Live Play Data

Ghostly Prison

· Enchantment · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

13%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

488

Decks Running

285

Median Cast Turn

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 2224 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live.

Ghostly Prison resolves in 103 of 129 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 285 of 2224 tracked Commander decks, a 13% inclusion rate. Median first-cast turn lands at turn 5, 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 103 casts observed, 60% 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. 234 distinct players have brought Ghostly Prison to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 8% 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
T5 median first-cast turn, right on the mana curve
60% battlefield stickiness once the enchantment resolves
234 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
103 total casts observed across all tracked games

First-cast turn

n=103

16%

12%

15%

39%

T6-9

11%

T10+

Median 5 P25 4 · P75 7 · max 16

On curve 24% (16 / 103 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 27%

The "good card" funnel

488 brought · 234 players

Brought to game

488

Ever drawn

129

Reached battlefield

103

Still on board at game end

80%

Of 488 Ghostly Prisons brought to tracked games, 129 were drawn, 103 of those were cast, and 60% of resolved copies stayed on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -9.8pp

Players who cast this card win 19% of the time (n=103) , vs 20% when it never left the library (n=335).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 24% (n=27) — 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 -1.6pp; 95% confidence interval -9.8pp to +6.6pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

145 instances

2.8%

Library

42.8%

Battlefield

31.7%

Graveyard

7.6%

Exile

Most Ghostly Prisons that finish in the graveyard were destroyed by opponents, while those on the battlefield reflect the 60% 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 40 decks
2 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 18 decks
3 Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser 8 decks
4 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic 7 decks
5 Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima 6 decks
6 Ms. Bumbleflower 6 decks
7 Zedruu the Greathearted 6 decks
8 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV 5 decks
9 Breena, the Demagogue 4 decks
10 Giada, Font of Hope 4 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 452 tracked multiplayer games where Ghostly Prison was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 129 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 5, 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 24%, 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: 27% of drawn-and-cast copies were cast on the same turn they were drawn.

How sticky is Ghostly Prison once it hits the battlefield?

60% 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 103 observed casts suggests the win rate when cast is 19%, 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 234 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.