I agree that the rad counters are a poor milling strategy, however, do not forget that they cause loss of life, so you can use cards like wound reflection, bloodletter of Aclazotz, and others to take value into town with it. Just like you said, we have, by turn 5 expected average land count and no missed land drops, a chance of around 60% for our opponents to mill a nonland card. You do not need to mill a hundred cards of your opponent's library, only their 40 life. Put in creatures that you can buff out with +1/+1 counters and you'll see the life total of the table melting like snow under the summer sun. On another note, I liked the video, and thank you for the work you've put in :)
Just getting back into playing after 2 years and HAD to go with a Fallout commander (my fav games). Really like where you went with this. Most people dive all in on the proliferation, and I didn’t care for it, but you seem to have found a nice balance that leaves it in the game plan but doesn’t hyper focus on it.
The rads are supplementary to the main plan which is to juice up mothman either through +1 counters OR by food chaining infinite rad counters on your opponents to drain them of life
Personally Mothman seems best to not throw in a bunch of counter multipliers outside of the most useful ones (Hardened Scales and Vorinclex), but to max out on instances of milling cards to get triggers as often as possible. Then you have the room to run proliferate in the deck alongside the incremental counters as a method of multiplying the effectiveness of different sources. Cumulative upkeep cards that have an upside also work since proliferate affects their counters as well, which can spiral into some really fun stuff.
So about Consuming Aberration, it doesn't play well with Mothman. While functionally the same as mill, it doesn't explicitly mill cards. You reveal cards until you hit a land then put those cards into the graveyard. Mothman, as worded, specifically says when a card is milled. Consuming Aberration never was oracle text updated to say "mill" those cards, it still says put those cards into the graveyard, meaning mechanically, they weren't "milled" and therefore Mothman won't trigger to distribute +1/+1 counters. It's still obviously a big boy and solid piece if you're going for a mill victory, just not a synergy piece with the commander. Also just a side note... I actually play Urborg, explicitly not Tomb of Yawgmoth, because people never expect you to be able to remove swampwalk from a creature. I've had more than one new opponent do the shocked Pikachu face when they try to attack me with their Sheoldred, then I remove her swampwalk, block, and kill her.
Wow, you’re right! I had just assumed it was written before “mill” was coined and didn’t check the oracle text but yeah. It doesn’t work like I thought it would. Also, I had completely forgotten Urborg non-tomb existed 😅 what a counter! Lol
I really wanted a Sultai Mill deck and that lead me to Mothman. I think leaning away from mill will keep Mothman out longer and help you get to your overall gameplan. I might keep a few mill specifics in there to finish it in the late game if needed but I really appreciate your overall approach to the deck. New sub, keep up the good work! Also, what are your thoughts on adding Zellix, Sanity Flayer. It would make your board a lot wider very fast.
Thanks! I appreciate the kind words 🙏 On Zellix… if it’s a pet card, then absolutely, you should run it lol but if it’s for power… maybe? Generally you’ve got like a 30% chance of creating a 1/1 per card milled. And with Mothman out, maybe it becomes a 2/2 or bigger? The reason I’m not in love with the card is because while it does make bodies, what are we gonna do with those little creatures? I guess they could chump block but we’d probably rather stack our counters on like a mana dork or a card draw engine instead of making the little horrors bigger. I think the deck would need to pack some more go-wide synergy cards to go along with running something like Zellix
When I think of a deck that uses the Wise Mothman, I don't think of trying to deck my opponents and win through fully milling them out, it makes more sense that you would focus on trying to instead win through loss of life, since each rad counter on an opponent will eventually be converted into damage. As a result, I believe that such a deck would work much better with a theme around proliferation and counter building. Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider can already double the amount of counters you put on players, so getting a lot of ways to proliferate as well could potentially get heavy amounts of damage while also getting lots of +1/+1 counters on your creatures. Those +1/+1 counters also solves an old problem with mill decks in commander, that being that you don't have a lot of leverage compared to other players in terms of boardstate. By having big creatures, you have leverage over whoever you swing at, considering that swinging at them means that they'll either die from rad counters faster or get crushed by commander damage from the Wise Mothman.
Similar thoughts! Milling is fun but you’ll kill someone before you mill them out 😂 vorinclex is definitely a great choice too! The price is what made me not put him in but he’d be a powerhouse
I'd think rad counters would have made a much larger impact if they changed the text to keep the one damage, but mill 2-3 cards per counter being removed. Then, because the mill is happening, flip the text on the mothman to be when lands are milled for balance and flavor. It makes sense that irradiated land cards would be pumping up your mutant creatures.
You can self mill almost instanly with cephalid illusionist. On the other hand i think that this guy must be built as a an aggressive +1/+1 and proliferate deck more than a mill deck, rad is not impactful enough to matter In the short time. Also cowardice could be very interesting with moth boy, because he can target also your opponents stuff.
