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Hostage Taker

· Creature — Human Pirate · Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander (OTC)

Decklist Inclusion

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Times Brought

289

Decks Running

157

In Decks

1163

Decklist Inclusion

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Final zone distribution

86 instances

1.2%

Library

24.4%

Battlefield

34.9%

Graveyard

18.6%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Sauron, Lord of the Rings 30 decks
2 Edward Kenway 22 decks
3 Admiral Brass, Unsinkable 20 decks
4 Gonti, Canny Acquisitor 15 decks
5 Sauron, the Dark Lord 10 decks
6 Yarok, the Desecrated 7 decks
7 Admiral Beckett Brass 4 decks
8 Don Andres, the Renegade 3 decks
9 Garland, Royal Kidnapper 3 decks
10 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen 3 decks

The "good card" funnel

289 brought · 142 players

Brought to game

289

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

Once cast, 36% 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.

≥ -14.7pp

Players who cast this card win 16% of the time (n=50) , vs 20% when it never left the library (n=177).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 23% (n=22) — 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 -4.4pp; 95% confidence interval -14.7pp to +5.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=58

12%

24%

45%

T6-9

10%

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 5 · P75 7 · max 12

On curve 21% (7 / 58 cast on T4) Cast same turn as drawn 42%

58 of 100 times cast 57%

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 640,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.