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Rootborn Defenses

· Instant · The List (PLST)

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Times Brought

712

Decks Running

349

In Decks

—

Decklist Inclusion

—

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

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

Card text

Rootborn Defenses

Instant

Populate. Creatures you control gain indestructible until end of turn. (To populate, create a token that's a copy of a creature token you control.)

The List (PLST) · Common · Illustrated by Mark Zug

Final zone distribution

133 instances

1.5%

Library

6.0%

Battlefield

36.1%

Graveyard

4.5%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The "good card" funnel

712 brought · 332 players

Brought to game

712

Ever drawn

122

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

≥ -3.5pp

Players who cast this card win 29% of the time (n=40) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=428).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 21% (n=53).

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 +4.6pp; 95% confidence interval -3.5pp to +12.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=49

76%

T6-9

14%

T10+

Median 8 P25 7 · P75 9 · max 12

On curve 2% (0 / 49 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 29%

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 710,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live seats playing virtual cards, a subset of that corpus.