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Professor Dellian Fel

Legendary Planeswalker — Dellian

+2: You gain 3 life.
0: You draw a card and lose 1 life.
−3: Destroy target creature.
−6: You get an emblem with "Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life."

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{B}{G}
Color identity
BG
Rarity
mythic
Set
Secrets of Strixhaven
Price
$14.70
EDHREC rank
#11809
Buy on TCGplayer
Professor Dellian Fel card art
Professor Dellian Fel turns life-gain into a repeatable drain engine — every point you gain costs your opponents a point, and slapping Exquisite Blood on top closes games on the spot. The cost is real: you need a critical mass of life-gain triggers to make the symmetry punishing, and Blech, Loafing Pest is currently the shell that does that best.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Blech, Loafing Pest

Blech, Loafing Pest

44.3% of decks · synergy 0.36

Blech, Loafing Pest generates constant life-gain triggers from its own ability, and Professor Dellian Fel converts every one of those triggers into damage dealt to every opponent simultaneously — the two cards are functionally a self-contained drain loop.

02
Carth the Lion

Carth the Lion

38.1% of decks · synergy 0.30

Carth the Lion tutors and recurs planeswalkers, and several of those planeswalkers generate life-gain on activation; Professor Dellian Fel taxes opponents for every loyalty tick that pads your total.

03
Dina, Essence Brewer

Dina, Essence Brewer

24.9% of decks · synergy 0.16

Dina, Essence Brewer already pings opponents whenever you gain life, and Professor Dellian Fel stacks a second drain trigger on each life-gain event, effectively doubling the pressure without adding any new pieces.

04
Dina, Soul Steeper

Dina, Soul Steeper

21.0% of decks · synergy 0.13

Dina, Soul Steeper's passive drain-on-life-gain lines up identically with Professor Dellian Fel's clause, so every healing event simultaneously fires both cards and accelerates the race to lethal.

05
Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant

Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant

17.0% of decks · synergy 0.13

Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant spikes your life total in large bursts, and Professor Dellian Fel converts each of those one-time windfalls into a proportional chunk of damage spread across the table.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Professor Dellian Fel belongs — the multiplayer drain is worth far more when three opponents are all losing life simultaneously. In 60-card formats like Modern and Pioneer, the effect is fine but narrow: dedicated life-gain shells exist, but taxing a single opponent for one life at a time is too slow to matter when the format can kill by turn four. Legacy and Vintage offer the same lukewarm verdict; the card doesn't break anything and isn't hunting for a home there. Standard is the outlier worth watching, since Fel costs enough for rotation to matter and the current card pool has real life-gain density. Oathbreaker mirrors Commander's assessment — excellent in the format, especially as a signature spell target for a life-gain planeswalker.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Epicure of Blood hits the same drain-on-life-gain axis for under a dollar and is a legal target in nearly every format Professor Dellian Fel sees play, though it trades the all-opponents clause for a single-opponent drain and loses flying as a body. Marauding Blight-Priest is another near-identical replacement in the same price range; you give up a mana of efficiency but keep the full-table reach in multiplayer.

Price Context

Current price

$14.70 mid tier

At $14.70, Professor Dellian Fel sits in mid-tier pricing — reasonable for a build-around with combo applications, though you're paying a premium for freshness rather than proven staple status. If the Blech, Loafing Pest archetype sustains its current adoption rate, that price holds; if the archetype cools, cheaper copies follow.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.