Fynn, the Fangbearer Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on August 27, 2025

Fynn, the Fangbearer | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

So… you’ve been opening a bunch of Kaldheim… or you’ve been buying March of the Machine boosters for the Multiverse Legends bonus sheet… or you bought a Foundations Starter Collection… or maybe you want to run Westley, Dread Pirate Roberts from that Princess Bride Secret Lair in the command zone.

You get it. Fynn, the Fangbearer has been printed and reprinted a bunch since its introduction in 2021. It’s easily accessible, and it’s easy to build around considering how we’re constantly getting new deathtouch creatures.

Deathtouch and poison counters collide in a super fun, budget-friendly Commander deck!

The Deck

Hornet Queen | Illustration by Jonathan Kuo

I started with a Fynn deck I made about a year ago, and I’ve taken the opportunity to upgrade it. It was a nice exercise, showing me how much my deck building (and spending) habits have changed. It’s still somewhat of an average budget deck clocking in at under $200, but that’s mainly due to the mono-color mana base.

The Commander: Fynn, the Fangbearer

Fynn, the Fangbearer is a pretty straightforward mono-green commander. It’s a 2-mana commander, and it’s an uncommon 1/3.

Where things get interesting is that it has deathtouch and cares about your other creatures with deathtouch. Players get 2 poison counters whenever your deathtouch creatures deal combat damage to them, which you can accelerate with proliferate effects and an infinite combo that sweeps your opponents’ blockers.

Ankle Biters

A deathtouch-themed deck needs its cheap creatures. I’d have called this section “Ankle Biters” before the card was printed, but it’s a good mascot for the kinds of creatures I mean.

Ambush Viper and its flash ability is a good fit, too. Deadly Recluse, Fang of Shigeki, Tajuru Blightblade, Moss Viper, Thornweald Archer, and Sedge Scorpion round out the cheap, ankle-biting deathtouchers.

Flesh Burrower and Mirkwood Spider are small creatures that can grant deathtouch to other creatures. There aren’t many creatures in this deck that don’t have deathtouch, but these will shore that up.

Wasteland Viper is a good ankle biter that you can bloodrush to help one of your other creatures survive a combat phase. That’s just one of the many ways you can get a creature into your graveyard for Gnarlwood Dryad.

While not ankle biters themselves, Hornet Queen and Hornet Nest each give you 1/1 flying, deathtouchy Insect tokens.

Other Deathtouchers

Ichorspit Basilisk is slightly bigger than an ankle biter, and its toxic ability means that it gives out 3 poison counters when your commander's on the battlefield.

Saryth, the Viper's Fang and Ohran Frostfang also act as backup deathtouch effects for the few creatures that don’t have it naturally, but they have their other uses. Saryth protects your untapped creatures with hexproof and has an ability that lets you untap a land or creature. The snow snake is one of this deck’s sources of card draw, since you’ll want to cast creatures almost every turn.

Speaking of card draw, Oakhame Adversary has a similar ability, though it only triggers when this elf warrior itself connects. Questing Beast protects your game plan from fog effects, and it also helps you to deal with planeswalkers.

Mono-Green Staples

I’ve packed in some staples of mono-green creature decks, starting with Rhonas's Monument and Sylvan Anthem. Amonkhet’s legendary artifact gives you cost reduction while the Anthem is, well, an anthem, but both of them give you benefits when you cast your creatures and they enter successfully.

Vivien, Champion of the Wilds has a static ability that gives your creatures flash, and its planeswalker abilities are just extra value. Beast Whisperer and Guardian Project each give you cards for playing a deck with a high creature count.

Harmonize is your standard green card draw spell, while Heroic Intervention is a cheap yet effective card that protects your whole board state.

Cultivate, Rampant Growth, and Kodama's Reach serve as your classic ramp package, while Beast Within is your staple green removal spell.

Bow of Nylea is a good utility enchantment artifact with a modal activated ability. The +1/+1 counters are fun to put on your own creatures since you can proliferate them, so that’s the mode I’d expect to use most often.

