Forerunner of the Empire card art
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Forerunner of the Empire

{3} {R} · Creature — Human Soldier · Rivals of Ixalan (RIX)
Times Brought
125
Decks Running
45
In Decks
Decklist Inclusion
Format

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

Card text
Forerunner of the Empire card

Forerunner of the Empire

{3} {R}
Creature — Human Soldier
When this creature enters, you may search your library for a Dinosaur card, reveal it, then shuffle and put that card on top. Whenever a Dinosaur you control enters, you may have this creature deal 1 damage to each creature.
1 / 3
Rivals of Ixalan (RIX) · Uncommon · Illustrated by Dan Murayama Scott

Final zone distribution

32 instances
3.1%
Library
59.4%
Battlefield
34.4%
Graveyard
3.1%
Hand

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The "good card" funnel

125 brought · 41 players
Brought to game
125
Ever drawn
31
Reached battlefield
28
Still on board at game end
19

Once cast, 68% 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.

≥ +6.8pp

Players who cast this card win 38% of the time (n=26) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=87).

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 +16.6pp; 95% confidence interval +6.8pp to +26.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=28
0%
T1
4%
T2
14%
T3
18%
T4
21%
T5
32%
T6-9
11%
T10+
Median 5.0 P25 4 · P75 8 · max 13
On curve 36% (5 / 28 cast on T4)

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 670,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.