Live Play Data

Cryptic Command

· Instant · Iconic Masters (IMA)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

571

Decks Running

287

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

56%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

First-cast turn

n=89

12%

58%

T6-9

27%

T10+

Median 8 P25 6 · P75 10 · max 19

On curve 2% (2 / 89 cast on T4) Cast same turn as drawn 35%

The "good card" funnel

571 brought · 254 players

Brought to game

571

Ever drawn

158

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

≥ +2.5pp

Players who cast this card win 38% of the time (n=86) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=340).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 33% (n=59).

Read this as correlation, not as the card's contribution. Casting a card means you lived long enough to cast it, so this gap widens with mana value across every card we track.

Observed gap +13.0pp; 95% confidence interval +2.5pp to +23.6pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

181 instances

2.2%

Library

1.1%

Battlefield

55.8%

Graveyard

7.7%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Card text

Cryptic Command

Instant

Choose two — • Counter target spell. • Return target permanent to its owner's hand. • Tap all creatures your opponents control. • Draw a card.

Iconic Masters (IMA) · Rare · Illustrated by Jason Rainville

Frequently Asked

Why isn't there more data on this card?

Playgroup Live collects per-card gameplay data from real Commander games. Play counts appear once a card reaches 100 tracked games, and the full charts need a sample of at least 25 observed games that is not dominated by a single pilot. Until this card clears those bars you're seeing only the basic counts. Stats refresh nightly.

How is Playgroup Live card data collected?

Players using Playgroup Live import their decklists before a game and log card actions as they play. Each cast, zone change, and resolution is recorded as a real game event. Stats on this site are computed from those events, not from decklist scrapes or theorycrafting. Playgroup has recorded 690,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.