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Lightning Strike

· Instant · Marvel Super Heroes (MSH)

Decklist Inclusion

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Times Brought

302

Decks Running

140

In Decks

934

Decklist Inclusion

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Card text

Lightning Strike

Instant

Lightning Strike deals 3 damage to any target.

Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) · Common · Illustrated by Toni Infante

Final zone distribution

74 instances

4.1%

Library

5.4%

Battlefield

63.5%

Graveyard

10.8%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Fire Lord Azula 17 decks
2 Krenko, Mob Boss 7 decks
3 Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied 6 decks
4 Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk 4 decks
5 Alania, Divergent Storm 3 decks
6 Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3 decks
7 Prismari, the Inspiration 3 decks
8 Smaug the Impenetrable 3 decks
9 Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man 3 decks
10 Vivi Ornitier 3 decks

The "good card" funnel

303 brought · 126 players

Brought to game

303

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

≥ -8.4pp

Players who cast this card win 25% of the time (n=43) , vs 20% when it never left the library (n=196).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 25% (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 +4.7pp; 95% confidence interval -8.4pp to +17.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=45

20%

44%

T6-9

18%

T10+

Median 6 P25 4 · P75 8 · max 14

On curve 4% (1 / 45 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 30%

45 of 100 times cast 45%

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 660,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.