-creature cards and thus not triggering Syr Konrad. But, if my multiple creatures are milled, then this will add another instance of everyone being milled. On average, if you have 3 opponents and they are planning a standard amount of creatures it will be enough for everyone to either die from the damage or mill out.
The final cards coming out are Jason Bright, Glowing Prophet and Piper Wright, Publick Reporter. Jason Bright seems like it should fit in a more traditional zombie typal deck that can generate tokens, as this deck cant make tokens outside of Vault 12: The Necropolis, so you will have to be sacrificing actual creatures and the payoff doesn't seem worth it unless trying to push through a very big creature. Piper Wright, Publick Reporter was a harder one to cut as she does give nice card advantage and counters, but it is tied to her being able to actually connect. And, with it only being a 1/2 to begin with, it means it is going to be hard to get her in without help.
Overall I think the Mutant Menace is a strong deck and possibly the strongest of the Fallout set. Although this is offset by the unpopularity of mill in commander and the pinging from the Rad counters. The reason I am thinking it can be strong is how fast you can stack the counters just onto The Wise Mothman and start to swing for lethal commander damage. The turn after you play it, it might be a 7/7 with a little luck and that is without any of the counter shenanigans or other buffs, that is a 3 turn clock. That is just the commander as a stand alone, back it up with the rest of the cards also working in tandem and you have a force to be reckoned with. As always see below for some non budget upgrades.
Non-budget Upgrades
Hopefully this has given you an idea of where to take the deck and mutate it into a new beast. Click here for part 4 and the final deck of Science! Parts 1 and 2 can be found here: Scrappy Survivors and Hail, Caesar. As always, good luck and have fun.
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