Toski, Bearer of Secrets is often found in decks that look to attack a lot, and it adds more cards to your hand. I wouldn’t call Bellowing Tanglewurm a staple per se, but it’ll give all your green creatures intimidate.

Removal

While your poison strategy is threatening on its own, you’ll need ways to answer your opponents’ most problematic game pieces.

This deck’s only creature answers to fliers are some spiders, an archer, and some insects, so fight and bite spells are important. Bite Down, Cosmic Hunger, Infectious Bite, Master's Rebuke, Ram Through, and Smell Fear serve in those roles here, but you could run a Horrific Assault if you prefer.

Carnivorous Canopy is another removal spell that’ll help to get fliers, and it can help you to proliferate too. Hunter's Bow acts as another punch spell when this equipment enters the battlefield and you attach it to a creature.

Viridian Longbow and Thornbite Staff each give their equipped creature an ability to tap and ping a creature, which means sudden death when most of your deck is deathtouch creatures.

Poison and Proliferate

It wouldn’t be a poison deck without some proliferation! Or without a Contagion Clasp. And Karn's Bastion is basically Contagion Clasp on a land.

Noxious Assault can leave your opponents in a state of Catch-22 in the right circumstances: They’ll take a poison counter for each creature they block, but they’ll also get two or more poison counters from each creature they let through.

Most of the non-deathtouch creatures in this deck that don’t have deathtouch have toxic or infect, like Bloated Contaminator. It also proliferates when it connects with a player, and Contaminant Grafter scoffs and rolls its eyes at that.

You don’t even need to attack with Phyrexian Swarmlord to get value. Once you’ve got poison counters onto your opponent, this thing just starts pumping out Insect tokens.

Evolution Sage gives you proliferation whenever you play lands. It’s a must-remove creature, and I always see removal bait as a form of protection. Another must-remove creature is Bloodroot Apothecary, which punishes anyone messing around with Food tokens, Clue tokens, or Treasure tokens.

Given the theme of this deck, Venerated Rotpriest is the ultimate rattlesnake, at least when it comes to targeted removal.

Unnatural Restoration and Thirsting Roots give you recursion and extra mana consistency with some proliferation on the side.

Planewide Celebration gives you all kinds of modal value, and my favorite in this deck is using it to proliferate four times. Holding this back means that you only need to get your opponents to 6 poison counters.

Mods

Bow of Nylea is one of the cards that dishes out +1/+1 counters, but you also have Tribute to the World Tree to gain some passively and Treetop Snarespinner as an activated ability. Narnam Renegade can enter with a +1/+1 counter on its own, which in this deck usually means you’ve traded one of your deathtouch creatures during combat.

Gift of the Viper can give a +1/+1 counter as part of its effect, but it also grants reach. You can use it to untap a creature and block with it unexpectedly.

As for auras, Rancor is good because it’s self-recursive. Frantic Strength is nice to have since it has flash, so you can use it to ensure a key creature survives combat, while trample ensures you still connect with your opponent for that all-important poison from Fynn.

The Mana Base

This deck’s land base is fairly simple. Start with a Command Tower, 26 basic Forests, then add a few utility lands that can make a creature unblockable when you really need it: Access Tunnel, Escape Tunnel, and Rogue's Passage. Finish it off with Karn's Bastion for some more proliferation and voilà!

Your other mana sources come from some choice mana rocks in Sol Ring and Emerald Medallion, plus some thematically appropriate mana dorks: Nightshade Dryad and Poison Dart Frog. Tower Winder fetches your Command Tower when it enters, and Wild Growth is here for a lil extra ramp.

The Strategy

This is a mono-green creature deck and a poison deck, which means that you’ll win the game by continually playing creatures and attacking. Especially when you’re facing slower, big creature decks, casting creatures early is important so that you can attack anyone that’s left without blockers, or fewer blockers than the number of attackers you can send their way.

This deck contains an infinite combo, but it doesn’t have any artifact tutors to dig it up. Don’t expect to draw into it or rely on that. Besides, it doesn’t win on its own; it only clears away any potential blockers.

