Live Play Data

Enlightened Tutor

· Instant · Dominaria Remastered (DMR)

12%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

859

Decks Running

440

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

74%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

12% of tracked Commander decks run Enlightened Tutor. When drawn, 74% of copies are cast, and the median first-cast turn lands on 5.

Enlightened Tutor sits in 12% of the 3662 Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live. That figure spans a wide field of 304 distinct players, and no single contributor accounts for more than 4% of all tracked instances, giving the dataset reasonable spread.

Being an instant that puts its target on top of the library rather than into hand, Enlightened Tutor's value lives in what it sets up rather than what it resolves into. 74% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends, and the median first cast arrives on turn 5, which is consistent with a one-mana instant held for the right moment rather than slammed on curve. The on-curve rate of 17% reflects that dynamic: most copies are drawn after turn 1 rather than kept in opening hands, and players who do draw it early often choose to wait for a better target window.

The card is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and several other formats. It is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, or Standard. Its white-only color identity means it appears exclusively in decks that include white, and the commander distribution on Playgroup Live confirms that spread, ranging from mono-white builds to five-color piles.

At a glance

12% of tracked Commander decks include Enlightened Tutor
74% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn
17% on-curve rate, reflecting that most copies arrive after turn 1
304 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
24% draw rate, typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck

First-cast turn

n=155

17%

10%

11%

32%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 17

On curve 17% (26 / 155 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 41%

The "good card" funnel

859 brought · 304 players

Brought to game

859

Ever drawn

209

Reached battlefield

155

Still on board at game end

74%

Of 859 Enlightened Tutors brought to games, 209 were drawn, and 155 of those were cast, with the vast majority resolving to the graveyard as expected for a single-use instant.

≥ -3.3pp

Players who cast this card win 29% of the time (n=154) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=612).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 18% (n=52) — 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 +3.7pp; 95% confidence interval -3.3pp to +10.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

227 instances

4.8%

Library

2.6%

Battlefield

64.3%

Graveyard

9.3%

Exile

Enlightened Tutor is an instant that resolves to the graveyard after use, so the graveyard is its most common final zone. The small number ending in the library or hand reflects copies that were drawn but the game ended before they could be cast.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Giada, Font of Hope 10 decks
2 Baylen, the Haymaker 9 decks
3 Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge 9 decks
4 The Ur-Dragon 8 decks
5 Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer 7 decks
6 Toph, the First Metalbender 7 decks
7 Arabella, Abandoned Doll 6 decks
8 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV 6 decks
9 Kenrith, the Returned King 6 decks
10 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic 6 decks

The commander distribution is spread across more than a dozen archetypes and color combinations, with no single commander holding more than 8 decks at the top, consistent with a utility tutor that slots into any white deck.

Frequently Asked

How often is Enlightened Tutor drawn in a Commander game?

Across 730 tracked Commander games where Enlightened Tutor was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 209 instances that reached a player's hand, 74% were cast before the game concluded.

What turn does Enlightened Tutor typically get cast?

The median first-cast turn is 5, with the distribution spread from turn 1 through the mid-game. There is a cluster of early casts on turn 1, representing copies kept in opening hands, and a broad tail extending into turns 6-10. The on-curve rate of 17% is low for a one-mana spell, but that mostly reflects how rarely the card is drawn in the opening hand rather than players holding it by choice. The hand-to-cast same-turn rate is 41%, indicating that when players do draw it, about four in ten cast it immediately.

Does casting Enlightened Tutor correlate with winning?

In Playgroup Live's tracked games, the win rate when this card is cast sits at 29% across 154 participations, compared to 25% when it never left the library. That is a +3.7 percentage-point difference in the early data. Both sample sizes are moderate and the confidence interval spans zero, so treat this as a directional signal rather than a conclusive finding. The card's value as a tutor is structural: it converts a mana into the best artifact or enchantment for the situation, a benefit that does not always show up cleanly in win-rate snapshots.

Is Enlightened Tutor banned anywhere?

Enlightened Tutor is legal and unrestricted in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and several other formats. It is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Pauper, or Alchemy. Its absence from Modern is long-standing, reflecting the format's tighter power ceiling for tutors. In Commander it remains a legal staple.

Which commanders most commonly run Enlightened Tutor on Playgroup Live?

The top commanders in the tracked dataset include Baylen, the Haymaker and The Ur-Dragon tied at the top, followed by Esika, God of the Tree and Giada, Font of Hope. The list spans mono-white, two-color, and five-color identities, which reflects the card's broad utility across any deck that wants a reliable line to a key artifact or enchantment. No single commander dominates, and the spread across 304 unique players suggests the data is not skewed by a small group.

Why does Enlightened Tutor show such a low on-curve rate for a one-mana spell?

Enlightened Tutor costs one white mana, so casting it on turn 1 would be on-curve. The 17% on-curve rate means the majority of casts happen later, but this is a card-availability effect more than a strategic hold. A one-mana card needs to be in the opening hand to be cast on turn 1. Most copies arrive via draw later in the game. The 41% same-turn cast rate confirms that when players do draw it, they act on it quickly roughly four times out of ten, with a median of one turn sitting in hand before casting.