Bedevil
Bedevil sits in 13% of tracked Commander decks in its color identity, resolves on a median turn 7, and reaches the battlefield in 66% of games where it's drawn.
Bedevil is one of Rakdos's cleanest answers: one card that covers artifacts, creatures, and planeswalkers for {B}{B}{R}. Across 706 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, it appears in 424 of 3246 distinct decks, a 13% inclusion rate that reflects a real but selective adoption pattern rather than blanket staple status.
When drawn, 66% of copies are cast before the game ends. The median first cast lands on turn 7, consistent with a reactive spell that players hold until a meaningful threat appears. The hand-to-cast median is 2 turns, meaning most players sit on it briefly before finding the right target. Only 4% of casts land on turn 3 (its mana value), which is expected for a situational removal spell in a format where the early turns rarely feature a target worth spending three mana on immediately.
The data comes from 375 distinct players, with no single contributor responsible for more than a small fraction of observations. That spread gives the directional signals here reasonable grounding, even as the dataset continues to grow.
- 13% of tracked Commander decks in Rakdos colors include Bedevil
- T7 median first-cast turn, typical for held interaction
- 66% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
- 23% draw rate per game, in line with a singleton in a 100-card deck
- 375 distinct players have brought Bedevil to a tracked game
- 25% win rate in games where Bedevil resolved, vs. 21% when it stayed in the library
First-cast turn
n=115The "good card" funnel
742 brought · 375 playersOf 742 Bedevils brought to games, 174 were drawn, 115 of those were cast, and nearly all resolved copies went to the graveyard as the spell did its job.
Players who cast this card win 25% of the time (n=104) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=460).
When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 30% (n=54) — 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 +4.0pp; 95% confidence interval -4.3pp to +12.3pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.
Final zone distribution
206 instancesThe vast majority of Bedevil copies end in the graveyard after resolving, as expected for an instant that destroys a permanent. The small sliver remaining in hand represents copies drawn late or held when no target materialized before the game ended.
Commanders that played this card
in tracked games-
1
Doctor Doom, King of Latveria
93 decks
-
2
Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls
52 decks
-
3
Terra, Herald of Hope
30 decks
-
4
The Lord of Pain
11 decks
-
5
Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied
10 decks
-
6
Nekusar, the Mindrazer
10 decks
-
7
Loki, the Deceiver
8 decks
-
8
Prosper, Tome-Bound
8 decks
-
9
Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor
6 decks
-
10
Obeka, Splitter of Seconds
6 decks
Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads by a substantial margin at 86 decks, but the list fans out quickly across a diverse set of Rakdos, Grixis, and Mardu commanders, indicating broad format adoption rather than a single-commander dependency.