Mutant Menace precon upgrade guide

Every rad counter on the table is worth exactly one card milled, no more and no less, and the only thing that varies is how many turns it takes to collect.

The Wise Mothman is a four-mana flier that hands a rad counter to every player when it enters and again every time it attacks, then puts +1/+1 counters on your board whenever anybody mills a nonland card. Both halves matter, and the second one is why the first is aimed at the whole table instead of at one victim. Every number here comes from resolving the shipped Mutant Menace decklist card by card, and the upgraded figures come from the same pass run again after the thirteen swaps below.

A rad counter always pays out exactly once

Radiation has no reminder text on a single card in this box, which makes it the one mechanic here worth reading in full before anything else. The rules live in an inherent triggered ability with no source at all: at the beginning of the precombat main phase of a player with rad counters, that player mills cards equal to the number of rad counters they have, and for each nonland card milled this way, that player loses 1 life and removes one rad counter from themselves.

Read the removal clause twice. A land milled removes nothing. It costs no life, it clears no counter, and the rad counter is still sitting there next turn waiting to mill again. Rad counters do not decay as turns end and they do not wear off between them. They leave when a nonland card comes off the top, and at no other time.

So radiation is not a clock. It is a balance that draws down one nonland card at a time and keeps drawing until it has spent exactly one per counter. Give a player six rad counters and they will mill six nonland cards. Not five, not eight. Six.

That fixed exchange rate is what makes the rest of the deck legible. The Wise Mothman turns each milled nonland card into a +1/+1 counter, so the total number of counters your commander will ever produce is settled the moment the radiation goes out. What is not settled is how many separate turns it takes to arrive, and five cards in this box care enormously about that number.

The deck runs 39 lands in its 99, which is on the high side of normal, and here that reads closer to a feature than an accident. Roughly two of every five cards you mill to your own radiation are lands, and each one keeps the counter alive for another turn at no cost in life.

What are the best Mutant Menace upgrades?

Thirteen cards, $58.29 at September 2026 market prices for default printings, ranked by how much they change rather than by what they cost. Each one replaces a card in the cut list.

1. Master Biomancer ($0.81). Every creature that enters afterwards arrives as a Mutant carrying two extra counters, which then run through the whole multiplier stack.
2. Evolution Sage ($2.35). A proliferate every time a land enters, in a deck with 39 lands and five spells that put another one onto the battlefield.
3. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth ($16.56). Every land you control taps for green while it is out.
4. Toxic Deluge ($4.59). Pay X life, all creatures get -X/-X, and yours are the ones covered in counters.
5. Flux Channeler ($3.57). A proliferate on every noncreature spell, and thirty of the 99 are noncreature nonland cards.
6. Kalonian Hydra ($7.06). It attacks and doubles the counters on every creature you control, which is the exact shape the commander leaves your board in.
7. Ozolith, the Shattered Spire ($6.52). A fifth multiplier, and it cycles for {2} on the turns when a fifth multiplier is the last thing you need.
8. Bloated Contaminator ($4.37). A 4/4 trample for three that proliferates every time it connects.
9. Beast Within ($0.61). Three mana at instant speed for any permanent on the table, including a land.
10. Clearwater Pathway ($4.81). An untapped blue and black source in place of one that always entered tapped.
11. Barkchannel Pathway ($4.24). The same trade in green and blue.
12. Pongify ($1.94). One mana at instant speed, and the 3/3 Ape it leaves behind is a problem for later.
13. Fellwar Stone ($0.86). The two-mana version of the three-mana rock it replaces.

Four players holding one rad counter beat one player holding four

Radiation mills happen at each player's own precombat main phase, on their own turn. Four radiated opponents produce up to four separate mill events per turn cycle, on four different turns. One opponent holding four rad counters produces one.

Both end up milling the same number of nonland cards, because of the exchange rate above. They do not end up paying the same.

Mirelurk Queen draws a card and grows by a counter whenever nonland cards are milled, and its ability triggers only once each turn. Four small mills spread across four turns draw four cards. One big mill on one turn draws one. Screeching Scorchbeast carries the same once-each-turn cap and makes a token per nonland card milled, so it is indifferent to the split as long as the mills land on separate turns, and actively worse if two arrive together.

The commander has a cap of its own that is easy to miss. Its counters go out one apiece across up to X target creatures, and no creature can be chosen twice. Mill five nonland cards with four creatures on the battlefield and the fifth counter is simply thrown away.

Then there is the pair of cards that turn other people's mills into permanents. The Master, Transcendent puts a creature card from any graveyard that was milled this turn onto the battlefield under your control. Tato Farmer does the same for a land card. Neither is restricted to sorcery speed, and both windows shut at end of turn. So the moment to use them is during the turn of the opponent who just milled, not on your own turn when their graveyard has gone cold. Waiting is how those two abilities quietly do nothing for an entire game.

The practical version is short. Three cards in the box hand radiation to a single chosen player: The Master, Transcendent gives two, Mirelurk Queen gives two, and Nightkin Ambusher gives four. Point them at three different opponents. Everything that says each player, your commander included, is already doing the right thing on its own.

