Greetings travelers! Welcome back to EDHREC for another precon guide. Today we’re kicking off our journey into the world of Fallout, the latest Commander set from Universes Beyond. And we’re starting with Scrappy Survivors, the red, green, and white deck led by Dogmeat, Ever Loyal.

Who Are the Commanders for Scrappy Survivors?

Dogmeat is a 3/3 Dog that mills you for five when it enters, then returns an Aura or Equipment from the grave to your hand. And whenever a creature you control that’s enchanted or equipped attacks, you make a Junk token. Junk is a new token introduced in this set that provides impulse draw at sorcery speed, at the low cost of tapping and sacrificing the token.

Our backup commander is Preston Garvey, Minuteman, a 4/4 Human Soldier for five mana that untaps all of your enchanted permanents when he attacks. And at the beginning of your combat, you make an Aura token called Settlement attached to a land you control. It’s basically a free Abundant Growth every turn, minus the card draw. Also, you don’t need to attack to get the Aura.

Here’s the full deck list for Scrappy Survivors:

What Are the New Legends in Scrappy Survivors?

As we’ve seen with previous Universes Beyond Commander sets, like Doctor Who and Warhammer 40K, these decks have a large assortment of new legendary creatures who can’t lead the precon, but are ready to lead their own decks or be a supporting player. So let’s take a look at the ones included in this deck.

We’ll start with one that’s destined to be a staple in the 99 of blink decks, Commander Sofia Daguerre. Legends whose only ability is an enter-the-battlefield trigger tend to do poorly as deck leaders, especially a mono-colored one like Sofia. But throw her in with Brago, King Eternal or Roon of the Hidden Realm, and you have a dedicated commander killer - and some salt from your opponents. But they can’t be too mad with those fancy Junk tokens they get. Right?

Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ, a card name that sounds like something out of Unfinity, follows the typical Boros legend rule of “this must attack to make things happen.” (Spoiler alert: we'll see a lot of this in this set.) But where it gets interesting is its ability to throw an Aura onto each attacking creature for just two mana. Obviously the ceiling here would be something like Eldrazi Conscription (although you won't get the Annihilator triggers until next turn, unless you have extra combats). This looks like a fun commander, as long as you have many ways to bring back Auras from the grave. The challenge would be in how to balance the deck so you have enough attacking creatures as well as powerful Auras.

Veronica, Dissident Scribe is pretty forgettable, but may find a home in discard decks like Brallin, Skyshark Rider + Shabraz, the Skyshark or Anje Falkenrath. Ian the Reckless is also a miss, although a mono-red lifegain deck could be unusual enough to be interesting. If you throw something like a Basilisk Collar on him, you’ll gain back the life from the damage he deals you, plus what you deal to the target. But there’s currently only a handful of ways to grant lifelink in the mono-red identity. 

Codsworth, Handy Helper is clearly made for Partner commanders, so I expect to see it showing up in Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist + Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh decks. It’s not likely to lead a lot of decks, since it’s counterintuitive to have a voltron commander that you have to tap for its abilities (i.e., you can’t attack with it if it’s tapped, and can’t activate its abilities if it’s tapped from attacking).

I have nothing good to say about Moira Brown, Guide Author. So we’ll move on to Cait, Cage Brawler. This pugnacious lady looks like an extremely fun commander, with a lot of room for different directions she can go. Extra combat spells will be crucial; since she’ll be indestructible, if you can do a repeatable extra combat, like with Savage Ventmaw + Aggravated Assault, you can keep the hits coming. But what about the drawing and discarding? That’s where cards like Brallin, Skyshark Rider and Glint-Horn Buccaneer come in. They’ll be sure to knock your opponents out with damage long before you deck yourself. And use Bag of Holding to refill your hand. I think we’ll also see Cait leading fight decks, similar to Neyith of the Dire Hunt. 

Cass, Hand of Vengeance has my gears spinning a little bit. Boros Equipment aristocrats? Can it be done? Pair Cass with Koll, the Forgemaster and some sac outlets, and you’ve got a potential stew going.

Our last legend is Duchess, Wayward Tavernkeep, which turns combat damage into card advantage. Basically Coastal Piracy, but with extra steps. Not anything exciting.

What Are the Themes and Strategies of the Deck?

Scrappy Survivors is all about suiting up for battle. The deck wants you to make lots of Auras and Equipment, and swing everyone in for damage. Also, a bunch of Junk.

Let’s look at the gear. Junk Jet makes a Junk token on entry, then lets you sac an artifact to double the equipped creature’s power for the turn. This is extremely powerful in the right deck, as a commander with evasion can easily one-shot an opponent if its power is doubled. Or quadrupled, if you've got the mana. There are certainly other uses for doubling a creature’s power, like Brion Stoutarm or Chandra’s Ignition.

Silver Shroud Costume does an interesting impression of Whispersilk Cloak when it enters, with more timing involved. Pip-Boy 3000 is a fantastic modal equipment. All the modes are good, but untapping two lands is the real prize here. Our last Equipment is Pre-War Formalwear, which revives a low-mana creature on entry and attaches to it. Its Equip cost is a bit high, though.

Now we’ll move on to the Auras, starting with Idolized, which is like Exalted on steroids. At just two mana, it's a new voltron staple. Also for two mana, we have Well Rested, which is just begging to be in a deck with Seedborn Muse. Sadly it’s a once-per-turn effect, so no Freed From the Real shenanigans here.

