Live Play Data

Cleansing Nova

· Sorcery · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

695

Decks Running

347

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

61%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Cleansing Nova sits in 4% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, reaches a hand 24% of the time, and when drawn is cast 61% of the time. Median first cast lands on turn 8.

Cleansing Nova is one of white's most flexible board answers: a five-mana sorcery that either wipes all creatures or erases all artifacts and enchantments. On Playgroup Live it appears in 4% of tracked Commander decks, a modest share that reflects white's access to competing sweepers rather than any weakness in the card itself.

The draw-to-play rate is 61%: of the 165 times a copy entered a player's hand, 101 reached the stack before the game ended. Median first cast lands on turn 8, which tracks with the card's five mana cost and the reality that players tend to hold reactive sweepers until the board warrants them. On-curve casts are rare at 8%. That is not a knock on the card. It is a sorcery-speed reset, and players routinely keep it in hand for several turns waiting for the right moment.

The data comes from 668 tracked multiplayer Commander games across 323 distinct players, so read directional signals here as early indications rather than settled conclusions.

At a glance

4% of tracked Commander decks include Cleansing Nova
24% draw rate, typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck
61% of drawn copies reach the stack before the game ends
T8 median first-cast turn, consistent with a held-for-timing sweeper
8% on-curve cast rate, reflecting deliberate timing rather than ramp
323 distinct players have brought Cleansing Nova to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=101

70%

T6-9

22%

T10+

Median 8 P25 6 · P75 9 · max 21

On curve 8% (5 / 101 cast on T5) Cast same turn as drawn 25%

The "good card" funnel

698 brought · 323 players

Brought to game

698

Ever drawn

165

Reached battlefield

101

Still on board at game end

61%

Of 698 Cleansing Novas brought to games, 165 were drawn and 101 of those resolved, a chain that reflects the card's role as a held-for-timing board reset rather than an always-slam threat.

≥ -8.5pp

Players who cast this card win 25% of the time (n=91) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=451).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 37% (n=57) — 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 +0.6pp; 95% confidence interval -8.5pp to +9.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

173 instances

1.2%

Library

2.3%

Battlefield

53.2%

Graveyard

12.1%

Exile

Most of Cleansing Nova's tracked copies end the game in the graveyard after resolving, as expected for a sorcery, with only a handful stranded in hand or library. The tiny battlefield count reflects exile and bounce effects rather than the card sticking in play.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 101 decks
2 Mister Fantastic 26 decks
3 Giada, Font of Hope 16 decks
4 Avacyn, Angel of Hope 11 decks
5 Isperia, Supreme Judge 11 decks
6 Sliver Gravemother 10 decks
7 The First Sliver 9 decks
8 Invisible Woman 8 decks
9 Gisela, the Broken Blade 6 decks
10 Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer 4 decks

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads the commander list by a wide margin, but Cleansing Nova spreads across a healthy mix of white-inclusive commanders from mono-white to five-color, suggesting it fills a generic sweeper slot rather than belonging to one archetype.

Card text

Cleansing Nova

Sorcery

Choose one — • Destroy all creatures. • Destroy all artifacts and enchantments.

Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC) · Rare · Illustrated by Vlad Petruchik

Frequently Asked

How often is Cleansing Nova drawn in a Commander game?

Across 668 tracked games where Cleansing Nova was in a deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is in line with what you expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 165 copies that reached a hand, 61% were cast before the game ended. The remainder were mostly held cards that the game ended around, not deliberate passes.

What turn does Cleansing Nova usually get cast?

Median first cast is turn 8, with the middle half of casts landing between turns 6 and 9. The card costs five mana, so very early casts are structurally rare. Beyond the mana requirement, players treating it as a reactive board wipe will naturally delay it, which pushes the median later than a proactive spell of the same cost would show.

How often is Cleansing Nova cast right on curve?

8% of observed first casts happened on turn 5, exactly on the card's mana value. Most casts land behind curve, which is expected for a reset held in hand until the board position demands it. Check the draw-to-play rate rather than on-curve rate to judge how often players actually execute the card once they have it.

Is Cleansing Nova legal in Commander?

Yes. Cleansing Nova is legal and unrestricted in Commander, as well as in Duel Commander, Brawl, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Gladiator, Oathbreaker, and Competitive Brawl. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Premodern.

Which commanders most commonly pair with Cleansing Nova?

Among tracked decks on Playgroup Live, Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads the list, followed by Mister Fantastic and Giada, Font of Hope. The spread across commanders is reasonably wide. 323 distinct players have brought the card to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for 24% or less of all instances, so the dataset reflects genuine breadth rather than one pilot's collection.

Does casting Cleansing Nova actually improve win odds?

The cast-vs-library win-rate delta is a small positive figure in the current dataset, but both sample sizes are still building. With 91 observed cast participations and a standard error wider than the delta itself, this is a directional signal at best. The honest read is: the card does not appear to hurt win odds, and the data does not yet show a statistically meaningful lift. Revisit as the sample grows.