Fallout’s Scrappy Survivors deck takes Magic’s ‘go tall’ archetype to new heights

polygon.com:

With a dog by your side and an empty soda bottle in hand, prepare to survive Magic: The Gathering’sforay into Fallout’s alt-history radioactive wasteland with help from brand-new armor, auras, and other junk.

The latest addition to Magic’sUniverses Beyond, the ongoing series of product crossovers that feature characters from other popular franchises, ports the lore and characters from 26 years of Fallout games in a brand-new collection of preconstructed Commander decks and supplementary collector boosters. One of these new Fallout-themed decks is Scrappy Survivors, a red, white, and green mana deck that explores the popular “go tall” strategy of deck building, colloquially referred to as a Voltron deck.

Go-tall decks are designed around “building up one big, resilient creature to swing in for a bunch of damage,” according to Annie Sardelis, senior game designer for Magic: The Gathering,in an exclusive interview with Polygon. Unlike “go wide” decks, which deploy many creatures to overrun an opponent, the Voltron-style approach can close out games with just one threat that’s difficult for opponents to block or destroy.

Central to go-tall decks, and where they get the Voltron nickname from, is the suite of equipment and aura cards that attach to creatures for extra abilities, power, and defense. Like in Fallout, where your character levels up over the course of a story, the creatures in your deckare getting stronger with practically every card you play.

“I view this strategy as top-down to how your player character gets more and more powerful throughout the game, getting better gear and new perks,” Sardelis said. “We expressed many perks as auras, and iconic weapons as equipment, so you can go all in buffing up a creature with those cards.”

“The card Idolized showcases the strategy — encouraging you to attack with just one creature and in return giving it a huge stat buff,” Sardelis added.

One of the new equipment cards being introduced with this set is