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In the Mojave Wasteland of Nevada, New Vegas shines like an oasis on the horizon. And at the center, pulling all the strings, is Mr. House. He’s the leader of this oasis, and he can lead yourMagic: The GatheringCommander deck, too. Leading an army of robots and bankrolled by a growing vault full of treasure, Mr. House is a force that you’ll be happy to roll with.
Relying on dice rolls and robotic servants, playing with Mr. House can be a gamble, but it’s better to have him on your side than to play against him. After all, everybody knows that the House always wins.
About Mr. House, President and CEO As A Commander
Mr. House is a survivor from before the Great War, an event that he accurately predicted to within a day. Armed with this foreknowledge, he wired his brain into a supercomputer to oversee the defenses of Las Vegas. He was mostly successful and survived long enough to oversee the growth and development of New Vegas decades later.
Mr. House, President and CEO is a Mardu (red/white/black) commander available in theHail, CaesarFallout precon deckas a secondary commander. Despite being revealed early and leading to rampant speculation that he would be the head of a dice-rolling deck, the Hail, Caesar deck has almost no support for Mr. House, President and CEO, leading some players to believe that he was supposed to be the head of a “missing” preconstructed deck.
As a 0/4 legendary artifact Human, Mr. House, President and CEO won’t be attacking often, but that’s fine. Instead, he’ll be in the back, happily running the casino that is your deck.Every time you roll a four or higher, he’ll give you a 3/3 colorless artifact Robot token, and every time you roll a six or higher, he’ll add in a treasure. The kicker is that Mr. House, President and CEO doesn’t care about what kind of die you use:a d20 will earn you a robot 85 percent of the time and a Treasure token three-quarters of the timeyou roll it.
On top of rewarding you for being a high roller, Mr. House, President and CEO also gives you a dice-rolling activated ability available whenever you can spare four mana and to tap him. This ability will have youroll one six-sided die (d6) plus one more d6 for each mana that came from Treasureto pay for it. This allows you to roll up to five dice, giving you a good chance of getting at least a couple of Robot tokens out of the gamble.
Building The Deck
Dice rolling hasn’t been a frequently appearing mechanic in Magic: the Gathering, mostly appearing in the fun but not legal “Un-sets.” However,three sets that were released in the few years prior to the Fallout Universes Beyond crossover featured significant dice-rolling interactions: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, and Unfinity.
By focusing your build around the dice-rolling mechanic, you canensure that you’re creating Robot and Treasure tokens consistently. Pair this with some effects that buff your Robots or provide positive interactions with your growing stockpile of artifacts, and you’ll quickly demonstrate why Mr. House has controlled New Vegas for so long.
Ramp
Mardu doesn’t have a lot of traditional mana ramp options, but there are several mana rocks that also provide opportunities to roll the dice, a perfect fit for Mr. House’s unique style of gameplay.
Vexing Puzzlebox is a standard three-mana rock that taps for one mana of any color and then makes you roll a d20.Any time you roll a die, including that d20, you’ll put that many charge counters on Vexing Puzzlebox. Then you can tap Vexing Puzzlebox, remove 100 counters, and search your library for any artifact card, and put it directly into play. As a stand-alone card, Vexing Puzzlebox is okay, but with a deck loaded with dice to roll,it can quickly turn into a repeating artifact tutor.
Luck Bobblehead is another three-mana artifact that taps for mana of any color, but it can also be tapped to roll d6s equal to the number of Bobbleheads you control. For each even result, you get a tapped Treasure token, and if you manage to roll seven sixes, you win the game.There are a total of seven Bobbleheads available, but you probably shouldn’t include all six.
The odds of rolling six on seven dice at once is 1 in 279,936. Don’t rely on this as a win condition.
Ebony Fly is a much more practical two-mana rock, but it comes into play tapped and can only be tapped for one colorless mana. However, it has two more useful abilities:you can pay four mana to roll a d6, then turn it into an X/X flying Insect creature, where X is the result of your roll, and when it attacks, it gives another attacking creature flying. This is most useful as a mana sink: since you don’t have to tap it to turn it into a creature, you cankeep paying four to roll as long as you have manaavailable.
If you’re building your deck to favor artifact interaction, there are a couple of good enchantments that can net you a big stash of cash.
Smothering Tithe will give you one Treasure token each time an opponent draws a card unless they pay two generic mana. This leaves them with the choice, and as often as not,you’ll get a couple of Treasure tokens each round.
Curse of Opulence encourages your opponents to attack each other by rewarding them with Gold tokens whenever they attack the player with the Curse. The kicker is thatevery time they do, you also get a Gold token.
