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
Aang, at the Crossroads
Flying
When Aang enters, look at the top five cards of your library. You may put a creature card with mana value 4 or less from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
When another creature you control leaves the battlefield, transform Aang at the beginning of the next upkeep.
come and go, powerhouses like
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
Whenever you tap a nonland permanent for mana, add one mana of any type that permanent produced.
{5}{G}{U}: Look at the top five cards of your library. You may put a non-Human creature card from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
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
Felidar Guardian
When this creature enters, you may exile another target permanent you control, then return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control.
and
Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward
Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward
When Abdel Adrian enters, exile any number of other nonland permanents you control until Abdel Adrian leaves the battlefield. Create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token for each permanent exiled this way.
Choose a Background (You can have a Background as a second commander.)
, 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
Bronzebeak Foragers
When 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.
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
Radiant Solar
Flying, lifelink
Whenever this creature or another nontoken creature you control enters, venture into the dungeon. (Enter the first room or advance to the next room.)
{W}, Discard this card: Venture into the dungeon and you gain 3 life.
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
Damping Sphere
If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces {C} instead of any other type and amount.
Each spell a player casts costs {1} more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.
,
Deafening Silence
Deafening Silence
Each player can't cast more than one noncreature spell each turn.
, and
Trinisphere
Trinisphere
As long as this artifact is untapped, each spell that would cost less than three mana to cast costs three mana to cast. (Additional mana in the cost may be paid with any color of mana or colorless mana. For example, a spell that would cost {1}{B} to cast costs {2}{B} to cast instead.)
can completely shut down opposing cEDH decks without affecting Dack Fayden at all. Mono-white also gives Dack access to
Silence
Silence
Your opponents can't cast spells this turn.
and
Defense Grid
Defense Grid
Each spell costs {3} more to cast except during its controller's turn.
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
Torpor Orb
Creatures entering don't cause abilities to trigger.
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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