Nuka-Cola Vending Machine – Fallout
Date Reviewed: March 6, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 1.75
Casual: 4.13
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander [EDH]: 3.75
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Soda is by far my favorite class of drink, so there’s something kind of heartwarming about the Fallout franchise’s statement that there will still be some around in a world where the worst Malthusian fears came true. And I’ve always found vending machines to be rather friendly in their way, so it’s kind of cool that there’s a vending machine Magic card now.
Friendly might actually be a good way to describe an artifact that generates an endless supply of Food tokens – and an endless supply of Treasure tokens, indirectly. There are so many uses for extra artifacts that I think this card might have been powerful in eternal formats if its mana cost were a little lower. As it is, the Vending Machine provides one of the most reliable foundations for any casual Food strategy, one which isn’t color-locked like Oko; additionally, it invites loops or combos, since at least half of the loop is in its own game text. It has an interesting interaction with Peregrin Took from Tales of Middle-earth – divergent flavor aside, that can catch people off guard, not to mention providing a starting point for meta decks if some kind of all-Universes Beyond constructed format emerges.
Constructed: 2
Casual: 4
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
The Fallout cards are not part of a Limited draftable set, so I’m going to omit Limited scores for these cards.
Into the world of Fallout we go, a rather striking post-apocalyptic take on American culture with plenty of mutation, capitalism, and shenanigans. And where better to start than with Nuka-Cola, the flagship drink of the era?
Nuka-Cola Vending Machine is pretty elegant as a design. Pay money, get a drink, and get a bottle cap after you drink the soda. Bottle caps are the currency of choice for a lot of the Fallout games, so it’s fitting that consuming the food gets you treasure, analogs to the two things in this system.
Honestly, for decks focusing on Food, this is a strong enabler; you have to wait to spend the treasure, but the treasure generation is for all food and not just the ones spat out by the vending machine…and for foods sacrificed for things besides life gain. It’s not a fast spell, but it is one that does a lot if you have time to get the gears turning. That said, I doubt it does anything in Legacy; at its heart, it works slowly and it needs too much support to come online.
Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 4.25
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 4
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