[CNS]Dack Fayden

[AmbivalentDuck]

Seeing it in playtesting, it looks like it may be at its strongest in a mana denial context.  Losing Moxen makes it very difficult to break out of Thalia's soft lock for instance.  Guli should look into this card for his RUW Prison build, which already contains Welders. 

I'd think one if those humans builds with Notion Thief would be ideal.

Why not just Grixis control Slaver?

[Guli]

Because there is merit and appeal to cards like Thalia, Dryad Militant and Spirit of the Labyrinth. I like how Dryad works nicely with Welder and Crucible (I copy Crucible with Metamorph) by not hitting lands or artifacts. Now I can steal Crucible and Weld in Revokers, Null Rod, Metamorph and maybe other cards, which is nice. And all this while being extremely solid against blue combo based decks.

I do agree that a control slaver could really use a card like this. I expect some people to try it out and it might even stick and give rebirth to the Slaver build.

[Protoaddict]

I've been goldfishing with this guy a bit and really like him.

The thing I wanted to point out with this guys is that he is not Jace and that is a benefit. I found that I really like 1 copy of this guy and 3 copies of Jace much more than I like 4 copies of Jace. I wanted to say the same thing about Ral Zarek but Ral often times is way to combo focused while Dack fits in the same space as Jace (card filtering and removing some threats.)

Having a Dack instead of the 4th Jace provides many benefits, and these are concerning real actually played cards.
Actually have 2 walkers on the table ticking up
Additional PW target for Gifts ungiven
Resilience to Pithing needle
Resilience to Meddling Mage
Resilience to Phyrexian revoker
Resilience to Extripate
1 mana lower on the curve sometimes means earlier walker

[diopter]

I've been goldfishing with this guy a bit and really like him.

The thing I wanted to point out with this guys is that he is not Jace and that is a benefit. I found that I really like 1 copy of this guy and 3 copies of Jace much more than I like 4 copies of Jace. I wanted to say the same thing about Ral Zarek but Ral often times is way to combo focused while Dack fits in the same space as Jace (card filtering and removing some threats.)

Having a Dack instead of the 4th Jace provides many benefits, and these are concerning real actually played cards.
Actually have 2 walkers on the table ticking up
Additional PW target for Gifts ungiven
Resilience to Pithing needle
Resilience to Meddling Mage
Resilience to Phyrexian revoker
Resilience to Extripate
1 mana lower on the curve sometimes means earlier walker

The last one is really the most relevant one. Mulled to 2 lands, Mox, Dack and blank? Bob would be better, but for decks that don't want to play him (e.g. Gush variants) Dack slips past a lot of commonly played counters.

Playing 3/3 split of Dack/Jace quickly makes you want to rail each to 4.

[MaximumCDawg]

Any chance of Jace / Lily / Dack finally making Vintage superfriends a thing?  Jace is good against everything, Dack and Lily can swap based on whether you're playing creature-based decks or not.

[diopter]

Any chance of Jace / Lily / Dack finally making Vintage superfriends a thing?  Jace is good against everything, Dack and Lily can swap based on whether you're playing creature-based decks or not.

Intruguing. Achieving both R and BB seems difficult but not insurmountable. Deathrite Shaman perhaps? Not the greatest synergy with Lilibolic Edict but all but guarantees turn 2 planeswalker.

EDIT: my mistake: forgot that it wasn't an Innocent Blood effect. DRS and Lilly are fine together.

[mmcgeach]

Any chance of Jace / Lily / Dack finally making Vintage superfriends a thing?  Jace is good against everything, Dack and Lily can swap based on whether you're playing creature-based decks or not.

Yeah.  If only there was a whole thread on this somewhere.  http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=46116.0

Deathrite is a little rough if you're relying on him to make mana in a deck w/o wastelands. 

[serracollector]

I just want to go turn one lotus and land into welder and dack chuck anger and wurmcoil drop mox weld in coil and swing. Its not super broken but damn it would be fun.

[Protoaddict]

I think battlesphere may be a better get in that situation.

[Guli]

Let's also not forget that the ancient Tinker into Blightsteel win route is not possible with Dack in play (unless they have the nuts with Time Walk on top of Tinker).

This means that Dack has 3 roles: dig for answers while discarding cards for Welder or cards you don't need simply, an answer to Tinker, mana denial by stealing Moxes and Crucible.



I think Dack is on par with Liliana in the 3cc PW slot, maybe even better. I can see 1 Dack and 1 Liliana work well in a 5C Human deck, they would both be good against Tinker and Workshop and still be a big problem for Control decks as well.

 

[WhiteLotus]

Let's also not forget that the ancient Tinker into Blightsteel win route is not possible with Dack in play (unless they have the nuts with Time Walk on top of Tinker).

This means that Dack has 3 roles: dig for answers while discarding cards for Welder or cards you don't need simply, an answer to Tinker, mana denial by stealing Moxes and Crucible.



I think Dack is on par with Liliana in the 3cc PW slot, maybe even better. I can see 1 Dack and 1 Liliana work well in a 5C Human deck, they would both be good against Tinker and Workshop and still be a big problem for Control decks as well.

 

I agree, some decks may want it for all the purposes you said as a 1of MD or a sideboard card.

I'm curious to see the decks that will play this as a 3/4of though. I guess his main weakness will be when you have an empty or almost empty hand, the +1 effect will pretty much be a blank. This guy would work best in a deck that has some permanent source of card advantage Like Bob, Jace... Though extremely improbable, how cool could this guy be with land tax !

[Eastman]

One other point is I love how his abilities align to make a ridiculously interactive mirror match for slaver. Control slaver already had one of the more interesting mirror matches because it combined the normal control matchup with welder shenanigans. Adding a 3-of that steals artifacts just pushed that to another level.

[fsecco]

I just tested this a few times against MUD. Dack is GAME.

Here's the report I wrote while testing:

I had Land, Snapcaster, Lotus, Emerald, Top, Jace and Dack in hand. I played Dack instead of Jace to test it - and also because it would allow me to play and activate Sensei's Divining Top. The Top revealed Mindslaver, Goblin Welder and Land. (yes, it was a pretty broken start). I left Welder and Mindslaver on top, +1 Dack and dropped Snapcaster and Mindslaver on the graveyard.

The MUD's player hand, with the draw, was: Workshop, T. Academy, Trinisphere, Lodestone Golem, Mana Crypt, Sphere of Resistance, Tangle Wire, Phyrexian Metamorph. Now, with Dack and 4 Loyalty counters on it in play, what the hell do you play? You can't play anything since he will screw you. A great hand of Trinisphere or Golem first turn just was wasted. He played Trinisphere, since stealing that wasn't that awesome.

On Dack's turn I played the land that was on top and Welder, keeping Jace in my hand and passed.

MUD played what it could: Tangle Wire and Tolarian Academy.

Then it came to my theory about stealing Wire. On my turn I tapped everything except Welder, drawing U Sea. Played Sea and stole Wire with Dack. On the opponents turn, he now had to tap everything, including Trinisphere - which he wouldn't have, had I not stolen the Wire. He played a Mox just drawn and Crypt, then Metamorph on Welder. EOT I welded Wire out for Mindslaver. and activated Top with U Sea, seeing Vamp, Tolarian and Misstep - leaving them in this order.

Drew Vamp Tutor. Now I have a LOT of options. Dack +1 and Tinker for Myr Battlesphere; activate Mindslaver; or play Jace and bounce his Metamorph; or play Jace, brainstorm and Dack +1. I choose to activate Slaver.

I play Lodestone, weld Metamorph out with himself, putting Tangle Wire in play, and the use my Welder to put Metamorph back in play, copying Mox Jet.

My turn I play Jace, brainstorm into 2 lands and Misstep, and then Dack discarding a land and Misstep, passing the turn. from there MUD was done. And all that because a 1 turn Dack screws their plan COMPLETELY, since they simply can't kill you, or Dack.

Loved it.

Of course, my first turn was bonkers, but I guess it illustrates something.

[A.-1.]

Your ONE game illustrates a lot.

[diopter]

fsecco: I am guessing you tested a 5 or 10 game set or something. If I might, I would like to see one of your other more "typical" scenarios. Something like the above except your Lotus is a land and his Trinisphere is 2Sphere or Chalice or something.

The reason I say this is that Dack is not so easy to cast as to call the game won against your typical Espresso Stax variant - indeed, I imagine it more as a top-of-the-curve trump that comes in after a Chewer/Bolt/Force battle exhausts the both of you of resources.

Such a game might illustrate the true value of Dack, in the close games.

[Saya]

fescco,your keep was a dumb,but the report still illustrated something important.It consists of two implications;
1.Wire is kinda pseudo-equal.Once it gets stealed,its owner will suffer the inequality of wire.
2.Early Dack is even a victory.

[gkraigher]

Give the shops player a phyrexian revoker to cast, especially with metamorph in hand.  Or you can give the shops player one of my personal favorites--slash panther.  That would beat that hand with ease.  

Or you could simply lose the die roll and get slaughtered.  

But within the confines of your example, the correct play for the workshop player to make is workshop, crypt, tangle wire, sphere on turn 1.  Not trinisphere.  recreate the exact game state and see if your opponent can draw and play out of it.  Feel free to ask for more information on lines of play from the workshop player, as your test opponent is clueless.  On his turn 4, with tangle wire still on 2 counters, he should be able to cast trinisphere there.  If i am envisioning this right, you still won't have been able to cast the goblin welder or the jace by then because you tapped lands to tangle wire and sphere is on the board.  Unless you sacrificed Dack to gain control of the mana crypt.  But then shops player should be able to start stabilizing with lodestone golem, metamorph golem.  

Also, I don't think you can technically EXCHANGE a stolen artifact with an artifact in your graveyard.  So you can only sacrifice your mox and top to Goblin Welder to get slaver back.  And slaver is really only a fog against shops anyway.   (EDIT: They reworded goblin welder to allow you to sac artifacts you control)

So I think the shops player still wins this game, assuming he isn't an idiot and plays trinisphere first.  Anyone else agree or disagree with me on this?

[diopter]

Saya, just wanted to check that what you're concluding is (1) stealing Wire is good, and (2) early Dack can win the game. Apologies, but it wasn't clear from the wording in your post.

[fsecco]

I played a lot of Dack Slaver x MUD matches. Dack was relevant every time it could be cast, and it was always better to cast him than Jace. Of course, in games where MUD won't let you play a single spell, Dack is irrelevant as every other spell in your deck. That said, after a Hurkyl's Recall, Dack is probably always the best play.

I chose this game just because it had a turn 1 Dack AND Jace, with both playable. So I wanted to check out how Dack would fare if played 1st turn (which is MUCH easier to do than Jace). It does well.

Also, the list I used was a copy/paste of a list from 2012. It would probably look very different built considering Dack, which I didn't do at all. I played with 3 Dack, 2 Jace, 3 Welder, 1 Thirst. And I didn't sideboard to test, so Ingot Chewer wasn't even in the deck. This was to test Dack game 1 against MUD and overall as a Thirst for Knowledge substitute.

fescco,your keep was a dumb,but the report still illustrated something important.It consists of two implications;
1.Wire is kinda pseudo-equal.Once it gets stealed,its owner will suffer the inequality of wire.
2.Early Dack is even a victory.

In that specific situation, stealing Wire won me the game. There are probably other situations where doing this is the best choice. But I think it proves my earlier point that stealing Wire is NOT "irrelevant" as stealing Sphere of Resistance. Maybe in that game I could've stolen Trinisphere, tapping it every turn to his Wire. Maybe it would've been better since I could tap the Trinisphere on my turn - but stealing Trinisphere would have allowed him to have 1 untapped permanent next turn, probably Workshop. So I guess stealing Wire was correct.

Give the shops player a phyrexian revoker to cast, especially with metamorph in hand.  Or you can give the shops player one of my personal favorites--slash panther.  That would beat that hand with ease.  

Or you could simply lose the die roll and get slaughtered.  

But within the confines of your example, the correct play for the workshop player to make is workshop, crypt, tangle wire, sphere on turn 1.  Not trinisphere.  recreate the exact game state and see if your opponent can draw and play out of it.  Feel free to ask for more information on lines of play from the workshop player, as your test opponent is clueless.  On his turn 4, with tangle wire still on 2 counters, he should be able to cast trinisphere there.  If i am envisioning this right, you still won't have been able to cast the goblin welder or the jace by then because you tapped lands to tangle wire and sphere is on the board.  Unless you sacrificed Dack to gain control of the mana crypt.  But then shops player should be able to start stabilizing with lodestone golem, metamorph golem.  

Also, I don't think you can technically EXCHANGE a stolen artifact with an artifact in your graveyard.  So you can only sacrifice your mox and top to Goblin Welder to get slaver back.  And slaver is really only a fog against shops anyway.   (EDIT: They reworded goblin welder to allow you to sac artifacts you control)

So I think the shops player still wins this game, assuming he isn't an idiot and plays trinisphere first.  Anyone else agree or disagree with me on this?

He eventually cast Revoker. But that's a given: Revoker just got much more important.

I only kept the hand because I had won the die roll. If he had won, I wouldn't have kept.

I disagree with your MUD first turn play. If you did that, I'd steal your Mana Crypt and play land Welder anyway. Next turn, I'd probably take Tangle Wire or Lodestone if you actually played it.

EDIT: The fact is that Dack makes impossible for MUD to put a clock on the game without Revoker. In this situation, even if you did something that took me out of the game completely, not able to cast spells for a few turns, I'd still not be worried because any beatdown you played would get stolen. Eventually I'd probably play Jace, as I did, to take out Revoker. I think Revoker and Panther could get more important in the following months.

[MaximumCDawg]

I don't think anyone can argue Dack is good against shops, but it fills a very particular role in that matchup.  Like Trygon Predator and Energy Flux, he's a 3-mana bomb that wrecks the face of shops if he resolves.  He's immune to Duplicant and Trike, but dies to Revoker.  All in all, he seems like a fine replacement for Predator.

But he can't be your primary weapon against shops because he does cost 3 and you're not going to reliably get that high.  He needs support in the form of early game Chewers or Grudges or Snuff Out of whatever. 

[Twaun007]

The fact is that Dack makes impossible for MUD to put a clock on the game without Revoker.

I cannot wait to disprove this claim.  

[gkraigher]

I disagree with your MUD first turn play. If you did that, I'd steal your Mana Crypt and play land Welder anyway. Next turn, I'd probably take Tangle Wire or Lodestone if you actually played it.

EDIT: The fact is that Dack makes impossible for MUD to put a clock on the game without Revoker. In this situation, even if you did something that took me out of the game completely, not able to cast spells for a few turns, I'd still not be worried because any beatdown you played would get stolen. Eventually I'd probably play Jace, as I did, to take out Revoker. I think Revoker and Panther could get more important in the following months.

But if you steal the crypt on your turn, it's tapped, and you cannot play the welder.  You would just be locked under the wire with land land crypt mox top (against sphere) in play and have to tap 3 the next turn, or have to sac Dack next turn to gain control of it.  Either way, the mud player is going to stabilize and get to cast golem and metamorph golem.  It really doesn't matter if you control the golem or not, it still has the same sphere effect and prevents you from playing jace.  Regardless, that welder isn't coming into play for a while, and Jace is probably never coming into play.  

The line goes, why not just play Jace on turn 1 with lotus.  It's much better and can actually get your out of that situation easier.  I get it you that wanted to test out dack.  Dack just seems like a mess though, when Jace seems both cleaner and better in the situation.

Cards that MUD can run that are good vs Dack:  Mishra's Factory, Phyrexian Revoker, Slash Panther, Triskelion.  I'd call that a far cry from impossible to beat him, even if he comes down on turn 1 and you plus him.

If Dack ever became a thing, they could always play homeward path.  

[Prospero]

The fact is that Dack makes impossible for MUD to put a clock on the game without Revoker.

I cannot wait to disprove this claim.  

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

The fact is that Dack makes impossible for MUD to put a clock on the game without Revoker.

I cannot wait to disprove this claim.  

Let the games begin ladies and gents regardless where this leads, it will at the very least make the format more interesting and lead to some fun shop vs blue mage matches

[fsecco]

The fact is that Dack makes impossible for MUD to put a clock on the game without Revoker.

I cannot wait to disprove this claim.  

Let the games begin ladies and gents regardless where this leads, it will at the very least make the format more interesting and lead to some fun shop vs blue mage matches

Agreed! And at the very least, MUD will have to adapt against Dack. Revoker, Panther and Lightning Greaves all seem good options to me.

[StanleyAugust]

EDIT: The fact is that Dack makes impossible for MUD to put a clock on the game without Revoker.

Myr Battlesphere seems like a good way to combat Dack.

Oh yeah, and in your made up game, Dack could have been freaking White Knight and you would have won anyway with that starting hand.

[xouman]

Don't forget factories and mutavaults, pithing needle, besides panthers, revokers or even lightning greaves. And if Workshops add red, they have dozens of answers.

[diopter]

Have any of the Shop players actually tested against Dack yet.

Curious about your impressions in games, not as interested in the context-light theorycraft anymore. (I.e. "Dack folds to Revoker" == "Ancient Grudge is game against Espresso")

[fsecco]

My game wasn't crafted at all. The other games I played Dack didn't show up or couldn't be played - just as any other thing I had in hand by that point (remember, I was playing without sideboards). If I knew you guys would be so incredibly pissed off by a test report, I'd simply do other things with my time than waste it here.

And no, White Knight wouldn't have won that game. Get a grip, dude.

[diopter]

fsecco: I wasn't criticizing you. I think it's great that you actually tested, and want some of your critics to test too.