Live Play Data

Frantic Search

· Instant · Avatar: The Last Airbender Eternal (TLE)

13%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1212

Decks Running

586

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

75%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

75% of drawn Frantic Search copies are cast before the game ends, and the spell appears in 13% of tracked Commander decks across 1088 live games on Playgroup Live.

Frantic Search sits in 13% of the 4464 distinct Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live. Of 359 instances drawn across 1088 games, 75% reached the stack, placing it among the more reliably executed instants in the dataset.

The card's core bargain is well understood: pay 3 mana, draw two cards, discard two, then untap up to three lands, effectively making the spell free in the right setup. That density of effect is why it clusters in blue spell-slinging and spellcopy archetypes. Median first cast lands on turn 6, consistent with a mid-game role rather than an early-curve accelerant. Only 22% of casts land exactly on curve, mostly because players draw it after turn 3 rather than holding it by choice.

The data is well-spread across 455 unique players, and no single player accounts for more than 3% of tracked instances. That breadth means the numbers reflect genuine format-wide behavior rather than a small cluster of enthusiasts.

At a glance

13% of tracked Commander decks include Frantic Search
75% of drawn copies reach the stack before the game ends
T6 median first-cast turn
29% draw rate across tracked games
455 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game
32% normalized win rate in games where Frantic Search resolved

First-cast turn

n=269

16%

13%

46%

T6-9

T10+

Median 6 P25 4 · P75 7 · max 15

On curve 22% (43 / 269 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 35%

The "good card" funnel

1222 brought · 455 players

Brought to game

1222

Ever drawn

359

Reached battlefield

269

Still on board at game end

75%

Of 1222 copies brought to games, 359 were drawn, 269 of those were cast, and the card resolves to the graveyard in the vast majority of cases as expected for an instant.

≥ +0.1pp

Players who cast this card win 32% of the time (n=258) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=756).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 39% (n=86) — 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 +6.0pp; 95% confidence interval +0.1pp to +12.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

398 instances

3.8%

Library

3.0%

Battlefield

62.8%

Graveyard

14.6%

Exile

The graveyard is the expected destination for an instant: the overwhelming majority of resolved Frantic Search copies end there, which is structurally normal and reflects healthy spell execution rather than removal.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 41 decks
2 Fire Lord Azula 24 decks
3 Ms. Bumbleflower 17 decks
4 Doctor Doom, King of Latveria 16 decks
5 Vnwxt, Verbose Host 15 decks
6 Norman Osborn // Green Goblin 13 decks
7 Vivi Ornitier 13 decks
8 Ovika, Enigma Goliath 11 decks
9 Alela, Cunning Conqueror 10 decks
10 Prismari, the Inspiration 9 decks

The top-commander list spans five distinct color identities, all sharing blue, which signals that Frantic Search is a broadly adopted blue staple rather than a card tightly tied to one archetype or commander.

Frequently Asked

How often is Frantic Search drawn and cast in Commander?

Across 1088 tracked games, Frantic Search was drawn 29% of the time it was in a deck. That is a typical draw rate for a non-land singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 359 copies that reached a hand, 75% were cast before the game ended. The remainder largely reflects games that ended before the player found a good window to fire it off.

What turn does Frantic Search typically get cast?

The median first-cast turn is 6, with the middle 50% of casts falling between turns 6 and the upper quartile. Only 22% of casts land exactly on curve (turn 3, matching its 3-mana cost). The low on-curve rate is primarily a drawing-late effect rather than players choosing to hold the card. The same-turn cast rate of 35% confirms that once players have it in hand, they tend to cast it fairly quickly.

Does casting Frantic Search improve your win rate?

In games where Frantic Search resolved, the normalized win rate is 32%. In games where it stayed in the library without being interacted with, the rate is 26%. The delta is +6.0 percentage points. With 258 observations in the cast bucket and 756 in the library bucket, this is a directional early signal rather than a conclusive finding. The confidence interval for the true lift crosses zero on the current sample.

Is Frantic Search banned anywhere?

Yes. Frantic Search is banned in Legacy and Pauper, where its ability to untap lands makes it effectively a free spell and an engine for broken loops. It is also banned in Historic. In Commander it is legal, and in Vintage it is legal but subject to that format's general power environment. Its status as a format-defining card in older formats explains why it commands attention even as a common.

Which commanders most commonly run Frantic Search?

Among the top commanders by raw deck count in the tracked data, Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads the list, followed by Fire Lord Azula and Ms. Bumbleflower. The spread spans Esper, Grixis, Bant, and monoblue color identities, all of which include blue. This breadth reflects the card's role as a generic blue spell-draw effect rather than a piece of any single combo shell.

How concentrated is the Frantic Search data on Playgroup Live?

The data is spread across 455 unique players. The single heaviest contributor accounts for 3% of all tracked instances. That is well below the 15% threshold that would raise concentration concerns, so the numbers reflect broadly shared behavior and not a single player's games inflating the stats.