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Esper Sentinel

· Artifact Creature — Human Soldier · Modern Horizons 2 (MH2)

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Times Brought

1730

Decks Running

894

In Decks

—

Decklist Inclusion

—

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Showing 1v1 (duel) data only. 1v1 is a different format from multiplayer Commander, so these numbers are not comparable.

Card text

Esper Sentinel

Artifact Creature — Human Soldier

Whenever an opponent casts their first noncreature spell each turn, draw a card unless that player pays {X}

, where X is this creature's power.

1 / 1

Modern Horizons 2 (MH2) · Rare · Illustrated by Eric Deschamps

Final zone distribution

397 instances

2.5%

Library

42.1%

Battlefield

33.2%

Graveyard

9.1%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 29 decks
2 Toph, the First Metalbender 20 decks
3 Giada, Font of Hope 17 decks
4 Kaalia of the Vast 15 decks
5 Atraxa, Praetors' Voice 14 decks
6 Kilo, Apogee Mind 14 decks
7 Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer 13 decks
8 Hope Estheim 13 decks
9 Ms. Bumbleflower 13 decks
10 Winota, Joiner of Forces 13 decks

The "good card" funnel

1732 brought · 642 players

Brought to game

1732

Ever drawn

369

Reached battlefield

307

Still on board at game end

167

Once cast, 54% of this card is still on the battlefield at game end. This reflects how often it survives removal, not just whether it's a permanent.

≥ -1.4pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=247) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=1044).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 25% (n=49) — 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 +2.0pp; 95% confidence interval -1.4pp to +5.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=307

37%

13%

11%

17%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3 P25 1 · P75 5 · max 19

On curve 37% (114 / 307 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 82%

2281 of 300 tracked games 99%

Full analysis unlocks as more games are tracked. Stats refresh nightly.

Frequently Asked

Why isn't there more data on this card?

Playgroup Live collects per-card gameplay data from real Commander games. Basic play counts appear once a card reaches 100 tracked games; the full deep-dive page needs a larger, more diverse sample (at least 300 tracked games played by 10 or more different pilots, with no single pilot over 40 percent of the copies). Until this card clears those bars you're seeing only the basic counts. Stats refresh nightly.

How is Playgroup Live card data collected?

Players using Playgroup Live import their decklists before a game and log card actions as they play. Each cast, zone change, and resolution is recorded as a real game event. Stats on this site are computed from those events, not from decklist scrapes or theorycrafting. Playgroup has recorded 650,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.