Strong Back is another candidate for voltron staple, and, a little easter egg here, has the same character as Overencumbered, from the Science! deck. Almost Perfect is pretty straightforward, but extremely powerful, and worth all six mana of its cost. Animal Friend spits out Squirrel tokens with +1/+1 counters to overwhelm your opponents, or act as chump blockers.

Grim Reaper’s Sprint is an extra combat spell on an Aura, which is definitely some interesting new design space. And as long as a creature died previously in the turn, it’s fairly cost-effective. Sadly, the extra combat effect only triggers in the main phase. So you can't go infinite combats with Stangg, Echo Warrior. And last we have the deck’s addition to the Impetus cycle, although not in name, with Acquired Mutation. This is also one of the few cards in the deck that give Rad counters, which we’ll talk more about when we get to the Mutant Menace deck.

The deck comes with some nonlegendary creatures that synergize with Auras and Equipment as well. Armory Paladin is the impulse draw equivalent of Sram, Senior Edificer. Not likely to replace Sram in decks that want this effect, but having trample could give it the nudge. Brotherhood Outcast can return an Aura or Equipment from your grave on entry, as does Super Mutant Scavenger. These recursion effects go great with the mill from Dogmeat, the Aura sacrificing on Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ, and the discard effect on Vault 21: House Gambit. Vault 101: Birthday Party also gets back Auras and Equipment on its second and third stages.

Mister Gutsy gets a +1/+1 counter whenever you cast an Aura or Equipment, then makes a bunch of Junk when it dies. Gunner Conscript gets bigger for all of its modifications, and, surprise, also makes Junk when it dies. And, though not a creature, we have a really cool combat trick in Inventory Management. Here’s what you do with this card: you attack with a bunch of heavily armored creatures, then after blocks are declared, you Inventory Management and move everything to an unblocked creature.

For some extra Junk, we’ve got Crimson Caravaneer, Break Down, and Junktown. And for the last new cards from the deck, we’ve got: two Bobbleheads, Perception Bobblehead and Agility Bobblehead; Megaton’s Fate, a sweet modal spell, although it’s a bit pricey; Bighorner Rancher, an easily abusable mana-generator; and Sunscorched Divide, a new land in an old cycle.

How Do You Play Scrappy Survivors?

When I first pulled this list up in Archidekt and looked at the average mana value, I was shook. 2.82. This deck’s mana curve actually looks more like a cliff that drops after three MV. This, combined with the heavy amount of ramp and cost reducers, makes playing this deck a piece of Mirelurk cake. Usually with these precon reviews I ding the deck for having too high of an average MV, but here I’m actually going to say it’s a bit too low. The deck could easily stand to cut a few weak two-drops in favor of a few more powerful spells.

Going into playtesting, I expected the deck to falter due to a low number of cards that provide direct card advantage. But while playing, I found that I had no problem making Junk tokens frequently enough to keep the cards moving. Your best bet with Junk tokens is to crack them at the beginning of your turn, before you play a land. If you play a land first, then crack a Junk, you’re likely to be left with a land in exile that you can no longer use. However, in the late game when you have a lot more Junk tokens to spare, cracking a bunch to get lands out of the way and dig to better cards is incredibly beneficial. 

In playtesting, I found Dogmeat’s enter ability to be disappointing, because it’s easy to not hit an Equipment or Aura, and end up just dumping cards in the grave that I could’ve used. However, the good boi’s attack trigger is the Junk fuel that the deck needs. That said, I could easily see the arguments for moving Preston Garvey to the front of the line. His ability to untap your enchanted lands, and attacking creatures, is so good in this deck. 

Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ is a really neat trick if you can pull it off with a bunch of tokens on the board. In one game I was able to make a bunch of Squirrel tokens with Animal Friend, then enchant Three Dog with Almost Perfect, sac the Aura on attack and turn a horde of Squirrels into indestructible 9/10s. It was beautiful - the kind of thing I play Commander for.

Some of the legendary creatures in the deck are total throwaways, and will be very easy to cut for our upgrade. Those creatures are obvious to pick out, and, thankfully, there are several ways to discard them for something better.

Is Scrappy Survivors Worth Buying?

Should you spend your bottle caps on this deck? Here’s my final grade:

B-

The two commanders of the deck are stellar, both adding fuel to the fire the deck needs, and working beautifully together. The deck plays incredibly smoothly, due to a low average MV and the consistent card advantage provided by the Junk tokens. 

The deck falters a little bit with the new cards. Granted, there are a lot of them, and you can certainly find some great new cards to add to your voltron decks. But there were also quite a few duds, like Moira Brown, Guide Author, Ian the Reckless, and Pre-War Formalwear. 

The biggest dent in this score is the reprint value. It’s almost non-existent, aside from Heroic Intervention. Now, I will concede that these Universes Beyond decks aren’t aimed at reprint value. They’re for the fans of the IP, and for adding new cards to the format. But still, there were a ton of powerful Equipment and Aura cards that could have been added. Instead we got cards like Brass Knuckles and Behemoth Sledge, which aren’t making Magic players who don’t care about Fallout eager to grab the decks.

Can I make this deck better? Find out in my Upgrade Guide! And keep checking back for more precon guides here on EDHREC.

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Andy Zupke

Andy's been playing Magic on and off since Fallen Empires. He loves to travel, drink, eat, and spend time with family and friends.