Wizards prints cards that excel in the 99 of cEDH decks fairly regularly, Hexing Squelcher and Gleaming Splendor are two recent examples; it’s much rarer for a new Commander to make a splash in the format. Typically, a legend needs a good color identity, low cost, and relevant abilities to make the cut, and even then it’s not a given. Reality Fracture has bucked this trend, however, by introducing Dack Fayden, Helping Hand: a legend with none of these typical qualities that may nonetheless be a banger in cEDH.
Dack Fayden, Helping Hand in cEDH
This bizarre new legend has been getting a ton of attention in the cEDH community over the last few days, with several players seeing success with it in events. Popular cEDH player and content creator ComedIan piloted it to a win in a local event, for example, and Goldsabertooth appears to have done the same.
The key to this deck’s success is its infinite combo potential, specifically the fact that it can win purely by casting Dack Fayden itself. So far, cEDH builds of new Dack run very limited creature suites, consisting of Radiant Solar and creatures like Felidar Guardian and All-Fates Stalker that can blink creatures on entry. This means that, when Dack hits the table, you’ll be putting at least two blink creatures into play alongside him.
Since you still get their enters triggers before Dack donates them, you can blink Dack itself to spin into three more creatures, then repeat to get every creature out of your deck and into play. Eventually, you can find cards like Bronzebeak Foragers
Bronzebeak ForagersWhen this creature enters, for each opponent, exile up to one target nonland permanent that player controls until this creature leaves the battlefield.
{X}{W}: Put target card with mana value X exiled with this creature into its owner's graveyard. You gain X life., who can exile themselves plus a few other creatures you donated, putting them back into play under your control. Other spells, like Flicker of Fate can also return your gifted creatures, or blink Dack to keep the chain going.
Once this is done, you can use two immediate blink creatures, like Felidar Guardian and Restoration Angel, to blink each other back and forth. This will net you infinite ventures into the Dungeon with Radiant Solar, which will win you the game via life loss from Lost Mine of Phandelver and Tomb of Annihilation.
This being cEDH, you don’t need to wait until turn six to cast Dack and win this way, either. The deck runs all of the usual fast mana staples, from Ancient Tomb to Chrome Mox. It also runs both Basalt Monolith and Grim Monolith, alongside Manifold Key and Voltaic Key, allowing for huge bursts of mana. With the right opening hand, this deck can drop Dack Fayden and put a win on the stack as early as turn two.
Stax on Stax
So far, the Dack Fayden, Helping Hand cEDH lists are mainly focused on this powerful combo, but they’re not complete one-trick ponies. They also have a strong Stax element, which helps the deck compete with the rest of the cEDH metagame despite its Mono-White color identity.
Cards like Rule of Law and Cursed Totem are absolutely fantastic here, for example. The former shuts down most cEDH combos and stunts board development, while the latter is brutal against ability-focused Commanders like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. Alongide pieces like Damping Sphere and Trinisphere, most typical cEDH decks will struggle to win before Dack comes down.
In addition to these potent Stax cards, Dack Fayden pilots are running many of the clasic cEDH anti-interaction pieces, such as Silence and Mandate of Peace. These pull double-duty here, helping to shut down opposing combos in some games, while protecting your own Dack Fayden turn in others. You can even use Scout’s Warning and Emergence Zone to pop off at instant speed, opening up more windows for wins.
While Dack Fayden itself is definitely the deck’s primary win condition, it can push for a mill win using Gleaming Splendor and Smothering Tithe in a pinch. Copy Tithe using Mirage Mirror, and you can generate four Treasures with every Splendor activation, letting you force your opponents to draw themselves to death. You can prevent any interaction here with all your Silence effects, too, so this is a fairly reliable backup plan if Dack gets countered.
Meme or Dream?
Following its surge in success over the weekend, Dack Fayden, Helping Hand is the talk of the cEDH community. With real results on the table now, players are starting to take the deck seriously, which is wild considering how far from most cEDH Commanders the card looks. This juxtaposition has led to the deck becoming a bit of a meme, with players facetiously predicting a future where Dack is the dominant deck in the format.
While these posts are mostly in jest, Dack Fayden has real substance as a deck. Being able to guarantee a win from the command zone is incredibly powerful, especially when you can do it early. It’s a similar phenomenon to what we saw with Aang, at the Crossroads, where simply casting Aang could result in a chain of Clone
CloneYou may have this creature enter as a copy of any creature on the battlefield.s that would ultimately secure a win. While Aang isn’t exactly a top-tier strategy, it’s still a viable deck in the cEDH format.
What will likely hold Dack Fayden back, however, is its color identity. While setting down early Stax pieces can help, being Mono-White means the deck often lacks tools to stop opposing wins. This means it can spin its wheels when it can’t land an early Dack, resulting in a glass-cannon playstyle that can probably be addressed with small adjustments to the top decks.
That said, it’s impossible to fully predict the future of MTG metagames, even in the largely-defined cEDH. We could well see Dack Fayden become a real player in the format, or it could burn out quickly as another new set gimmick deck. As always, only time will tell, but it’s exciting to see such a funky strategy in the cEDH format at all in any case.
Stick with us here at dev.mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!
