The Glitched Goblet
Where Magic Meets Technology
Where Magic Meets Technology
January 2, 2026
I finally did it. I tracked my Commander games for an entire year! My New Year's resolution for 2025 was to log every commander game I played, and I was actually able to stick with it! Unfortunately, it took me a bit to figure out exactly how I wanted to track data, and some early games were missing some fields. Like number of mulligans, and who ended up winning. But overall, the dataset is solid.
So here’s my 2025 Commander Wrapped, pulled from my Notion export. If you played against me this year, please know I have charts in my heart and grudges in my spreadsheet.
Games logged: 112 Record: 43–69 Win rate: 38.4%
I try to play commander every Thursday at my LGS, The Battle Standard, in East Windsor, CT. The store runs a great casual commander night, and I love the community there. Theres a few players I see every week, and a rotating cast of others. It’s a great time. And only a few players that I refuse to play against, which I feel is a pretty good ratio.
I gotta say that I am most surprised by my win rate. 38.4% is... pretty amazing considering it's a four player format. I was expecting something closer to 25-30%. So I guess I did better than I thought! And if you've read my previous posts, you'll know that I prefer to pull my punches and play more thematic decks over powerful decks. So I'm quite happy with this result.
I'm generally pretty introverted and only had casual at-home games before we moved to the East Coast in 2022. That's when I started playing magic regularly at my LGS as a way to make friends and get to know people. I've had to learn so much about multiplayer strategy and politics over the last few years, and I think my growth is reflected in these stats. I still have a ways to go, and I already have a big list of improvements for 2026, but I'm proud of how far I've come.
| Players | Games | Record | Win Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-player | 2 | 1–1 | 50.0% |
| 3-player | 27 | 14–13 | 51.9% |
| 4-player | 80 | 26–54 | 32.5% |
| 5-player | 3 | 2–1 | 66.7% |
Apparently I absolutely feast in 3-player pods. My win rate there is 51.9%, which is bonkers for Commander. I think this is because 3-player pods reward proactive decks and play styles, and I tend to gravitate toward those. In 4-player pods, my win rate drops to 32.5%, which is more in line with what I expected for multiplayer.
Overall record by turn order:
This makes a lot of sense, you'll see why further down when you see my favored colors. It makes a lot of sense that the player who gets to act first is on the offensive more often, and can set the pace of the game. While playing later in the turn order means you have to react more often, which is harder to do effectively.
Also, in 4-player pods, when I was 1st, I went 8–8 (50%). That is wildly high for a four-player format.
Conclusion: my decks and my play style reward being proactive.
I did not log mulligans for every game (17 are blank), but from the 95 games that do have mulligan data:
This is peak Commander statistics energy because the sample sizes get weird fast. Still, the “1 mulligan = pain” trend is so strong that it feels real. This year was a big "Fix my mana-base and default to 35+ lands" year for me, and I think that helped a lot. I even built a Omo, Queen of Vesuva deck that has 48 lands in it, and I still only draw 2-3 land hands ;,(.
I do plan on adding a mulligan note field for 2026 so I can capture more context on those weird hands, and better understand how I can help me decks.
Different commanders I piloted: 41 Total Opponent commander appearances: 308 Different commanders I faced: 156 Average opponents per game: 2.75
I was very much into the "quantity over quality" mindset in 2025, trying out a lot of different decks and strategies. I often played a deck once and never again, or I "feel" like I really like a deck but was afraid to commit to it, so it rarely if ever got played.
For 2026 I plan to focus more "quality over quantity" and grant focus time to my favorite decks and archetypes. This way I will get to play more decks that I like and less, I made this cuz I don't have this deck color yet.
How often I played each color (out of 112 games):
This one really hurts. Red is my perceived least favorite color, and yet I played it the most. I think this is because red is in so many of my favorite color combinations (Temur, Naya, Jund) and I gravitate toward those decks.
I like to think that my favorite colors are Green, White, and Blue in that order, but clearly it's Red and Green as I was basically living in Gruul territory all year.
Now, adding salt to the wound, my best win rates were with Black and Red decks. Black/Red is my LEAST favorite color pairing as I have the hardest time ramping and drawing cards in those colors, and yet I had my best results there.
I'm sure this is mostly due to a lot of my decks containing these colors like Coram, the Undertaker, Henzie, Hearthhull, Laurine/Kamber, etc. Which are, admittedly, pretty strong and fun decks.
I'm quite saddened that Blue decks had my worst win rate. Blue is one of my favorite colors, I love the interaction, the card draw/advantage, and the control elements. But I think my blue decks were not as well tuned as my other decks, and I need to work on that for 2026. More on that later...
(These are based on the commander’s color identity.)
Again, this one hurts a lot. Bant is my absolute favorite color pairing, and yet I went 1-9 with it, OUCH. Rakdos is my least favorite color pairing, and yet I went 5-3 with it, double OUCH. At the same time, this does make a lot of sense from my playstyle and deckbuilding tendencies.
As I stated above, several times...
My favorite pairing is Bant. My least favorite pairing is Rakdos.
My 2025 results said the opposite.
This is what happens when Bant decks do not get updated and Rakdos decks are piloted by someone who knows what they want to do. I do feel like my Rakdos containing decks were a lot more focused and have clear goals compared to my Bant decks, which fell into a lot of "I'm doing a lot of things but I still can't close the game" traps.
Bant is getting more love in 2026. I refuse to let this stay true. I have a lot of ideas for Bant decks that I want to try out.
Commanders I played the most:
A quick gut-check list:
My “push the win button” decks in 2025
My favorite decks that were still solid
Decks that betrayed me
Across all opponent commander appearances (308 total):
So the meta I sat in was very white-black-forward but still pretty evenly spread.
Most common opponent color identities:
These are game-level stats, meaning “at least one opponent had this identity.”
There are 4 games missing a recorded winner, so this section uses the games with a known winner.
When I lost, the winning deck contained:
When I won, my winning deck contained:
This tracks with how my year felt.
Red is where I closed games. White is what kept shutting the door on me.
Most-faced opponent commanders, plus my record into them:
Also, Zurgo Stormrender was the most frequent winner in my whole dataset with 5 wins total.
Perfect nights (3+ games, undefeated):
Roughest multi-game night:
How often I wrote things down:
I also wrote notes more often on losses than wins.
This is honestly good. Loss notes are where the value lives.
For 2026 I want to add a couple tiny postgame fields that pay dividends:
Even if it’s messy and short.
Loot is one of my favorite children, and 2025 was not kind to him.
The deck started life as Beluna Grandsquall Adventures and Primal Surge, including the whole “no instants or sorceries because Adventures count” concept. Then it evolved into an exile-matters build where Loot can generate better hands and more options.
The problem is focus.
The deck does a lot of things. It rarely does something that makes the table nervous.
That is the classic “value engine without a kill switch” problem.
I do not think Loot needs to abandon Adventures. Adventures already live in exile before you cast the creature half. That theme glue is real. The deck just needs a clearer way to turn the wheel-spinning into an actual win.
This year I dismantled a ton of decks. I’m moving toward quality over quantity.
Some decks are staying because I love them and they work:
Some decks are getting rehab:
And I’m going to keep protecting my favorite “table groan” children like Aminatou and Atraxa by playing them less often, even if I love them. The goal is fun nights, not being That Guy every week.
I do have a small list of decks that I really wanna make and run well, most of them are Bant because I WILL WIN WITH THEM:
If you made it this far, thank you for reading my cardboard therapy session. Now excuse me while I give Bant decks the attention they have been screaming for all year.