Some cards I think are cool, while maybe not optimal in the deck are: Invasion of Amonkhet, Cemetery Tampering, Witherbloom Command, Life from the Loam, Flotsam//Jetsam, Thought Scour, Darkblast, Palantír of Orthanc, Syr Konrad the Grim, and Skull Prophet. Darkblast and Witherbloom Command are only in here because my friends run a lot of mana dorks. And I think Black Market Connections is better than Struggle for Project Purity
Hey there’s always more space in the tank for some jank! That flotsam//jetsam card looks sick too. Idk how I missed that during MKM spoilers. I should get myself a copy And yeah, BMC is a strong staple! I love running it. But it’s mainly the price that’s stopped me from recommending it in my recent videos 😅
@@MTGJanktown haha makes sense. I only have one because I got it from the Orzhov Precon from the D&D Commander Legends set, I was pretty happy when I saw it had BKM. Does work in my Jodah deck
@@MTGJanktown I've got more of my best cards just from playing drafts and Precon games than I'd like to admit, although it is pretty awesome buying a precon and getting most of the entire price back from just one card. I bought the Precon for 50$, and BKM was like 40$. Also, I only know Flotsam//Jetsam exists because I saw someone use it in standard to reanimate Attaxa
i feel like its nice to trigger mothmans trigger ability since it goesin every upkeep. imagine everyone takes his turn everyone mills a nonland card and boom you got a 7/7 commander flyer
Yeah we can suddenly turn into a voltron threat! Minor correction tho: the rad counters trigger at the start of pre combat main, kinda like a saga or black market connections. But yeah, those counters will stack up quiiiiiick!
my bad thought it was in upkeep. tried that approach with instead of milling opponents completly just let them mill every turn so my board gets too big to deal with@@MTGJanktown
Im gonna make it into a self mill Slime Against Humanity deck. The commander exists simply for mill value and putting counters onto the slimes whenever i mill extra copies.
@@MTGJanktown that alone makes it very strong. It saves room in the deck for other cards and makes it so you don't have to run evasion like Kodama or Garruks Uprising.
Definitely does 💪 but I think the mill cards we’d wanna run tho are ones that can trigger multiple times instead of like, milling half the library immediately (like a traumatize) or milling with an attack trigger (like a nemesis of reason)
Rad counters I think do a great job of illustrating the problem with alternate win conditions: If you want to win specifically via rad-induced deck-out, you're going to have to spend resources giving your opponent more LP. Otherwise, even if you deal no non-rad damage, the opponent is still going to hit 0LP long before they hit 0 library, because each counter only burns 35% more cards than LP, and there are more than 35% more cards in a deck than LP on a player. The broader problem this is representative of is that in most cases, even when playing an alternate win con, you can still win more easily via damage.
Haha true. The life loss can add up quick, especially since there’s always incidental damage too. In a way, it reminds me of the Trap! room when venturing with initiative. Like it doesn’t look like much but it adds up
IMO, Rad counters would have been more interesting and flavourful if you always removed one counter per tick, regardless of the number of nonland cards milled and damage taken. This would have made piling up radiation increasingly more troublesome, both from the damage and the milling angle. The version we got is basically "for each counter, mill about 1,3-1,4 cards and eventally lose 1 life". Still an interesting thing to build around, but it doesn´t feel "dramatic" enough.
Yeah I see where you’re coming from. I’m no game designer so I can’t vouch for any balance concerns but I can see how the “nonland” clause could be another like, layer of complexity to an already complex game
@marconizza7629 ahh got it, I see where your heads at. Unfortunately, rad counters mill players during their pre combat main :( kinda like a saga. But maybe… strionic resonator? You get to double up on the rad counters you give out when mothman ETBs or attacks
I agree that the rad counters are a poor milling strategy, however, do not forget that they cause loss of life, so you can use cards like wound reflection, bloodletter of Aclazotz, and others to take value into town with it. Just like you said, we have, by turn 5 expected average land count and no missed land drops, a chance of around 60% for our opponents to mill a nonland card. You do not need to mill a hundred cards of your opponent's library, only their 40 life. Put in creatures that you can buff out with +1/+1 counters and you'll see the life total of the table melting like snow under the summer sun.
On another note, I liked the video, and thank you for the work you've put in :)
Oh these are all sick suggestions 🔥 good call! And thanks! Glad you liked the vid 🙏
Great deck tech, thanks!
@@MTGJanktown you got this so wrong lmao Rad's are amazing
Just getting back into playing after 2 years and HAD to go with a Fallout commander (my fav games). Really like where you went with this. Most people dive all in on the proliferation, and I didn’t care for it, but you seem to have found a nice balance that leaves it in the game plan but doesn’t hyper focus on it.
