Live Play Data

Blood Artist

· Creature — Vampire · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

11%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1173

Decks Running

665

Median Cast Turn

5.0

Drawn → Played

77%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Found in 11% of tracked Commander decks, Blood Artist is cast 77% of the time when drawn, with a median first-cast turn of 5.0. Its data is well-spread across 564 distinct players.

Blood Artist sits in 11% of the 5812 distinct Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live, appearing across 665 registered decklists. That makes it a meaningful staple in black creature-death strategies without reaching the near-universal saturation of a format cornerstone.

Of the 252 times Blood Artist reached a player's hand, 77% resulted in a cast. That figure reflects real table conditions: games end before every drawn card gets played, so a number in this range signals that players treat it as a priority when it appears. Median first cast lands on turn 5.0, which is a full three turns after its 2-mana cost would theoretically allow it. Most copies are drawn mid-game rather than kept in opening hands, consistent with an on-curve rate of just 20%.

The commander spread is a genuine strength of this dataset. 564 unique players have brought Blood Artist to tracked games, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 2% of all instances. The data is well-distributed, so the patterns here reflect the broader meta rather than any one player's preference.

At a glance

11% of tracked Commander decks include Blood Artist
77% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T5.0 median first-cast turn, well past its 2-mana cost
47% battlefield stickiness once cast
564 distinct players contributing to the dataset
20% on-curve rate, reflecting how rarely it's drawn early

First-cast turn

n=194

14%

12%

13%

36%

T6-9

12%

T10+

Median 5.0 P25 3 · P75 8 · max 14

On curve 20% (28 / 194 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 40%

The "good card" funnel

1179 brought · 564 players

Brought to game

1179

Ever drawn

252

Reached battlefield

194

Still on board at game end

77%

Of 1179 Blood Artists brought to games, 252 were drawn, 194 of those were cast, and 47% of resolved copies remained on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -0.4pp

Players who cast this card win 32% of the time (n=183) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=829).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 17% (n=56) — 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 +6.4pp; 95% confidence interval -0.4pp to +13.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

277 instances

1.1%

Library

32.9%

Battlefield

34.3%

Graveyard

11.9%

Exile

Most copies that are never interacted with stay in the library, a structural reality of 100-card singleton. Among resolved copies, a significant share end in the graveyard, fitting for a creature built around death triggers.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Dina, Essence Brewer 67 decks
2 Edgar Markov 51 decks
3 Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls 46 decks
4 Teysa Karlov 26 decks
5 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 23 decks
6 Meren of Clan Nel Toth 15 decks
7 Chatterfang, Squirrel General 14 decks
8 Strefan, Maurer Progenitor 11 decks
9 Ygra, Eater of All 11 decks
10 Clavileño, First of the Blessed 10 decks

Dina, Essence Brewer dominates the top-commander list, but the spread across Markov, Valgavoth, Meren, and Teysa shows Blood Artist earns its slot in virtually every black death-matters archetype.

Frequently Asked

How often is Blood Artist drawn and cast in a Commander game?

Across 1093 tracked games where Blood Artist was in the deck, it was drawn 21% of the time. That's consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 252 instances that reached a hand, 77% were cast. The remainder were mostly uncast because the game ended before the opportunity arose, not because players chose to hold it.

What turn does Blood Artist typically hit the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 5.0, with the 25th percentile at turn 3 and the 75th at turn 8. Despite a mana cost of just 2, the on-curve rate is 20%, which reflects how infrequently it shows up in opening hands. When players do draw it, the same-turn cast rate is 40%, meaning most players who draw it mid-game hold it at least one turn before casting.

Does casting Blood Artist actually improve your odds of winning?

In 183 tracked participations where Blood Artist was cast, the normalized win rate was 32%. Participations where it stayed in the library showed a win rate of 25%. The delta is +6.4 percentage points. Both sample sizes are meaningful, but the confidence interval crosses zero, so treat this as a directional early signal rather than a conclusive edge.

Where does Blood Artist end up at the end of a game?

Blood Artist is a creature in a death-matters shell, so its final-zone distribution tells a story. A meaningful share of resolved copies end the game in the graveyard, which is expected given how often creature destruction and sacrifice occur in these strategies. Some end up exiled, reflecting targeted removal. Its battlefield stickiness of 47% is lower than many non-creature permanents, consistent with a 2-power, 1-toughness body that attracts removal or dies to board wipes.

Which commanders most often run Blood Artist?

Dina, Essence Brewer leads the list by a wide margin, followed by Edgar Markov and Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls. The pattern is clear: Blood Artist clusters around commanders that either generate death triggers repeatedly or reward life-drain effects. Its black-only color identity means it's only available to decks that include black, which naturally filters the commander pool toward those archetypes.

Is Blood Artist legal in Commander and other formats?

Blood Artist is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Duel Commander, Timeless, and Gladiator. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Pauper, Alchemy, Brawl, or Pauper Commander. In competitive 60-card formats it sees occasional fringe play in life-drain and aristocrats shells, but Commander is by far its primary home given how frequently creatures die in multiplayer games.