Science! Pushing humanity forward and bringing new wonders to the world. Dr Madison Li is the lead scientist in charge of this deck.
This is the final part for the fallout commander deck upgrades. You can find the other 3 parts here in case you missed them: Scrappy Survivors, Hail, Caesar and Mutant Menace. To quickly recap, we are giving you 10 budget upgrades that don’t drain your wallet. They are all going to add up to less than £10!
This is the final part for the fallout commander deck upgrades. You can find the other 3 parts here in case you missed them: Bringing forward an underrepresented mechanic of Energy, which debuted in the Kaladesh block. These decks did take standard by storm in a Temur Energy deck. Utilising the power of Whirler Virtuoso to power out Thopter Tokens and Aetherworks Marvel to drop in the titans of Emrakul, the Promised End and Ulamog the Ceaseless Hunger. Dr Madison takes the deck in a new direction though in Jeskai (Red, White & Blue). The aim of the game with these upgrades is to combine new and old to produce something stronger, better and faster. So it's time to strap in and get charged up.
Table of Contents
Budget Upgrades
Upgrade 1
To kick things off, we have Era of Innovation. This enchantment pairs nicely with Dr Madison’s triggered ability of casting artifacts. With 43 cards to cause a trigger, there are plenty of ways to generate energy. This is also an enter the battlefield trigger so it will be doubled by Panharmonicon as well as trigger of tokens, but also some sneaky triggers from the 4 artifact lands that are in the deck. Swapping out for this is Nerd Rage. While being a Divination is nice, getting the second ability to boost a creature may be harder. Without any additional card draw it's going to take a bit of work to get going. Let's start with a best case of 7 cards in hand then draw for turn going to 8. Then we play Nerd Rage, drawing 2 cards so you end up with 9 cards in hand after Nerd Rage is on the battlefield. You then need to wait for your turn again to draw your 10th and then you can’t play a card if you want to keep your 10/10. This just seems like a lot of extra work and hoops to jump through to get this benefit.
Upgrade 2
Another bonus Energy generator is Gonti’s Aether Heart. Again, triggering whenever an artifact comes into play and again gaining 2 Energy, but this time it's free, and it also has an activated ability. By paying 7 Energy you get to take an extra turn. Which, when done at the right time, can let you win the game. Unfortunately though, you do have to exile the Aether Heart so you can't keep paying into it for more turns. I am removing Red Death, Shipwrecker. While this is a cute little crab, my main sticking point for this is giving your opponents’ card draw. As much as this can be a political thing, I really dislike giving bonuses to my opponents. You should always pay the (1).
Upgrades 3 and 4
I'm going to group the next 2 cards together as they all do the same thing: discount. Enthusiastic Mechanaut and Etherium Sculptor all reduce the mana cost of artifact spells to cast by (1). I would also include Foundry Inspector as an honourable mention, though it just loses out due to costing 1 more mana.
Such a small discount might not seem like a lot but with 39 artifacts in the deck, this is a significant discount, allowing for more play in a turn or getting ahead of the curve a turn or two before you should be able to cast the card. To make room I am taking out Plasma Caster and C.A.M.P. C.A.M.P. is an interesting card with another returning mechanic from Future Sight and only the second card with fortify as an ability, Darksteel Garrison being the other. Fortify is a weird one but it is basically equipment but for lands. C.A.M.P. allows you to gain +1 counters and Junk Tokens. This was one of the harder cards to cut from the deck, but without leaning more into the proliferate cards like the Mutant Menace deck, the +1 counters are a little underwhelming. Plasma Caster is a neat equipment. Having a 50/50 chance to exile the blocking creature is nice and being able to pay into it again if you fail is useful. I just feel that there are better places to be spending the energy, as it is a hard resource to gather without that many repeatable ways to generate it reliably.
Such a small discount might not seem like a lot but with 39 artifacts in the deck, this is a significant discount, allowing for more play in a turn or getting ahead of the curve a turn or two before you should be able to cast the card. To make room I am taking out
Upgrade 5
That being said, here is one of the good ones that will let you do that: Aethersquall Ancient. Giving you 3 energy every upkeep and a sorcery speed Evacuation is nice if you really need to clear the board. Another hard cut for me was Expert-Level Safe. While it looks fairly simple on the surface, it is a mind games card on two levels. First is just trying to “crack” the safe by matching your opponent's number with yours. The second level is when you want to do this. Do you intentionally want to try to miss to get more cards stored and get a bigger payout or try for immediate value and gain those 2 cards? Again this can be done politically as you can try to negotiate a deal around your opponent giving you the cards in exchange for something happening.
