Science! Commander decklist and upgrade guide – MTG Fallout

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This is the decklist for the Science! Commander deck as part of the MTG Fallout collaboration.

We’ve recently seen plenty of Commander precons released by Wizards of the Coast, and while the Fallout ones have been available for pre-order for months now, the decklists are finally getting revealed. We’ve already seen the Scrappy Survivors decklist, and we’ve seen parts of the Hail, Caesar deck too.

Science! Commander Deck – MTG Fallout

Explore the Fallout universe with this Auto Draft commander deck.

Cards

100

Additionals

2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack

Science! decklist

✓ Johnny’s Annotation:

Notable Reprints:

As with all pre-constructed decks, Science! includes multiple that already exist, but are given a Fallout coat of paint to keep it thematic with the rest of the deck. The most notable reprints in Science! include Panharmonicon, Lightning Greaves, Treasure Vault, and Mystic Forge.

While not all the cards have been revealed yet, there’s still a few that we can focus on. Wizards are going to be releasing more MTG Fallout spoilers over the next couple of days, and until then we’re only going to have these to go off.

Card NameCard TypeRarityMana CostStatsDescription
Dr. Madison LiLegendary CreatureMythic RareOne blue, one red, one white2/3Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you get an energy counter. Tap, Pay one energy counter: Target creature gets +1/+0 and gains trample and haste until end of turn. Tap, Pay three energy counters: Draw a card. Tap, Pay five energy counters: Return target artifact card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
Liberty Prime, RechargedLegendary Artifact CreatureMythic RareTwo generic, one blue, one red, one white8/8Vigilance, trample, haste. Whenever Liberty Prime, Recharged attacks or blocks, sacrifice it unless you pay two energy counters. Two generic, Tap, Sacrifice an artifact: You get two energy counters and draw a card.
Open the VaultsSorceryRareFour generic, two whiteReturn all artifact and enchantment cards from all graveyards to the battlefield under their owners’ control.
Mechanized ProductionEnchantment – AuraMythic RareTwo generic, two blueEnchant artifact you control. At the beginning of your upkeep, create a token that’s a copy of enchanted artifact. Then if you control eight or more artifacts with the same name as one another, you win the game.
Nick Valentine, Private EyeLegendary Artifact CreatureRareTwo generic, one blue2/2Can’t be blocked except by artifact creatures. Whenever Nick Valentine or another artifact creature you control dies, you may investigate. (To investigate, create a Clue token. It’s an artifact with “2, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”)
Rex, Cyber-HoundLegendary Artifact CreatureRareOne generic, one white, one blue2/2Whenever Rex, Cyber-Hound deals combat damage to a player, they mill two cards and you get two energy counters. Pay two energy counters: Choose target creature card in a graveyard. Exile it with a brain counter on it. Rex has all activated abilities of all cards in exile with brain counters on them.
Vault 112: Sadistic SimulationEnchantment – SagaRareTwo generic, one blue, one redSaga abilities: 1. and 2. Tap up to one target creature and put a stun counter on it. You get two energy counters. 3. Pay any amount of energy. If you paid one or more energy this way, shuffle your library, then exile that many cards from the top. You may play one of those cards without paying its mana cost.
Arcane SignetArtifactUncommonTwo genericTap: Add one mana of any color in your commander’s color identity.
Solemn SimulacrumArtifact CreatureRareFour generic2/2When Solemn Simulacrum enters the battlefield, you may search your library for a basic land card, put that card onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle. When Solemn Simulacrum dies, you may draw a card.
Sol RingArtifactUncommonOne genericTap: Add two colorless mana.
T-45 Power ArmorArtifact – EquipmentRareTwo genericWhen T-45 Power Armor enters the battlefield, you get two energy counters. Equipped creature gets +3/+3 and doesn’t untap during its controller’s untap step. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay one energy counter. If you do, untap equipped creature, then put your choice of a menace, trample, or lifelink counter on it. Equip three generic.
Ferrous LakeLandRareOne generic, tapAdd one blue and one red.

Dr. Madison Li is the Commander leading this deck, journeying over from Fallout 3 and 4. As a Legendary Creature and Human Scientist, the card is summoned with white, red, and blue Mana. The card plays on Artifacts with the following abilities; Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you get an energy counter, Tap, pay one energy counter: Target creature gets +1/+0 and gains trample and haste until end of turn, Tap, Pay three energy counters: Draw a card, Tap, Pay five energy counters: Return target artifact card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.

Dr. Madison Li is supported by Liberty Prime, Recharged a Legendary Artifact Creature – Robot, with 8/8 stats. Emboldened with Vigilance, Trample, and Haste, Liberty Prime looks like an attacking force to be reckoned with.

Science! Themes And Archetypes

The main theme of Science! is energy counters. Energy counters are counters that go on you as the player, and can be used to pay for certain costs for beneficial effects. Outside of paying for these effects, energy counters don’t do anything while on you. The deck has many ways to give energy counters, letting you consistently have energy counters to spend for your big payoffs. Energy is the focus of both the main commander Dr. Madison Li as well as the deck’s secondary commander Liberty Prime, Recharged. 

