Commander

Sauron, the Dark Lord

Global commander stats

All Grixis commanders

2594 Wins

8014 Losses

Overview

Summary

Sauron, the Dark Lord is a Magic: The Gathering commander tracked across 10,710 recorded Playgroup games, winning 24% of them (2594–8014) at an Elo of 1,584, ranking #694 globally.

Wins average 10 turns, with 6 damage dealt and 0.56 player kills per game on average.

Last full refresh 10 Sep 2026

Sources Scryfall · EDHREC · JSON API

Frequently Asked

What is Sauron, the Dark Lord's win rate?

Sauron, the Dark Lord has a 24% win rate across 10710 recorded Playgroup games (2594 wins, 8014 losses).

How long do winning games with Sauron, the Dark Lord take?

Wins with Sauron, the Dark Lord take on average 10 turns. Total tracked play time: 5 months.

How many decks use Sauron, the Dark Lord?

3,606 decks list Sauron, the Dark Lord as their commander on Playgroup, of which 2,027 have played at least one recorded game.

Sauron, the Dark Lord Magic: The Gathering commander card art

Buy on TCGplayer

Global rank

694

Wins by turn (avg.)

Elo rating

1584

Trend

Global Elo trend

Trend

Commander popularity trend

Averages

Misc. stats

Average damage per game 6

Average commander damage per game 7

Average poison counters given per game 4

Average kills per game 0.56

Average turn length 2 minutes

No. decks for this commander 3606

No. decks with at least one game for this commander 2027

No. games played with this commander 10710

Total hours played 5 months

Community

Top 5 public decks

Rank	Elo	User	Games	Wins	Winrate
1	1682	Randy008	35	16	46 %
2	1669	Nitros	57	19	33 %
3	1606	Kyle_Spaghetti	18	8	44 %
4	1597	dweller	9	5	56 %
5	1595	Luke S	3	3	100 %

Outcomes

How does this commander win?

When Sauron, the Dark Lord wins, 71.28% of wins come via combat across tracked games with a recorded win condition.

Combat

71.28%

Non Combat Damage

13.77%

Commander Damage

6.95%

Alternative

3.88%

Combo

3.0%

Mill

0.81%

Poison

0.31%

Avg win turn 9.5 based on 2638 wins with recorded turn counts

Measured

Staples that win games for Sauron, the Dark Lord

Cards that raise this deck's measured win rate the most, compared with Sauron, the Dark Lord decks that leave them out.

+8.3 pp

Top card: Kess, Dissident Mage

#	Card	Lift Win-rate lift	Games
1	Kess, Dissident Mage 77 games	+8.3 pp	77
2	Teferi's Ageless Insight 121 games	+5.9 pp	121
3	Cascade Bluffs 66 games	+5.5 pp	66
4	Underworld Breach Signature build 96 games · Signature build	+4.8 pp	96
5	Talisman of Creativity 549 games	+4.3 pp	549
6	Talisman of Indulgence 705 games	+3.9 pp	705
7	Fellwar Stone 678 games	+3.7 pp	678
8	Big Score 70 games	+3.4 pp	70
9	Gravitic Punch 42 games	+3.3 pp	42
10	Haunted Ridge 215 games	+3.0 pp	215

Show 5 more (ranks 11-15)

#	Card	Lift Win-rate lift	Games
11	Izzet Signet 370 games	+3.0 pp	370
12	Talisman of Dominance 745 games	+2.8 pp	745
13	Negate 299 games	+2.8 pp	299
14	Deflecting Swat 173 games	+2.5 pp	173
15	Nightscape Familiar 271 games	+2.3 pp	271

Measured win-rate lift against decks on the same commander without the card, ranked by the 95% lower bound. How this is measured

Table position

Does seating order matter?

Sauron, the Dark Lord wins 28.95% of games from position 1 and 11.54% from position 6 across tracked games.

Seat 1

28.95% n=3161

Seat 2

26.32% n=3201

Seat 3

19.12% n=2437

Seat 4

17.91% n=1485

Seat 5

16.8% n=244

Seat 6

11.54% n=26

Opening hands

Do mulligans hurt this commander?

Across tracked games, Sauron, the Dark Lord wins 24.39% after 0 mulligans and 0.0% after 6 mulligans.

0 mulligans

24.39% n=4801

1 mulligan

24.22% n=1608

2 mulligans

21.47% n=545

3 mulligans

18.01% n=161

4 mulligans

13.79% n=29

5 mulligans

0.0% n=7

6 mulligans

0.0% n=2

Player reports

How do players rate games with this commander?

Pilot rating

Pilots rate their own games with Sauron, the Dark Lord 3.67/5 on average, across 7223 self-reports.

3.67 / 5

🧂

Opponent salt

When Sauron, the Dark Lord wins, opponents flag the game as salty 67.4% of the time across 2641 tracked wins.

67.4 \%

Head to head

Best and worst matchups

Opposing commanders with at least ten tracked games against Sauron, the Dark Lord. Pairs with fewer than 25 games are shown in italics; treat those as suggestive, not statistical.