Rank mutations by cost on the character you are actually buying them for, not by effect. Skull Splitter on Dux at 1 point is the single best purchase in the game and the same mutation on Magnus at 9 is a trap. Tree Hugger on Selma at 2, Run 'n' Gun on Bormin at 2 and Telekinesis Shield on Magnus at 3 are the other bargains. With only one Minor, one Major and one Passive equipped at a time, cheap access to a good-enough option beats expensive access to the best one.
Summary
Mutant Year Zero prices mutations per character, and it never tells you. Skull Splitter costs Dux 1 point and Magnus 9. Silent Assassin costs Farrow 5 and Magnus 11. The effect is identical; the bill is not.
Because you can only equip one Minor, one Major and one Passive at a time, what you can buy cheaply decides your squad far more than what is theoretically strongest.
Who This Is For:Mutant Year Zero players deciding where mutation points go
Intermediate
Key Points
Key Points
1
The same mutation costs different amounts on different characters. Skull Splitter is 1 point on Dux and 9 on Magnus.
2
Only one Minor, one Major and one Passive can be equipped at once, so breadth is worth more than a single expensive pick.
3
Mutation points come from levelling. Recharge comes from kills, so long fights let you reuse a Major and short ones do not.
4
Silent Assassin doubles critical chance while hidden and costs Farrow 5, Dux 8, Big Khan 8 and Magnus 11.
5
Chameleon on Dux is the most expensive mutation in the game at 12 points.
Most tier lists for this game rank mutations by what they do. That is the wrong axis, and the game hides why.
Mutant Year Zero prices every mutation per character. Skull Splitter costs Dux 1 point. The identical mutation costs Magnus 9. Silent Assassin costs Farrow 5 and Magnus 11. Nothing in the interface flags this as unusual, so most players read the shared name and assume a shared price.
Add the second rule — you can equip one Minor, one Major and one Passive at a time, and no more — and the conclusion follows. What matters is not which mutation is strongest, but which good one a given character can buy cheaply enough to leave points for the other two slots.
The rankings
S
Skull Splitter on Dux (Minor, 1)Guaranteed critical at minus 25 percent accuracy, for one point. Nothing else in the game is priced anywhere near this, and on Dux it stacks with Alpinist and Silent Assassin into the squad's only real burst window.Tree Hugger on Selma (Major, 2)Locks enemy movement in an area for a turn, for two points. Area denial at Minor prices, and the DLC upgrade to Tree Caster costs only 3 more and turns the targets into cover.Run 'n' Gun on Bormin (Minor, 2)Act after sprinting, for two points. It converts Bormin from a slow tank into one that actually arrives, and the same mutation costs Magnus and Selma 5.
A
Telekinesis Shield on Magnus (Passive, 3)A 25 percent chance to ignore bullet damage for three points, on the character least able to absorb a hit. The DLC upgrade to Reflector is another 3 and bounces shots back.Sneak on Magnus (Minor, 3)Move between cover while hidden. Cheapest on Magnus, and it is what lets a 6 HP character reposition without ending the stealth phase.Silent Assassin on Farrow (Passive, 5)Doubles critical chance while hidden — the core stealth-kill passive, at less than half what Magnus pays for it. This is the mechanical reason Farrow is the assassin.Alpinist on Dux (Passive, 5)50 percent critical chance shooting downward from high ground. Cheap on Dux, expensive on Selma at 8, and it pairs with Moth Wings to make height a permanent state rather than a lucky map.Moth Wings on Farrow (Major, 5)Flight during movement. Costs Dux 7 for the same thing, so if you want a flier and own Farrow, buy it here first.Hog Rush on Bormin (Major, 5)Destroys cover and knocks enemies out for a turn. The DLC Bear Smash upgrade is 3 more for 2 turns and 5 tiles of knockback, which is the best upgrade in the game.
B
Super Tendons on Selma (Passive, 5)Reach high ground without a ladder. Genuinely useful and genuinely overpriced on anyone else, where it costs 10.Puppeteer and Chain Lightning on Magnus (Major, 6 each)Mind control and bouncing lightning, fairly priced rather than cheap. Both have 3-point DLC upgrades that are better buys than the base mutations.Eagle Eye on Dux (Passive, 6)Plus 25 percent weapon range. Fine on Dux, bad on Bormin at 10, and it competes with Alpinist and Silent Assassin for the one Passive slot.Contortionist on Selma (Passive, 6)Full high-cover bonuses from low cover. Quietly strong on the maps that only offer low cover, and dead weight on the ones that do not.Stone Skin on Bormin (Major, 6)One turn of invincibility. Real, but it competes with Hog Rush for the Major slot and Hog Rush prevents damage by removing the shooter.
