Dogmeat, Ever Loyal | Illustration by Kieran Yanner
If you’re a Fallout fan, the deck you want is Scrappy Survivors, helmed by trusty ol’ Dogmeat, Ever Loyal. You’ve got Junk tokens! The deck is like the core Fallout experience of picking up a bunch a crap in the wastelands and hoping it’ll be useful or valuable to you later, trying to figure out how to manage to avoid being Overencumbered while you decide whether or not you want that Salisbury Steak or might need that Labcoat later.
The trouble is that, like most Commander precons these days, the deck is a little underpowered and unfocused. So let’s figure out how to amp this puppy up and let Dogmeat loose!
Deck Overview
Scrappy Survivors is a deck that wants you to play with auras and equipment. It also wants you to get those things in your graveyard and recur them while also making Junk tokens, which you can sacrifice for no mana to impulse draw a card off the top of your library. Theoretically you win by Voltron-ing with a huge Dogmeat or buffing up one of your 18 creatures?
- THE VAULTS ARE OPEN—Journey through the wastes with a 100-card deck introducing 38 never-before-seen Magic cards featuring fan-favorite characters, thematic game mechanics, and art that explores the post-nuclear world of the Fallout series
- BATTLE YOUR FELLOW WASTELANDERS—Battle your friends in epic 3–5 player MTG games full of strategic plays and social intrigue; ready-to-play right out of the box, these preconstructed decks let you jump straight into the action
- SCRAPPY SURVIVORS—Choose the Scrappy Survivors deck to scrounge up everything you need to defeat your enemies with the help of your loyal German Shepherd sidekick, Dogmeat
- COLLECT SPECIAL FALLOUT CARD TREATMENTS—Each deck comes with a Collector Booster Sample pack containing 2 special alt-frame cards, including 1 Rare or Mythic Rare card
- EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO PLAY AND MORE—Each deck also comes with 10 double-sided tokens, 1 life tracker, 1 strategy guide, and 1 deck box (can hold 100 sleeved cards)
Strengths and Weaknesses
Aura and equipment decks all have the difficulty of balancing the number of creatures and the number of items to pants them up with. This deck, like Sram, Senior Artificer decks, has the added burden of benefitting from multiple types of cards, and so there’s even more difficulty in managing the numbers. This precon does not get that balance right.
So, in adjusting that balance we also need to focus the deck. The green in the Naya colors of Dogmeat, Ever Loyal doesn’t do a lot for us in the equipment space except for ramp, and give us access to Danitha, New Benalia's Light and Belt of Giant Strength. The precon’s contribution of Behemoth Sledge isn’t persuasive, so the Naya route seems to just be worse than a strong Boros equipment commander, or which there are literally dozens.
Naya auras, though? There are only two other viable commanders there: Uril, the Miststalker and Mazzy, Truesword Paladin, and I think Dogmeat, Ever Loyal is a better card than both of those. The real question with auras is whether or not the red pip adds enough to the deck to make moving beyond mono-white and Selesnya worth it. I think so.
So we’re going to cull most of the equipment and lean into enchantments space. Let’s DIY this thing!
Uril, the Miststalker
Suggested Cut: Bighorner Rancher
Uril, the Miststalker is a really awesome threat in a deck like this. And I think it’s still worth it in the 99 when it’s not threatening commander damage. It’s large and the deck’s ability to recur auras makes this a very nice inclusion. I don’t know why Bighorner Rancher exists.
Mazzy, Truesword Paladin
Suggested Cut: Brass Knuckles
It's hard for this deck to really go wide, but if you can manage it, you really want to be able to cast Mazzy, Truesword Paladin for the mini Overrun. The recursion fits the deck’s plan well, as well. Brass Knuckles is just a terrible card.
Sythis, Harvest’s Hand
Suggested Cut: Behemoth Sledge
We don’t have room in this deck for every piece of enchantress card draw, but we’re going to want some, and Sythis, Harvest's Hand is the best! Behemoth Sledge is reasonably pointless.
Enchantress’s Presence
Suggested Cut: Fireshrieker
Enchantress's Presence is the second best enchantress card and it’s more resilient to removal. And all this equipment has to go. I’m sure you have another deck that wants it!
Sterling Grove
Suggested Cut: Super Mutant Scavenger
One more classic enchantress card is Sterling Grove. There are honestly a pile more you could use from those decks, and I’m sure you know what they are. But at a certain point we end up wondering if you’d rather just take your existing enchantress deck, add Dogmeat as leader and take some cards from this deck to shift the build a bit. If that’s your plan, go ahead! But we’re here for a few upgrades only.
Sram, Senior Edificer
Suggested Cut: Commander Sofia Daguerre
And now we have some classic auras staples. These draw us cards but are cheaper to cast than general enchantress cards. Sram, Senior Edificer loves this space and wants to join up. We’re in the middle of removing a set of underpowered creatures from the deck. I’m not gonna judge you if you wanna keep any particular flavor faves though.
