Live Play Data

Gitaxian Probe

· Sorcery · New Phyrexia (NPH)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

528

Decks Running

302

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

80%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

80% of drawn Gitaxian Probes are cast before the game ends, and the median first-cast turn lands on turn 5, spread evenly across the whole game arc.

Gitaxian Probe sits in 3% of Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, a niche but deliberate slot: players who run it do so for a specific reason, and the data shows they follow through. 80% of drawn copies reach resolution before the game ends, one of the higher draw-to-play rates among cantrips in the dataset.

The card costs zero mana or 2 life, which means the only real question when you draw it is whether the information and the card are worth the life. The cast distribution is nearly flat across turns 1 through 7, suggesting players cast it when it's useful rather than holding it for a specific window. Median first-cast turn is 5. Because it's a sorcery that resolves to the graveyard, stickiness is not a meaningful metric here.

Gitaxian Probe is banned in Legacy, Modern, Pauper, and restricted in Vintage. It remains legal and unrestricted in Commander, where the singleton format and 40-life starting total blunt some of its efficiency. Its presence in the dataset is concentrated in spell-heavy, tempo-oriented commander builds, particularly those that care about storm count, spells-matter triggers, or knowing an opponent's hand before committing to a line.

At a glance

3% of tracked Commander decks include Gitaxian Probe
80% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn, with mode on turn 1
265 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, with no single player above 3% of instances

First-cast turn

n=119

13%

14%

11%

12%

34%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 12

On curve 13% (16 / 119 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 67%

The "good card" funnel

528 brought · 265 players

Brought to game

528

Ever drawn

148

Reached battlefield

119

Still on board at game end

80%

Of 528 Gitaxian Probes brought to tracked games, 148 were drawn and 119 of those were cast, a draw-to-play rate of 80% that reflects how rarely players choose to hold a free spell.

≥ -0.7pp

Players who cast this card win 33% of the time (n=109) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=313).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 31% (n=28) — 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 +8.6pp; 95% confidence interval -0.7pp to +17.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

168 instances

1.8%

Library

3.6%

Battlefield

69.0%

Graveyard

13.1%

Exile

Gitaxian Probe is a sorcery, so the graveyard is its expected final destination. The vast majority of resolved copies end there, with only a handful stranded in hand when games end before a player can act.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Vivi Ornitier accounts for the largest share of decks in the top-commanders list, but the spread across ten different commanders spanning multiple color identities shows the card is not locked to one archetype.

Card text

Gitaxian Probe

Sorcery

(

can be paid with either {U}

or 2 life.) Look at target player's hand. Draw a card.

New Phyrexia (NPH) · Common · Illustrated by Chippy

Frequently Asked

How often is Gitaxian Probe drawn in a Commander game?

Across 507 tracked multiplayer games where Gitaxian Probe was in the deck, it was drawn 28% of the time. That figure is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 148 instances that reached a hand, 80% were cast before the game ended.

What turn does Gitaxian Probe typically get cast?

Median first-cast turn is 5, but the distribution is notably flat. Turn 1 is the most common single turn (the mode), reflecting copies drawn in the opening hand and played immediately for free. From there, casts spread fairly evenly through turn 7, which is consistent with players treating it as a zero-cost action slotted in whenever it's convenient rather than holding it for a specific moment.

Does casting Gitaxian Probe correlate with winning?

In 109 participations where Gitaxian Probe was cast, the normalized win rate was 33%. In 313 participations where it stayed in the library, the win rate was 25%. The delta is a directional early signal, not a conclusive effect. The dataset is still growing, and the confidence interval spans zero, so read this as suggestive rather than proven.

Is Gitaxian Probe banned in Commander?

No. Gitaxian Probe is legal and unrestricted in Commander as of the current ban list. It is banned in Legacy, Modern, and Pauper, and restricted to one copy in Vintage. The Commander format's 40-life starting total and the one-copy-per-deck rule reduce the card's ceiling compared to those formats, which is the primary reason it has not been targeted by the Commander Rules Committee.

Which commanders most commonly run Gitaxian Probe?

Vivi Ornitier leads the multiplayer dataset by a wide margin, followed by Ms. Bumbleflower, Lord of the Nazgûl, and Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph. The common thread is spell-volume: commanders that reward casting many spells in a turn, generate tokens on each spell, or trigger on instants and sorceries get outsized value from a free cantrip that also peeks at an opponent's hand. The data is spread across 265 unique players, so the pattern reflects genuine deckbuilding preference rather than one prolific contributor.

How quickly do players cast Gitaxian Probe after drawing it?

Of the 119 cast instances with hand-to-cast data, 67% were cast on the same turn they were drawn. The median delay is 0 turns and the average is well under 1 turn. Players are not holding this card. When they draw it, they cast it almost immediately, which aligns with its zero effective mana cost and the impulsive nature of free cantrips.