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Mana Vault card art
Live Play Data

Mana Vault

{1} · Artifact · Double Masters 2022 (2X2)
5%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
669
Decks Running
358
Median Cast Turn
3
Drawn → Played
78%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

78% of drawn Mana Vaults are cast before the game ends, and decks that resolve it win at 36% compared to 26% when it stays buried in the library.

Mana Vault sits in 5% of the 7698 distinct decks tracked in Playgroup Live multiplayer games. That is a selective, power-focused slice of the Commander meta, not a blanket staple, and the data reflects it.

When a copy reaches a player's hand, 78% of those copies make it to the battlefield. The median first cast lands on turn 3, with a strong cluster on turn 1 when it arrives in the opening hand. That early-turn spike is the whole point: a turn-1 Mana Vault buys two free colorless mana every subsequent turn until you choose to pay 4 and untap it, or accept the trickle of upkeep damage. The cast-vs-library win-rate gap of +10.0 percentage points is a directional signal on a solid sample, suggesting the card does meaningful work when it hits.

Colorless identity means Mana Vault slots into any Commander deck that wants fast mana. The Playgroup Live dataset shows it clustering most heavily in high-powered lists led by The Ur-Dragon, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, and Zhulodok, Void Gorger. Its ban in Duel Commander (French) and restriction in Vintage underscore how seriously tournament organizers take its acceleration.

At a glance
  • 5% of tracked multiplayer Commander decks include Mana Vault
  • 78% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
  • T3 median first-cast turn, with turn 1 the single most common cast
  • 81% battlefield stickiness once cast
  • 36% win rate in games where Mana Vault resolved, vs 26% when it stayed in the library
  • 203 distinct tracked players have brought Mana Vault to a game, spread across a wide range of commanders

First-cast turn

n=145
30%
T1
10%
T2
10%
T3
8%
T4
12%
T5
28%
T6-9
2%
T10+
Median 3 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 12
On curve 30% (44 / 145 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 77%

The "good card" funnel

669 brought · 203 players
Brought to game
669
Ever drawn
185
Reached battlefield
145
Still on board at game end
117
78%

Of 669 Mana Vaults brought to multiplayer games, 185 were drawn, 145 of those were cast, and 81% of resolved copies remained on the battlefield at game's end.

≥ +2.2pp

Players who cast this card win 36% of the time (n=143) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=445).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 26% (n=38) — 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 +10.0pp; 95% confidence interval +2.2pp to +17.8pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

208 instances
5.3%
Library
56.3%
Battlefield
15.9%
Graveyard
7.7%
Exile

The large library bucket is normal for a singleton in a 100-card deck. What stands out for Mana Vault is how high its battlefield-to-graveyard ratio is relative to how rarely it stays stuck in hand.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans five-color goodstuff, mono-blue artifact synergies, and colorless big-mana strategies, reflecting that Mana Vault's colorless identity places no restrictions on where it can go.

Frequently Asked

How often is Mana Vault drawn in a Commander game?
Across 474 tracked multiplayer games where Mana Vault was in the deck, it was drawn 28% of the time. That figure is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 185 copies that reached a player's hand, 78% were cast before the game concluded.
What turn does Mana Vault usually get cast?
The median first-cast turn is 3, but the distribution is notably front-loaded. Turn 1 is the single most common cast turn, reflecting how often Mana Vault arrives in opening hands and gets slammed immediately. The interquartile range runs from turn 1 to turn 6, so late draws still see play, just less reliably.
Does casting Mana Vault actually improve your win chances?
There is a directional signal. Decks that resolved Mana Vault won at 36%, compared to 26% for participations where the card never left the library. That +10.0 percentage-point gap is the most honest measure we have of the card's impact, controlled for deck quality. Both sample buckets are well above 15 observations, so this is a meaningful early signal, though Playgroup Live's dataset is still growing.
Is Mana Vault legal in Commander?
Yes. Mana Vault is legal and unrestricted in multiplayer Commander. It is banned in Duel Commander (the French 1v1 format), banned in Legacy, not legal in Modern or Pioneer, and restricted to a single copy in Vintage. If your playgroup uses house rules or Duel Commander banlist conventions, check before sleeving it up.
How sticky is Mana Vault once it resolves?
81% of cast Mana Vaults are still on the battlefield at end of game. Artifacts without inherent protection are always removal targets, but Mana Vault's low mana cost means opponents often have more threatening permanents to address first. The 1-damage-per-upkeep pressure can also discourage immediate removal since the controller bears the cost of keeping it tapped.
Which commanders most commonly run Mana Vault in tracked games?
In the Playgroup Live multiplayer dataset, The Ur-Dragon (9 decks), Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy (8 decks), Esika/The Prismatic Bridge and Kenrith, the Returned King (6 decks each), and Zhulodok, Void Gorger (6 decks) top the commander list. The spread across five-color, colorless, and Simic commanders confirms that Mana Vault's colorless identity lets it slot into virtually any archetype that values fast mana.