Precon Upgrade Guide
Mutant Menace Upgrade Guide
What to cut, what to add, and how to play the Sultai rad counter and +1/+1 counter precon from Fallout, commanded by The Wise Mothman.
Fallout
Mutant Menace
Rad counters and mill hit yourself too, so it needs care. Out of the box, before any upgrades. How we rate precons
Buy Mutant Menace on TCGplayer →Quick verdict
Mutant Menace hands out rad counters to every player and turns the cards they mill into +1/+1 counters on your creatures. The Wise Mothman gives everyone a rad counter when it enters or attacks, and each batch of nonland cards milled lets you put a counter on that many creatures. The deck has good payoffs and plenty of proliferate, but it relies on a single source of mill most turns, runs too many lands that enter tapped, and can't stop an opponent's spell.
TurnZero HQ rates Mutant Menace a 3 out of 5 on difficulty and a 3 out of 5 on power, as it comes in the box. That is our editorial read, not an official Wizards rating. The full hundred cards are on the Mutant Menace decklist page, and every other precon we cover is on the precon directory.
How the precon plays
Rad counters are the engine. At the beginning of your precombat main phase, a player with rad counters mills that many cards, then loses 1 life and removes one rad counter for each nonland card milled. The Wise Mothman is a four-mana 3/3 flier that gives each player a rad counter when it enters and every time it attacks, and whenever one or more nonland cards are milled, it puts a +1/+1 counter on each of up to that many target creatures.
Because every player mills at the start of their own main phase, the Mothman triggers several times around the table. The deck amplifies those counters with Hardened Scales , Winding Constrictor , Corpsejack Menace and Branching Evolution , and it adds more rad counters with proliferate from Inexorable Tide , Atomize and Agent Frank Horrigan . Winding Constrictor also adds an extra rad counter each time you would get them, which is a cost you take for the bigger counter bonus.
The rest of the deck cashes in on the mill. Mirelurk Queen and Screeching Scorchbeast draw cards or make Zombie Mutants from it, The Master, Transcendent and Tato Farmer put milled creatures and lands onto the battlefield, and Raul, Trouble Shooter lets you cast a spell milled that turn from your graveyard.
What works out of the box
The Wise Mothman ↗
Every batch of nonland cards milled, from any player, puts +1/+1 counters on that many of your creatures. With rad counters on the whole table it triggers on most players' turns.
Inexorable Tide ↗
Proliferates whenever you cast a spell, which grows every +1/+1 counter and every opponent's rad counters at once. It drives both halves of the deck.
Winding Constrictor ↗
Two mana and one extra counter each time counters go on your creatures. The Mothman spreads counters wide, so this adds up quickly.
Mirelurk Queen ↗
Draws a card and grows once each turn that nonland cards are milled, which in this deck is nearly every turn.
Agent Frank Horrigan ↗
An 8/6 trampler that proliferates twice when it enters and again each attack, and has indestructible on turns it attacked.
Mutational Advantage ↗
Three mana at instant speed: everything with a counter gets hexproof and indestructible, takes no damage, and you proliferate. It protects the board from most wipes.
What needs improvement
The deck runs out of mill quickly. Rad counters shrink as they mill nonland cards, and outside the Mothman's attacks and Fraying Sanity there are few cards that mill on their own. On turns nobody mills a nonland card, the Mothman is a 3/3 flier and several payoffs do nothing.
The mana base is slow for three colors. Three temple scry lands, a cycling land, Opulent Palace , Mortuary Mire and Path of Ancestry all enter tapped, and Temple of the False God makes no mana early. The deck also has creature and permanent removal but no counterspell, so an opponent's board wipe or combo goes through untouched.
Upgrade ideas
Each upgrade below starts from something the deck does poorly and says what a replacement card has to do. The cards named are examples, not the only answer: if you own something else that does the same job, or a newer printing does it better, it goes in the same slot. Make one change at a time and play a few games between them, so you can tell which change helped. The general method is in how to upgrade a Commander precon →
1. Mill something every turn
The Mothman only grows your team when nonland cards are milled. Rad counters run dry over a few turns, so cheap repeatable mill keeps the engine running.