The honest counterweight is that concentration front-loads. If one opponent is a turn away from winning, stack the radiation on them, take the single large mill and accept the waste.

Ten ways to proliferate, and five multipliers that stack

Proliferate reads: choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there. A player holding a rad counter is a legal choice, and the commander's own rulings confirm that radiation behaves like any other counter a player gets. That makes proliferate the only effect in the deck that spreads radiation and grows your board in the same breath, and it spreads by construction rather than by aim.

The box ships eight: Radstorm, Atomize, Mutational Advantage, Inexorable Tide, Vexing Radgull, Contagion Clasp, Recon Craft Theta, and Agent Frank Horrigan, who does it twice on arrival and twice again on every attack. Cutting Recon Craft Theta and adding Evolution Sage, Flux Channeler and Bloated Contaminator takes the count to ten.

Underneath sits a stack of replacement effects that apply per creature and per event rather than once a turn. The box has four: Hardened Scales, Winding Constrictor, Branching Evolution and Corpsejack Menace. Ozolith, the Shattered Spire makes five.

You choose the order they apply in, so the additive ones go first. A single counter becomes two under Hardened Scales, three under Winding Constrictor, four under Ozolith, eight under Branching Evolution and sixteen under Corpsejack Menace. That is the full assembly and you will hardly ever see it. The version you will see is two of them, and Hardened Scales alongside Branching Evolution already turns every counter the commander places into four.

Winding Constrictor has a second line that reads differently here than in any other deck. If you would get one or more counters, you get that many plus one instead, and rad counters are counters you get. It makes your own radiation bigger, which sounds like a drawback until you remember that milling yourself is how Raul, Trouble Shooter and The Master, Transcendent get paid.

Those same replacement effects catch creatures that arrive with counters already on them. Bloatfly Swarm is a 0/0 that enters with five, so with Branching Evolution on the battlefield it is a 10/10 flier for four mana.

Twenty-four Mutants, and five cards that read the word

Twenty-four of the box's 29 creatures are Mutants, which is 83 percent, and it is worth asking what that buys. On the shipped list, very little. Nothing in the deck makes you choose a creature type, and only five cards read the word Mutant at all: Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor and his anthem for Zombies and Mutants, chapter three of Vault 12: The Necropolis, chapter three of Vault 87: Forced Evolution, Jason Bright, Glowing Prophet, and Path of Ancestry, which scries off the commander's own types.

Know that before you look at the creatures that are not Mutants and assume somebody made a mistake. Corpsejack Menace is a Fungus and Winding Constrictor is a Snake. What they give up is one anthem and one Saga chapter. What they do is double every counter the deck produces.

The fix costs 81 cents. Master Biomancer says each other creature you control enters with additional +1/+1 counters equal to its power and as a Mutant in addition to its other types. Its power is two, so everything that lands after it brings two extra counters into the multiplier stack and collects the type on the way in. Hancock's anthem stops having exceptions, and so does the third chapter of Vault 12: The Necropolis.

The limit is the word enters. Master Biomancer does nothing for creatures already on the battlefield, so it is a card you want down early rather than one you are pleased to draw into a full board.

Roaming Throne is the other answer and the stronger one, because it names a creature type as it enters and makes every triggered ability of your other creatures of that type trigger an additional time, which covers both of the commander's. At $52.12 it costs almost as much as the entire list above, so it is not on it. If you are spending past this budget, that is the first place to spend.

Seven taplands become five, and every land taps for green

The box's mana is not weak, it is slow. Thirty-nine lands, of which 28 enter untapped, four are conditional and seven always enter tapped. The conditional four are fine as they are: Drowned Catacomb, Hinterland Harbor, Woodland Cemetery and Sunken Hollow each check for a basic or a basic land type, and 15 of the 39 lands are basics.

The colour counts are where the work sits. Against a 90 percent target on the play, the box holds 25 black sources for a colour that wants 24, 23 blue for a colour that wants 24, and 21 green for a colour that wants 24 while 34 of its spells ask for green. Green is the short one, and it is short on the colour the deck casts most.

Three lands leave. Fetid Pools and Mortuary Mire always enter tapped. Temple of the False God produces no coloured mana at any point and produces nothing at all until your fifth land, which is a strange card to keep in a deck where all three colours sat at or under target.

Three arrive. Clearwater Pathway and Barkchannel Pathway both enter untapped and ask you to pick a side as they do, which is the trade this mana base wants. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is the one that changes the shape of the page. It makes each land a Forest in addition to its other land types, and a Forest taps for green, so while it is out every land you control is a green source. It does the same for your opponents, which is usually irrelevant and occasionally a small bonus, because Exotic Orchard reads their lands and will always find green.

After the swaps the counts read 24 black, 24 blue and 23 green, with 30 lands untapped and five always tapped. Black is the only colour that goes down, by a single source, and it lands exactly on target. Green climbs two on the raw count and to all 39 on any turn Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is on the battlefield.

The last mana change is not a land. Strength Bobblehead taps for one mana of any colour and costs {3}. Fellwar Stone taps for any colour a land an opponent controls could produce and costs {2}. In a four-player pod the Bobblehead's extra reliability is worth less than the turn it costs.

