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Fact or Fiction card art
Live Play Data

Fact or Fiction

{3} {U} · Instant · Commander Masters (CMM)
4%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
701
Decks Running
389
Median Cast Turn
7
Drawn → Played
56%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

33% win rate when cast versus 19% when it stays in the library. Across 682 tracked games, Fact or Fiction shows a +13.2 percentage-point lift that marks it as one of blue's sturdiest card-selection instants.

Fact or Fiction sits in 4% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live. Spell it out: decks that resolve it win at 33%, compared to 19% for decks where it never left the library. That +13.2-point gap is a consistent early signal across a dataset of 682 multiplayer games.

The mechanics behind the number make sense. Revealing five cards and banking the stronger pile is pure resource conversion. Opponents face a genuine dilemma on the split, and the caster profits regardless of the choice. Median first cast lands on turn 7, well into the midgame when four mana is freely available and the card selection has maximum impact.

Blue commanders dominate the top-slots table, and the spread across 342 distinct players keeps the data from being skewed by a single enthusiast. No single player accounts for more than 4% of tracked instances, which is a meaningful sign that what we see here reflects the broader community's experience rather than one prolific grinder.

At a glance
  • 4% of tracked Commander decks include Fact or Fiction
  • 56% of drawn copies were cast before the game ended
  • T7 median first-cast turn
  • +13.2pp win-rate lift when cast versus when it stays buried
  • 342 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=107
0%
T1
1%
T2
2%
T3
16%
T4
14%
T5
53%
T6-9
14%
T10+
Median 7 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 14
On curve 19% (17 / 107 cast on T4) Cast same turn as drawn 31%

The "good card" funnel

701 brought · 342 players
Brought to game
701
Ever drawn
190
Reached battlefield
107
Still on board at game end
3
56%

Of 701 copies brought to games, 190 were drawn, 107 of those were cast, and nearly all resolved copies ended in the graveyard as the spell resolved and the pile was discarded.

≥ +4.3pp

Players who cast this card win 33% of the time (n=100) , vs 19% when it never left the library (n=418).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 26% (n=72) — 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 +13.2pp; 95% confidence interval +4.3pp to +22.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

225 instances
8.0%
Library
1.3%
Battlefield
55.1%
Graveyard
9.8%
Exile

The graveyard is the dominant final zone for Fact or Fiction, exactly as the card promises: one pile goes to hand, the other to the bin. Most copies that stay in the library simply never got drawn in the observed games.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Blue-heavy commanders dominate the top slots, with Sauron, Lord of the Rings far ahead of the field at 41 decks. The breadth of the list from Grixis to Simic to five-color reflects how broadly blue splashes into controlling strategies.

Card text
Fact or Fiction card

Fact or Fiction

{3} {U}
Instant
Reveal the top five cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard.
Commander Masters (CMM) · Uncommon · Illustrated by Anna Christenson

Frequently Asked

How often is Fact or Fiction drawn in a Commander game?
In 682 tracked games where Fact or Fiction was in the deck, it was drawn 27% of the time. That is typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 190 instances that reached a hand, 56% were cast before the game ended. The remainder reflects games that ended before a player found a good window, not a deliberate choice to hold the card.
What turn does Fact or Fiction usually get cast?
Median first-cast turn is 7, with the bulk of casts clustered between turns 4 and 8. The on-curve rate of 19% is low, but that mostly reflects the card showing up in the mid-to-late draw steps rather than players choosing to hold it. The hand-to-cast median of 2 turns confirms players do sit on it briefly before finding the right moment to fire it off.
Does casting Fact or Fiction actually improve your chances of winning?
The data shows a directional yes. Decks that resolved Fact or Fiction won at 33%, while decks where it stayed in the library won at 19%, a +13.2-point difference across 100 cast observations and 418 library observations. Both sample sizes are meaningful, though Playgroup Live's dataset is still growing, so treat this as a strong directional signal rather than a definitive proof.
Is Fact or Fiction legal in Commander?
Yes. Fact or Fiction is legal and unrestricted in Commander, as well as in Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Duel Commander, Oathbreaker, and Premodern. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Alchemy, Pauper, or Timeless. Its four-mana cost has historically kept it off ban lists in formats where it is legal.
Which commanders run Fact or Fiction most often?
Sauron, Lord of the Rings leads the tracked dataset by a wide margin at 41 decks, followed by Sauron, the Dark Lord and Captain N'ghathrod. The common thread is blue access and a controlling or value-oriented game plan. The card shows up across Grixis, Dimir, Simic, and even five-color builds, making it one of the format's more commander-agnostic blue spells.
How concentrated is the data around specific players?
The dataset is well-spread. 342 distinct players have brought Fact or Fiction to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 4% of all instances. That kind of distribution is a positive sign: the patterns here reflect a broad cross-section of the community rather than one player's repeated results.