Kor Spiritdancer
Suggested Cut: Ian the Reckless
Kor Spiritdancer loves to get stacked with auras, in many formats over the years. They'd like to join the team.
Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice
Suggested Cut: Gunner Conscript
The toolbox ability of Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice is another key part to this deck’s success, especially given the number of auras we have that grant protection of some kind.
Robe of Stars
Suggested Cut: Masterwork of Ingenuity
Swiftfoot Boots isn’t enough, given the importance of your creatures. Being able to phase out is huge for Robe of Stars! Masterwork of Ingenuity needs a critical mass of equipment, and I don’t even know if the un-modded precon has enough for it to reliably function!
Open the Armory
Suggested Cut: Basilisk Collar
We haven’t lost all the equipment, and what we have is generally protection-minded, so that plus the aura tutor is why we include Open the Armory. Basilisk Collar is almost playable in equipment decks, but not here.
Kellan, the Fae-Blooded
Suggested Cut: Vault 21: House Gambit
The tutoring spell on Kellan, the Fae-Blooded is very nice. The creature part is a bit less amazing, but I can see it really working out well in this deck. You’ll want Vault 21: House Gambit in another deck, I’m sure.
Etali’s Favor
Suggested Cut: Explorer's Scope
An attack trigger on an underpowered equipment isn’t as good as Limited all-star Etali's Favor, which really pops off when you can keep recurring it!
Yenna, Redtooth Regent
Suggested Cut: Agility Bobblehead
It’s a lot of fun to copy our previous card with Yenna, Redtooth Regent. This is true of pretty much all the auras in the deck, but especially that one! Note that I’m unconvinced of the Bobbleheads in general, but only two in a deck don’t persuade me at all, particularly in this deck.
Ethereal Armor
Suggested Cut: Perception Bobblehead
Ethereal Armor is a must play card in auras decks, full stop.
Alpha Authority
Suggested Cut: Moira Brown, Guide Author
Just a bit more old school Dogmeat protection with Alpha Authority! We’re cutting a lot of meh creatures from the deck, and we’ve replaced them with some, but not quite enough if you aren’t diligent about using all the protection we’ve added. But throw cards like Setessan Champion in the mix if you’re feeling creature-light or if your meta has much more removal than our updated decklist can handle.
Canopy Cover
Suggested Cut: Veronica, Dissident Scribe
Ditto, but Canopy Cover also can make a creature unblockable in certain matchups!
Spirit Mantle
Suggested Cut: Valorous Stance
Speaking of unblockable, Spirit Mantle does basically that.
Unquestioned Authority
Suggested Cut: Break Down
Unquestioned Authority does the same!
Indomitable Might
Suggested Cut: A land
Indomitable Might is a wincon in Voltron-style decks that can run it, and that can be us, Dogmeating our way toward victory, like the goodest of bois! And 38 lands seems a lot once we’ve carved away some of the 5-drops.
Warbriar Blessing
Suggested Cut: one more land
Tutoring and recurring a fight spell is quite nice in these kind of decks. Warbriar Blessing is a bad piece of removal, but being able to get it when you need it, and even copy it, is really good!
Buried in the Garden
Suggested Cut: Chaos Warp
How about a tutorable, recurrable, fetchable piece of removal that also ramps you? I like Buried in the Garden in this deck even more than a classic like Kenrith's Transformation or Darksteel Mutation, but by all means use one of those if you’d rather. And definitely play one instead of Chaos Warp in this deck.
Winds of Rath
Suggested Cut: Path to Exile
This might be a mistake, sure, but I tend toward thematically helpful board wipes over spot removal, so Winds of Rath is a pet card of mine.
Commanding Conclusion
Sram, Senior Edificer | Illustration by Chris Rahn
You also likely want to fix the manabase, which is always a thing in precons, but even more so in 3-color decks. This deck ships with 12 (!) basics, all of which want to be decent dual lands in these colors.
So those are the changes. There are like 300 decent cards you’d want to put in an aura deck, so choosing the mix is hard, and I’m sure I’ve left off a favorite of yours. Elemental Mastery? Timely Ward? Sanctum Weaver? Go ahead and toss in a few favorites if you have them.
So now that we've done this work on the deck, is it good enough? I think so, at least casually. The aura space can be pretty powerful, if a little fragile, but I’d suggest that this is a better deck than the typical Naya Aura deck right now. I’d even suggest it over your classic Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice or Sram, Senior Edificer decks.
I know I had to mess up a lot of the flavor in this deck to get it working, which is a cost to improving a deck, but I think getting Dogmeat over the line to reveal himself as the true hero of Fallout all along is worth it! I played the original Fallout when it was new, so I’m gonna “well, actually” you if you disagree! Still, you might, in which case drop an argument in the comments or over on Discord!
Happy scavenging, wanderer!
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