Magic: The Gathering® – Fallout® Mechanics
Magic has seen its share of great wars and apocalyptic disasters, but maybe nothing quite like this before. It's everyone's favorite retro-futuristic hellscape, but maybe not quite as you've enjoyed it before. Our latest Universes Beyond collaboration, Magic: The Gathering® – Fallout®, will have you braving the wastes and fighting against and alongside many familiar faces and other appendages from the hit series Fallout. There are four Commander decks and Collector Boosters, all filled with new cards, and those new cards have new mechanics. So, sit back, relax, pop open a bottle of Nuka-Cola, and let's review.
Junk Tokens
You can't saunter across the wastes for too long without realizing—there's just a whole lot of junk out here. In fact, this junk can be a great way to access extra cards. Ready to get to work?
Several cards in the set, including that good boy up there, create Junk tokens. Junk tokens are a new kind of predefined token. They're colorless artifact tokens with the rules text "{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery." If you choose to play the exiled card, you pay all its costs and must follow all the normal rules for playing the card. So, if you exile a sorcery card, you can cast that spell only during your main phase, and if you play a land this way, you can do so only if you haven't played a land yet this turn. If you don't play the card, that's fine, it just stays in exile, junking up the place for the rest of the game.
Rad Counters
One consequence of nuclear fallout is that there tends to be an unhealthy amount of radiation everywhere. This set introduces a new kind of counter that players get—rad counters.
Rad counters represent your current radiation levels, and the higher that is, the more serious the impact. At the beginning of your precombat main phase, you mill cards equal to the number of rad counters you have. For each nonland card you mill this way, you lose 1 life and a rad counter. The Wise Mothman would have you believe that there are benefits to accruing rad counters, and you do get to fill your graveyard somewhat quickly. Well, as I sometimes say, one benefit of nuclear fallout is that there tends to be a healthy amount of radiation everywhere. Happy brewing!
Energy Counters
Plasma weapons, power armor, and Vault-Tec security systems don't run on hope and charming smiles. You need energy, and the returning energy counters provide just that.
Like rad counters, energy counters are a kind of counter that players get. Unlike rad counters, energy counters have no inherent rules meaning or effects associated with them. They're a resource that you can use to pay costs, like the ones offered by cards such as T-45 Power Armor. Sometimes those costs will be offered as a triggered ability resolves. Other cards have activated abilities that require energy to activate. You keep energy counters until you pay them or something causes you to lose the counters.
Proliferate
Now that you mention it, there have been quite a few counters in this article already. And there are probably +1/+1 counters and even more kinds of counters in the set. Proliferate would really help with the scarce resource issue. Just like you to try a trick like that.
A returning keyword action, proliferate takes advantage of all the counters prevalent throughout the set. If you're told to proliferate, you choose any number of players and/or permanents that have one or more counters on them. Then, for each kind of counter already there, add another of that counter. If you choose a creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it, you put another +1/+1 counter on it. If you have three energy counters, give yourself another!
If a player or permanent has more than one kind of counter and you choose to add counters, you must add one of each kind already there. So, if your opponent has energy counters and rad counters, you can give them one of each or nothing at all, but you can't give them only a rad counter. Remember, you can choose only players and permanents that already have counters and you don't have to choose all of them. You have to add counters only to the players and permanents you want to.
Squad
There aren't many cards in this release that have the returning keyword squad, but you don't need many cards with squad to suddenly feel outnumbered.
Squad represents an optional additional cost that you may choose to pay any number of times as you cast the card with squad. So, let's say your game is entering the wee hours and you have nine mana at your disposal, so you cast Powder Ganger and pay the squad cost three times. That's two mana and a red mana plus six mana for a total of eight mana of any color and one red mana. When Powder Ganger enters the battlefield, you create three tokens that are copies of it.
Powder Ganger has another ability that triggers when it enters the battlefield, so each of its token copies does as well. All told, you can destroy up to four target artifacts. Most cards with squad have similar abilities that are better in multiples, not to mention the dominant battlefield presence multiple copies will provide.
Preorder Magic: The Gathering® – Fallout® from your local game store, online retailers like Amazon, and elsewhere Magic products are sold before the set releases March 8, 2024.