C
Circuit Breaker on anyone (Minor, 6)Disables one mechanical enemy for one turn. Priced identically on everyone who can take it, which makes it the rare mutation where the cost rule does not help you choose.Corpse Eater on Bormin or Farrow (Major, 7)Eat bodies to heal. Seven points and a turn spent, on a game that mostly wants you to end fights fast. The DLC Corpse Feaster removes the turn cost and is where this becomes reasonable.Twitch Shot on Selma (Minor, 9)Two shots for one AP at minus 25 percent accuracy. Bormin pays 5 for the same thing, so on Selma this is the clearest example of paying the wrong character's price.
D
Skull Splitter on Magnus (Minor, 9)Nine points for what Dux gets for one. Same effect, same description, nine times the bill. If you learn one price in this game, learn this pair.Silent Assassin on Magnus (Passive, 11)Eleven points for a stealth passive on the character you least want initiating from stealth.Chameleon on Dux (Major, 12)The most expensive mutation in the game. Invisibility until you attack is strong, but 12 points is roughly four cheap mutations, and Dux can still only equip one Major.
Why the cost rule dominates
Three facts stack on top of each other.
Rule
What it means
Consequence
**One Minor, one Major, one Passive**
Three equipped mutations, no more
A fourth purchase on the same character is a bench slot, not a power increase
**Prices are per character**
Skull Splitter 1 on Dux, 9 on Magnus
The cheapest holder of a mutation is usually its correct holder
**Recharge is paid in kills**
Not turns, not per fight
A Major with a 3-kill recharge fires once in a short ambush and three times in a long fight
Together they say: spread points across characters, buy each mutation from whoever it is cheapest on, and stop buying for a character once all three slots are filled well. The tempting alternative — pouring everything into one star — is punished twice, by the equip cap and by the recharge economy.
Before spending anything, open each character and read the numbers next to the same mutation on different characters. It takes two minutes and it is the only place the game shows you this rule.
The DLC upgrades change the maths
Seed of Evil adds upgrade mutations priced at 3 points that improve a Major you already own.
Upgrade
Cost
What it adds over the base
Bear Smash (from Hog Rush)
3
Knockback 5 tiles and 2 turns down instead of 1
Corpse Feaster (from Corpse Eater)
3
Healing without spending a turn
Wings of the Sniper (from Moth Wings)
3
Removes the range penalty on shots fired while flying
Stalking Death (from Chameleon)
3
Stay invisible after a kill
Puppet Master (from Puppeteer)
3
Control an enemy for 3 turns
Tree Caster (from Tree Hugger)
3
Area effect, and targets become cover for 2 turns
A 3-point upgrade to something you already equip is almost always better than a new 6-point mutation you will have to bench. Budget for the upgrade when you buy the base, because Hog Rush at 5 plus Bear Smash at 3 is an 8-point plan, not a 5-point one.
Common mistakes
Ranking by effect. The effect text is identical across characters. The price is not.
Overloading one character. Three slots. The fourth purchase does nothing until you re-equip.
Buying Chameleon early. Twelve points is most of your early budget for one Major slot.
Ignoring recharge. A 3-kill Major in a short fight is a one-shot.
Skipping the 3-point upgrades. They are the best value in the game and most players spend past them.
Where the points come from and how to survive the opening hours is in the beginner guide. How the stealth phase actually pays for all of this is in the stealth guide, and who does what in a three-slot squad is in the characters guide. If you have not bought it yet, start with the honest review.
FAQ
FAQ
Skull Splitter on Dux, because of the price rather than the effect. It guarantees a critical hit at the cost of 25 percent accuracy, and on Dux it costs a single mutation point — the cheapest meaningful purchase in the game. The same mutation costs Magnus 9 points for exactly the same effect, which is why a tier list that ignores who is buying is close to useless here.
The game prices each mutation per character and never explains it. Silent Assassin costs Farrow 5, Dux 8, Big Khan 8 and Magnus 11. Super Tendons costs Selma 5 and both Big Khan and Farrow 10. Treat the shared name as a coincidence and judge each entry as its own purchase on that specific character.
Three: one Minor, one Major and one Passive. That cap is why breadth beats depth. A character with three cheap, appropriate mutations contributes more than one carrying a single 12-point showpiece and nothing else, because the showpiece only fires when its recharge is paid.
By kills, not by turns. That makes long fights and short fights genuinely different: in a drawn-out battle a 2-kill Major comes back two or three times, while in a four-turn ambush it fires once. It is also a quiet argument for clearing stragglers with silent weapons first, so the fight you do start has bodies in it.
Rarely. Invisibility until you attack is strong, but 12 points is roughly four cheap mutations across three characters, and the equip cap means Dux can only hold one Major anyway. Buy it late if you have points spare, not early as a centrepiece.
They soften the expensive picks. Seed of Evil adds upgrades that cost 3 points each and meaningfully improve an existing Major — Bear Smash, Corpse Feaster, Wings of the Sniper, Stalking Death, Puppet Master, Tree Caster. A 3-point upgrade on a Major you already own is usually better value than a new mutation, so budget for it.
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