Noxious Assault and Planewide Celebration are probably your most impactful poison and proliferation effects for putting you over the edge when you need it.

That’s pretty much all you need to know: Cast a bunch of creatures, attack early and often, then save some of your cheap proliferation to accelerate to the finish line.

Combos and Interactions

Viridian Longbow and Thornbite Staff pair nicely to sweep away your opponents’ creatures. The Longbow improves on the first ability that the Staff grants to your creatures, reducing the cost to ping a target to just tapping your creature. A deathtouch creature like Fynn, the Fangbearer that’s equipped with both Viridian Longbow and Thornbite Staff can tap to deal 1 damage to a creature, destroying it because of deathtouch. When the creature dies, that untaps your deathtouch creature, allowing you to restart until your opponents are left with no creatures. That then leaves you open to attack with all your remaining creatures. Five creatures per opponent kills them all, if you haven’t already been handing out poison counters.

Rule 0 Conversation

This is a deck that plays poison all day long, which can lead to some groans in some play groups. Same goes for the Thornbite Staff plus Viridian Longbow combo. You can adjust the deck to remove the combo or just not use it if you draw into it, but you can’t change the nature of Fynn being a poison deck. Otherwise, this is a pretty straightforward aggro deck, and it doesn’t punish your opponents for playing the game aside from Bloodroot Apothecary.

Budget Options

You don’t need Thornbite Staff if you don’t care about the infinite combo, so you can replace it with virtually any other equipment. Something like Quick-Draw Katana that grants first strike is a good idea, since that makes it more likely your deathtouchers survive combat.

If Heroic Intervention isn’t in your collection and is out of your budget, I’d slot in virtually any instant. Something protective that grants hexproof or indestructible works, but you could always slide in a fog effect if you want a more political play up your sleeve. “I can save your commander from my deathtouch creature, but what will you do for me…?”

Bloodroot Apothecary may or may not be easy for you to track down since it was only printed in the Peace Offering Bloomburrow Commander precon. Maybe you upgraded that deck and have this squirrel lying around, but if you don’t and your usual sources for singles don’t have it, you could use pretty much any other toxic or deathtouch creature. Axebane Ferox, for example, has haste and deathtouch and shouldn’t break the bank.

You can also tune the budget up by playing with the land base, specifically cards like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Gaea's Cradle, and Boseiju, Who Endures. Sword of Truth and Justice, Glistening Sphere, and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider will accelerate this deck, while Triumph of the Hordes is a thematic Overrun effect. Sylvan Library is Sylvan Library, tutors like Worldly Tutor and Green Sun's Zenith help you to find the right answers at the right moment, and Concordant Crossroads is a very cheap haste enabler.

Other Builds

Since Fynn, the Fangbearer is an uncommon, you can build around it for a Pauper Commander deck. A lot of these cards have already been printed at common, so it’s just about filling in around the edges.

You can also make your own Fynn thought cloud. Start with deathtouch and poison, then on to infect and toxic. Proliferate… and if you proliferate, how about +1/+1 counters? This build has a little of each, but you can adjust the weight of each theme to your own preference. You can also add more fight spells and bite spells as removal.

For an extra deckbuilding challenge, try to make and maintain a “Standard Commander” deck, one that only uses Fynn and other Standard-legal cards!

A similar deck in mono-blue has Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive in the command zone and focuses on power and toughness to make creatures unblockable. You still get to run your favorite infect and toxic creatures and proliferate effects, just in a different color identity.

Commanding Conclusion

Guardian Project | Illustration by Mirko Failoni

This Fynn, the Fangbearer EDH deck may be filled with small creatures, but they pack a big punch! This commander is really good for playing your favorite pet cards from Limited formats with poison and proliferation.

Which creatures do you include in your Fynn, the Fangbearer deck? Do you prefer Aveline de Grandpré for a deathtouch theme? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, stay safe, and remember which way to point the pointy end!

Especially in a poison deck….