MTG Zombie Unlocks Turn One Combo Thanks to Broken Secret Commander

If you’ve been paying attention to cEDH at all, or Commander in general, you know how big of a problem Dack Fayden, Helping Hand Dack Fayden, Helping Hand When Dack Fayden enters, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal X creature cards, where X is the number of opponents you have. Put those creature cards onto the battlefield, then shuffle. They're goaded for the rest of the game. For each of those permanents, choose a different opponent. Each opponent gains control of the permanent for which they were chosen. has been. Yes, the card may give your opponents the creatures that it finds, but since you still get their enter triggers, Dack Fayden can easily win the game after entering play.

This has allowed Dack Fayden to absolutely dominate the cEDH metagame, becoming the de facto best Commander for some time. Even today, the Commander still has a 47% top-cut conversion rate in larger events, far ahead of the average 25% conversion of most tier-one Commanders.

That said, the deck is undeniably still held back by a few things, the biggest being its mono-white color identity. If Dack Fayden had access to the stronger colors in Commander, like blue and black, it would probably dominate the cEDH landscape even more than it does now.

Well, thanks to the prestigious 180-player God of Commander tournament in Japan, that might have just happened. Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist just won one of the biggest cEDH tournaments in the world, but it’s actually an Esper Dack Fayden deck in disguise.

Uncounterable Dack Fayden Combo

Piloted by Taiga Watanabe, this Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist Whenever you discard a creature card, you may pay {2}{U}. If you do, create a tapped token that's a copy of that card, except it's a 4/4 black Zombie. deck might be one of the most terrifying Commander decks we’ve seen in a long time. The deck revolves around discarding Dack Fayden with Hashaton in play, resurrecting it at instant speed to win on an opponent’s turn.

As long as you have three mana when you discard Dack, Hashaton’s ability can make a copy of the card, letting Dack Fayden dodge counterspells like Force of Will Force of Will You may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell. . Notably, this Commander deck has only three other creatures, so Dack Fayden is guaranteed to hit Grand Abolisher Grand Abolisher During your turn, your opponents can't cast spells or activate abilities of artifacts, creatures, or enchantments. , Thassa’s Oracle Thassa’s Oracle When this creature enters, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. (Each {U} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to blue.) , and Leveler Leveler When this creature enters, exile all cards from your library. off his enter trigger.

While your opponents will get the creatures you find, you’ll still get Thassa’s Oracle and Leveler’s entry effects since they enter under your control. This means Leveler will empty your library, letting Thassa’s Oracle win the game, even if you have no Devotion to Blue. If you have an instant-speed discard outlet, like Lion’s Eye Diamond Lion’s Eye Diamond Discard your hand, Sacrifice this artifact: Add three mana of any one color. Activate only as an instant. , you can pull this combo off on an opponent’s upkeep.

Grand Abolisher Grand Abolisher During your turn, your opponents can't cast spells or activate abilities of artifacts, creatures, or enchantments. is the weird piece of the puzzle here, but it’s actually genius. Since you’re pulling off this combo on an opponent’s turn, you can give that player Grand Abolisher and shut down any interaction from your other two opponents. If you draw Grand Abolisher, you can also just play it yourself and do the Dack Fayden combo on your turn.

With Lion’s Eye Diamond as your discard outlet, you can even pull this combo off on turn one, as long as you can get Hashaton out beforehand. With a land and a card like Lotus Petal Lotus Petal {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color. , getting Hashaton into play on turn one is trivial. You do need Dack in your hand as well, of course, so this turn one combo is hardly guaranteed, but it’s not as hard to assemble as you may think.

Lots of Backup Plans

Of course, this combo fails to work if you draw Leveler or Thassa’s Oracle, but Esper gives Hashaton access to other Oracle combos. Demonic Consultation Demonic Consultation Choose a card name. Exile the top six cards of your library, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with the chosen name. Put that card into your hand and exile all other cards revealed this way. and Tainted Pact Tainted Pact Exile the top card of your library. You may put that card into your hand unless it has the same name as another card exiled this way. Repeat this process until you put a card into your hand or you exile two cards with the same name, whichever comes first. both appear in this deck, giving you two other Thassa’s Oracle combos with turn one potential. This also means you aren’t entirely reliant on Dack Fayden to win, making a fast combo much more consistent.

Since Hashaton gets black, you also gain access to tons of tutors like Vampiric Tutor Vampiric Tutor Search your library for a card, then shuffle and put that card on top. You lose 2 life. , Imperial Seal Imperial Seal Search your library for a card, then shuffle and put that card on top. You lose 2 life. , and Demonic Tutor Demonic Tutor Search your library for a card, put that card into your hand, then shuffle. to find your core cards consistently. Then blue gives you counterspells to protect your combo, plus some of Commander’s most powerful tools like Rhystic Study Rhystic Study Whenever an opponent casts a spell, you may draw a card unless that player pays {1}. .

Heck, this deck even has a reanimator sub-package, adding another way to cheat Dack Fayden into play early. Dark Ritual Dark Ritual Add {B}{B}{B}. , Entomb Entomb Search your library for a card, put that card into your graveyard, then shuffle. , Reanimate Reanimate Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. You lose life equal to that card's mana value. , and a land, for example, is a turn one win, resurrecting Dack Fayden and getting your combo online.

Throw in tons of discard outlets like Careful Study Careful Study Draw two cards, then discard two cards. or The Underworld Cookbook The Underworld Cookbook {T}, Discard a card: Create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life.")
{4}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. , and Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist looks like it can take on just about anything. This certainly gives Hashaton the tools to rule cEDH with an iron fist, but nothing is set in stone yet.

Tradeoffs

With all the insane combo lines, powerful cards, and a fantastic tournament result, this Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist list looks outright terrifying. That said, this isn’t a strict upgrade over running Dack Fayden in the command zone.

Having Dack Fayden in the Command Zone makes your fast combo game much more consistent. You’ll always be able to find your Dack Fayden, so you’ll always be able to go for one, even multiple win attempts in a game.

On the other hand, Dack Fayden has a massive target on his back now, with Commander players knowing to mulligan to interaction when he appears in the command zone. This won’t work with Hashaton, since the Commander has lots of interaction itself and can win in a few different ways.

Overall, Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist feels like the next step in developing Dack Fayden, Helping Hand decks in cEDH. This Commander gives a lethal Dack combo access to all the broken blue and black cards in the format, letting you protect your own wins while stopping your opponents’.

Since this Dack Fayden combo doesn’t revolve around Blink effects, spot removal like Swords to Plowshares Swords to Plowshares Exile target creature. Its controller gains life equal to its power. won’t stop it either, giving it a big upgrade over the Dack Fayden combos from the command zone. With Hashaton making a copy of Dack Fayden from its ability, you can easily sidestep countermagic, too.

While Hashaton and Dack Fayden certainly feel like a broken pair, it’s far too early to say for sure. This tech is entirely new, appearing for the first time on October 31st.

Now that players know about it, Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist, and Dack Fayden could appear in future cEDH tournaments. If the deck keeps making top cut, we could have a new metagame menace on our hands.

Stick with us here at 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!