Live Play Data

Mana Geyser

· Sorcery · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

836

Decks Running

492

Median Cast Turn

6.0

Drawn → Played

57%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

43% of multiplayer games where Mana Geyser resolved ended in a win for the caster, a +18.4 percentage-point lift over the 25% baseline when the card never left the library.

Mana Geyser resolves and wins. Across 796 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, players who cast it won 43% of those games, compared to 25% when the card sat unplayed in the library. That +18.4-point gap is the clearest signal in the data, drawn from 105 cast observations and 557 library observations.

The card is a late-game engine, not an early play. Median first cast lands on turn 6.0, well after opponents have had time to develop a full board of tapped lands. Of the 188 copies drawn across tracked games, 57% reached the stack before the game ended. Players typically hold it for a median of 2 turns after drawing before casting. 40% cast it on the same turn they drew it, meaning most are waiting for the right window.

Mana Geyser is a common from a format staple set, legal in Commander and Pauper Commander, and banned in Oathbreaker. It appears in 492 of the 5956 distinct decks tracked on Playgroup Live, an 8% inclusion rate that reflects its narrow but dedicated home in red spell-slinger and big-mana strategies.

At a glance

8% of tracked Commander decks include Mana Geyser
T6.0 median first-cast turn, a mid-to-late game mana burst
43% win rate in games where Mana Geyser was cast
+18.4pp win-rate lift over the no-cast baseline, across well-sampled buckets
57% of drawn copies reached the stack before the game ended
411 distinct players have brought Mana Geyser to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=108

10%

18%

55%

T6-9

15%

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 13

On curve 31% (19 / 108 cast on T5) Cast same turn as drawn 40%

The "good card" funnel

838 brought · 411 players

Brought to game

838

Ever drawn

188

Reached battlefield

108

Still on board at game end

57%

Of 838 Mana Geysers brought to games, 188 were drawn, 108 of those were cast, and the vast majority resolved straight to the graveyard as expected for a sorcery.

≥ +9.1pp

Players who cast this card win 43% of the time (n=105) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=557).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 29% (n=74) — 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 +18.4pp; 95% confidence interval +9.1pp to +27.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

216 instances

5.6%

Library

5.1%

Battlefield

53.7%

Graveyard

9.7%

Exile

Most Mana Geyser copies end the game in the graveyard after resolving, which is exactly right for a sorcery: it fires once, generates a large burst of red mana, and goes to the bin.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Rootha, Mastering the Moment 46 decks
2 Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied 22 decks
3 Zada, Hedron Grinder 19 decks
4 Krenko, Mob Boss 15 decks
5 Clive, Ifrit's Dominant // Ifrit, Warden of Inferno 13 decks
6 Kratos, God of War 13 decks
7 Prismari, the Inspiration 13 decks
8 Tannuk, Steadfast Second 10 decks
9 Kardur, Doomscourge 9 decks
10 Ozai, the Phoenix King 8 decks

Rootha, Mastering the Moment dominates the top-commander list with 45 decks, a clear signal that copy-spell commanders prize Mana Geyser above the broader red field.

Frequently Asked

How often is Mana Geyser drawn in a Commander game?

In 796 tracked multiplayer games where Mana Geyser was in the deck, it was drawn 22% of the time. That is a normal draw rate for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 188 drawn copies, 57% were cast before the game ended. The rest were uncast, most often because the game concluded before the player found a profitable window.

What turn does Mana Geyser usually get cast?

Median first-cast turn is 6.0. The interquartile range runs from turn 5 to turn 8, and the 90th percentile sits at turn 10. This is consistent with the card's design: it wants opponents to have developed a full board of lands, so early game casts generate little mana. Only 31% of casts landed exactly on-curve for its 5-mana cost. Most copies arrive later when the payoff is larger.

Does casting Mana Geyser actually correlate with winning?

Yes, and the sample is large enough to take seriously. In 105 participations where Mana Geyser was cast, the win rate was 43%. In 557 participations where it stayed in the library, the win rate was 25%. That +18.4-point gap is a meaningful directional signal. Because both buckets are well-populated, this is one of the stronger correlations in Playgroup Live's red card data.

Is Mana Geyser banned anywhere?

Mana Geyser is banned in Oathbreaker, where the two-player duel structure and lower starting life total make a sudden burst of many red mana particularly easy to convert into an instant win. It is legal and unrestricted in Commander, Pauper Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Pauper. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Alchemy, or Historic.

Which commanders play Mana Geyser most?

Rootha, Mastering the Moment leads the tracked dataset with 45 decks, reflecting how well a copy-spells commander leverages a single explosive mana burst. Kuja, Genome Sorcerer and Zada, Hedron Grinder follow. The common thread is red spell-slinger strategies that want to chain multiple actions in a single turn, using Mana Geyser as the engine that funds a lethal sequence.

How concentrated is this data among a few players?

The data is well-spread. 411 distinct players have brought Mana Geyser to a tracked game on Playgroup Live, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for only 4% of all instances. That breadth strengthens confidence in the overall patterns, even though Playgroup Live's dataset is still growing and individual numbers should be read as directional rather than definitive.