Summary
Science! is one of the four Commander decks released as a part ofMagic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond collaboration with the Fallout franchise. The deck features factions from the Fallout series based around science, such as the Brotherhood Of Steel and the Institute.
Mechanically, Science! is a Jeskai (red/white/blue) Commander deck built around the energy counter mechanic. It is filled with cards new to Magic that are very powerful, enough to make an impact not just within the Science! deck, but across multiple decks in the format. Science! has a lot of amazing cards, with these ones worth taking an extra look at.
10Sentry Bot
Damage For Energy
Sentry Bot turns a wide swing of creatures at you into a plethora of energy counters. While it usually costs a lot of mana, it can discount itself to potentially let it hit the battlefield for just one white mana.
Sentry Bot is a great blocker thanks to its high toughness, and it gives you somewhere to dump your energy counters into. While it can take a while to get to three energy counters,spreading +1/+1 countersto all of your creatures can slowly turn them into massive threats.
9Nuka-Cola Vending Machine
Turn Food Into Caps
As with Fallout, healing with Food sometimes grants you caps (in Magic’s case, turning into Treasure). Nuka-Cola Vending Machine is a great way to easily generate Food tokens, which can then be turned into Treasure tokens to help ramp you.
When combined with other cards that make Food tokens on their own, it becomes even better, especially if you have a way to sacrifice the Food token without spending the mana to do so. At its worst, Nuka-Cola Vending Machine has a low-mana investment to startgenerating Treasure tokens on its own.
8Brotherhood Scribe
Easy Energy
One thing decks built around energy counters have trouble with is consistently having a source to generate them. Brotherhood Scribe is a way to counteract this downside by giving you an energy counter by tapping it when metalcraft is active. Since it only costs two mana, you can start generating energy counters early in the game.
Brotherhood Scribe’s stat-boosting effect triggers off of any effect that gives you an energy counter, so multiple separate triggers will boost your creatures each time. The card can make your creatures into threats while loading you up with energy counters for later use.
7Dr. Madison Li
Artifacts Making Energy
Dr. Madison Li is the face commander for the Science! deck, and one of the best cards in the deck.All artifact spells you castturn into energy counters being put on you, even if they get countered. It also acts as a way to sink your energy counters into.
None of Dr. Madison Li’s effects use mana to cast, so as long as you have the energy counters to pay, you can use any of them depending on what you need for the gamestate. Dr. Madison Li easily generates energy counters on its own thanks to its static, so you’ll always have energy counters as long as you have artifacts to cast.
6Rex, Cyber-Hound
Copy All Abilities
Rex, Cyber-Hound can easily gain many activated abilities of any card in the graveyard with its effect. When it deals combat damage, the effect that triggers helps to use Rex’s other ability to always have a source of milling so Rex can copy abilities.
With the right cards being exiled, Rex, Cyber-Hound can gain a plethora of strong effects on itself. In a deck with a lot of energy counter generation, Rex doesn’t have to worry about attacking to use its effect, letting you give it a ton of different abilities.
5Plasma Caster
Coin Flip Exile
Plasma Caster is the best Equipmentfound with Science! Since, when the creature it is equipped to attacks, it gets two energy counters. As such, you will always have two energy counters to pay for its effect. It’s a 50 percent chance to exile a creature blocking it, or else deal one damage to it.
Plasma Caster’s ability is not once-per-turn, so if you have multiple energy counters to pay, you can potentially use its effect on all creatures blocking your creature. This effect would already be great, but Plasma Caster gives a small stat-boost as well and hardly costs any mana.
4Shaun, Father Of Synths
Duplicate Legends
Shaun, Father Of Synths can double up on any attacking legendary creature that isn’t itself. Shaun itself doesn’t need to attack for its effect to trigger either, letting it sit back in combat and take advantage of its effect without having to put it in danger of dying in combat.
The only downside to Shaun, Father Of Synths is that if it ever leaves the battlefield, it takes all the Synth token copies it made with it. However, being able to consistently create token copies of your legendary creatures is what makes Shaun so good, especially if they have enter the battlefield triggers.
3Automated Assembly Line
Turn Energy Into Creatures
Automated Assembly Line is both an excellent way to generate energy counters and turn those energy counters into3/3 artifact creature tokens. Although it can’t make too many energy counters on its own, Automated Assembly Line can take advantage of the energy counters that your other cards are making that are more consistent at doing that.
So long as you have three energy counters to pay, you can keep making Robot tokens. Since these are artifact creatures, they can feed into Automated Assembly Line’s first effect to start getting those energy counters back.
2Synth Infiltrator
Cheap Creature Copies
Since Synth Infiltrator has improvise, it becomes easy to cast it for just two blue mana, especially if you have artifact tokens that aren’t doing anything on the battlefield. It becomes a copy of any creature on the battlefield, not just your own, so you may take advantage of your opponents' creatures as well as your own.
Synth Infiltrator can make an expensive creature cheap to cast. It is a Synth artifact creature, which can play into artifact strategies that care about how many you control. For how easy it is to cast combined with its great effect, it’s one of thebest clone cards in the game.
1Overencumbered
And Cannot Run
Overencumbered can shut down the ability of an opponent to attack unless they have a lot of mana to spend. While giving your opponent three tokens is normally a downside, in Overencumbered’s case, it just makes them have to pay more mana to get rid of them to just start attacking.
Since Commander is home to a lot of mana rocks and many other utility artifacts, opponents will often control a ton of artifacts they can’t get rid of. As such, Overencumbered forces a ton of mana to be paid just to attack with their creatures.
