Legacy Review - Fallout!

War. War never changes. In the 21st century, humanity was still battling for resources. Only, this time, the spoils of war were also their greatest weapons: cards and mana. The end of the world was exactly as we had predicted. Too many humans, and very little space, and resources. The details are trivial and senseless, and the reasons, as usual, were purely human in nature. Life in the Wasteland is about to change, but the scars left by the war still haven't healed. And the Earth has not forgotten them.

Fallout is one of the greatest video game franchises in the last decade, and might be the one that most deeply explored a post-apocalyptic nuclear world. Similarly to another dystopic futuristic franchise, Warhammer 40k, Fallout has come to MTG through another Commander product. And, when we talk about Commander, we must talk about Legacy, considering Commander tends to leave its mark on Legacy.

However, before we discuss the cards themselves, I'd like to discuss this franchise just a bit longer. The Fallout world is an alternate reality in which the timeline split away in the 50s, and retained a lot of the mindset of that time, which heavily focused on nuclear power. Therefore, the resources of this world ran out much faster than our reality, which then led to an 11-year war between the United States and China in 2066. This war ended on October 23rd, 2077, when someone pushed the button that fired the first of the nuclear weapons, and all other parties involved responded in the same way.

The Great War lasted only 2 hours, and most of Earth's population was consumed by radioactive fire. On the surface, just a few survived, and most of these poor souls became mutants due to huge amounts of radiation. A part of the population survived in underground shelters, the Vaults, and it is around these shelters that most of Fallout's story develops.

Apart from bringing back a considerable number of mechanics (Squad, Split Second, Energy, Enlist, Metalcraft, Sagas, Adventures, Storm, Investigate, Improvise, Morbid, Exploit, Enrage, Fortify, Raid, Evolve, Landfall, Monstrosity, Proliferate, Training, Battalion, Modified), Fallout also introduced us to some new mechanics: Radiation, Junk Tokens, and Bobblehead.

Radiation

This new mechanic represents the damage caused by the huge amounts of radiation still lingering over the nuclear wastelands. Many cards add Rad counters to players, and others get bonuses or other effects if their controller has any of these counters.

At the beginning of the pre-combat main phase, if a player has any Rad counters, they'll mill a number of cards equal to the number of counters they have. For each non-land card milled this way, this player will lose 1 health and remove 1 Rad counter.

These cards will be milled all at once, so abilities that are triggered when "one or more cards are milled" will only trigger once. If their deck doesn't have enough cards to mill, the whole deck will be milled.

Junk Token

Junk Token are pre-determined tokens, such as Food or Clue. The Junk token is a 0-cost artifact with the following ability: , Sacrifice this artifact: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery.

These tokens are quite interesting to create value in games that end up becoming top deck wars. In this sense, we can compare it to Clue tokens, but, unlike Clue tokens, they don't require mana to be activated. However, as they force you to use the card you exiled on that same turn, they are relatively limited utility-wise.

Bobblehead

Bobblehead is a new artifact subtype with activated abilities that become stronger according to the number of Bobbleheads you control.

White

Overencumbered

This aura will buy you time against aggressive decks, considering the artifacts given to the opponent in question will delay all attacks in general, and spending mana to get rid of them will also disrupt their game plan.

Against artifact decks, it will simply stop any offensive because it will be quite absurd to make them spend 5 or more mana to access a combat phase.

Pre-War Formalwear

Maybe the card that shows the most potential in the whole set, this equipment is a great addition to Stoneforge Mystic's arsenal.

Considering that Extraction Specialist is already good enough to see play in Death & Taxes, a tutorable version with Stoneforge Mystic seems viable enough to show up in Legacy tables. It also interacts well with cards like Flickerwisp, to have more utility, or Skyclave Apparition, to have another round of removals.

The Prydwen, Steel Flagship

In decks with Goblin Welder or even in some Azorius version of 8-Cast, this vehicle will offer a practically never-ending source of tokens that will fill your board quickly and set up a scary offensive.

Vault 101: Birthday Party

There is a strong aura/equipment theme in this set, so a deck like Hammertime might find a new card to use. This Saga costs a lot of mana, but can serve both as a Sigarda's Aid to equip a Colossus Hammer on a creature, or as a Stoneforge Mystic to put a Kaldra Compleat in play for free over some counters.

Blue

Curie, Emergent Intelligence

Curie is in play. You play your land that turn and have 3 mana. With 1, you play Phyrexian Dreadnought. With the ability on the stack, you use your 2 leftover mana and exile your Phyrexian creature. Congratulations, you'll have a 12/12 creature ready to attack, which will draw you twelve cards if it actually deals damage.