A sub-theme of the deck is artifacts. Many cards care about having multiple artifacts on the battlefield, and using them to their advantage. This is often an enabler for cards with the metalcraft ability, which benefit from controlling three or more artifacts. 

One final archetype found with Science! are Equipment cards. There are multiple useful Equipment spells that give powerful effects and stat boosts to power up your creatures to get in for more damage. Combat is the main way the deck wins, so these Equipment help push you closer to that goal. 

Science! Deck Analysis

Science! wants to create a lot of energy counters and do it quickly. The easiest way is with Dr. Madison Li, which gives an energy counter for each artifact cast. Artifacts make up about half the deck, so it will often give you an excess of energy to spend. Brotherhood Scribe is a very easy way to generate energy counters, as all you have to do is tap it when you control three or more artifacts to get an energy counter, and it gives your creatures +1/+1 for your troubles. 

There are a few cards that care about artifacts, including your metalcraft cards as well as Whirler Rogue which can make a creature unblockable using artifacts, or Sentinel Sarah Lyons which gives creatures +2/+2 so long as an artifact entered the battlefield that turn.

To ensure consistent creation of artifacts, Loyal Apprentice creates a 1/1 Thopter artifact creature every combat so long as you control your commander at the start of combat. Synth Infiltrator comes in as a copy of any creature as a Synth artifact creature, and has improvise so your artifacts can be used to pay for its generic mana cost. Automated Assembly Line can convert your energy counters into 3/3 Robot artifact creature tokens, letting you have a way to dump energy counters into board presence. 

The Equipment side of Science! is fantastic. Plasma Caster gives you two energy counters when the equipped creature attacks, and lets you pay two energy counters to flip a coin and call it and if you call right, the creature is exiled otherwise it takes one damage. This makes it scary to block the creature, as the blocker may just get exiled instead while your creature stays safe. Lightning Greaves is a reprint but gives a creature shroud, meaning no targets or abilities can target it so it’s safe from removal. Lightning Greaves is best used on creatures you don’t want attacking but want on the battlefield to take advantage of their effects. T-45 Power Armor is solid as well. It does require you to use energy counters to untap a creature it is equipped to, but the +3/+3 stat boost and the ability to put a menace, trample, or lifelink counter on it is a good trade-off. One thing to note is that once the creature has a counter, you can move T-45 Power Armor so you don’t have to keep using the energy counters to untap the attacker. 

Budget Cards To Upgrade Science! With

The Science! pre-constructed deck is heavily focused on energy counters as its main gameplan, but is a bit lacking in ways to generate them. The ones included in the deck are great, but it could use some more cards that can give energy counters to make sure you consistently draw cards that can create them.

One card the deck benefits from adding is Decoction Module. Since you put a lot of creatures onto the battlefield in Science!, Decoction Module can generate an energy counter each time. It can also return creatures back to the hand to take advantage of enter-the-battlefield triggers, especially ones that create energy counters when they do. 

Another useful budget upgrade is Lae’zel, Vlaakith’s Champion. Lae’zel gives an extra counter whenever you put one on a player, creature, or planeswalker. This helps your cards generate even more energy counters so you always have an excess of energy counters for your effects. The deck needs to always have some on you, so the more enablers the better. 

The number of counters Science! makes is a lot, so proliferating is a good way to increase energy counters and +1/+1 counters that are being placed everywhere. Flux Channeler is a great budget upgrade as for every noncreature spell cast you get to proliferate. About half the deck consists of noncreature spells, so you’ll have no trouble proliferating with it. 

Soulherder is a great card to include in Science! when looking to upgrade. Soulherder exiles a creature you control at the endstep and then brings it back to the battlefield right away. The reason it’s good in Science! is because of how many good enter-the-battlefield effects there are. Many of them give you either artifact creatures or energy counters, two things of which Science! wants a lot of. 

When upgrading Science! you’ll have to remove some cards to make room for the upgrades. C.A.M.P. doesn’t do a whole lot for the strategy, and simply can create Junk tokens and put +1/+1 counters on a creature, two things the deck doesn’t care too much about. Expert-Level Safe is another cuttable card, as it’s a situational way to get cards into your hand, which doesn’t benefit you much to begin with so the deck won’t miss it. Red Death, Shipwrecker, while a cool card, is out of place with what the Science! deck is trying to do. It’s a red mana dork that can goad a creature and make that opponent draw a card, but has nothing to do with energy counters and isn’t worth giving your opponent card advantage in a deck that can’t take advantage of it. Lastly, Vault 13: Dweller’s Journey doesn’t need to stay in the deck either. It exiles cards for each player, and puts two of them back while the rest go to the bottom. It’s decent removal, but rather low-impact and two cards it exile still return to the battlefield. If Vault 13 ever gets removed, all the cards return to the battlefield as well, giving your opponent two turns to deal with it before they have to truly worry about it.


We’re going to be keeping this page updated with the latest information as more spoilers are released regarding the Science! decklist. In the meantime, you might consider having a look at how to build a cube in Magic: The Gathering.

About the Author

Amaar Chowdhury

Amaar is a gaming journalist with an interest in covering the industry's corporations. Aside from that, he has a hankering interest in retro games that few people care about anymore.

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