Going first matters in both casual and competitive Commander data
External evidence review · published August 4, 2026
Finding: Two independent sources with different populations and outcome measures show the same directional pattern: performance declines from the first seat to the last. Their percentages must not be combined, but their agreement makes “turn order is irrelevant” difficult to defend. This is not WUBRG game data; it is a comparison of aggregates published by the named sources.
The source comparison
Playgroup.gg reports win rate from casual, self-reported completed games. cEDHStats reports points per game from competitive tournament records. WUBRG preserves those measures separately and compares only their seat ordering.
| Environment | Measure | Seat 1 | Seat 2 | Seat 3 | Seat 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casual | Win rate | 29.2% | 25.7% | 23.6% | 21.5% |
| Competitive | Points/game | 1.70 | 1.39 | 1.13 | 0.89 |
Sources: Playgroup.gg turn-order analysis and cEDHStats Seat Dynamics. Competitive values are a rolling six-month snapshot accessed August 4, 2026.
Casual four-player games
Playgroup.gg reports 246,114 four-player, single-winner games. Seat one won 29.2% against an even-share baseline of 25%; seat four won 21.5%. The first-to-last gap is 7.7 percentage points, and seat one's reported win rate is about 36% higher than seat four's.
Competitive tournament records
The cEDHStats rolling six-month Seat Dynamics snapshot reports 1.70 points per game for seat one, followed by 1.39, 1.13, and 0.89. Points per game accounts for the source's tournament scoring and draws; it is not a win-rate percentage and should not be numerically merged with the casual table.
What WUBRG calculated
- Casual first-to-last gap: 29.2% − 21.5% = 7.7 percentage points.
- Casual seat-one relative lift over seat four: 29.2 ÷ 21.5 − 1 ≈ 35.8%.
- Competitive first-to-last PPG gap: 1.70 − 0.89 = 0.81 PPG.
- No combined effect size was calculated because the populations and outcomes differ.
Limits
- The underlying row-level game records were not downloaded or independently audited by WUBRG.
- Playgroup data is observational and self-reported; seating and player strength are not controlled.
- cEDHStats represents tournament play and uses points per game, including draws.
- Agreement in direction does not prove the same causal effect size in both environments.
- The cEDHStats page updates continuously; this report preserves an access-date snapshot.
Download and reproduce
Download the eight-row source comparison as CSV . The file contains the source URL, observation period, measure, reported sample, units, and notes for every row. See the WUBRG methodology for the comparison rules.