Live Play Data

Dark Ritual

· Instant · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

21%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1100

Decks Running

640

Median Cast Turn

4.0

Drawn → Played

70%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

21% of tracked Commander decks run Dark Ritual, and when it's drawn, 70% of copies reach the cast step, with a median first-cast turn of 4.0.

Dark Ritual sits in 21% of the 3032 distinct Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live. That figure reflects a deliberate deckbuilding choice: the card is black-only, costs {B}, and trades a mana advantage this turn for no lasting board presence, so only pilots who have a specific use for the burst include it.

The draw-to-play rate of 70% confirms players act on it quickly when they see it. Median first cast lands on turn 4.0, but the distribution is notably flat across turns 2 through 9. That spread is consistent with how Dark Ritual is used: sometimes it accelerates an early threat, sometimes it enables a mid-game combo piece the player was waiting to assemble. Because it resolves instantly to the graveyard, battlefield stickiness is not a relevant metric here.

Dark Ritual is legal in Commander but banned in Duel Commander and Oathbreaker. Its presence in formats like Legacy and Vintage, where it has been a staple for decades, sets the context: Black decks with high-impact single spells are its natural home, and the top-commander list on Playgroup Live reflects that pattern clearly.

At a glance

21% of tracked Commander decks include Dark Ritual
24% draw rate per game, typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck
70% of drawn copies reach the cast step before the game ends
T4.0 median first-cast turn across observed games
457 distinct players have brought Dark Ritual to a tracked game, spreading the data widely
32% win rate in games where Dark Ritual was cast (normalized to 4-player baseline)

First-cast turn

n=186

13%

15%

11%

33%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4.0 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 19

On curve 8% (14 / 186 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 41%

The "good card" funnel

1109 brought · 457 players

Brought to game

1109

Ever drawn

265

Reached battlefield

186

Still on board at game end

70%

Of 1109 copies brought to games, 265 were drawn, 186 of those were cast, and nearly all resolved directly to the graveyard since Dark Ritual produces mana and leaves play immediately.

≥ +3.0pp

Players who cast this card win 32% of the time (n=186) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=768).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 28% (n=76) — 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 +9.5pp; 95% confidence interval +3.0pp to +16.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

302 instances

2.3%

Library

1.7%

Battlefield

64.6%

Graveyard

12.3%

Exile

Nearly all cast copies end in the graveyard, exactly as expected for an instant that produces mana and resolves. The library bucket represents copies that were never drawn across 1109 instances brought to games.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Fire Lord Azula 15 decks
2 Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied 14 decks
3 Marrow-Gnawer 14 decks
4 Sauron, the Dark Lord 13 decks
5 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 12 decks
6 Silverquill, the Disputant 10 decks
7 Edgar Markov 9 decks
8 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth 9 decks
9 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse 9 decks
10 Be'lakor, the Dark Master 8 decks

The top-commander list spans mono-black to Grixis to Jund, signaling that Dark Ritual is not locked to one archetype. No single commander dominates at more than 10 decks, and the spread across 457 unique players suggests reasonable breadth in the data.

Frequently Asked

How often is Dark Ritual drawn in a Commander game?

Across 916 tracked games where Dark Ritual was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That's in line with baseline singleton expectations for a 100-card deck. Of the 265 instances that reached a player's hand, 70% were cast before the game ended. The remainder were largely a game-length effect: copies drawn late in a deciding turn or after the game was already decided.

What turn does Dark Ritual typically get cast?

Median first cast is turn 4.0, with a fairly flat spread from turns 2 through 9. The mode in the multiplayer dataset is turn 3. Dark Ritual has a mana value of 1, so casting it on turn 1 is possible with an opening-hand draw, but most players appear to hold it until it can power out something meaningful. The hand-to-cast data shows a median hold of 1 turn before casting, and 41% of cast copies were played on the same turn they were drawn.

Is Dark Ritual banned in Commander?

Dark Ritual is legal in regular Commander (EDH). It is banned in Duel Commander and Oathbreaker. It is also legal in Legacy, Vintage, Pauper, and Premodern. It is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, or Alchemy. The Duel Commander ban reflects the outsized impact a free {B}{B}{B} burst can have in a two-player, 20-life format where early pressure is far more punishing than in a four-player pod.

Does casting Dark Ritual actually help you win?

The cast-vs-library delta is +9.5 percentage points, comparing win rates in games where the card was cast versus games where it stayed in the library untouched. Both sample buckets are well above 15 observations, so this is a meaningful early signal rather than noise. The direction is consistent with what you'd expect from a card that accelerates a game-winning play, though correlation and causation are hard to separate here: decks that draw and cast Dark Ritual are also more likely to be high-powered decks in general.

Which commanders most commonly pair with Dark Ritual on Playgroup Live?

The top of the multiplayer list includes Fire Lord Azula, Sauron the Dark Lord, and Kuja, Genome Sorcerer, each appearing in 8-10 tracked decks. Mono-black commanders like Sephiroth, K'rrik Son of Yawgmoth, and Marrow-Gnawer are also well represented. The spread across 457 unique players with no single player exceeding a small share of instances gives the distribution reasonable breadth for this dataset size.

Why does Dark Ritual end up in the graveyard so often in the final zone chart?

Dark Ritual is an instant that resolves immediately and moves to the graveyard as part of its resolution. It never stays on the battlefield. That means the graveyard is always its final zone once cast, and the battlefield count in the chart reflects only edge cases like Yawgmoth's Will or similar recursion effects. The 'library' entries represent copies that were never drawn or interacted with during the game, which is the structural baseline for any singleton in a 100-card deck.