Fallout Commander is finally out for general release, and its four new decks offer a heaping helping of brand-new cards. So for this week’s article, let’s ignore all but seven of those cards and talk about something so weird and niche that it could either be amazing or dreadful: Bobbleheads!
Bobbleheads in the Fallout games impact your stats, making them not only fun, but useful to collect as well. Seeing this minuscule aspect of the games translated to Magic tickled me, and even though there is absolutely zero support for it, I want to do something with these artifacts in Commander. Let’s brainstorm some ways for us to make this work.
The Bobbleheads
The Bobbleheads are three-mana-value mana rocks that tap for one mana of any color. Each Bobblehead has an activated ability that gives you a benefit based on the number of Bobbleheads you control. The Bobblehead names correspond to stats in the video games, with all seven spelling out SPECIAL.
Starting out, we have Strength. The ability very much matches the stat of the Bobblehead, as it doles out +1/+1 counters on a target creature equal to the number of Bobbleheads you control.
Moving on to P, we have Perception. This insightful little guy helps you peer into the top cards of your library and helps cast you a spell with mana value 3 or less for free! While the mana value is low, you can get a lot of value out of this little guy, especially since it is one of the few Bobbleheads that you can activate at instant speed.
Next up is Endurance. This Bobblehead buffs up your creatures while simultaneously giving them indestructible until end of turn. This ability is great because it helps protect your swingers in the midst of a hefty combat phase.
Charisma is next, and no, this is not RuPaul’s Drag Race. Charisma is my favorite of the Bobbleheads because it creates a slew of tokens for you to demolish your opponents with. Since this deck is based around the loose concept of Bobbleheads, we’re gonna need all the creature support we can get!
I stands for Intelligence. What does intelligence mean in Magic? That’s right: card advantage. With all your Bobbleheads out, you basically get a new hand!
A stands for agility, and has a fantastic ability. It is probably the nastiest of the Bobbleheads because it gives your targeted creatures haste and makes it so that those creatures can’t be blocked except by creatures with haste. On the right battlefield, that’s basically unblockable.
Lastly, we have Luck, what Magic is all about. Lady luck smiles upon you by making you roll dice. Some of those rolls get you Treasure tokens; however, if you roll all sixes, you win the game. Is it likely? No. Is it dope as hell? Yes.
The Commander
With all the Bobbleheads laid out, we need a commander. Because our Bobbleheads are all colorless and let us tap for mana of any color, our options are quite literally limitless. Initially, I was leaning towards five colors, but you can go into any combination of colors and just thrive.
In all honesty, I want to avoid going five colors just because of how generic the commanders can be. Commanders like Garth One-Eye and Kenrith, the Returned King, while incredibly powerful, just feel boring and don’t fit the Bobblehead vibe. If you want to dabble into five colors, however, I would recommend those two.
So if we leave the realm of five colors, who do we have? Well, while digging through artifact commanders, I landed on a few that I think could really fit the bill: Osgir, the Reconstructor; Saheeli, the Sun’s Brilliance; and Urza, Prince of Kroog.
While these three commanders are incredibly limited in their color identities, they make for perfect Bobblehead commanders because all of them create token copies of your artifacts. Since all your Bobbleheads’ abilities increase based on the number of Bobbleheads you control, the more you have, the better. There are only seven Bobbleheads in the entire existence of Magic, so making token copies of them really help the cause.
The Support
If we focus on Urza and Osgir, there is a lot of support we can pack this deck full of to increase our value and overall odds of winning. White has access to token doublers like Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Anointed Procession. This makes you twice as many Bobblehead tokens!
Of course, this isn’t the only way to get more Bobbleheads. Pieces like Mirrorworks, Phyrexian Metamorph, Prototype Portal, Court of Vantress, and Sculpting Steel can also increase your Bobblehead count. Slowly, sure, but it’s worth it for the bit, amiright?
Boi-oing
I understand that this is an incredibly niche deck theme with even more niche commanders. You have to jump through many hoops to get what you want, but at the end of the day, isn’t that what life is all about?
When I saw the Bobbleheads previewed, I fell in love with their designs. The more you get, the more your stats increase. There is something so silly about the designs. They bring me back to Commander’s early days, when you shoved weird cards into decks to make them work. There wasn’t much support for them, but it was all about the journey of getting there.
While writing this article, I have all but started gathering the cards to make this deck a reality. Whether you like the concept or not, I hope that you are able to find some weird cards and capture that old deckbuilding feeling again like I have. Happy bobbling, deckbuilders.
