Live Play Data

Aetherize

· Instant · Foundations (FDN)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1514

Decks Running

747

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

48%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Aetherize sits in 8% of tracked Commander decks and, when drawn, reaches the stack 48% of the time. Median first cast lands on turn 8, deep in the mid-game where combat swings matter most.

Aetherize appears in 747 of the 9424 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, an 8% inclusion rate that reflects its niche role as a defensive blue instant. It is not a staple in every blue deck, but the players who pack it tend to play in creature-heavy metas where a four-mana "reset the attack" is worth a card slot.

The draw-to-play rate of 48% is lower than most efficient interaction, which is consistent with how the card is held: players sit on Aetherize waiting for the right combat, and some games end before that moment arrives. Median first cast is turn 8, with the bulk of casts clustered between turns 7 and 10. That late timing is directional evidence that players treat it as a reactive tool rather than an early tempo play.

The data spans 622 unique players, and no single contributor accounts for more than 26% of tracked instances, suggesting a reasonably broad sample. Treat all win-rate figures here as early-signal rather than conclusive, given the dataset size.

At a glance

8% of tracked Commander decks include Aetherize
26% draw rate across deck participations
48% of drawn copies reach the stack before the game ends
T8 median first-cast turn, squarely in the mid-game
622 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=193

65%

T6-9

28%

T10+

Median 8 P25 7 · P75 10 · max 17

On curve 3% (4 / 193 cast on T4) Cast same turn as drawn 18%

The "good card" funnel

1516 brought · 622 players

Brought to game

1516

Ever drawn

398

Reached battlefield

193

Still on board at game end

48%

Of 1516 Aetherize copies brought to games, 398 were drawn and 193 of those were cast, with most resolved copies finishing in the graveyard as expected for an instant.

≥ -5.6pp

Players who cast this card win 24% of the time (n=177) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=917).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 30% (n=182) — about the same as leaving it in the library. Those players survived long enough to draw it, so the gap above is about the card resolving, not just about surviving.

Observed gap +0.8pp; 95% confidence interval -5.6pp to +7.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

446 instances

4.3%

Library

5.4%

Battlefield

44.2%

Graveyard

7.0%

Exile

Aetherize is an instant that resolves to the graveyard, so the dominant final zone is the graveyard for cast copies and hand for instances held through end of game. The small battlefield count reflects a handful of copies that were somehow exiled or otherwise redirected.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list is spread across a variety of blue-inclusive strategies, from merfolk token swarms to aristocrat piles, with no single commander holding an overwhelming share of Aetherize decks.

Card text

Aetherize

Instant

Return all attacking creatures to their owner's hand.

Foundations (FDN) · Uncommon · Illustrated by Alexandre Honoré

Frequently Asked

How often is Aetherize drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1423 tracked games where Aetherize was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. Of those 398 drawn copies, 48% were cast before the game concluded. The remainder were either held in hand waiting for a combat that never came, or the game ended first.

What turn does Aetherize typically get cast?

Median first-cast turn is 8, with the interquartile range running from turn 7 to turn 10. Almost no copies are cast on curve at turn 4. That pattern is consistent with players holding the card as a reactive threat rather than casting it at the first opportunity.

Does casting Aetherize correlate with winning?

Win rate in participations where Aetherize was cast is 24%, versus 23% when it stayed in the library. The cast-vs-library delta is small and the confidence interval crosses zero, so this is a directional signal at best. With 177 cast observations and 917 library observations, we cannot draw a firm conclusion about whether resolving Aetherize meaningfully improves your win chances.

Is Aetherize legal in Commander?

Yes. Aetherize is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Historic, Alchemy, Timeless, Brawl, Standard Brawl, and several other formats. It is not legal in Pauper (uncommon), Premodern, Old School, or Pauper Commander.

Which commanders most commonly run Aetherize?

Hakbal of the Surging Soul leads the list with the most tracked decks including Aetherize, followed by Zinnia, Valley's Voice and The Swarmlord. The top commanders span multiple color identities, all containing blue. That spread suggests Aetherize is not locked to a single archetype but is picked up wherever blue decks expect sustained creature pressure from opponents.

How concentrated is the Aetherize data across players?

622 distinct players have brought Aetherize to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 26% of all instances. That spread is a relative strength of this dataset. The numbers are not dominated by one or two players running the card repeatedly, which makes the draw and cast figures more representative of the broader player base.