Live Play Data

An Offer You Can't Refuse

· Instant · Foundations (FDN)

24%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1139

Decks Running

627

Median Cast Turn

7.0

Drawn → Played

55%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

24% of tracked Commander decks run An Offer You Can't Refuse. When drawn, it reaches the stack 55% of the time, with a median first-cast turn of 7.0.

An Offer You Can't Refuse sits in 24% of the 2612 Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live, making it one of the more widely played counterspells in the blue singleton toolkit. It appears in 627 distinct decks across 920 tracked games.

The draw-to-play rate lands at 55%. That is lower than an unconditional counterspell like Counterspell typically sees, which is consistent with the card's one real constraint: it only hits noncreature spells. A drawn copy that never reaches the stack often reflects a game that ended before the right target appeared, or a hand full of interaction without a threat to answer. Median first cast falls on turn 7.0, well past the card's 1-mana cost, confirming players hold it as reactive interaction rather than deploying it at the first opportunity.

The data spreads across 445 unique players, with the single heaviest contributor accounting for just 3% of all instances. That kind of spread gives us reasonable confidence the picture is not skewed by one player's habits.

At a glance

24% of tracked Commander decks include An Offer You Can't Refuse
55% of drawn copies reached the stack before the game ended
T7.0 median first-cast turn, reflecting reactive hold patterns
25% draw rate, normal for a singleton in a 100-card deck
445 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=156

10%

69%

T6-9

12%

T10+

Median 7.0 P25 6 · P75 8 · max 14

On curve 1% (1 / 156 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 24%

The "good card" funnel

1147 brought · 445 players

Brought to game

1147

Ever drawn

286

Reached battlefield

156

Still on board at game end

55%

Of 1147 copies brought to games, 286 were drawn, 156 of those were cast, and nearly all resolved copies ended the game in the graveyard, as a clean instant should.

≥ -4.7pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=155) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=772).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 33% (n=125) — about the same as leaving it in the library. Those players survived long enough to draw it, so the gap above is about the card resolving, not just about surviving.

Observed gap +2.2pp; 95% confidence interval -4.7pp to +9.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

330 instances

2.4%

Library

1.5%

Battlefield

55.5%

Graveyard

9.1%

Exile

Most resolved copies of An Offer You Can't Refuse end up in the graveyard, as expected for an instant that counters and resolves. The handful that land in exile reflect removal or flashback effects after the fact.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Ms. Bumbleflower 34 decks
2 Tidus, Yuna's Guardian 23 decks
3 Kefka, Court Mage // Kefka, Ruler of Ruin 9 decks
4 Vnwxt, Verbose Host 9 decks
5 Kenrith, the Returned King 8 decks
6 Vivi Ornitier 8 decks
7 Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow 8 decks
8 Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima 7 decks
9 Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy 7 decks
10 Sauron, the Dark Lord 7 decks

The commander list spans Bant, Grixis, Izzet, mono-blue, and five-color builds, a spread that signals An Offer You Can't Refuse is a format-wide blue staple rather than a niche pick tied to one archetype.

Frequently Asked

How often is An Offer You Can't Refuse drawn in a Commander game?

Across 920 tracked games where the card was in the deck, it was drawn 25% of the time. That is squarely in line with what a singleton in a 100-card deck should expect. Of 286 instances that reached a player's hand, 55% were cast before the game concluded.

Why is the median cast turn so late for a 1-mana card?

An Offer You Can't Refuse is reactive countermagic. Players hold it until the right noncreature spell appears, not until they have spare mana. Median first cast lands on turn 7.0, and the hand-to-cast data shows most copies sit in hand for roughly two turns before firing. The 24% same-turn cast rate confirms players are actively waiting for targets rather than slamming it immediately on draw.

Does casting An Offer You Can't Refuse correlate with winning?

In 155 participations where the card was cast, the normalized win rate is 26%, compared to 24% when it stayed in the library. The delta is directional but the confidence interval crosses zero on this sample size, so treat it as an early signal rather than a firm conclusion. More tracked games will sharpen the picture.

Is An Offer You Can't Refuse legal in Commander?

Yes. An Offer You Can't Refuse is legal in Commander with no restrictions. It is also legal in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Historic, and most other constructed formats. It is not legal in Pauper or Paupercommander because of rarity restrictions.

Which commanders most often run this card?

Ms. Bumbleflower leads the tracked dataset, followed by Tidus, Yuna's Guardian and Kefka, Court Mage. The spread across Simic, Bant, Grixis, and mono-blue commanders reflects the card's fit in any blue deck that cares about stopping key noncreature spells. The broad commander distribution is consistent with it being a general-purpose blue staple rather than a build-around.

Does giving opponents two Treasures make this card too risky?

That is the design tension baked into the card. The opponent gets two Treasure tokens, which can accelerate their mana the following turn. In practice, the data shows the card is cast at turn 7.0 on average, a point in the game where a two-mana gift is a smaller tempo swing than it would be on turn one. Players accept the tradeoff to stop a key spell at 1 mana. Whether the cost matters depends heavily on the specific spell being countered.