Live Play Data

Buster Sword

· Artifact — Equipment · Final Fantasy (FIN)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

442

Decks Running

202

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

77%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

77% of drawn Buster Swords are cast before the game ends, and the Equipment lands on the battlefield on turn 5 at the median across 419 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live.

Buster Sword reaches the battlefield in a strong majority of the games where it is drawn. Across 419 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, 77% of drawn copies were cast, a conversion rate that speaks to how aggressively players prioritize getting this Equipment onto a creature.

The card sits in 202 of 8540 distinct tracked decks, an 2% inclusion rate that reflects its niche as a build-around rather than a generic staple. Its colorless color identity makes it slottable anywhere, but the payoff scales hard with commanders that already want to connect with combat damage. Median first cast lands on turn 5, putting it squarely in the mid-game where its +3/+2 bonus and free-spell trigger can swing the pace of a game.

The data is spread across 171 unique players, with no single contributor accounting for more than a small slice of tracked instances, which gives the overall picture reasonable breadth for a card this new to the format.

At a glance

2% of tracked Commander decks include Buster Sword
77% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn across multiplayer games
80% battlefield stickiness once the Equipment resolves
171 unique players have brought Buster Sword to a tracked game
24% of casts land exactly on curve at three mana

First-cast turn

n=105

13%

26%

15%

31%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 4 · P75 6 · max 15

On curve 24% (14 / 105 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 39%

The "good card" funnel

442 brought · 171 players

Brought to game

442

Ever drawn

137

Reached battlefield

105

Still on board at game end

77%

Of 442 Buster Swords brought to multiplayer games, 137 were drawn, 105 of those were cast, and 80% of resolved copies remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ -10.0pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=102) , vs 27% when it never left the library (n=278).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 9% (n=28) — 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 -0.9pp; 95% confidence interval -10.0pp to +8.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

146 instances

2.1%

Library

57.5%

Battlefield

18.5%

Graveyard

5.5%

Exile

Most Buster Swords end games on the battlefield, a notably different profile from typical singleton cards that spend the majority of games buried in the library.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER 31 decks
2 Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima 14 decks
3 Lightning, Army of One 11 decks
4 Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer 9 decks
5 Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man 8 decks
6 Tifa, Martial Artist 6 decks
7 Captain America, First Avenger 5 decks
8 Cloud, Midgar Mercenary 5 decks
9 Gilgamesh, Master-at-Arms 5 decks
10 Kratos, God of War 5 decks

Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER dominates the top-commander list with 31 decks, more than double the next entry, while the remainder of the list fans out across a wide range of combat-oriented strategies.

Frequently Asked

How often is Buster Sword drawn in a Commander game?

In 419 tracked multiplayer games where Buster Sword was in the deck, it was drawn 31% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 137 instances that reached a player's hand, 77% were cast before the game concluded. The remainder were mostly held in games that ended before the player found the right moment or the mana.

What turn does Buster Sword typically hit the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 5 in multiplayer games. The distribution runs from turn 1 through turn 15, but the bulk of casts cluster between turns 4 and 7. Only 24% of casts land exactly on curve at the card's three-mana cost, which is directionally low. Most players draw it after the earliest possible casting window, rather than holding it by choice. The hand-to-cast median of one turn confirms that once it is in hand, players move quickly.

Which commanders most commonly run Buster Sword?

Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER leads the tracked dataset by a wide margin, which is thematically expected given the Final Fantasy VII source material. Beyond Cloud, the card appears across a range of combat-focused commanders including Jin Sakai, Lightning, and Anti-Venom. The spread across multiple archetypes suggests the card's colorless identity and damage-trigger payoff attract a variety of Equipment and voltron strategies, not just FFVII-themed builds.

Does casting Buster Sword actually improve your win rate?

The cast-vs-library delta is small and sits within the margin of uncertainty on this sample. Games where Buster Sword was cast show a 26% win rate across 102 observations, compared to 27% in games where it stayed in the library. That gap is directional at best and not conclusive given the sample size. Treat it as an early signal rather than a firm conclusion.

Is Buster Sword legal in Commander?

Yes. Buster Sword is legal in Commander and in most other Constructed formats including Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and Historic. It is not legal in Pauper or Pauper Commander due to its mythic rarity, and it is not legal in PreDH or Old School. Its colorless color identity means it slots into any Commander deck regardless of the commander's colors.

How concentrated is the Buster Sword data among a small group of players?

The data is well-spread. 171 distinct players have brought Buster Sword to at least one tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for only 4% of all instances. That low concentration is a sign that the numbers here reflect a broad community of players rather than the habits of one or two frequent contributors, which adds credibility to the overall picture within this dataset's size.