Teferi's Protection
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Instant
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Double Masters 2022 (2X2)
Teferi's Protection sits in 5.9% of tracked Commander decks, but when it reaches a hand it waits a median of 3 turns before being cast — players hold it, not slam it, with only 11% cast on the same turn they're drawn.
Teferi's Protection appears in 6% of the tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live. That low headline inclusion rate reflects its color restriction — only white decks can run it — rather than any lack of power. Across 162 tracked games, 137 distinct decks have brought it to a pod.
The card behaves exactly as its design suggests: players hold it. The median hand-to-cast delay is 3 turns, and only 11% of drawn copies are cast on the same turn they're drawn. That makes it one of the more deliberately deployed instants in the dataset. Of the 42 instances drawn, 20 were eventually cast — a 45% draw-to-play rate that reflects how often games end before the right threat justifies firing it. The median first-cast turn of 8 confirms it's a late-game safety valve, not an early play.
Battlefield stickiness is near zero by design: the card exiles itself on resolution, so the overwhelmingly dominant final zone is the library (150 of 194 brought instances), with graveyard (15) and hand (21) accounting for most observed copies that didn't get cast. One copy ended on the battlefield — almost certainly a rules edge case.
- 5.9% inclusion rate across tracked Commander decks
- 45% of drawn copies are eventually cast
- T8 median first-cast turn — a deliberate late-game hold
- 3 median turns spent in hand before being cast
- 11% same-turn cast rate — players almost never slam it
- 137 distinct decks have brought it to a tracked game
First-cast turn
n=20The "good card" funnel
186 brought · 107 playersOf 194 copies brought to games, 42 were drawn and 20 were cast — a 45% draw-to-play rate that reflects a card players actively choose to hold until the right moment, not one that slips through unplayed.
Players who cast this card win 31% of the time (n=20) , vs 27% when it never left the library (n=139).
Final zone distribution
187 instances150 of 194 brought copies finished in the library, the structural baseline for any singleton in a 100-card deck; the 15 graveyard copies and 21 hand copies represent games that ended before a board threat justified casting it.
Top commanders running this card
by deck count-
1
Kaalia of the Vast
6 decks
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2
The Ur-Dragon
6 decks
-
3
Giada, Font of Hope
4 decks
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4
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
4 decks
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5
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
4 decks
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6
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed
4 decks
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7
Atla Palani, Nest Tender
3 decks
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8
Cosmic Spider-Man
3 decks
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9
Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima
3 decks
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10
Jodah, the Unifier
3 decks
Oloro and Kaalia lead with 10 and 9 decks respectively, but the distribution fans out quickly across 8 more commanders, indicating Teferi's Protection is a broad white staple rather than a card tied to any single archetype.
How often is Teferi's Protection drawn in a Commander game? ▾
In our dataset, Teferi's Protection was drawn in roughly 22% of deck-participations where it was included. That is in line with the expected draw rate for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 42 drawn instances, 20 were cast before the game ended — a 45% draw-to-play rate that is meaningfully lower than all-star staples, reflecting its reactive nature and the frequency with which games end before the right moment arrives.
What turn does Teferi's Protection typically get cast? ▾
The median first-cast turn is 8, with the middle 50% of casts falling between turns 7 and 8. One outlier was cast on turn 1, but that is almost certainly an opening-hand keep in a fast pod. The distribution clusters tightly in the late-midgame window, consistent with the card's role as a response to a devastating board wipe or combo turn rather than a proactive play.
Why do players hold Teferi's Protection so long in hand? ▾
The hand-to-cast data is the clearest signal here: the median delay between drawing the card and casting it is 3 turns, and only 11% of copies are cast on the same turn they are drawn. Teferi's Protection is a reactive instant. Players keep it as insurance against board wipes, extra turns, or lethal attacks, and fire it only when a specific threat materializes. Holding it longer is rational, not inefficient.
Does casting Teferi's Protection actually improve win rate? ▾
In our current sample, the win rate when the card was cast is 35% (7 wins in 20 casts), compared to 38% win rate in participations where it stayed in the library. The delta is -3 percentage points. Both buckets are small — especially the cast bucket at only 20 observations — so treat this as an early directional signal, not a conclusion. A likely explanation is survivorship bias: players who needed Teferi's Protection were already under significant pressure and did not always recover.
Is Teferi's Protection legal in Commander? ▾
Yes. Teferi's Protection is legal and unrestricted in Commander. It is also legal in Legacy, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, or Pauper. Its color identity is mono-white, so only decks with a white commander can include it.
Which commanders most often run Teferi's Protection? ▾
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic leads our tracked sample with 10 decks, followed by Kaalia of the Vast with 9. Both commanders put their pilots in high-threat positions that reward reactive protection spells. The spread across the top 10 commanders is fairly wide — Giada, Font of Hope, Cosmic Spider-Man, Lorehold the Historian, Ms. Bumbleflower, The Ur-Dragon, Voja, Atla Palani, and Gishath each appear with 5 to 7 decks — suggesting Teferi's Protection is a general white staple rather than a card specific to one strategy.