Many new Commanders can make temporary splashes in cEDH, but they rarely stick around. With MTG’s entire card pool available, the best decks in this format that stand the test of time are all ridiculously powerful. While Commanders like
Aang, at the Crossroads
come and go, powerhouses like
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
stay at the top of the charts.
Reality Fracture, however, seems to have bucked that trend, releasing a new Commander that has literally become the best Commander in all of Magic: The Gathering. By creating a one-card combo from the command zone, some cEDH players are even calling for a ban on Dack Fayden, Helping Hand.
MTG Dack Fayden, Helping Hand
By abusing the effects of infamous Blink creatures like
Felidar Guardian
and
Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward
, Dack Fayden, Helping Hand wins the game as soon as it enters play. Even though the Commander gives your opponents the cards you hit, you still get their entry effects, letting you flicker Dack to hit more creatures.
Eventually, you’ll hit a card like
Bronzebeak Foragers
which, by exiling itself and two other creatures you gave to your opponents, puts them back into play under your control. From there, you can set up infinite blink combos with ease.
Once you have a flicker loop, you can blink
Radiant Solar
infinitely to win the game, Venturing into the Dungeon as many times as you please. For reference, winning the game on turn one, or on turn two with protection, is a thing that this Commander is capable of.
If winning with Dack Fayden right off the bat doesn’t work, Mono-White also gives this deck access to a lot of Stax pieces, slowing opponents down. Cards like
Damping Sphere
,
Deafening Silence
, and
Trinisphere
can completely shut down opposing cEDH decks without affecting Dack Fayden at all. Mono-white also gives Dack access to
Silence
and
Defense Grid
effects, giving you a way to fight through countermagic.
Put it all together, and it’s clear that Dack Fayden, Helping Hand has an extremely powerful plan, but one that’s also easy to stop. Countermagic, spot removal, or ETB hate like
Torpor Orb
all shut Dack Fayden down, so it’s far from unbeatable. Despite this, Dack Fayden appears to be taking over cEDH by storm.
The Best Commander in MTG?
Many Commander players had Dack Fayden on their radar as a potential new contender, but no one expected the Commander to take over Bracket 5 entirely. While sample sizes are still small, Dack Fayden currently has a 56.25% conversion rate to top cut finishes, absolutely crushing the competition.
For reference, most top-tier Commanders over the same time period have a conversion rate of around 25%. This makes Dack Fayden a clear cEDH outlier and, by extension, the current best Commander in MTG.
Turbo decks aren’t new to cEDH, but Dack Fayden takes the idea to a whole new level. A Commander that basically guarantees a win on its own when cast is something cEDH hasn’t really seen before. This forces your opponents to mulligan to interaction to stop Dack Fayden, but whoever does is behind everyone else at the table.
This play pattern, in particular, is deeply unenjoyable for some cEDH players and has even led to early calls for bans. If Dack Fayden is truly broken in cEDH, this is the kind of ban that could actually happen in MTG Commander, but it’s far too soon to say for sure.
On top of the small sample size, Dack Fayden, Helping Hand is still a new deck. This means that opponents who haven’t figured out how to combat it yet are giving the Commander free wins, so to speak. With Dack Fayden now a central part of cEDH, players will prepare to combat this deck more effectively moving forward. Of course, current Dack Fayden lists are also unrefined, so the Commander is bound to improve over time as well.
With Dack Fayden now firmly established as a cEDH contender, it will be interesting to see how this Commander develops. If players adjust to combat the Commander effectively, Dack Fayden might just become another part of the cEDH metagame. If players fail to adapt, however, or if Dack Fayden causes the cEDH metagame to warp heavily for an extended period of time, Wizards of the Coast may need to step in.
No matter what happens, or how long it sticks, it’s quite clear that Dack Fayden, Helping Hand is currently the best Commander in MTG. Whether things will stay that way, however, remains to be seen.
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