February 2026
The Commander metagame across 23,328 casual games tracked on Playgroup.gg. Win rates, movers, community sentiment, and diversity metrics across 2,275 unique commanders.
Win rate change vs the previous month. Commanders need 15+ games in both months to qualify.
Illuna, Apex of Wishes
Jasmine Boreal of the Seven
Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer
Chainer, Nightmare Adept
Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar
Three commanders posted win-rate jumps above 28 points this month. Neheb, the Eternal leads the risers with a 37.81-point climb to 53.33% across 15 games. Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar follows at +36.36 points, finishing at 48.86% across 22 games, which also lands it in the top-five win-rate list. Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient rounds out the risers at +28.64 points and 51.14%. All three are aggressive red-based commanders, suggesting that faster, combat-oriented strategies found favorable tables in February. On the other side, Yuna, Hope of Spira fell 37.33 points to a 14.06% win rate across 32 games. That sample is large enough to be meaningful, and 14% is a steep result in any pod configuration. Haldan, Avid Arcanist dropped 34.88 points to 18.06%, and Savra, Queen of the Golgari hit an 8.0% win rate after a 32.28-point fall across 25 games. The five new arrivals worth tracking include Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer, who posted the strongest debut at 35.71% across 21 games. Jasmine Boreal of the Seven logged 49 games at 21.94%, the highest new-arrival volume this month.
How games ended in February 2026 across 23,328 tracked games.
55.5% of wins came through combat damage, up from 54.6% in January. Commander damage slipped from 9.1% to 8.7%. Combo held steady at 6.3%, down slightly from 6.5%. The infinite combo rate sits at 5.1% of all games. Mill declined the most in relative terms, from 1.9% to 1.4%. The overall picture is stable: combat dominates, non-combat damage accounts for another 21.1%, and every other line is in low single digits.
67.9% of February games received ratings. Across those, the average fun score is 3.71 and the average salt score is 1.44 on a 1-to-3 scale. A score of 1.44 sits close to the low end, indicating that most games resolved without meaningful frustration from losing players. Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon is the saltiest commander this month at 2.04 across 23 rated games. That is the highest individual score in the data and places it noticeably above the field average, though it remains below the midpoint of the scale. Narset, Enlightened Master leads the fun ratings at 4.59 across 37 games, and that score also correlates with the top ELO position, suggesting opponents find those games competitive and engaging regardless of outcome.
An MDI of 85 reflects a healthy meta where most commanders see balanced play, with 147 commanders needed to cover half of all games.
| Mar 2026 | Feb 2026 | Jan 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 85.6 | 85.2 | 85.6 |
23,328 games tracked in February, down 10.2% from January, consistent with the shorter calendar month. Commander diversity remained essentially flat at 2,275 unique commanders, a 0.1% change. The Meta Diversity Index sits at 85.2, rated Healthy, and the top 10 commanders account for just 11.1% of all games. It takes 147 commanders to cover half the field. No single archetype or color identity is pulling the format out of shape.
Ashling, the Limitless remains the most-played commander by a significant margin at 1,890 games, nearly 400 ahead of second-place Auntie Ool, Cursewretch at 1,518. Both are high-color-count or Jund-style commanders built around wide or explosive board states. At the ELO summit, Narset, Enlightened Master and Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin are tied at 1,803 with 56 and 147 games respectively. Izzet is the strongest performing color combination at 29.53% win rate across 2,202 games. Grixis, Dimir, and Sultai all land in the bottom five despite containing blue, which suggests that black-heavy pairings without red or green struggled this month.
The play experience reads as calm. The 1.44 average salt score is low. Combat wins at 55.5% and grinds to an average of 9.3 rounds, while combo closes games in 6.8 rounds on average. Going first carries a measurable edge at 30.7% win rate versus 22.1% for seat four, a spread worth noting but not unusual for the format. Taking 3 or more mulligans drops win rate to 25.6%, roughly 5 points below keeping the opening hand.
The aggressive red commanders in the risers list, Neheb, the Eternal and Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient, both cracked 50% win rates from small but non-trivial samples. If that pattern persists into March alongside Izzet's continued color dominance, the relationship between red-inclusive strategies and table outcomes will be worth a closer look next month.
This report covers all finished multiplayer games tracked through the Playgroup.gg app during February 2026. Win rates are normalized to a 4-player baseline (25% expected) so pod size differences are weighted fairly. A commander needs at least 20 games to appear in ranked lists.
Salt ratings are measured from losing players and attributed to the winning commander. The scale runs 1 (no salt) to 3 (very salty). Analysis sections are co-written with Claude. A Playgroup.gg editor reviews all content before publication.
How is the Playgroup.gg metagame report calculated?
Every finished multiplayer game tracked through the Playgroup app during the calendar month is included. Win rates are normalized to a 4-player baseline (25% expected) so pod size differences are weighted fairly. A commander needs at least 20 games to appear in ranked lists.
What is the Meta Diversity Index?
The Meta Diversity Index (MDI) uses Shannon entropy to measure how evenly commanders are distributed across games. A score of 100 means every commander is played equally. Below 70 indicates a few commanders dominate the meta. We normalize to a 0-100 scale so scores are comparable across months with different commander counts.
How is the salt rating calculated?
Salt ratings are collected from losing players after each game and attributed to the winning commander. The scale runs 1 (no salt) to 3 (very salty). This measures how opponents feel about losing to a particular commander, not how the winner feels. A rating of 1.4 means most games feel fine.
How is this different from EDHREC or EDHTop16?
EDHREC ranks by deck registration popularity. EDHTop16 tracks competitive tournament results. Playgroup.gg tracks actual casual game outcomes, including win rates, game length, community sentiment, and win conditions. This report covers 23,328 real games, not decklists or tournament finishes.
How many games are included in the February 2026 report?
23,328 games were tracked on Playgroup Live during February 2026. That is down 10.2% from January, which is consistent with February being a shorter month. The dataset reflects casual Commander games logged by Playgroup.gg users and does not represent tournament or competitive play.
How are win rates calculated and normalized?
Win rates are calculated as wins divided by games played for each commander. Because Commander pods vary in size from 2 to 6 players, a raw 25% win rate in a 4-player pod is not equivalent to 50% in a 2-player pod. Win rates are normalized to account for pod size so that commanders played across different configurations can be compared on the same scale.
What does it mean for a commander to appear in the Movers list?
Movers are commanders whose win rate changed significantly compared to the prior month. Risers posted large positive deltas; fallers posted large negative ones. Because Commander is a casual format with high variance, movers from small samples should be read cautiously. Neheb, the Eternal's 37.81-point rise came across 15 games, while Yuna, Hope of Spira's 37.33-point fall came across 32 games, a more substantial sample.
Does going first in Commander actually matter?
The February data shows a clear gradient. Seat 1 wins 30.7% of games, seat 2 wins 26.8%, seat 3 wins 24.6%, and seat 4 wins 22.1%. That is a roughly 8.6-point spread from first to fourth seat across tens of thousands of player-game instances. This is consistent with what the data has shown in prior months. Commander's rules prevent the first player from drawing on turn one, but early board development and tempo still produce a measurable advantage.