Gold is superior to Treasure, because Gold does not need to be tapped when you sacrifice it for mana.
Component Pouch is another mana rock, but this one requires you to tap it to roll a d20 first to get component counters. you may only tap it for mana while removing component counters, but once the deck gets going,this card is more of an excuse to roll a d20than a mana source.
Your Treasure tokens are only good for one mana each, since you need to sacrifice them to get anything out of them.Inspiring Statuary can help your Treasure go further by allowing you to tap noncreature artifacts to pay for the generic portion of nonartifact spells. Gold tokens are especially useful here, since they can be tapped to pay the colorless and then sacrificed for colored mana.
Draw
Mr. House has access to all the classic black draw effects, from Night’s Whisper to Phyrexian Altar. Include as many of those as you want, but consider some more unique options, as well.
If you’re already including the Luck Bobblehead, you should consider including the Intelligence Bobblehead and the Perception Bobblehead, as well.The Intelligence Bobblehead will draw you cards equal to the number of Bobbleheads you controlfor five mana, while thePerception Bobblehead lets you look at the top X cards of your deck, where X is the number of Bobbleheads you control,and cast a spell with mana value three or less for freefrom among those cards.
The Perception Bobblehead ignores spell timing, so you may play sorceries, creatures, and other “slow” spells on your opponents' turns.
Finally, Symmetry Matrix allows you topay one generic mana to draw a card any time a creature with equal power and toughness comes into play under your control. A lot of creatures already have equal power and toughness, but Mr. House, President and CEO’s ongoing production of 3/3 Robots guarantees that you’ll have a ton of opportunities to draw.
Roll The Dice
With mana and card advantage secured, it’s time to move on to the games. You’ll want to keep your dice handy, because you’ll be rolling all day long.
The Deck of Many Things is much more forgiving in Magic than in D&D: the only downside is that you’ll need to discard your hand if you roll zero or less on a d20 after subtracting the number of cards in your hand. If you’re willing to take that risk, it will return cards from your graveyard to your hand, draw you cards, or reanimate creatures from an opponent that they have to defend because that player will lose if their creature dies.If you keep something in your hand to sacrifice that creature, like Village Rites, you may guarantee at least one player will go down before you.
The Deck of Many Things is better with fewer cards you have in your hand, so don’t be afraid to use it every turn when you only have a few left.
We don’t usually recommend Planeswalkers, since they usually come with huge targets and are removed before they can see any play, butnobody would dare to attack Comet, Stellar Pup. Comet comes into play with five loyalty and only has a single loyalty ability, which is worth zero loyalty.
The ability has you roll a d6, and the result chooses one of four beneficial effects: creating squirrels to chase, digging up a spell from your graveyard, biting a player or creature, or earning a couple more rolls. The average loyalty change is zero, soComet can play all day as long as your opponents don’t engage in any unnecessary animal abuse.
Monoxa, Midway Manager gets new keyword abilities whenever you roll a four, five, or six, and allows you to roll a d6 for six mana. If she picks up menace and lifelink by rolling six or higher, she can attack reasonably safely for a little life gain. If you’re rolling a d20, this will be a common occurrence, buther activated ability is also a good mana sinkwhen it’s almost your turn, and you have a lot of untapped lands.
The real heavy hitters are the Ancient Dragons. These are pricey options to include, buteach of them brings something huge to the deck, rolling a d20 for a beneficial effect each time they deal combat damage to a player. The Ancient Gold Dragon creates 1d20 1/1 flying blue Fairy tokens, the Ancient Brass Dragon reanimates creatures from any graveyard worth 1d20 total mana, and the Ancient Copper Dragon creates 1d20 Treasure tokens.
The House Always Wins
Casinos profit because the odds are in their favor. Even in roulette, you have slightly less than a 50/50 shot at winning. This is called the “house edge,” and you want to include a few cards to manipulate the odds to give Mr. House the edge he needs.
Night Shift of the Living Deadallows you to pay one life to increase or decrease the result of any die roll by oneafter seeing the result. you’re able to use this to bump a roll up or down to the desired result, giving you a little better chance for any specific result you want.
Wyll, Blade of Frontiers and Barbarian Class both allow you toroll one extra die any time you roll and then ignore the lowest result. This adds the effect of Krark’s Other Thumb to the game in a legal way, allowing you a little extra insurance for every roll that one of these effects is on the field. They each also get a bonus effect for every roll, with Wyll gaining a +1/+1 counter for every roll and Barbarian Class giving a creature +2/+0 and Menace.
