Five months before release, completely out of the blue, Wizards provided a First Look at the Fallout Commander decks. While this may have been a lot earlier than expected, MTG players were nonetheless delighted by spoilers galore. Debuting soon-to-be Commander staples, and plenty of interesting mechanics, this upcoming set has it all.
Speaking of mechanics, the MTG Fallout decks, unsurprisingly, contain a mix of both new and old delights. As you may have gathered from the title, one of the new mechanics is simply known as Junk. Playing into the flavor of Fallout’s irritated Wasteland, this mechanic definitely doesn’t disappoint.
Thankfully, unlike some new MTG mechanics, Junk is hardly the most complex in the world. Still, if you want to know what’s in store here’s everything there is to know about Junk from the MTG Fallout commander decks!
MTG Junk Mechanic
As we mentioned mere moments ago, Junk is a rather straightforward mechanic. Found primarily within the Scrappy Survivors deck, this mechanic boats both flavor and utility. At its very core, Junk is a predefined token that provides Impulse Draw on demand. This means you can exile a card off the top of your library to play that turn.
Obviously, while this ability isn’t exactly pure card draw, it’s incredibly close and definitely useful. Thanks to this, Junk Tokens will be incredibly beneficial to have, especially since they don’t cost anything to activate. As if this wasn’t good enough, Junk Tokens are also, obviously, Tokens. This means you can keep them around, and activate them when you need that Impulse Draw the most.
To provide even more utility, Junk Tokens are Artifacts, allowing them to synergize within Typal and Affinity decks. While this is always a useful bonus of Token Artifacts, the main home of Junk Tokens will be the Scrappy Survivors deck. Currently, since we’re so far from release, it’s unknown how much synergy there will be around the new token.
MTG Junk Cards
Since we’ve only recently had the First Look for the Fallout Commander decks, not too many cards have been spoiled thus far. In fact, only two cards that create Junk Tokens have been revealed. While this isn’t a lot to go off, it nevertheless appears Junk Tokens should be rather plentiful.
Currently, only one Fallout card is able to create Junk tokens repeatedly;
Dogmeat, Ever Loyal
Dogmeat, Ever Loyal
When Dogmeat enters, mill five cards, then return an Aura or Equipment card from your graveyard to your hand.
Whenever a creature you control that's enchanted or equipped attacks, create a Junk token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. Activate only as a sorcery.")
. As the face Commander for the Scrappy Survivors deck, this loyal canine should be creating an awful lot of tokens. Provided, that is, that you have enough enchanted creatures to keep attacking with.
While not nearly as potent as a Junk Token generator, the other spoiled Junk Token card is
Overencumbered
Overencumbered
Enchant opponent
When this Aura enters, enchanted opponent creates a Clue token, a Food token, and a Junk token.
At the beginning of combat on enchanted opponent's turn, that player may pay {1} for each artifact they control. If they don't, creatures can't attack this combat.
. While this card could be a fairly effective Stax engine, it does give your opponent a lot of free value. That being said, however, against an Artifact-themed deck, this card has the potential to be utterly devastating.
More Cards Coming Soon
While we, thankfully, already know how to use the new Junk Tokens in MTG, we’ve hardly seen all the mechanic has to offer just yet. Once spoiler season begins on the 20th of February, we should see a whole lot more. Hopefully, this will include plenty of fantastic Junk Token-generating cards, and maybe even a wincon or two. For that, however, we’re just going to have to wait and see.
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