Live Play Data

Braids, Arisen Nightmare

· Legendary Creature — Nightmare · Edge of Eternities Commander (EOC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

634

Decks Running

333

Median Cast Turn

6.0

Drawn → Played

70%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

7% of tracked Commander decks run Braids, Arisen Nightmare. When drawn, 70% of copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 6.0.

Braids, Arisen Nightmare sits in 7% of the 4643 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, appearing across 333 distinct lists. That places her firmly in the role of a niche-but-deliberate include: players who put her in a deck tend to build around her end-step sacrifice engine rather than slot her in as a generic value piece.

The cast pattern reflects her design. Median first cast lands on turn 6.0, later than her 3-mana cost would suggest, and only 16% of casts happen on-curve. The hand_to_cast data shows a median of 2 turns between drawing her and casting her, and just 31% of drawn copies are played on the same turn they arrive. Players are deliberately holding her until a sacrifice outlet is ready or the board state justifies the political weight she brings.

Braids is legal in Commander and sees play across sacrifice-synergy commanders that span Jund, mono-black, and Golgari color identities. Her ability to pressure every opponent simultaneously makes her a natural fit in decks that already want to sacrifice their own permanents for value, turning a one-sided cost into a multiplayer drain engine.

At a glance

7% of tracked Commander decks include Braids, Arisen Nightmare
23% draw rate across games where she's in the deck
70% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T6.0 median first-cast turn, later than her 3-mana cost implies
31% of drawn copies cast the same turn they were drawn
43% battlefield stickiness once she resolves

First-cast turn

n=104

13%

14%

13%

51%

T6-9

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 4 · P75 8 · max 14

On curve 16% (13 / 104 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 31%

The "good card" funnel

639 brought · 287 players

Brought to game

639

Ever drawn

148

Reached battlefield

104

Still on board at game end

70%

Of 639 copies brought to games, 148 were drawn, 104 were cast, and fewer than half of those stayed on the battlefield through the end of the game, pointing to the pressure opponents apply to remove her quickly.

≥ -3.9pp

Players who cast this card win 33% of the time (n=100) , vs 28% when it never left the library (n=432).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 21% (n=39) — 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 +5.4pp; 95% confidence interval -3.9pp to +14.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

175 instances

1.1%

Library

27.4%

Battlefield

42.3%

Graveyard

6.9%

Exile

Braids ends up in the graveyard most often among observed instances, reflecting her vulnerability as a creature in a removal-heavy format. Her battlefield presence is real but contested, which is consistent with a 43% stickiness rate.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Hearthhull, the Worldseed 42 decks
2 Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls 21 decks
3 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 14 decks
4 Terra, Herald of Hope 12 decks
5 Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor 8 decks
6 Sméagol, Helpful Guide 7 decks
7 Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern 7 decks
8 Ygra, Eater of All 7 decks
9 Meren of Clan Nel Toth 6 decks
10 Teysa Karlov 6 decks

The commander spread is wide across 287 unique players, with Hearthhull, the Worldseed leading at 40 decks. No single commander dominates, signaling that Braids fits several distinct sacrifice-synergy archetypes rather than one narrow home.

Frequently Asked

How often is Braids, Arisen Nightmare drawn in a Commander game?

Across 616 tracked games where Braids was in the deck, she was drawn 23% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 148 instances that reached a player's hand, 70% were eventually cast before the game ended. The remainder went uncast, most often because the game concluded before the player found an opening to deploy her safely.

What turn does Braids typically hit the battlefield?

Median first cast is turn 6.0, well behind her 3-mana cost. Only 16% of casts land on-curve. The hand-to-cast data reinforces this: the median player holds her for 2 turns after drawing her, and only 31% of drawn copies are played the same turn they arrive. This is an early signal that players are deliberately waiting for sacrifice fodder or a favorable board state before committing her to the battlefield.

Does casting Braids actually improve your win rate?

In the multiplayer dataset, the win rate in participations where Braids was cast is 33%, compared to 28% in participations where she stayed in the library. That is a +5.4 percentage-point gap. Both sample sizes are reasonable, but the confidence interval around this delta is wide enough that we treat it as a directional signal rather than a conclusive finding. Casting Braids looks positive, but the dataset is not yet large enough to separate her contribution from deck-quality effects.

Is Braids, Arisen Nightmare banned anywhere relevant?

Braids, Arisen Nightmare is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and Timeless. She is not legal in Pauper or Pauper Commander due to rarity restrictions, and she is not legal in Standard or PreDH. She should not be confused with the original Braids, Cabal Minion, which is banned in Commander. Arisen Nightmare is the redesigned version and carries no ban.

Which commanders most often run Braids, Arisen Nightmare?

Hearthhull, the Worldseed leads the tracked data with 40 decks, followed by Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls at 21 and Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER at 13. The spread across 287 unique players with a low single-player concentration suggests the data reflects genuine metagame diversity rather than one pilot skewing the numbers.

Why do players hold Braids in hand rather than casting her immediately?

Braids's end-step trigger asks you to sacrifice a permanent first. Deploying her without a ready sacrifice outlet or surplus permanents gives opponents the option to simply not sacrifice anything, netting you little beyond a 3/3 body and 2 life drained per opponent per turn. Experienced pilots wait until they can feed her trigger consistently, which explains why the median hand-to-cast delay is 2 turns and why on-curve casts are relatively rare at 16%.