Upgrade 6
Next, I am cutting James, Wandering Dad out of the deck. Outside of the 5 cards, with 2 of these not even being repeatable, there aren't any other activated abilities that cost mana. Most of the cards in this deck, not surprisingly, cost Energy instead. The redeeming feature is the inbuilt synergy with the clue tokens you can make if you send James on an adventure with Follow Him. Again, a very flavourful card if you know and are interested in the lore. Taking his place is Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. Instead of having to first generate all the clues then pay into them to get the card draw, Jhoria just gives you them whenever you cast a historic spell. For those that don't know, historic spells are Legendaries, Sagas and most importantly Artifacts. This covers just under half the deck to let you draw additional cards whenever you cast something. Not a bad deal if you ask me.
Upgrade 7
The next upgrade I am looking to add is Emry, Lurker of the Loch, who works well with artifacts which discount her casting cost. You are almost always going to be casting her for a single (U). Being able to recast any key destroyed or milled artifacts gives you redundancy in case you lose something important. This is going to be swapped for Arcade Gannon. You are losing the looting ability to be able to cast bigger artifacts straight away. Being able to cast humans as well hurts, but again, I feel being able to recast 4+ converted mana cost (CMC) artifacts from the get go is clearly a more powerful effect.
Upgrade 8
Another card that I am doing as an upgrade is Sai, Master Thopterist for Loyal Apprentice. Both make Thopter Tokens for you, but Loyal Apprentice requires you to have your commander on the battlefield, where as Sai triggers off any artifact spell you cast, which means you can generate multiple in a turn. He also has a nice little card draw engine allowing you keep the card advantage going.
Upgrade 9
I am cutting Unexpected Windfall next. I don't really have a lot to say about this card as it’s an OK card. It's not flashy, but just works. My main problem with this is it isn’t card draw rather than filtering. You aren't gaining any more cards than you had. In this case you are playing a card and discarding a card to draw 2 cards which is a net of 0. The Treasure Tokens are nice, though, for a little boost of mana. I am putting in Phyrexian Metamorph instead, as I feel that this can have a higher upside. Being a clone, but one that also lets you get artifacts as well, so you should be able to get a copy of the best card on the board.
Upgrade 10
The final card I am adding is Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion. The idea with Lae’zel is just to get an incremental advantage to all the energy you gain. There aren't a lot of cards that will add to the energy that you generate outside of proliferating. One such being, Winding Constrictor, which is unfortunately not in the right colours for this deck. Coming out is Nick Valentine, Private Eye. This, to me, feels like a character card being pushed into the deck, as it sort of fits. The only synergy being that this deck has a lot of artifact creatures. Having the card draw to replace any of these dying is nice, but it comes in the form of Clue Tokens, slowing down how fast you can get the replacement cards.
The deck is packed full of powerful artifacts and the synergy to go with it. Bringing a new take with a dedicated commander to an underrepresented mechanic. It will be interesting to see how this deck shakes out, I just feel that it is held back slightly by the lack of card availability compared to other decks. Although there could be some more support coming in the Modern Horizon 3 commander decks with Creative Energy. Although, at time of writing, we have only seen the box art, so this could be entirely misleading. Here are the obligatory non budget and other cards to consider.
Non-budget Upgrades
Thanks for reading through the article! Hopefully you found it informative and I’ve given you some inspiration as to where you can upgrade your decks to make it more personal to you. Not every deck needs to be an absolute powerhouse CEDH deck. I think the most important part of a deck is that you are having fun while playing it. If that means putting in a pet card that is suboptimal then you should do it. Commander is a casual format and I think some people forget that.
Winning is good but I don't think it should be everything in Commander. I personally can have a great time losing, being blown out by some big spell or getting to see my friends deck do its thing. This is where I pull the line between Commander and CEDH. In CEDH, everyone understands that the main aim is to win, where for me in casual Commander, that might not be your main goal. It might be to make as many Squirrel Tokens as you can, or maybe open all the attractions from your deck. I do hope to see you back again for my upgrade guides on the Thunder Junction commander decks. So, remember everyone, as always good luck and have fun.
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PS. All the card prices were accurate at time of writing.
