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Frantic Search card art
Live Play Data

Frantic Search

{2} {U} · Instant · Avatar: The Last Airbender Eternal (TLE)
13%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
2089
Decks Running
1048
Median Cast Turn
6.0
Drawn → Played
74%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

74% of drawn Frantic Search copies are cast before the game ends, and the spell appears in 13% of tracked Commander decks across 1884 live games on Playgroup Live.

Frantic Search sits in 13% of the 7783 distinct Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live. Of 597 instances drawn across 1884 games, 74% 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 6.0, consistent with a mid-game role rather than an early-curve accelerant. Only 20% 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 781 unique players, and no single player accounts for more than 2% 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
  • 74% of drawn copies reach the stack before the game ends
  • T6.0 median first-cast turn
  • 28% draw rate across tracked games
  • 781 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game
  • 35% normalized win rate in games where Frantic Search resolved

First-cast turn

n=442
0%
T1
4%
T2
16%
T3
12%
T4
14%
T5
46%
T6-9
8%
T10+
Median 6.0 P25 4 · P75 7 · max 15
On curve 20% (69 / 442 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 35%

The "good card" funnel

2099 brought · 781 players
Brought to game
2099
Ever drawn
597
Reached battlefield
442
Still on board at game end
18
74%

Of 2099 copies brought to games, 597 were drawn, 442 of those were cast, and the card resolves to the graveyard in the vast majority of cases as expected for an instant.

≥ +6.0pp

Players who cast this card win 35% of the time (n=422) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=1275).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 37% (n=143) — 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 +10.7pp; 95% confidence interval +6.0pp to +15.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

654 instances
3.5%
Library
2.8%
Battlefield
64.1%
Graveyard
13.5%
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

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 1884 tracked games, Frantic Search was drawn 28% 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 597 copies that reached a hand, 74% 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 6.0, with the middle 50% of casts falling between turns 6.0 and the upper quartile. Only 20% 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 35%. In games where it stayed in the library without being interacted with, the rate is 25%. The delta is +10.7 percentage points. With 422 observations in the cast bucket and 1275 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 781 unique players. The single heaviest contributor accounts for 2% 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.