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Marionette Apprentice card art
Live Play Data

Marionette Apprentice

{1} {B} · Creature — Human Artificer · Modern Horizons 3 (MH3)
4%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
706
Decks Running
318
Median Cast Turn
5.0
Drawn → Played
77%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

Marionette Apprentice appears in 4% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, and 77% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, with a median first cast landing on turn 5.0.

Marionette Apprentice is a niche but consistent performer in black-based artifact and sacrifice strategies. Playgroup Live tracks 4% inclusion across 7881 distinct Commander decks, with the card appearing in 318 of them.

The draw-to-play rate of 77% signals that when players draw this card, it tends to resolve rather than sit idle. Median first cast lands on turn 5.0, which is a touch later than its 2-mana cost suggests. Only 22% of casts land exactly on curve, an early signal that this card is more often drawn mid-game than held in an opening hand. The 40% same-turn cast rate confirms players do not frequently hold it once drawn.

The top commander list tells a clear story: Marionette Apprentice concentrates in strategies that generate tokens, sacrifice outlets, or artifact synergies. Sephiroth, Ygra, Chatterfang, Teysa Karlov, and Mr. House all appear prominently, spanning graveyard value, food tokens, Squirrels, and Treasure engines. The card's Fabricate 1 ability adds a layer of flexibility that lets it slot into both creature-count and artifact-count strategies. Data comes from 690 tracked multiplayer games spread across 291 unique players, with no single player dominating the sample.

At a glance
  • 4% inclusion rate across tracked Commander decks
  • 77% of drawn copies reach the battlefield
  • T5.0 median first-cast turn
  • 22% of casts land on curve for a 2-mana card
  • 53% battlefield stickiness once cast
  • 291 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=120
2%
T1
20%
T2
6%
T3
11%
T4
17%
T5
35%
T6-9
10%
T10+
Median 5.0 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 14
On curve 22% (24 / 120 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 40%

The "good card" funnel

710 brought · 291 players
Brought to game
710
Ever drawn
155
Reached battlefield
120
Still on board at game end
63
77%

Of 710 copies brought to games, 155 were drawn and 120 were cast. 77% of drawn copies resolved, a solid conversion rate for a 2-mana creature in a format where games run long.

≥ -4.8pp

Players who cast this card win 33% of the time (n=115) , vs 29% when it never left the library (n=478).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 40% (n=29) — 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 +4.0pp; 95% confidence interval -4.8pp to +12.8pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

173 instances
2.9%
Library
36.4%
Battlefield
39.3%
Graveyard
4.0%
Exile

Most Marionette Apprentice copies that were meaningfully interacted with ended on the battlefield or graveyard. Library finishes are rare for observed instances, a function of the card being drawn and acted on when it does appear.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Sephiroth leads with the most decks, but the list spans five distinct color pairs and a range of token, sacrifice, and artifact strategies. The spread across 291 unique players suggests the data is not driven by a single playgroup's preferences.

Frequently Asked

How often is Marionette Apprentice drawn in a Commander game?
In 690 tracked multiplayer games where Marionette Apprentice was in the deck, it was drawn 22% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 155 copies that reached a hand, 77% were cast before the game ended.
What turn does Marionette Apprentice usually get cast?
Median first-cast turn is 5.0, with the distribution spread broadly from turn 1 through turn 14 at the extreme. The on-curve rate is 22%, meaning most casts happen after the earliest possible turn. This mostly reflects the card being drawn mid-game rather than held in the opening hand. The 40% same-turn cast rate shows that once players do draw it, they tend to deploy it quickly.
Does casting Marionette Apprentice improve your win rate?
The win rate when cast is 33% (normalized to a 4-player baseline), versus 29% for games where it stayed in the library. The gap is a directional positive signal, but both the cast bucket (n=115) and the confidence interval on the delta suggest treating this as early signal rather than a firm conclusion. Sample size is not yet large enough to call the lift statistically conclusive.
How sticky is Marionette Apprentice once it hits the battlefield?
Battlefield stickiness sits at 53%, meaning roughly half of resolved copies remain on the battlefield when the game ends. The graveyard is the other common final destination, which makes sense: Marionette Apprentice is itself a sacrifice payoff, and decks running it often have incentives to sacrifice their own creatures and artifacts, including this one.
Which commanders most often run Marionette Apprentice?
Sephiroth leads the list among tracked decks, followed by Ygra, Chatterfang, Teysa Karlov, and Mr. House. The spread covers mono-black graveyard builds, Golgari sacrifice engines, and Mardu artifact strategies. What they share is a reliable flow of creatures or artifacts moving to the graveyard, which is exactly the trigger Marionette Apprentice wants. The commander list is well-distributed across 291 unique players.
Is Marionette Apprentice legal in Commander?
Yes. Marionette Apprentice is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and Duel Commander. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. It was printed in Modern Horizons 3 as an uncommon, which contributes to its wide format availability.