Live Play Data

Defiler of Instinct

· Creature — Phyrexian Kavu · Dominaria United (DMU)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

181

Decks Running

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

47%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

First-cast turn

n=21

24%

10%

33%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 11

On curve 52% (5 / 21 cast on T4)

The "good card" funnel

183 brought · 91 players

Brought to game

183

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

Once cast, 57% of this card is still on the battlefield at game end. This reflects how often it survives removal, not just whether it's a permanent.

≥ +1.2pp

Players who cast this card win 46% of the time (n=19) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=121).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 21% (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 +25.3pp; 95% confidence interval +1.2pp to +49.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

50 instances

24.0%

Battlefield

28.0%

Graveyard

12.0%

Exile

36.0%

Hand

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Clive, Ifrit's Dominant // Ifrit, Warden of Inferno 23 decks
2 Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph 7 decks
3 Tannuk, Steadfast Second 7 decks
4 Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence 4 decks
5 Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might // Temple of Power 4 decks
6 Rowan, Scion of War 4 decks
7 Krenko, Mob Boss 3 decks
8 Balin, Loremaster 2 decks
9 Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh // Chandra, Roaring Flame 2 decks
10 Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest 2 decks

Card text

Defiler of Instinct

Creature — Phyrexian Kavu

First strike As an additional cost to cast red permanent spells, you may pay 2 life. Those spells cost {R}

less to cast if you paid life this way. This effect reduces only the amount of red mana you pay. Whenever you cast a red permanent spell, this creature deals 1 damage to any target.

4 / 4

Dominaria United (DMU) · Rare · Illustrated by Steven Belledin

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 690,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.