Considering that Stiflenought occasionally shows up in this format, this legendary robot on its own will already be a fair card, as it draws cards when you deal damage. However, it can give this combo even more redundancy because it will allow your 12/12 to attack at once, unlike other traditional options (Stifle, Dress Down, and Vision Charm).

James, Wandering Dad

The "instant" part of this card is what stood out to me because it creates, at the end of the turn, a great pile of artifacts that are ready to be used by you as soon as it's your untap phase, be it to boost Construct Tokens or Improvise abilities. Eventually, they can be converted into cards.

Radstorm

This is an instant with Storm: right away, it seems evil. You just need to find who you'll Proliferate infinitely.

Black

Ruthless Radrat

A free Squad means this rat can create a huge board for just 3 mana, as long as your deck can fill your graveyard, something that isn't difficult to do in Legacy.

V.A.T.S.

This is an uncounterable instant removal that will obliterate boards with countless creatures with a similar toughness or boards that are filled with tokens. It is metagame dependent, but it removes cards like Mother of Runes and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben without letting your opponent answer it.

Red

Bottle-Cap Blast

Heavy artifact decks can Improvise this removal for very little mana, and it can easily create a pile of Treasures, something this deck uses well, and serve as a finisher, as it can target anything. It is a reason to consider including Red in these decks.

Junk Jet

I can only think of Kappa Cannoneer equipped with this weapon.

Wild Wasteland

What first stood out to me about this enchantment is that, unlike others with similar abilities, its ability can stack, so 2 Wild Wasteland on your board will create 4 cards per turn.

The greatest downside with this card is that it only gets your deck going on your turn when you use all the cards you had in your hand when you played it. However, for archetypes like Red Prison, Goblins, and Boros Initiative, which are primarily aggressive, this extra gas is a welcome option against decks that try to slow down your speed, as the many Control decks in this format do.

Green

Rampaging Yao Guai

I was so used to seeing cards that destroy artifacts that I almost ignored the fact this Bear also removes enchantments. This means that, if X=0 (as it is the case if you find it with Green Sun's Zenith), it can explode an Urza's Saga deck's entire board, including the Saga itself!

At X value at 0, it is also useful to hit Moxes, artifact lands, and Treasure tokens. From then on, it can remove more cards, like Aether Vial, Exploration, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Shadowspear, and many others.

Gold/Multicolored

Inventory Management

I talked before about Sigarda's Aid's redundancy, but this will be an uncounterable, instant way of placing Colossus Hammer on your creatures' hands.

It will also be a way of placing this hammer on a second creature, if the first creature was removed, unlike Sigarda's Aid.

Artifact

Pip-Boy 3000

Shadowspear has been the most common cheap artifact option to pull with Urza's Saga, but Pip-Boy will bring very interesting options as well. Against some decks, Shadowspear's Lifelink is essential, but it is relatively irrelevant against others; as for Pip-Boy 3000, it will be useful in every situation.

Lands

Sunscorched Divide

Odyssey's filter lands haven't seen much play in Legacy, except for the occasional Mossfire Valley in Gruul Initiative lists. Fallout finally brought filter lands in enemy colors, and we have another one that might see some play.

Just like Gruul, Boros Iniative also uses gold cards (Forth Eorlingas!) in a mana base with 8 colorless lands and 4 Cavern of Souls that aren't useful to pay for its colored mana cost. In Boros Initiative, usually, Sunscorched Divide isn't that different from a Plateau; so, it is a viable budget option as a Dual Land. It is better when you play Eorlingas and worse when you play Swords to Plowshares.

The other filter lands can be options for colored decks with sol lands, but, currently, the best place for them is in Boros decks.

HELIOS One

This land reminds me of Blast Zone, a colorless way to deal with other permanents that doesn't take a spot from a non-land card. The Lands Deck can consider this card.

Junktown

This land can "draw" 3 cards late game. I like this versatility, but it is probably too slow.

Mariposa Military Base

Just like the land above, this military base offers us the possibility to create resources in drawn-out games. Just like the land above, it is most likely too slow for this format, but this isn't an ability we usually find in lands for so cheap.

I admit I really enjoyed seeing the Fallout universe represented in MTG cards. As for its impact on Legacy, I think it will impact it less than Warhammer, which might be good news, given the window of time between that set's tabletop release and its Magic Online release, which, in turn, did cause a rift between them.

However, even with a seemingly lower power level, this Fallout set brought cool mechanics and cards. My guess for the most important cards in this set are Pre-War Formalwear, Rampaging Yao Guai, and Sunscorched Divide.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!