Live Play Data

Bolas's Citadel

· Legendary Artifact · War of the Spark (WAR)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1569

Decks Running

739

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

52%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

43% of games where Bolas's Citadel resolved ended in a win for the caster, a +18.7 percentage-point lift over decks where it never left the library.

Bolas's Citadel lands in 7% of Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, sitting inside 739 of 10576 distinct decks. That's a selective inclusion profile for a 6-mana rare, and the win-rate data suggests those decks are leaning on it hard.

The headline stat: games where Bolas's Citadel hit the battlefield show a +18.7 percentage-point win-rate lift over games where it stayed in the library. Both sample sizes are well above 15, so this is one of the stronger directional signals in our dataset, not just noise. The card also shows a median first-cast turn of 7, meaning most tables see it arrive well after the mana base is established and the board is ready to be exploited.

Draw-to-play sits at 52%. A drawn copy going uncast often reflects a game that ended before the player could deploy a 6-mana permanent, rather than a deliberate choice to hold it. Battlefield stickiness of 74% confirms that once it resolves, opponents rarely answer it cleanly before it generates value.

At a glance

7% of tracked Commander decks include Bolas's Citadel
T7 median first-cast turn, arriving in the mid-to-late game
43% win rate in games where it resolved
+18.7pp win-rate lift over games where it stayed in the library
74% battlefield stickiness once cast
606 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=189

19%

56%

T6-9

12%

T10+

Median 7 P25 5 · P75 9 · max 18

On curve 49% (32 / 189 cast on T6) Cast same turn as drawn 27%

The "good card" funnel

1569 brought · 606 players

Brought to game

1569

Ever drawn

363

Reached battlefield

189

Still on board at game end

140

52%

Of 1569 copies brought to games, 363 were drawn, 189 of those were cast, and 74% of cast copies remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ +11.5pp

Players who cast this card win 43% of the time (n=176) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=1014).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 30% (n=153) — 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 +18.7pp; 95% confidence interval +11.5pp to +26.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

416 instances

3.4%

Library

33.7%

Battlefield

20.4%

Graveyard

7.5%

Exile

Most Bolas's Citadels that stay in the library reflect decks where it was never drawn rather than a commentary on the card's power, but the 74% stickiness of resolved copies tells a different story.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 43 decks
2 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 42 decks
3 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic 26 decks
4 Edgar Markov 24 decks
5 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth 22 decks
6 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse 19 decks
7 Teysa Karlov 17 decks
8 Marrow-Gnawer 12 decks
9 Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern 12 decks
10 Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied 11 decks

The commander distribution is genuinely broad: 606 distinct players have piloted the card across tracked games, with mono-black and black-heavy commanders leading by deck count.

Card text

Bolas's Citadel

Legendary Artifact

You may look at the top card of your library any time. You may play lands and cast spells from the top of your library. If you cast a spell this way, pay life equal to its mana value rather than pay its mana cost. {T}

, Sacrifice ten nonland permanents: Each opponent loses 10 life.

War of the Spark (WAR) · Rare · Illustrated by Jonas De Ro

Frequently Asked

How often is Bolas's Citadel drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1475 tracked games where Bolas's Citadel was in the deck, it was drawn 23% of the time. That's consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck arriving mid-game. Of 363 drawn instances, 52% reached the battlefield before the game concluded.

What turn does Bolas's Citadel usually land?

Median first-cast turn is 7, with 25% of casts arriving on turn 5 or earlier and 75% by turn 9. The distribution clusters between turns 5-9, which aligns with players casting it once they have the mana base to pay 6 and still have resources to exploit the activated text right away. A small number of casts as early as turn 2 reflect ramp-heavy or cost-reduction builds.

Does casting Bolas's Citadel actually improve your chances of winning?

The data is directional but meaningful. Games where Bolas's Citadel resolved show a win rate of 43%, against 25% for games where it sat unused in the library. That gap is +18.7 percentage points. With 176 cast observations and 1014 library observations, the sample size supports calling this a consistent early signal rather than a fluke.

Is Bolas's Citadel banned in Commander?

No. Bolas's Citadel is legal and unrestricted in Commander. It is also legal in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard or Pauper. Despite its reputation as a powerful card advantage engine, it has never appeared on the Commander ban list.

How quickly do players cast Bolas's Citadel once they draw it?

Of 176 tracked cast instances with hand-timing data, the median number of turns held in hand before casting is 2, and 27% of drawn copies were cast on the same turn they were drawn. That same-turn rate is relatively low for a high-impact card, which makes sense: a 6-mana spell requires meaningful setup, and players drawing it on turn 3 or 4 will often wait until they can deploy it with mana to spare.

Which commanders run Bolas's Citadel most often?

The top commanders by raw deck count are Y'shtola, Night's Blessed and Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, each appearing in the top slots of the tracked dataset. The commander spread is wide: 606 distinct players have brought the card to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 23% of all instances, indicating the data is not dominated by any one player's playstyle. Mono-black and black-heavy commanders dominate the top list, which is expected given the card's triple-black mana cost.