What to look for Cheap permanents that make a player mill each turn, on landfall or on untap. Mill that hits opponents is best, since their cards also feed The Master and Raul.
Cut, for example
Struggle for Project Purity The Brotherhood mode gives every opponent a card each upkeep, and the Enclave mode only matters when you're attacked. Neither mills anything.
Recon Craft Theta A four-mana Vehicle that needs crew 2 to proliferate once per attack. Inexorable Tide and Frank Horrigan proliferate more for less work.
Add, for example
Ruin Crab ↗
One mana: each opponent mills three cards whenever a land enters under your control. Most turns that is one Mothman trigger by itself.
Hedron Crab ↗
The same landfall trigger aimed at one target player, including yourself when you want The Master or Tato Farmer to find something.
Mesmeric Orb ↗
Every player mills a card for each of their permanents that untaps, so the Mothman triggers on each player's untap.
2. Fix the mana base
A three-color deck with a four-mana commander needs its colors on curve. Seven lands that always enter tapped plus a land that taps for nothing until turn five cost real tempo.
What to look for Two-color lands in the deck's pairs that enter untapped. Lands in blue-black, the pair that can't cast green spells, are the first to replace.
Cut, for example
Temple of the False God Taps for nothing until you control five lands, which is too late to help you cast the Mothman on time.
Temple of Deceit Enters tapped and produces blue or black, never the green most of your ramp and counter cards need.
Fetid Pools Another blue-black land that always enters tapped. Cycling is a small consolation.
Add, for example
Llanowar Wastes ↗
Black or green untapped every time, at the cost of 1 damage when you use the colored mana.
Yavimaya Coast ↗
The green-blue painland. It casts your green ramp and blue payoffs on turn two.
Underground River ↗
If you want a blue-black land, this one enters untapped, unlike the two it replaces.
3. Answer spells, not only permanents
The deck already has Putrefy , Atomize and Alpha Deathclaw for permanents. What it can't do is stop a board wipe that clears a turn of counters, or a combo piece before it resolves.
What to look for Counterspells costing two or three mana. A counterspell that also draws, or that comes on a creature, is worth more here.
Cut, for example
Nuclear Fallout Gives each creature twice -X/-X, so at a size that matters it also kills the creatures you spent turns growing. Your opponents' rad counters go up, but so do yours.
Vexing Radgull A two-mana 1/2 flier that adds rad counters only when it connects. It is the weakest creature in the deck once the game goes long.
4. Proliferate for less mana
Proliferate grows both your +1/+1 counters and the opponents' rad counters, so each extra proliferate does double duty. The precon's cheapest repeatable source costs four mana per use.
What to look for Cards that proliferate on their own and also draw, ramp or add a body, at three or four mana.
Cut, for example
Contagion Clasp Two mana for a -1/-1 counter, then four more mana and a tap for each proliferate. Too much mana per activation for a deck that wants to cast creatures.
Win conditions
The deck wins by combat. Spread counters across your creatures with the Mothman and the counter doublers, then attack with fliers and tramplers like Agent Frank Horrigan and Alpha Deathclaw . Rad counters chip away at life totals along the way, and Biomass Mutation turns a wide board into lethal for one big swing. The upgrades above mostly keep the mill going so the counters keep coming.
Who should buy this precon
A good fit for a player comfortable tracking a lot of counters. You manage +1/+1 counters, rad counters on every player and several replacement effects at once, and the Mothman asks you to choose targets on most turns. That makes it a moderate deck to pilot rather than a first one. It suits someone who likes a slower game that builds over many turns.
Checked against the printed decklist on October 10, 2026.
Track how the upgrades actually perform.
TurnZero HQ keeps a win rate per deck version, so you can change a few cards, play some games, and see the difference instead of guessing.
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