Faithless Looting
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Sorcery
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Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)
Faithless Looting lands in 9% of tracked Commander decks, but when it reaches a player's hand, 66% of those copies get cast — with a median first-cast turn of 5, often fueling graveyard engines well into the midgame.
Faithless Looting sits in 9% of the 1,696 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, appearing across 151 decks and 219 game participations. That's a niche card by inclusion standards, which makes sense: red looting effects are most valuable in graveyard-synergy and reanimator shells, not in every red deck.
Draw-to-play rate is 65.5%. The card doesn't get slammed on the spot the way a Sol Ring does — median hand-to-cast delay is 1 turn, and only 45% of drawn copies are cast the same turn they're drawn. Players are holding it for the right moment: a discard outlet setup, a reanimation target in hand, or a flashback opportunity later. The flashback clause also warps the final-zone picture: 13 of the 219 tracked instances end in exile, meaning flashback was meaningfully exercised in a real share of games.
The win-rate delta between cast (+37.5%) and library (+36.2%) participations is just +1.3 percentage points, which is directional but not conclusive given sample sizes. What we see so far is that Faithless Looting contributes most as an enabler rather than a win condition on its own, with its value captured elsewhere in the deck's engine.
- 9% inclusion rate across 1,696 tracked Commander decks
- 66% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
- T5 median first-cast turn, later than most 1-mana spells
- 45% cast the same turn they were drawn — players often hold it
- 13 instances ended in exile, reflecting real flashback usage
- +1.3pp win-rate lift when cast vs. sitting in library (directional)
First-cast turn
n=55The "good card" funnel
301 broughtOf 219 instances brought to games, 58 were drawn and 40 were cast — a 65.5% draw-to-play conversion — but the card's 0.05 battlefield stickiness confirms it's a cantrip-style effect that passes through rather than sticks.
Players who cast this card win 36% of the time (n=55) , vs 36% when it never left the library (n=202).
Final zone distribution
301 instances149 of 219 Faithless Lootings never leave the library — the standard fate for a singleton in a 100-card deck — but the 13 exile finishes confirm flashback is being exercised in the field, not just printed on the card.
Top commanders running this card
by deck count-
1
Quintorius, History Chaser
38 decks
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2
Admiral Brass, Unsinkable
13 decks
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3
Sauron, the Dark Lord
13 decks
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4
Sauron, Lord of the Rings
10 decks
-
5
Hazezon, Shaper of Sand
8 decks
-
6
Lorehold, the Historian
8 decks
-
7
Vivi Ornitier
7 decks
-
8
Captain Howler, Sea Scourge
6 decks
-
9
Kaalia of the Vast
6 decks
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10
Magar of the Magic Strings
6 decks
Quintorius, History Chaser leads with 29 decks, more than three times the next cluster, signaling a concentrated graveyard-synergy use case rather than broad spread across the red meta.
How often is Faithless Looting drawn in a Commander game? ▾
Across 199 tracked games where it appeared in a deck, it was drawn in 26.5% of deck-participations — 58 drawn instances out of 219 total. That draw rate is slightly above the flat-singleton baseline for a 100-card deck, likely because several of its host decks run card-draw and filtering effects that increase hand churn.
What does the cast-turn distribution tell us about how Faithless Looting is used? ▾
The median first-cast turn is 5, with 25th percentile at turn 2 and 75th at turn 6. The distribution is spread fairly evenly from turns 1 through 7, which suggests it's cast opportunistically rather than on a fixed game plan. A turn-1 or turn-2 cast usually means an opening-hand keep targeting a specific graveyard payoff, while later casts are mid-game refilters.
Is the 1-turn hand-to-cast delay meaningful? ▾
The median delay is 1 turn, and the average is 1.39 turns. Only 45% of drawn copies are cast the same turn they arrive, which is low for a 1-mana spell. This is an early signal that players actively hold Faithless Looting, probably waiting for a discard target to appear or for a payoff to already be on the battlefield. The max delay of 6 turns suggests a small number of copies are held as late-game insurance.
Does casting Faithless Looting actually improve your win rate? ▾
Win rate in participations where it was cast is 37.5% (15 wins in 40 instances). Win rate where it stayed in the library is 36.2% (54 wins in 149 instances). The delta of +1.3 percentage points is directional but too small and the cast-bucket too lean at n=40 to call it conclusive. Both numbers sit above the baseline 25% win rate for a 4-player pod, which likely reflects deck-quality selection rather than card impact alone.
Where does Faithless Looting end up at game end? ▾
Of 219 tracked instances, 149 finish in the library (never drawn), 47 in the graveyard, 13 in exile, 8 in hand, and only 2 on the battlefield. The exile count is notable for a sorcery: it confirms that flashback is being used in a meaningful share of games, not just drafted as a theoretical safety valve.
Is Faithless Looting legal in Commander, and is it banned anywhere? ▾
Faithless Looting is legal in Commander with no restrictions. It is also legal in Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Pauper, Historic, and Timeless. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Alchemy, or Premodern. It was banned in Modern from 2019 to 2022 due to its role enabling Dredge and Hogaak shells, but was unbanned in 2022 when the format's power level context shifted.