The rads are supplementary to the main plan which is to juice up mothman either through +1 counters OR by food chaining infinite rad counters on your opponents to drain them of life
Personally Mothman seems best to not throw in a bunch of counter multipliers outside of the most useful ones (Hardened Scales and Vorinclex), but to max out on instances of milling cards to get triggers as often as possible. Then you have the room to run proliferate in the deck alongside the incremental counters as a method of multiplying the effectiveness of different sources.
Cumulative upkeep cards that have an upside also work since proliferate affects their counters as well, which can spiral into some really fun stuff.
Thanks for this! Looking to rebuild a mill deck
Thanks a lot.
Playing it since it cames out, and still upgrading it.
Very fun commander to play imo.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it 🙏 and yeah I agree, the commander is really fun and versatile
Bro, just continue doing what you do! Quite good primer
Thanks 🙏 really appreciate the support man. I’ll be back making vids soon! Just taking a short break rn. These MH3 leaks/spoilers are too good
So about Consuming Aberration, it doesn't play well with Mothman. While functionally the same as mill, it doesn't explicitly mill cards. You reveal cards until you hit a land then put those cards into the graveyard. Mothman, as worded, specifically says when a card is milled. Consuming Aberration never was oracle text updated to say "mill" those cards, it still says put those cards into the graveyard, meaning mechanically, they weren't "milled" and therefore Mothman won't trigger to distribute +1/+1 counters. It's still obviously a big boy and solid piece if you're going for a mill victory, just not a synergy piece with the commander.
Also just a side note... I actually play Urborg, explicitly not Tomb of Yawgmoth, because people never expect you to be able to remove swampwalk from a creature. I've had more than one new opponent do the shocked Pikachu face when they try to attack me with their Sheoldred, then I remove her swampwalk, block, and kill her.
Wow, you’re right! I had just assumed it was written before “mill” was coined and didn’t check the oracle text but yeah. It doesn’t work like I thought it would.
Also, I had completely forgotten Urborg non-tomb existed 😅 what a counter! Lol
You gave me a couple of good ideas I’d definitely use some of these cards
Glad I could help! 💪
Herd baloth and scurry oak work well in this deck as ways to provide bodies. As can iridescent hornbeetle
Oh these would be sick adds! Good suggestions 💪
I really wanted a Sultai Mill deck and that lead me to Mothman. I think leaning away from mill will keep Mothman out longer and help you get to your overall gameplan. I might keep a few mill specifics in there to finish it in the late game if needed but I really appreciate your overall approach to the deck. New sub, keep up the good work!
Also, what are your thoughts on adding Zellix, Sanity Flayer. It would make your board a lot wider very fast.
Thanks! I appreciate the kind words 🙏
On Zellix… if it’s a pet card, then absolutely, you should run it lol but if it’s for power… maybe? Generally you’ve got like a 30% chance of creating a 1/1 per card milled. And with Mothman out, maybe it becomes a 2/2 or bigger? The reason I’m not in love with the card is because while it does make bodies, what are we gonna do with those little creatures? I guess they could chump block but we’d probably rather stack our counters on like a mana dork or a card draw engine instead of making the little horrors bigger.
I think the deck would need to pack some more go-wide synergy cards to go along with running something like Zellix
When I think of a deck that uses the Wise Mothman, I don't think of trying to deck my opponents and win through fully milling them out, it makes more sense that you would focus on trying to instead win through loss of life, since each rad counter on an opponent will eventually be converted into damage.
As a result, I believe that such a deck would work much better with a theme around proliferation and counter building. Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider can already double the amount of counters you put on players, so getting a lot of ways to proliferate as well could potentially get heavy amounts of damage while also getting lots of +1/+1 counters on your creatures. Those +1/+1 counters also solves an old problem with mill decks in commander, that being that you don't have a lot of leverage compared to other players in terms of boardstate. By having big creatures, you have leverage over whoever you swing at, considering that swinging at them means that they'll either die from rad counters faster or get crushed by commander damage from the Wise Mothman.
Similar thoughts! Milling is fun but you’ll kill someone before you mill them out 😂 vorinclex is definitely a great choice too! The price is what made me not put him in but he’d be a powerhouse
I'd think rad counters would have made a much larger impact if they changed the text to keep the one damage, but mill 2-3 cards per counter being removed. Then, because the mill is happening, flip the text on the mothman to be when lands are milled for balance and flavor. It makes sense that irradiated land cards would be pumping up your mutant creatures.
You can self mill almost instanly with cephalid illusionist.
On the other hand i think that this guy must be built as a an aggressive +1/+1 and proliferate deck more than a mill deck, rad is not impactful enough to matter In the short time.
Also cowardice could be very interesting with moth boy, because he can target also your opponents stuff.
