Live Play Data

Cursed Mirror

· Artifact · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1123

Decks Running

551

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

71%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

71% of drawn Cursed Mirrors are cast before the game ends, with a median first-cast turn of 5, spread across 467 distinct players in the Playgroup Live dataset.

Cursed Mirror sits in 6% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, a focused niche card that earns its slot across a wide range of red strategies. It appears in 551 of the 9544 distinct decks that have played a tracked game, and the data is well-spread: 467 unique players have brought it to a game, with no single contributor responsible for more than a small share of the sample.

The card's flexibility drives its retention rate. Entering as a mana rock on turn 3, then pivoting mid-game to copy a threatening creature with haste, means Cursed Mirror fills two roles in one card slot. 71% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, and once it lands it stays: 72% stickiness reflects that most resolved copies either win the game or linger as a useful mana source. Median first cast falls on turn 5, consistent with players deploying it as accelerant in the early-to-mid game rather than holding it for a specific creature target.

The commander spread tells its own story. Rootha, Mastering the Moment leads by a wide margin, pointing to copy-effect synergies. Etali, Rin and Seri, Miirym, and Krenko all appear, confirming that Cursed Mirror is a format generalist in red rather than a build-around piece for one archetype.

At a glance

6% of tracked Commander decks include Cursed Mirror
71% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn
72% battlefield stickiness once resolved
467 unique players have brought Cursed Mirror to a tracked game
33% win rate in games where Cursed Mirror reached the battlefield

First-cast turn

n=181

15%

18%

13%

38%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 4 · P75 7 · max 15

On curve 21% (27 / 181 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 34%

The "good card" funnel

1123 brought · 467 players

Brought to game

1123

Ever drawn

254

Reached battlefield

181

Still on board at game end

131

71%

Of 1123 Cursed Mirrors brought to games, 254 were drawn, 181 of those were cast, and 72% of resolved copies remained on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -2.4pp

Players who cast this card win 33% of the time (n=164) , vs 28% when it never left the library (n=753).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 29% (n=68) — 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 +5.1pp; 95% confidence interval -2.4pp to +12.5pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

291 instances

2.1%

Library

45.0%

Battlefield

25.4%

Graveyard

8.2%

Exile

Most Cursed Mirrors finish on the battlefield or in the graveyard after combat, consistent with a card that either wins the game as a creature copy or dies as one. The library figure is near zero because observed instances, by definition, had meaningful game activity.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Rootha, Mastering the Moment 65 decks
2 Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness 24 decks
3 Deadpool, Trading Card 23 decks
4 Rin and Seri, Inseparable 18 decks
5 Clive, Ifrit's Dominant // Ifrit, Warden of Inferno 14 decks
6 Kratos, God of War 13 decks
7 Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm 13 decks
8 Krenko, Mob Boss 12 decks
9 Tannuk, Steadfast Second 11 decks
10 Shadow the Hedgehog 10 decks

Rootha, Mastering the Moment pulls well ahead of the field in raw deck count, but the long tail of named commanders from mono-red aggro to Simic creature strategies shows Cursed Mirror earns a slot across a genuinely wide slice of the red meta.

Card text

Cursed Mirror

Artifact

: Add

. As this artifact enters, you may have it become a copy of any creature on the battlefield until end of turn, except it has haste.

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC) · Rare · Illustrated by David Gaillet

Frequently Asked

How often is Cursed Mirror drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1083 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Cursed Mirror was in the deck, it was drawn 23% of the time. That is a normal draw rate for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 254 instances that reached a player's hand, 71% were cast before the game concluded. The remainder is mostly a game-length effect: copies drawn late may not find a cast window before the game ends.

What turn does Cursed Mirror typically get cast?

Median first cast falls on turn 5, with the middle 50% of casts landing between turns 4 and 7. The distribution has a small cluster in turns 2-3, where it acts as early ramp, and a long tail stretching into the double digits for games that go long. Only 21% of casts land exactly on the card's mana-value turn (turn 3), which reflects that most players do not draw it in their opening hand rather than a tendency to hold it.

Does casting Cursed Mirror actually help you win?

In 164 participations where Cursed Mirror reached the battlefield, the normalized win rate was 33%, compared to 28% in 753 participations where it stayed in the library. The +5.1 percentage-point gap is a directional early signal, not a definitive proof of causation. Both sample sizes are reasonable, but Playgroup Live's dataset is still growing, so treat this as consistent with the card being useful rather than a settled finding.

Is Cursed Mirror banned anywhere relevant?

Cursed Mirror is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. It faces no bans in the formats where it sees competitive play. In Commander it is unrestricted, which is where its flexibility as both a mana rock and a creature copy earns the most value.

Which commanders run Cursed Mirror most often?

Rootha, Mastering the Moment leads the tracked dataset by a large margin, likely because copy effects multiply Cursed Mirror's enter-the-battlefield trigger. Etali, Primal Conqueror, Rin and Seri, and Miirym follow, representing creature-heavy strategies that benefit from a hasty copy of their own threats. The spread across mono-red commanders like Magda, Krenko, and Clive confirms Cursed Mirror functions as a generalist red utility piece rather than a card that belongs exclusively in one archetype.

How concentrated is the Cursed Mirror data among a small group of players?

The data is well-distributed. 467 unique players have brought Cursed Mirror to a tracked game on Playgroup Live, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for less than 5% of all instances. That spread is a meaningful strength of the sample: the numbers here reflect a broad cross-section of real Commander tables rather than the habits of one or two prolific users.