Live Play Data

Ghostly Prison

· Enchantment · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

13%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

815

Decks Running

454

Median Cast Turn

6.0

Drawn → Played

80%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

80% of drawn Ghostly Prisons are cast before the game ends, and the enchantment is in 13% of the 3596 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live.

Ghostly Prison resolves in 174 of 217 tracked instances where it reached a player's hand, a 80% draw-to-play rate that places it among the more reliably executed enchantments in the white defensive toolkit.

The card sits in 454 of 3596 tracked Commander decks, a 13% inclusion rate. Median first-cast turn lands at turn 6.0, which makes sense for a 3-mana enchantment that players typically deploy during their natural development rather than as an opening-hand accelerant. Of the 174 casts observed, 64% stayed on the battlefield through the end of the game, directional evidence that opponents frequently decide not to pay the tax rather than spend removal on it.

The commander distribution is notably broad. 358 distinct players have brought Ghostly Prison to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 5% of all instances. That spread gives the numbers a healthy cross-meta foundation. The top commanders skew white and controlling: Killian, Decisive Mentor leads by raw deck count, but several pillowfort and tax-oriented commanders appear throughout the list.

At a glance

13% of tracked Commander decks include Ghostly Prison
80% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T6.0 median first-cast turn, right on the mana curve
64% battlefield stickiness once the enchantment resolves
358 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
174 total casts observed across all tracked games

First-cast turn

n=174

15%

12%

15%

38%

T6-9

14%

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 4 · P75 8 · max 16

On curve 21% (26 / 174 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 35%

The "good card" funnel

815 brought · 358 players

Brought to game

815

Ever drawn

217

Reached battlefield

174

Still on board at game end

112

80%

Of 815 Ghostly Prisons brought to tracked games, 217 were drawn, 174 of those were cast, and 64% of resolved copies stayed on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -7.5pp

Players who cast this card win 20% of the time (n=172) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=556).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 24% (n=42) — 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 -1.2pp; 95% confidence interval -7.5pp to +5.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

239 instances

2.9%

Library

46.9%

Battlefield

27.6%

Graveyard

7.9%

Exile

Most Ghostly Prisons that finish in the graveyard were destroyed by opponents, while those on the battlefield reflect the 64% of casts that survive to game end. A small number were exiled, and very few were still in the library at the end of tracked games.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Killian, Decisive Mentor 54 decks
2 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 28 decks
3 Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima 11 decks
4 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic 10 decks
5 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV 9 decks
6 Ms. Bumbleflower 9 decks
7 Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser 9 decks
8 Queen Marchesa 8 decks
9 Aminatou, Veil Piercer 7 decks
10 Hope Estheim 7 decks

Killian, Decisive Mentor dominates the raw deck count, but the list spans mono-white, Esper, Jeskai, and five-color commanders, a sign that Ghostly Prison earns its slot across a wide range of white-based strategies rather than being a narrow fit.

Frequently Asked

How often is Ghostly Prison drawn in a Commander game?

Across 755 tracked multiplayer games where Ghostly Prison was in the deck, it was drawn 27% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 217 copies that reached a hand, 80% were cast before the game concluded. The remainder is largely a game-length effect: copies drawn late in a finished game have no window to resolve.

What turn does Ghostly Prison usually land on the battlefield?

The median first-cast turn is 6.0, with a mean around 5.9 and a 25th-to-75th-percentile band of turns 4 through 7. Players casting it on turn 2 or 3 are either ramping or holding it from an opening hand. The on-curve rate is 21%, which is low, but for a 3-mana enchantment that reflects the singleton math more than any deliberate holding pattern. Check the same-turn-cast rate: 35% of drawn-and-cast copies were cast on the same turn they were drawn.

How sticky is Ghostly Prison once it hits the battlefield?

64% of resolved Ghostly Prisons are still on the battlefield at end of game. Enchantments without an obvious enters-the-battlefield payoff are often a low priority for removal. The flip side is that opponents can simply pay the attack tax, so stickiness here does not automatically translate to protection. Early signal from 172 observed casts suggests the win rate when cast is 20%, but the dataset is too small to draw firm conclusions about causation.

Is Ghostly Prison legal in all Commander variants?

Ghostly Prison is legal in Commander (multiplayer and duel), Brawl, Oathbreaker, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and Gladiator. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. There are no bans or restrictions in any format where it is legal.

Which commanders most often run Ghostly Prison?

Killian, Decisive Mentor leads the tracked list by raw deck count, consistent with Killian's enchantment-matters and life-gain control themes. Y'shtola, Night's Blessed and Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima also appear near the top. The spread across 358 distinct players and multiple color combinations suggests Ghostly Prison is treated as a broadly applicable defensive piece rather than a narrow synergy pick.

Does casting Ghostly Prison actually improve your win rate?

The cast-vs-library delta is a small negative value in the current data, meaning decks that drew and cast Ghostly Prison won at a slightly lower normalized rate than decks where it stayed in the library. Both sample sizes are well above 15, so this is worth noting, but the delta is within one standard error and should be read as directional rather than conclusive. Win rates in multiplayer Commander are noisy. A defensive enchantment like Ghostly Prison buys survival time rather than closing games, which can suppress its win-rate signal even when it is doing its job.