Live Play Data

Darksteel Mutation

· Enchantment — Aura · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

847

Decks Running

442

Median Cast Turn

6.0

Drawn → Played

78%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

5% of tracked Commander decks run Darksteel Mutation. When drawn, 78% of copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 6.0.

Darksteel Mutation is White's sharpest answer to commanders and problem creatures. Across 818 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, 5% of decks include it, and it appears in 442 of the 9242 distinct tracked decks.

The card's draw-to-play rate sits at 78%, meaning the large majority of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends. Median first cast lands on turn 6.0, well past the curve for a 2-mana Aura. That lag reflects the card's role: players hold it until a high-value target appears rather than playing it at the earliest opportunity. The same-turn cast rate of 33% reinforces this. Most copies wait in hand for the right moment.

The concentration data is healthy. 386 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game, and no single player accounts for more than a small fraction of instances. That spread adds confidence to the directional signals in the data. Killian, Decisive Mentor leads the top-commander list by a wide margin, reflecting how well cheap Auras pair with Killian's cost-reduction ability.

At a glance

5% of tracked Commander decks include Darksteel Mutation
78% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T6.0 median first-cast turn, reflecting deliberate target selection
39% battlefield stickiness once the Aura resolves
386 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
27% draw rate, consistent with singleton in a 100-card deck

First-cast turn

n=176

13%

19%

48%

T6-9

10%

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 15

On curve 3% (3 / 176 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 33%

The "good card" funnel

847 brought · 386 players

Brought to game

847

Ever drawn

227

Reached battlefield

176

Still on board at game end

78%

Of 847 copies brought to games, 227 were drawn, 176 of those were cast, and 39% of resolved copies were still on the battlefield at game end, reflecting both the card's power and the difficulty opponents face removing an indestructible Aura.

≥ -7.1pp

Players who cast this card win 24% of the time (n=169) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=532).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 19% (n=47) — 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 -0.1pp; 95% confidence interval -7.1pp to +6.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

250 instances

2.4%

Library

27.2%

Battlefield

47.2%

Graveyard

6.0%

Exile

Most Darksteel Mutations end in the graveyard after the enchanted creature is removed through non-destruction means, with a meaningful share persisting on the battlefield through end of game. Only a small number of copies never leave the library, a sign that when players draw this card, it usually finds a target.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Killian, Decisive Mentor dominates the commander distribution with more than three times the deck count of the next commander on the list, pointing to how strongly cost-reduction synergizes with cheap, high-impact Auras. The remaining top commanders are spread across several enchantment-matters archetypes.

Card text

Darksteel Mutation

Enchantment — Aura

Enchant creature Enchanted creature is an Insect artifact creature with base power and toughness 0/1 and has indestructible, and it loses all other abilities, card types, and creature types.

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC) · Uncommon · Illustrated by Daniel Ljunggren

Frequently Asked

How often is Darksteel Mutation drawn in a Commander game?

Across 818 tracked games where the card was in the deck, it was drawn 27% of the time. That is typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 227 drawn instances, 78% were cast before the game ended. The remainder were largely held as situational answers that never found the right target, or were stranded in hand when the game concluded.

What turn does Darksteel Mutation usually get cast?

Median first cast is turn 6.0, with the distribution peaking around turns 5-6. Only a small number of casts land on turn 2, the card's mana-value turn, because players rarely commit the Aura to an early, low-priority target. The same-turn cast rate is 33%: when a player does cast it, roughly one in three times it happens the same turn they drew it, suggesting those draws came at an opportune moment.

Does casting Darksteel Mutation actually help you win?

The cast-vs-library win-rate delta is effectively flat in the current multiplayer dataset, so we cannot draw a directional conclusion from that figure alone. Both the cast and library win-rate buckets cluster near the 4-player expected baseline of 25%, which is consistent with the card performing a stabilizing role rather than a closing one. The sample sizes here are meaningful but not large enough to treat any gap as conclusive.

Which commanders run Darksteel Mutation most often?

Killian, Decisive Mentor leads by a large margin, which makes sense: Killian reduces the cost of Auras, making a 2-mana removal piece even more efficient. Eriette of the Charmed Apple, Zur the Enchanter, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin, and Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice round out the top five, all commanders that actively reward or tutor for Auras. The card's White color identity limits it to White-inclusive commanders, but the breadth of the list shows it is not a one-archetype card.

Is Darksteel Mutation legal in Commander?

Yes. Darksteel Mutation is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, Duel Commander, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Pauper, Brawl, Pauper Commander, or Historic. Its White color identity means it can only appear in Commander decks whose commander has White in their color identity.

Why is Darksteel Mutation considered a strong Commander card?

The interaction it creates is difficult to break out of. Enchanted creatures become indestructible 0/1 Insects with no abilities. Because the enchanted permanent gains indestructible, it cannot be destroyed, which means the affected player cannot easily remove the Aura through normal means. Commanders stuck under Darksteel Mutation cannot be used and cannot be sent to the command zone by damage or destruction, only by being bounced, exiled, phased out, or sacrificed. That makes it one of the most resilient and permanent answers White has access to.