Live Play Data

Feed the Swarm

· Sorcery · Avatar: The Last Airbender Eternal (TLE)

16%

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1195

Decks Running

681

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

58%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

16% of tracked Commander decks in black run Feed the Swarm, making it one of the format's primary answers to enchantments. When drawn, 58% of copies reach resolution, with a median first-cast turn of 6.

Feed the Swarm fills a gap that black has historically lacked: reliable enchantment removal. 16% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live include it, spread across 681 of the 4221 distinct decks that have played a tracked game. That breadth is the real headline, not depth in any single archetype.

As a sorcery, it resolves to the graveyard every time. 58% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends. The median first cast lands on turn 6, consistent with mid-game interaction timing rather than early disruption. Players hold it an average of roughly three turns before casting, which reflects the reality of waiting for the right target.

Black decks in Commander have always struggled to answer resolved enchantments. Feed the Swarm is one of the cleanest common-rarity solutions available at 2 mana, which explains its spread across wildly different commander archetypes: aggressive Rakdos shells, Dimir value engines, and mono-black tempo decks all lean on it.

At a glance

16% of tracked Commander decks include Feed the Swarm
24% draw rate across tracked games
58% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T6 median first-cast turn
519 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, showing broad adoption
165 total casts logged across tracked games

First-cast turn

n=165

19%

55%

T6-9

12%

T10+

Median 6 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 13

On curve 2% (2 / 165 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 20%

The "good card" funnel

1204 brought · 519 players

Brought to game

1204

Ever drawn

285

Reached battlefield

165

Still on board at game end

58%

Of 1204 copies brought to tracked games, 285 were drawn, and 165 of those were cast, a draw-to-play rate of 58% that reflects steady but not immediate execution.

≥ -7.0pp

Players who cast this card win 22% of the time (n=162) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=808).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 28% (n=112) — 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 -0.6pp; 95% confidence interval -7.0pp to +5.8pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

337 instances

2.1%

Library

2.1%

Battlefield

59.9%

Graveyard

11.6%

Exile

The overwhelming majority of Feed the Swarm instances end in the graveyard, exactly as expected for a sorcery that resolves on cast. The small library remainder reflects decks that never found a target worth spending the card on.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls 33 decks
2 Sauron, the Dark Lord 22 decks
3 Sauron, Lord of the Rings 17 decks
4 Felothar the Steadfast 16 decks
5 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 14 decks
6 Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver 13 decks
7 Admiral Brass, Unsinkable 11 decks
8 Captain N'ghathrod 11 decks
9 Kardur, Doomscourge 11 decks
10 Davros, Dalek Creator 10 decks

No single commander dominates: the top entry holds 21 decks, and the list fans out across Rakdos, Dimir, Grixis, and Abzan strategies, showing Feed the Swarm earns its slot wherever black needs enchantment answers.

Frequently Asked

How often is Feed the Swarm drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1076 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Feed the Swarm was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is consistent with singleton odds in a 100-card deck. Of 285 instances that reached a hand, 58% were cast before the game concluded. The remainder largely reflects games ending before the card found a worthwhile target or before the player's turn came around again.

What turn does Feed the Swarm usually get cast?

Median first cast is turn 6 in multiplayer games. The distribution clusters between turns 5 and 7, which tracks with mid-game timing when opponents have had time to land threatening enchantments or creatures. Earlier casts tend to target creatures; later casts are more likely reactive to a problem enchantment that has been generating value.

Why is Feed the Swarm so widely played in Commander?

Black historically has almost no enchantment removal, relying on colorless options or multicolor splashes. Feed the Swarm, at just 2 mana, gives mono-black and black-primary decks a clean answer to any opponent's enchantment. The life loss clause is a real cost, but at 40 starting life it is usually manageable. That combination of low mana cost and unique role explains why 16% of tracked black decks run it.

Does casting Feed the Swarm actually improve your chances of winning?

The cast-vs-library win-rate delta is near zero in this dataset, meaning decks that cast it win at roughly the same rate as decks where it never left the library. Both buckets have well over 15 observations, so this is a stable early signal rather than noise. The most likely interpretation is that Feed the Swarm is a role-player that keeps you from losing to a specific threat rather than a card that generates a winning advantage on its own.

Which commanders most often run Feed the Swarm?

Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls leads the multiplayer top-commanders list with the highest deck count, followed by both Sauron variants and Felothar the Steadfast. The spread is wide: the top entry has 21 decks, but the list extends deep across Rakdos, Dimir, Grixis, and even Abzan color identities, all of which share black as a common thread. No single archetype dominates its inclusion.

Is Feed the Swarm legal in other formats?

Feed the Swarm is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Historic, Pauper, Vintage, and several other formats. It is not legal in Old School, Premodern, or Penny Dreadful. In Pauper, its common rarity makes it one of the only ways for black decks to answer enchantments at all, giving it relevance well beyond Commander.