Live Play Data

Deadly Dispute

· Instant · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

12%

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1930

Decks Running

982

Median Cast Turn

6.0

Drawn → Played

66%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

12% of tracked Commander decks run Deadly Dispute, and 66% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends, with a median first-cast turn of 6.0.

Deadly Dispute shows up in 12% of the 7881 distinct decks that have played a tracked multiplayer game on Playgroup Live, spread across 786 unique players, with no single contributor accounting for more than 3% of all instances. That breadth adds confidence to the early signal.

The card's design rewards timing rather than speed. Its 2-mana cost is almost never cast exactly on curve: the median first cast lands on turn 6.0, well after the theoretical turn-2 window. That gap reflects when players have a dispensable artifact or creature ready to sacrifice, not a reluctance to cast the spell. Once drawn, 66% of copies reach resolution before the game closes, a rate consistent with a card players actively want to find a window for.

Deadly Dispute sits in black's broader suite of sacrifice-based card advantage. It converts a dying token, a spent mana rock, or any other throwaway permanent into two fresh cards and a Treasure, letting black decks refuel at instant speed without losing tempo. It is banned in Pauper, legal in Commander, and sees play across a wide spread of token, aristocrats, and artifact strategies.

At a glance

12% of tracked Commander decks include Deadly Dispute
20% draw rate across tracked games
66% of drawn copies resolved before the game ended
T6.0 median first-cast turn, reflecting when sacrifice fodder is available
786 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=256

15%

16%

49%

T6-9

13%

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 16

On curve 1% (2 / 256 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 22%

The "good card" funnel

1934 brought · 786 players

Brought to game

1934

Ever drawn

389

Reached battlefield

256

Still on board at game end

66%

Of 1934 Deadly Dispute copies brought to tracked games, 389 were drawn, 256 of those were cast, and nearly all resolved copies went straight to the graveyard as expected for an instant.

≥ -4.9pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=241) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=1311).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 22% (n=125) — 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 +0.8pp; 95% confidence interval -4.9pp to +6.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

446 instances

1.8%

Library

0.9%

Battlefield

65.7%

Graveyard

9.0%

Exile

The overwhelming majority of Deadly Dispute instances end in the graveyard, exactly where an instant that resolves and then ceases to exist should land. The handful still in hand at game's end represent uncast copies that never found their moment.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Mr. House, President and CEO 39 decks
2 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 37 decks
3 Chatterfang, Squirrel General 33 decks
4 Hazel of the Rootbloom 33 decks
5 Caesar, Legion's Emperor 30 decks
6 Ygra, Eater of All 21 decks
7 Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied 20 decks
8 Teysa Karlov 20 decks
9 The Serpent Society 19 decks
10 Shadow the Hedgehog 18 decks

The commander spread is wide, with no single archetype dominating: artifact sacrifice, token aristocrats, and creature-heavy black strategies all appear near the top, reflecting the card's flexibility across multiple game plans.

Frequently Asked

How often is Deadly Dispute drawn and cast in Commander?

Across 1757 tracked multiplayer games, Deadly Dispute was drawn 20% of the time when in the deck. Of those drawn copies, 66% were cast before the game ended. The rest ended up in hand at game's end, most likely because no suitable window or sacrifice target appeared in the final turns.

What turn does Deadly Dispute usually get cast?

The median first-cast turn is 6.0, with the interquartile range spanning turns 5 through 8. Only a small fraction land on turn 2, the spell's actual mana cost. That pattern is expected: the card requires a sacrifice target, so players hold it until a convenient permanent is available rather than casting it at the earliest possible moment.

Does casting Deadly Dispute correlate with winning?

The cast-vs-library win-rate delta is near zero in the current dataset, and the sample's confidence interval crosses zero, so we treat this as a neutral directional signal rather than evidence for or against the card's impact on outcomes. Win rates in Commander are heavily influenced by deck quality and table composition. The cast win rate of 26% sits close to the normalized 25% four-player baseline.

Is Deadly Dispute banned anywhere?

Yes. Deadly Dispute is banned in Pauper, where its combination of card draw, mana generation, and trivial sacrifice cost proved too efficient for the format's resource constraints. It is legal and unrestricted in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and several other formats.

Which commanders most often run Deadly Dispute?

On Playgroup Live, Mr. House, President and CEO leads the multiplayer list with the most tracked decks, followed by Sephiroth, Hazel of the Rootbloom, and Chatterfang, Squirrel General. The spread covers sacrifice-matters, token, and artifact strategies, which makes sense given that those archetypes generate the cheapest sacrifice fodder for the spell.

How reliable is the Playgroup Live data for this card?

The dataset covers 1757 tracked multiplayer games and 982 decks. Data comes from 786 distinct players, with no single player exceeding 3% of all instances, so the spread is healthy. Sample sizes in the win-rate buckets are large enough to quote rates, but we describe trends as directional signals rather than statistically conclusive findings, consistent with Playgroup Live's overall dataset scale.