Thirteen cards leave, and one of them has a dead line of text

Start with the dead line, because it is unusually clear. Strength Bobblehead's second ability puts X +1/+1 counters on a creature at sorcery speed for {3} and a tap, where X is the number of Bobbleheads you control. The deck contains exactly one Bobblehead and nothing in it makes another. X is one, permanently. What you are actually running is a three-mana rock, which is what Fellwar Stone replaces for one less.

Strong, the Brutish Thespian is a 7/7 with ward {2} for six mana whose static line turns your radiation life loss into life gain. The deck's self-radiation is small and mostly optional, so that clause answers a problem the deck does not have, and the enrage trigger still needs somebody to damage a 7/7 first.

Vault 87: Forced Evolution asks five mana and opens by taking a creature for as long as you control the Saga, which is two turns. Contaminated Drink asks five to draw three. Piper Wright, Publick Reporter has to connect, then investigate, then find the mana to sacrifice the Clue, and the box holds two Clue makers.

Fraying Sanity is three mana aimed at a single player, which is the wrong direction for every reason in the section above. Recon Craft Theta only proliferates when it attacks, and crewing it means tapping the creatures carrying the counters you wanted in combat.

Power Fist and Nuka-Nuke Launcher cost three and five mana all-in to make one creature larger, in a deck whose counters arrive spread across the whole board by design. Cathedral Acolyte hands out ward {1}, a tax nobody notices paying.

The three lands are argued above: Fetid Pools, Mortuary Mire and Temple of the False God.

Why I am keeping the twelve-drop and the six-mana Saga

Lumbering Megasloth reads {10}{G}{G} and sits alone at the top of the curve, which makes it look like the most obvious cut in the box. It costs {1} less for each counter among players and permanents. That counts rad counters on every player at the table, +1/+1 counters on every creature anybody controls, and lore counters on a Saga. Ten counters in play brings it to its floor of {G}{G} for an 8/8 trample, and ten counters is an ordinary turn six here. It enters tapped, so cast it the turn before you want to swing.

Vault 12: The Necropolis costs six and is the best card in the deck. Chapter one hands three rad counters to every player, which is twelve counters onto a four-player table in one go. Chapter two arrives on your next turn and creates a 2/2 Zombie Mutant for every rad counter still sitting on a player, and it resolves after your draw step, before your own precombat main phase has burned any of yours. Chapter three puts two +1/+1 counters on each Zombie and Mutant you control, and with Master Biomancer down that phrase covers the whole board.

Inexorable Tide costs five and proliferates on every spell you cast. In a deck running two kinds of counters on both sides of the table, that is the best repeatable effect available at any price.

Casualties of War costs six with two black and two green pips, and it is the only card here that can destroy a land or a planeswalker. Six mana buys a lot when it buys five permanents.

The upgraded decklist

The full 100 after the thirteen swaps. Hover any card name on this page to see the card and what it costs today.

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“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena — no account needed.

FAQ

Do rad counters ever go away on their own?

No. Rad counters do not expire as steps, phases or turns end. The only thing that removes one is milling a nonland card at the beginning of your precombat main phase, and each nonland card milled that way removes exactly one counter and costs 1 life. A land milled removes nothing, so the counter survives to mill again next turn.

Can The Wise Mothman put two counters on the same creature?

No. The ability hands one +1/+1 counter apiece to up to X different target creatures, and no creature can be chosen twice. Milling five nonland cards spreads five counters across five bodies instead of stacking five on one. Anything above your creature count is thrown away, which is a large part of why this deck would rather radiate four players a little than one player a lot.

Why would I hand my opponents rad counters?

Because The Wise Mothman triggers on any nonland card milled by anybody, not only by you. An opponent's rad counter makes them mill on their own turn, and that mill puts +1/+1 counters on your board, draws you a card off Mirelurk Queen and makes tokens off Screeching Scorchbeast. The life they lose is the smallest part of it.

Does upgrading Mutant Menace change the bracket it can claim?

No. The box contains no Game Changers and none of the thirteen cards added here is one either, so the upgraded list claims the same bracket floor the stock deck does. That was a choice rather than an accident. Radiation is slow, symmetrical and completely visible, and the deck closes games through combat, so nothing on the swap list needed to reach for a card that would move it.

What do the thirteen upgrades cost?

$58.29 at September 2026 market prices for default printings. The most expensive single card is Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth at $16.56, and the cheapest is Master Biomancer at 81 cents, which is also the one that changes the most.

Is Lumbering Megasloth actually castable?

Yes, and usually for two mana. It costs {1} less for each counter among players and permanents, which counts rad counters on every player, +1/+1 counters on every creature and lore counters on a Saga. Ten counters on the table brings it to its floor of {G}{G} for an 8/8 trample. It enters tapped, so cast it the turn before you want to attack.

Should I buy Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider for this deck?

It is the strongest card I left off, and at $55.72 it costs nearly as much as the other thirteen together. What it buys is doubled +1/+1 counters and doubled radiation, and radiation is the half that matters least here, because a bigger pile of rad counters on one player still mills on one turn. Buy Roaming Throne first if you are spending at that level, then Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider.