This guy's Ultimate is CRAZY... if you can get
there. Three mana is a pretty cheap price tag,
so you can at least start building up pretty
quickly. And Dack's +1 is a solid sifter that
will help you find what you need, and maybe even
enable some graveyard shenanigans. His -2
ability is situational but very strong in that
situation. Artifacts tend to be either support
cards like mana rocks, or crucial combo pieces.
As long as Dack is on the board, most opponents
won't even cast any important artifacts... and
that's good for you.
And the Ultimate? Suddenly every targeted spell
you cast is a Mind Control! That's ferociously
powerful... IF you have lots of spells that
target your opponent's permanents WITHOUT
destroying them or otherwise removing them from
play. What do Red and Blue have that do that?
Guildpact had the Izzet's Replicate cards, which
are happily on-color but a bit out of print at
this point. Usually when Red targets something,
it's for the express purpose of destroying it.
Blue can tap permanents or give creatures a
temporary -X/-0, but the cards that do that are
usually underpowered without Dack's emblem
backing them up. A deck full of tap-down spells
and shrink effects that stalls until it can get
Dack online would be interesting, but very
annoying.
I rather like Conspiracy. Sure, it draws heavily
on drafting and multiplayer, two things I don't
really like that much, but how often are we
going to get an expansion that looks like
Assassin's Creed II crossed with the
criminally-underused-in-general clockwork
aesthetic? Dack Fayden is, I suppose, our Ezio
equivalent, although it remains to be seen
whether he has the same staying power as the
Renaissance's greatest assassin. He is pretty
good in Vintage, though. Vindicate was
historically underplayed in that format, and
players can struggle against a permanent that's
not an artifact or enchantment, but acts like
one and gets better the more expensive their
deck is. Anywhere else, he's either a metagame
call (if the rest of your playgroup is all
Mirrodin/Scars of Mirrodin/Stoneforge Mystic
decks) or a way to pull off a once-in-a-lifetime
combo that starts with Sea King's Blessing and
ends with 50 permanents on your side of the
table. He's still pretty good at either of those
jobs.
Today's card of the day is Dack Fayden which is
a three mana Blue and Red planeswalker with
three loyalty. The +1 has target player
draw two cards and discard two cards which is an
okay effect and helps filter through the deck a
bit to fix your hand which is useful in
Commander.
The -2 of gain control of target artifact is
very situational, but potentially a huge
advantage and shouldn't be dismissed. The
-6 of an emblem which adds Control Magic to any
targeted spell, even multiple targets, is the
real standout of the card and in the right build
can be very impressive. Overall Dack's
design is to steal anything that isn't nailed
down and it can be both effective and
entertaining which should have him stay a
popular addition to Casual or Commander decks
with Izzet colors, though he excels when
designed around to maximize targeting
efficiency.
In a Limited format with this it is solid for
the same reasons it works well in Commander, by
filtering through the deck to get to needed
cards while building up to the emblem for
controlling threats. An easy first pick in
Booster and well worth forcing into Sealed by
splashing Blue or Red depending on the pool.
I just recently acquired my first Dack Fayden in
a Conspiracy draft a couple weeks ago. He didn't
fit my colors, but when I opened him third pack
I wasn't about to pass him! I just this week
inserted him into a new Commander deck, so I
haven't had much time to use him, but in theory
he seems pretty strong.
Faithless Looting has been a very popular card
since it was introduced, and getting to do that
every turn is quite a big deal. Whether you're
trying to fill your graveyard, digging for a
combo piece, or just want more choices, there
are few times when this isn't useful.
Gaining control of an artifact sometimes will be
useless, and sometimes will be a game changing
play. Given that the only constructed formats
he's legal in are Legacy, Vintage, and
Commander, that leaves for some pretty powerful
artifacts to steal.
The emblem is a bit unusual. In theory, you
could play a bunch of cheap spells and gain
control of several permanents, but I'm not sure
how often it will happen. I don't see him
lasting long enough in a legacy or vintage game
to build up to ultimate, and most spells I play
in my commander decks are powerful enough to
either destroy or gain control of a card on its
own.
As usual for Planeswalkers, he's just insane in
a limited game. Getting to cycle through that
many cards gives you a huge advantage, making
the +1 worth it all on its own. Getting to steal
an artifact or using the emblem are just gravy.
In multiplayer, planeswalkers don't usually last
too long since everyone on the table wants to
destroy one as soon as they see it, so it will
often be a three mana "steal target artifact and
make opponent use a removal spell" spell, but
that's not all bad either.
