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Defend the Rider

· Instant · Aetherdrift (DFT)

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Times Brought

277

Decks Running

135

In Decks

—

Decklist Inclusion

—

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Showing 1v1 (duel) data only. 1v1 is a different format from multiplayer Commander, so these numbers are not comparable.

Card text

Defend the Rider

Instant

Choose one — • Target permanent you control gains hexproof and indestructible until end of turn. • Create a 1/1 colorless Pilot creature token with "This token saddles Mounts and crews Vehicles as though its power were 2 greater."

Aetherdrift (DFT) · Uncommon · Illustrated by Raph Lomotan

Final zone distribution

59 instances

3.4%

Library

5.1%

Battlefield

45.8%

Graveyard

1.7%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Bello, Bard of the Brambles 11 decks
2 Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk 9 decks
3 Pako, Arcane Retriever 9 decks
4 Halana and Alena, Partners 4 decks
5 Toph, the First Metalbender 4 decks
6 Eshki, Temur's Roar 3 decks
7 Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid 3 decks
8 Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers 3 decks
9 The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride 3 decks
10 Tifa Lockhart 3 decks

The "good card" funnel

277 brought · 124 players

Brought to game

277

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

≥ -9.4pp

Players who cast this card win 30% of the time (n=22) , vs 28% when it never left the library (n=157).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 29% (n=21).

Read this as correlation, not as the card's contribution. Casting a card means you lived long enough to cast it, so this gap widens with mana value across every card we track.

Observed gap +1.8pp; 95% confidence interval -9.4pp to +13.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=28

21%

50%

T6-9

11%

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 14

On curve 0% (0 / 28 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 7%

Frequently Asked

Why isn't there more data on this card?

Playgroup Live collects per-card gameplay data from real Commander games. Play counts appear once a card reaches 100 tracked games, and the full charts need a sample of at least 25 observed games that is not dominated by a single pilot. Until this card clears those bars you're seeing only the basic counts. Stats refresh nightly.

How is Playgroup Live card data collected?

Players using Playgroup Live import their decklists before a game and log card actions as they play. Each cast, zone change, and resolution is recorded as a real game event. Stats on this site are computed from those events, not from decklist scrapes or theorycrafting. Playgroup has recorded 700,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.