Live Play Data

Excalibur, Sword of Eden

· Legendary Artifact — Equipment · Assassin's Creed (ACR)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

700

Decks Running

340

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

77%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

51% of games where Excalibur, Sword of Eden resolved ended in a win for the caster, a +20.8 percentage-point lift over the 30% baseline when the card never left the library.

Excalibur, Sword of Eden carries a sticker price of {12} mana, but its self-reducing cost mechanic means the card lands far earlier than that number implies. Across 673 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, it has been cast 139 times with a median first-cast turn of 7, and 51% of those resolutions ended with the caster winning the game.

The cast-vs-library win-rate delta stands at +20.8 percentage points. With 126 observations in the cast bucket and 454 in the library bucket, this is a well-sampled signal, not just noise. Players who get the Sword onto the battlefield win at nearly double the rate of those who never interact with it. The +10/+0 bonus with vigilance on a legendary creature is a credible game-ender once the Equipment is live.

Excalibur fits cleanly into any legendary-heavy or artifact-dense shell regardless of color identity: it has no color identity of its own, making it a universal splash in any Commander deck that can reliably reduce its cost. The top commanders running it lean heavily into artifact synergies and legendary-creature density, exactly the condition the card's cost-reduction clause rewards.

At a glance

2% of tracked Commander decks include Excalibur, Sword of Eden
T7 median first-cast turn, well ahead of its 12 printed mana value
51% win rate in games where Excalibur resolved
+20.8pp win-rate lift over the library baseline, a well-sampled effect
77% of drawn copies were cast before the game ended
80% battlefield stickiness once the Equipment lands

First-cast turn

n=139

10%

13%

60%

T6-9

12%

T10+

Median 7 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 100

On curve 98% (4 / 139 cast on T12) Cast same turn as drawn 48%

The "good card" funnel

700 brought · 289 players

Brought to game

700

Ever drawn

181

Reached battlefield

139

Still on board at game end

111

77%

Of 700 Excaliburs brought to games, 181 were drawn, 139 of those were cast, and 80% of resolved copies stayed on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ +11.9pp

Players who cast this card win 51% of the time (n=126) , vs 30% when it never left the library (n=454).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 22% (n=33) — 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 +20.8pp; 95% confidence interval +11.9pp to +29.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

200 instances

1.0%

Library

55.5%

Battlefield

13.0%

Graveyard

7.5%

Exile

Most of the library bucket reflects copies that were simply never drawn in 673 tracked games, a structural feature of 100-card singleton rather than a sign the card underperforms when it does show up.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER 23 decks
2 Captain America, First Avenger 20 decks
3 Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man 19 decks
4 Zhulodok, Void Gorger 16 decks
5 Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima 14 decks
6 Ezio Auditore da Firenze 12 decks
7 Cloud, Midgar Mercenary 9 decks
8 T'Challa, the Black Panther 8 decks
9 Ekthi, Contaminator Priest 7 decks
10 Gilgamesh, Master-at-Arms 6 decks

The commander spread is wide across 289 unique players, with artifact-generating and legendary-dense commanders like Captain America, First Avenger and Tony Stark dominating the top slots, matching exactly what Excalibur's cost-reduction clause rewards.

Card text

Excalibur, Sword of Eden

Legendary Artifact — Equipment

This spell costs {X}

less to cast, where X is the total mana value of historic permanents you control. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic.) Equipped creature gets +10/+0 and has vigilance. Equip legendary creature {2}

Assassin's Creed (ACR) · Rare · Illustrated by Thanh Tuấn

Frequently Asked

How often is Excalibur drawn and cast in a Commander game?

In 673 tracked games where Excalibur was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. Of those 181 drawn copies, 77% were cast before the game ended. That draw-to-play rate reflects a combination of player intent and game length: a copy drawn very late may never reach the battlefield simply because the game concludes first.

What turn does Excalibur actually hit the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 7, with the bulk of casts clustered between turns 4 and 7. Despite a printed mana cost of {12}, the self-reduction clause triggers off any artifact, legendary permanent, or Saga you control, so a player with a stocked board can cast it for just a few mana. Of 139 casts tracked, 97 of 102 landed ahead of the nominal mana-value curve.

Does casting Excalibur actually improve your chances of winning?

The data is directional and well-sampled. Games where Excalibur reached the battlefield show a 51% win rate across 126 observations. Games where it stayed in the library show 30% across 454 observations. The +20.8 percentage-point gap has a lower confidence bound above zero, which is an early but consistent signal that resolving this card is a meaningful advantage rather than a coincidence of deck quality.

Is Excalibur, Sword of Eden legal in Commander?

Yes. Excalibur, Sword of Eden is legal in Commander (and also in Duel Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Oathbreaker). It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Historic, Pauper, or Brawl. Its colorless identity means it can be included in any Commander deck regardless of the commander's color identity.

Which commanders run Excalibur most often?

Captain America, First Avenger leads the multiplayer data with 19 decks, followed by Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man at 14 and Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER at 11. The pattern is clear: commanders that generate artifacts or legendary permanents naturally accumulate the historic count needed to make Excalibur cheap. The card is also well-spread across 289 unique players, with no single contributor accounting for more than a small fraction of the instances.

How sticky is Excalibur once it resolves?

80% of resolved Excaliburs remained on the battlefield through the end of game. Equipment is inherently harder to answer than creatures, and a +10/+0 grant with vigilance creates an immediate, visible threat that opponents must either block or remove before the next combat. When the Sword does leave the battlefield, it most often goes to the graveyard rather than exile, leaving open the possibility of recursion.