Using the “whenever target” type of abilities is a pretty cool idea 🤔 like Dismiss into Dreams would be bonkers too 😅
Some cards I think are cool, while maybe not optimal in the deck are: Invasion of Amonkhet, Cemetery Tampering, Witherbloom Command, Life from the Loam, Flotsam//Jetsam, Thought Scour, Darkblast, Palantír of Orthanc, Syr Konrad the Grim, and Skull Prophet. Darkblast and Witherbloom Command are only in here because my friends run a lot of mana dorks. And I think Black Market Connections is better than Struggle for Project Purity
Hey there’s always more space in the tank for some jank! That flotsam//jetsam card looks sick too. Idk how I missed that during MKM spoilers. I should get myself a copy
And yeah, BMC is a strong staple! I love running it. But it’s mainly the price that’s stopped me from recommending it in my recent videos 😅
@@MTGJanktown haha makes sense. I only have one because I got it from the Orzhov Precon from the D&D Commander Legends set, I was pretty happy when I saw it had BKM. Does work in my Jodah deck
@Rice_Spicee lol same! I have one copy and it’s from the d&d precon as well 🤣
@@MTGJanktown I've got more of my best cards just from playing drafts and Precon games than I'd like to admit, although it is pretty awesome buying a precon and getting most of the entire price back from just one card. I bought the Precon for 50$, and BKM was like 40$. Also, I only know Flotsam//Jetsam exists because I saw someone use it in standard to reanimate Attaxa
i feel like its nice to trigger mothmans trigger ability since it goesin every upkeep. imagine everyone takes his turn everyone mills a nonland card and boom you got a 7/7 commander flyer
Yeah we can suddenly turn into a voltron threat! Minor correction tho: the rad counters trigger at the start of pre combat main, kinda like a saga or black market connections. But yeah, those counters will stack up quiiiiiick!
my bad thought it was in upkeep. tried that approach with instead of milling opponents completly just let them mill every turn so my board gets too big to deal with@@MTGJanktown
Im gonna make it into a self mill Slime Against Humanity deck. The commander exists simply for mill value and putting counters onto the slimes whenever i mill extra copies.
Definitely one way to go! Sultai is so good at self-mill. Plus the slimes have trample innately
@@MTGJanktown that alone makes it very strong. It saves room in the deck for other cards and makes it so you don't have to run evasion like Kodama or Garruks Uprising.
It seems ike it helps, the good Rad stuff plus good mill cards.
Definitely does 💪 but I think the mill cards we’d wanna run tho are ones that can trigger multiple times instead of like, milling half the library immediately (like a traumatize) or milling with an attack trigger (like a nemesis of reason)
Rad counters I think do a great job of illustrating the problem with alternate win conditions: If you want to win specifically via rad-induced deck-out, you're going to have to spend resources giving your opponent more LP. Otherwise, even if you deal no non-rad damage, the opponent is still going to hit 0LP long before they hit 0 library, because each counter only burns 35% more cards than LP, and there are more than 35% more cards in a deck than LP on a player. The broader problem this is representative of is that in most cases, even when playing an alternate win con, you can still win more easily via damage.
Haha true. The life loss can add up quick, especially since there’s always incidental damage too. In a way, it reminds me of the Trap! room when venturing with initiative. Like it doesn’t look like much but it adds up
💙
Has anyone but me play crypt rats in their mouth man deck as a repeatable board wipe?
lol I’m a fan of crypt rats but more of in other decks. Are you putting the counters on it so it doesn’t ping itself to death with its own ability?
@@MTGJanktown yes
Does that make me a bad person?
@@robertbemis9800 lmao nah, u good 👍 I honestly like playing crypt rats too. I like to play it in mono black tho, like my massacre girl deck 😅
@@MTGJanktown
Considering putting a MG in my mothman deck
But would have to buy another one
IMO, Rad counters would have been more interesting and flavourful if you always removed one counter per tick, regardless of the number of nonland cards milled and damage taken. This would have made piling up radiation increasingly more troublesome, both from the damage and the milling angle. The version we got is basically "for each counter, mill about 1,3-1,4 cards and eventally lose 1 life". Still an interesting thing to build around, but it doesn´t feel "dramatic" enough.
Yeah I see where you’re coming from. I’m no game designer so I can’t vouch for any balance concerns but I can see how the “nonland” clause could be another like, layer of complexity to an already complex game
put in paradox haze
Haha wait, legit confused. Why paradox haze 😅
2x upkeep sounds rad good to me
@@MTGJanktown
@marconizza7629 ahh got it, I see where your heads at. Unfortunately, rad counters mill players during their pre combat main :( kinda like a saga. But maybe… strionic resonator? You get to double up on the rad counters you give out when mothman ETBs or attacks
sure thing:)
@@MTGJanktown