Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond initiative brings outside properties into the game, reskinning familiar characters, settings, and events from them as Magic cards. TheFalloutcrossover dropped fourpreconstructed Commander decks, exploring the post-apocalyptic wastes and their radioactive inhabitants.
Each Fallout Commander deck featured a higher-than-average number of new-to-Magic cards, around 35-40 each, with the remaining cards being reprints that flavorfully capture the world of Fallout in Magic form. While the overall reprint value of the set was lower than usual, there are some great standouts, especially coming from Fallout’s supplementary products.
We’ll be covering cards included within the Commander precons as well as Pip-Boy and Vault-Boy treatments cards from Fallout collector boosters.
10Inexorable Tide
Changing The Tide Of Inflation
If you’ve been playing for a long time and don’t really track card prices too often, you might not have noticed Inexorable Tide slowly creeping up in price over time. This former bulk-bin rare hit nearly $10 before its timely reprint in the Mutant Menace deck.
This enchantment is aproliferate-lover’s dream card, but the overall package is clunky enough that it’s not really worth investing much money into; it’s not a particularly competitive card, after all. This reprint puts it in the hands of more casual players, especially ones working on a strict budget.
9Pitiless Plunderer
A Plunderful Reprint
Back-to-back reprints inThe Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commanderand Fallout helped drive the price of the once super-expensive Pitiless Plunderer down into the realm of mortals. Prior to these reprints, a copy of this uncommon went for between $10-$15 a pop due to scarcity issues.
It’s a highly desirable card forTreasure-based decks, and also the linchpin card in a number of recognizable infinite combos. Its lack of a ‘once per turn’ rider allows it to do some really degenerate things when combined withsacrifice effectsand recursive creatures.
8Branching Evolution
Overdue For A Mainset Printing
Branching Evolution is another Fallout reprint that also made an appearance in Lost Caverns Commander. The demand for this card still keeps the price pretty high, at around $10 a copy regardless of which version you get, but the overall accessibility helps.
Evolution was originally printed in 2020’s original Jumpstart set, and has only been reprinted in Commander products since then.+1/+1 counter decksare some of the most popular in all of Commander, so it’s a highly desirable card, but it’ll probably take a Standard set release to really tank the price of the card.
7Farewell
Accessibility, But At What Cost?
There’s a valid argument that Farewell’s not a healthy card for Commander; it’s incredibly flexible, it cuts off certain strategies and stifles their ability to recover, and it drags games on for way too long. Maybe you believe that, maybe you don’t. Either way,it’s a top-tier format staplethat players want to get their hands on.
As long as Farewell remains as heavily played as it is, it needs to be accessible to players. Wizards has done a good job of planting this card in most recent precon line-ups, though the Fallout version is exclusive to collector boosters.
6Walking Ballista / Assaultron Invader
New Skin, Same Ballista
Walking Ballista gets the ‘Pip-Boy Showcase treatment’ in the Fallout set, here as Assaultron Invader. Ballista still sees enough play across different formats to make it a desirable pick-up, though all the Pip-Boy reskins only show up in Fallout collector boosters.
Ballista is occasionally seen inModernas part of an infinite-damage combo involving Heliod, Sun-Crowned. It’s also a key component ofinfinite mana combosin Commander, where it converts an arbitrary stack of mana into lethal damage. These are the types of combos that led to the card’s banning in Pioneer.
5Tarmogoyf / Scrounging Deathclaw
How The Mighty Have Fallen
Once one of the most expensive and universally played Constructed cards of all time, opening a ‘Goyf used to be a driving force for sets like Modern Masters and Ultimate Masters. Funnily enough, it’s never really been an important factor in Commander.
A playset of Tarmogoyfs used to run close to $500-$600 in its hayday, but now you’re able to incidentally open one in Fallout collector boosters. It’s reskinned as Scrounging Deathclaw, but its decline in popularity means it’s not even one of the chase cards people are really after when cracking Fallout boosters.
4Heroic Intervention
Saving Boards And Wallets
Heroic Intervention is one ofgreen’s most important cards in Commander. It’s in the top ten most-played green cards in all of Commander, according to deck aggregator EDHREC.com, and it’s one of the most potent protection spells the format has to offer.
Despite six different printings before being included in Fallout, the price steadily hovers around $10. That usually puts itout of range for the avid budgeteers, but it does mean anyone who’s picking upthe Scrappy Survivor preconcan add one to their collection.
3Guardian Project
Notably Not A Mythic
As far as green card advantage tools are concerned, Guardian Project is one of the best. It’s tailor-made for Commander, where the singleton nature of the format means your creatures naturally have different names. It’s also a home run for the Fallout crossover flavor.
The strange part is that Guardian Project was reprinted in Ravnica Remastered only a month ahead of the release of the Fallout decks. Seeing this reprinted in a Commander precon (at rare) makes the decision toupshift its rarityin the Remaster look especially silly.
2Crucible of Worlds
Contested, But Still Great
Crucible of Worlds has a lot more competition than it used to when it was the only real ‘play lands from your graveyard’ effect in Magic. That text gets stapled onto quite a few cards now, including Ramunap Excavator, Conduit of Worlds, and Ancient Greenwarden, to name a few.
Crucible’s still one of the best versions, due to its lower mana value and immunity to creature-based removal.Decks interested in playing lands from the graveyardwant critical mass of that effect, so there’s still plenty of demand for this welcome reprint.
1Ravages of War
War Never Changes
Ravages of War has only ever been printed twice in paper, once in 1999’s Portal Three Kingdoms, and again as a Judge promo in 2015. Copies range between $100-$200, which makes it even more shocking to see it printed in a product like Fallout.
This is the big ticket card of the set, and makes the card accessible to players for the first time in over 20 years. Sure, you could always play Armageddon for way less, but there are some Cubes and Commander decks that wouldn’t mind the redundantland destruction spell.
