Mutant Menace precon.
Develop Sultai mana and creatures to receive Mothman's counters, then use mill and radiation as repeatable pressure.
At the table
Pod notes →- Keep
- Three lands with Sultai colors, ramp, and an early creature or mill payoff; Mothman stays in the command zone.
- Develop
- Build counter recipients, then spread mill and radiation while retaining interaction and library room.
- Finish
- Grow several attackers from actual nonland-mill events and use radiation as incremental pressure.
- Watch out
- Radiation is precombat main; remove rad equal to nonlands milled. Mothman spreads one counter per distinct target.
Guide reviewed List 7cad5f09
Rules and list review, not a playtest record. Turn windows and matchup advice are estimates. The list reference covers card quantities and the command zone; card changes require another guide and pod-note review.
Rules basis: Magic Comprehensive Rules, August 19, 2026. Bracket basis: Wizards’ October 2025 update and February 2026 follow-up.
Develop Sultai mana and creatures to receive Mothman's counters, then use mill and radiation as repeatable pressure.
Opening hands
Seven cards from this build. Commanders start in the command zone. In multiplayer Commander, the first mulligan is free. For later mulligans, draw seven again; once you keep, put one card on the bottom for each mulligan beyond the free one.
KeepShow the seven
- Command Tower
- Forest
- Island
- Arcane Signet
- Tireless Tracker
- Winding Constrictor
- Putrefy
Assumes The Wise Mothman is the chosen commander in the command zone and a four-player Core pod. Three lands plus Arcane Signet develop and fix mana, while Tireless Tracker and Winding Constrictor give this hand a concrete plan. Check the timing of colored costs before choosing the first land.
BorderlineShow the seven
- Command Tower
- Forest
- Tireless Tracker
- Winding Constrictor
- Putrefy
- Lumbering Megasloth
- Find // Finality
Two lands make the expensive end of this hand dependent on further mana development. Tireless Tracker is a reason to consider it on a later mulligan, but at seven cards with the multiplayer free mulligan available I would usually seek a more dependable third land or accelerator. Do not count a future draw as guaranteed.
MulliganShow the seven
- Command Tower
- Lumbering Megasloth
- Find // Finality
- Agent Frank Horrigan
- Screeching Scorchbeast
- Strong, the Brutish Thespian
- Alpha Deathclaw
One land and an expensive hand cannot reliably develop the stock plan. Keeping several attractive payoffs does not compensate for missing land drops; use the multiplayer free mulligan when available, then follow the London mulligan procedure if drawing again.
How it plays.
Core game plan
Develop Sultai mana and creatures to receive Mothman's counters, then use mill and radiation as repeatable pressure. At the beginning of a player's precombat main phase, their radiation trigger mills cards equal to their rad counters, then they lose life and remove rad counters equal to the nonland cards milled this way. For example, four rad counters milling two lands and two nonlands causes two life loss and leaves two rad counters. Milling only lands removes no rad counters. Your own radiation can also threaten your library and life.
Key cards
- The Wise Mothman. Radiation and nonland mill support counters. For one event milling X nonlands, put one +1/+1 counter on each of up to X distinct target creatures; do not stack X counters onto one target.
- Corpsejack Menace. Doubles every +1/+1 counter put on your creatures, so Mothman's distribution and all your counter effects hit twice as hard.
- Winding Constrictor. Adds one to counters placed on your creatures or artifacts and to counters you receive as a player. It does not add counters given to opponents, and increases your own rad gains.
- Mirelurk Queen. Once per turn, the first nonland mill draws you a card and grows the Queen, converting the mill theme directly into card advantage.
- Screeching Scorchbeast. Hands out rad counters when it attacks and makes a 2/2 Zombie Mutant for each nonland card milled once per turn, a strong token and board engine.
- Agent Frank Horrigan. Proliferates twice whenever it enters or attacks, exploding rad counters and +1/+1 counters across the table while being a near-unkillable trampler when attacking.
- The Master, Transcendent. The alternate face commander in the stock list. It seeds rad counters and reanimates creatures milled this turn as 3/3 green Mutants, fueling both your mill payoffs and your board.
- Biomass Mutation. An instant-speed finisher and rescue button that sets your whole team to X/X, letting a wide mutant board swing for lethal out of nowhere.
- Inexorable Tide. Proliferate on every spell cast turns each card you play into more rad counters and bigger creatures, the deck's best repeatable counter accelerator.
- Tireless Tracker. Landfall creates Clues; sacrificing a Clue gives Tracker a counter. Cards still require Clue payments and land drops, so the engine is resource-dependent.
Combos and synergies
- Mothman triggers when one or more nonland cards are milled in an event. If three nonlands are milled together, choose up to three distinct creatures and put one +1/+1 counter on each; you cannot put all three on one creature. Winding Constrictor adds to counters on your creatures and artifacts and to counters you receive as a player, including your own rad counters. It does not add rad counters given to opponents. Use recursion to recover appropriate milled cards while preserving enough library for future mandatory mills and draws.
Mulligan
- Three lands with Sultai colors, ramp, and an early creature or mill payoff; Mothman stays in the command zone.
- A balanced hand that develops an engine while retaining an answer to a meaningful opposing threat. Check tapped-land timing and required colors, not just total land count.
- Zero or one land without a dependable route to develop mana.
- Expensive payoffs without early ramp, or several synergy payoffs with no way to supply their required bodies, spells or resources.
- A hand relying on drawing the chosen commander: the commander starts in the command zone, not the opening seven.
Lines and sequencing
- Play bodies before milling if you want to distribute Mothman counters across several legal targets.
- Announce radiation at the beginning of precombat main, not upkeep.
- Count nonlands after the mill to determine life loss and rad removal; lands can leave radiation persisting into later turns.
- Resolve each separate Mothman trigger with its own distinct targets and apply counter replacement effects to each target's one-counter event.
- With Winding Constrictor, remember that your own rad counter gains increase; opponents' do not.
- Use reanimation for a concrete resource or threat, and leave room in your library for the next draw and radiation trigger.
Pilot difficulty
Intermediate. The main plan is readable, but sequencing, trigger timing and resource accounting matter. Use the pilot reference and worked interaction before taking a long turn.