Live Play Data

Chasm Skulker

· Creature — Squid Horror · March of the Machine Commander (MOC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

980

Decks Running

512

Median Cast Turn

6.0

Drawn → Played

62%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Chasm Skulker appears in 5% of tracked multiplayer Commander decks on Playgroup Live, drawn 29% of the time and cast on a median turn of 6.0, with 454 distinct players bringing it to a tracked game.

Chasm Skulker is a blue draw-payoff creature that grows on every card drawn and floods the board with islandwalk Squid tokens when it dies. Across Playgroup Live's tracked multiplayer Commander games, it sits in 5% of observed decks, spread across 454 distinct players. No single player dominates the sample: the heaviest contributor accounts for just 2% of all tracked instances, a healthy spread that gives the numbers real breadth.

The card's play pattern is deliberate. Players hold it a median of one turn after drawing before casting it, and only 28% of drawn copies are slammed onto the table the same turn they arrive. The median first cast lands on turn 6.0, well past its 3-mana cost, which reflects both the draw-heavy decks that run it and the strategic patience required to grow its counter stack before the inevitable removal comes. 51% of resolved Chasm Skulkers survive through the end of the game, a middling stickiness figure that captures how often it trades into removal before the tokens ever materialize.

The commander distribution tells a clear story: draw-synergy commanders dominate the list. Ms. Bumbleflower, Tidus, and Xyris all want to generate card draw at scale, which is exactly the environment where Chasm Skulker snowballs fastest. Its blue-only color identity keeps it out of non-blue pods entirely, so the 5% figure understates its penetration within eligible decks.

At a glance

5% of tracked multiplayer Commander decks include Chasm Skulker
62% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T6.0 median first-cast turn, two turns after its 3-mana cost
51% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
454 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game
22% of casts land exactly on curve at turn 3

First-cast turn

n=178

15%

14%

12%

44%

T6-9

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 4 · P75 8 · max 14

On curve 22% (27 / 178 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 28%

The "good card" funnel

981 brought · 454 players

Brought to game

981

Ever drawn

288

Reached battlefield

178

Still on board at game end

62%

Of 981 Chasm Skulkers brought to tracked games, 288 were drawn, 178 of those reached the battlefield, and 51% survived through end of game. A meaningful slice ends in the graveyard mid-game, often converting into the token flood the card promises.

≥ +1.5pp

Players who cast this card win 29% of the time (n=163) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=592).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 33% (n=99) — 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 +8.7pp; 95% confidence interval +1.5pp to +15.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

308 instances

3.2%

Library

29.2%

Battlefield

32.1%

Graveyard

5.5%

Exile

Most undrawn Chasm Skulkers never leave the library, a structural reality of 100-card singleton. Of observed copies, the split between battlefield survivors and graveyard finishes reflects how often removal trades with the Skulker before its death trigger can convert counters into a Squid army.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Draw-synergy commanders dominate the list: Ms. Bumbleflower, Tidus, and Xyris all generate card draw at scale, giving Chasm Skulker a reliable engine to stack counters. The spread across multiple archetypes shows it is not a one-deck card.

Card text

Chasm Skulker

Creature — Squid Horror

Whenever you draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. When this creature dies, create X 1/1 blue Squid creature tokens with islandwalk, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on this creature. (They can't be blocked as long as defending player controls an Island.)

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March of the Machine Commander (MOC) · Rare · Illustrated by Jack Wang

Frequently Asked

How often is Chasm Skulker drawn in a Commander game?

In 948 tracked multiplayer games where Chasm Skulker was in the deck, it was drawn 29% of the time. That draw rate is modestly above average for a singleton in a 100-card deck, which makes sense: many of the decks running it are draw-heavy builds that cycle through their library faster than typical pods. Of 288 total instances that reached a player's hand, 62% were eventually cast.

What turn does Chasm Skulker usually get cast?

Median first cast is turn 6.0, with the distribution running from turn 1 (a rare ramp-assisted opening) through turn 11. The most common single cast turn is turn 3, right on curve, but the long tail of mid-game casts pulls the median to turn 5. Only 22% of casts land exactly on curve at turn 3. Players tend to hold it about one turn after drawing before committing it to the board: the median hand-to-cast delay is 1 turn, and just 28% of drawn copies are cast immediately.

Does casting Chasm Skulker actually improve your win rate?

The cast win rate is 29% across 163 observations, compared to 21% when it stayed in the library. That's a +8.7 percentage-point gap in favor of casting. However, the standard error on this dataset means the gap is directional rather than statistically confirmed. Early signal suggests casting it correlates with better outcomes, but treat it as a trend rather than a proven lift.

Is Chasm Skulker banned in any format?

Chasm Skulker is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. There are no bans in the formats where it is legal, so it is freely available for Commander pods without restriction.

Which commanders run Chasm Skulker most often?

Ms. Bumbleflower and Tidus, Yuna's Guardian lead the tracked data, both in the Bant (G/U/W) color identity with strong group-draw mechanics. Captain N'ghathrod and Xyris, the Writhing Storm also appear near the top, representing blue-black mill and blue-red-green wheel strategies respectively. The common thread is commanders that generate card draw at scale, giving Chasm Skulker the fuel it needs to stack counters quickly and become a serious threat or a punishing death trigger.

How spread is the Chasm Skulker data across players?

The data comes from 454 distinct players, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 2% of all tracked instances. That concentration figure is well below 15%, which is a positive signal for data quality. The numbers here reflect a broad cross-section of the Playgroup Live community rather than one player's dedicated testing, though the total dataset of 948 tracked games is still modest enough to treat every trend as directional.