Chromatic Lantern
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Artifact
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Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)
9% of tracked Commander decks run Chromatic Lantern, and 75% of drawn copies reach the battlefield. It most commonly resolves on turn 4.5, spread across 258 distinct players.
Chromatic Lantern sits in 9% of Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live. It appears in 345 of the 4011 distinct tracked decks, making it one of the most consistent mana-fixing artifacts in the format. That number is directional, not definitive, but the signal is consistent across 514 tracked games.
The draw-to-play rate tells the core story: 75% of copies that reach a player's hand are cast before the game ends. Median first cast lands on turn 4.5, with most action clustered between turns 3 and 7. The card does not sit in hand long when it arrives. The median hand-to-cast delay is 1 turn, which reflects how quickly players move it to the battlefield once they have the mana.
Chromatic Lantern belongs almost exclusively to multicolor decks. Five-color commanders dominate the top-commander list, and the pattern makes sense: a 3-mana artifact that turns every land into a rainbow source is worth a slot the moment your commander demands three or more colors. Two-color and mono-color decks rarely bother.
- 9% of tracked Commander decks include Chromatic Lantern
- 75% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
- T4.5 median first-cast turn
- 74% battlefield stickiness once cast
- 258 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
- 35% of casts land exactly on-curve at 3 mana
First-cast turn
n=110The "good card" funnel
602 brought · 258 playersOf 602 copies brought to games, 146 were drawn, 110 of those were cast, and 74% of resolved copies remained on the battlefield at end of game.
Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=110) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=426).
When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 24% (n=34) — 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.
95% confidence interval -3.7pp to +13.3pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.
Final zone distribution
154 instancesMost tracked copies of Chromatic Lantern finish on the battlefield, a sharp contrast to the typical singleton that spends the whole game buried in a 100-card deck and never surfaces.
Commanders that played this card
in tracked games-
1
Ashling, the Limitless
21 decks
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2
Tom Bombadil
12 decks
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3
Leonardo, the Balance
11 decks
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4
The Ur-Dragon
10 decks
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5
Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge
8 decks
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6
Kenrith, the Returned King
8 decks
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7
Toph, the First Metalbender
8 decks
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8
Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit
7 decks
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9
Ezio Auditore da Firenze
6 decks
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10
Saheeli, Radiant Creator
6 decks
Five-color commanders fill nearly every slot in the top-10 list, a direct reflection of Chromatic Lantern's core job: solving the hardest mana-fixing problems in the format.
How often is Chromatic Lantern drawn in a Commander game? ▾
In 514 tracked games where Chromatic Lantern was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is expected for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 146 copies that reached a player's hand, 75% were cast before the game ended. The remainder is largely a game-length effect: cards drawn in the final turns often never find resolution.
What turn does Chromatic Lantern usually hit the battlefield? ▾
Median first-cast turn is 4.5. The distribution runs from turn 1 through turn 14 in the tracked data, but the bulk of casts cluster between turns 3 and 7. Mode is turn 3, which matches players who drew it in the opening hand and cast it as soon as they hit three lands. Late casts past turn 9 are present but uncommon.
Does casting Chromatic Lantern correlate with winning? ▾
Games where Chromatic Lantern was cast show a win rate of 27%, compared to 22% in games where it stayed in the library. That is a +4.8 percentage-point lift. Both buckets have meaningful sample sizes (110 and 426 respectively), but the confidence interval on this delta is wide at current data volumes. Treat it as a directional early signal, not a proven causal effect.
Is Chromatic Lantern legal in Commander? ▾
Yes. Chromatic Lantern is legal and unrestricted in Commander, as well as in Duel Commander, Oathbreaker, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Brawl, Timeless, and Gladiator. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Premodern.
Why do five-color commanders use Chromatic Lantern so heavily? ▾
Five-color decks face the steepest mana-fixing demands in Commander. A single artifact that converts every land into any color of mana, while also tapping for a mana of any color itself, solves two problems at once: consistent access to WUBRG and a mana-neutral inclusion at 3 cost. The top commanders in the tracked data, including Ashling the Limitless, The Ur-Dragon, and Tom Bombadil, are all five-color, which explains why the inclusion rate skews toward this demographic.
How concentrated is this card among a small group of players? ▾
The data is well-spread. 258 distinct players have brought Chromatic Lantern to at least one tracked game. The single heaviest contributor accounts for 6% of all tracked instances, which is well below the threshold where one player's habits would skew the aggregate numbers. This breadth adds confidence to the aggregate figures.