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Lightning Strike

· Instant · Marvel Super Heroes (MSH)

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Times Brought

663

Decks Running

299

In Decks

—

Decklist Inclusion

—

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Showing 1v1 (duel) data only. 1v1 is a different format from multiplayer Commander, so these numbers are not comparable.

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

127 instances

1.6%

Library

7.1%

Battlefield

63.0%

Graveyard

5.5%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Fire Lord Azula 42 decks
2 Krenko, Mob Boss 18 decks
3 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell 8 decks
4 Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk 7 decks
5 Vivi Ornitier 7 decks
6 Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied 5 decks
7 Lightning, Army of One 5 decks
8 Niv-Mizzet, Visionary 5 decks
9 Prismari, the Inspiration 5 decks
10 Smaug the Impenetrable 5 decks

The "good card" funnel

663 brought · 269 players

Brought to game

663

Ever drawn

123

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

≥ -2.6pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=72) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=375).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 18% (n=22).

Read this as correlation, not as the card's contribution. Casting a card means you lived long enough to cast it, so this gap widens with mana value across every card we track.

Observed gap +3.7pp; 95% confidence interval -2.6pp to +10.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=93

11%

14%

24%

11%

31%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 13

On curve 12% (10 / 93 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 25%

Frequently Asked

Why isn't there more data on this card?

Playgroup Live collects per-card gameplay data from real Commander games. Play counts appear once a card reaches 100 tracked games, and the full charts need a sample of at least 25 observed games that is not dominated by a single pilot. 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 750,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live seats playing virtual cards, a subset of that corpus.