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Guardian Scalelord

· Creature — Dragon · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

Decklist Inclusion

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Times Brought

201

Decks Running

108

In Decks

846

Decklist Inclusion

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Card text

Guardian Scalelord

Creature — Dragon

Backup 1 (When this creature enters, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. If that's another creature, it gains the following abilities until end of turn.) Flying Whenever this creature attacks, return target nonland permanent card with mana value X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield, where X is this creature's power.

3 / 4

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC) · Rare · Illustrated by Victor Adame Minguez

Final zone distribution

58 instances

6.9%

Library

24.1%

Battlefield

25.9%

Graveyard

19.0%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Quintorius, History Chaser 64 decks
2 Bright-Palm, Soul Awakener 4 decks
3 Isshin, Two Heavens as One 3 decks
4 Shalai and Hallar 3 decks
5 Estinien Varlineau 2 decks
6 Joshua, Phoenix's Dominant // Phoenix, Warden of Fire 2 decks
7 Kenrith, the Returned King 2 decks
8 Zurgo and Ojutai 2 decks
9 Aminatou, the Fateshifter 1 decks
10 Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer 1 decks

The "good card" funnel

201 brought · 101 players

Brought to game

201

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

Once cast, 56% of this card is still on the battlefield at game end. This reflects how often it survives removal, not just whether it's a permanent.

≥ +20.2pp

Players who cast this card win 61% of the time (n=24) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=137).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 32% (n=19) — 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 +39.7pp; 95% confidence interval +20.2pp to +59.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=25

12%

16%

44%

T6-9

28%

T10+

Median 7 P25 5 · P75 10 · max 12

On curve 28% (4 / 25 cast on T5) Cast same turn as drawn 30%

25 of 100 times cast 25%

Full analysis unlocks as more games are tracked. Stats refresh nightly.

Frequently Asked

Why isn't there more data on this card?

Playgroup Live collects per-card gameplay data from real Commander games. Basic play counts appear once a card reaches 100 tracked games; the full deep-dive page needs a larger, more diverse sample (at least 300 tracked games played by 10 or more different pilots, with no single pilot over 40 percent of the copies). Until this card clears those bars you're seeing only the basic counts. Stats refresh nightly.

How is Playgroup Live card data collected?

Players using Playgroup Live import their decklists before a game and log card actions as they play. Each cast, zone change, and resolution is recorded as a real game event. Stats on this site are computed from those events, not from decklist scrapes or theorycrafting. Playgroup has recorded 650,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.