Live Play Data

Mystical Tutor

· Instant · Dominaria Remastered (DMR)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

822

Decks Running

417

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

70%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Mystical Tutor is in 8% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, and when drawn it reaches the stack 70% of the time, with a median first-cast turn of 5.

Mystical Tutor sits in 8% of the 5444 Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live. That is a selective inclusion number, one consistent with a card that demands blue in the color identity and rewards spell-heavy strategies rather than generic good-stuff builds.

The core data point is the win-rate lift. Decks that cast Mystical Tutor win at 35%, compared to 25% for decks where the card never left the library. That is a +9.5 percentage-point gap across well-sampled buckets, and the lower bound of the confidence interval stays positive, making this one of the cleaner directional signals in the dataset. Tutoring for the right spell at the right moment appears to matter.

The card is legal in Commander and restricted in Vintage, but banned in Legacy, Duel Commander, Premodern, and Historic. Its restriction in those formats reflects a long-standing consensus about the power of cheap, unconditional library access. In multiplayer Commander, that power shows up in the data: a 1-mana instant that sets up your next draw is almost always the correct play when you have the mana open.

At a glance

8% of tracked Commander decks include Mystical Tutor
70% of drawn copies reach the stack before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn across tracked games
35% win rate in games where Mystical Tutor was cast
+9.5pp win-rate lift over games where it stayed in the library
300 distinct players have brought Mystical Tutor to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=153

12%

18%

36%

T6-9

11%

T10+

Median 5 P25 4 · P75 7 · max 14

On curve 6% (9 / 153 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 41%

The "good card" funnel

822 brought · 300 players

Brought to game

822

Ever drawn

218

Reached battlefield

153

Still on board at game end

70%

Of 822 copies brought to games, 218 were drawn and 153 of those were cast, a funnel that reflects both the inherent variance of a 100-card singleton and how readily players fire this spell when they do find it.

≥ +1.9pp

Players who cast this card win 35% of the time (n=149) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=529).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 30% (n=65) — 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 +9.5pp; 95% confidence interval +1.9pp to +17.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

250 instances

3.6%

Library

2.0%

Battlefield

59.2%

Graveyard

16.8%

Exile

The graveyard is the dominant final zone for Mystical Tutor, exactly as expected for an instant that resolves and goes to the bin. The small library count represents copies that were never interacted with across their game.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Urza, Lord High Artificer 13 decks
2 Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow 13 decks
3 Fire Lord Azula 11 decks
4 Vivi Ornitier 10 decks
5 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV 9 decks
6 Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk 8 decks
7 Atraxa, Praetors' Voice 7 decks
8 Eluge, the Shoreless Sea 6 decks
9 Namor the Sub-Mariner 6 decks
10 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic 6 decks

The top ten commanders spread inclusion across mono-blue control, Dimir, Izzet, and five-color strategies, a sign that Mystical Tutor is valued wherever blue has access to a rich instant and sorcery suite rather than belonging to one archetype.

Frequently Asked

How often is Mystical Tutor drawn in a Commander game?

Across 705 tracked games where Mystical Tutor was in a deck, it was drawn 27% of the time. That is broadly normal for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 218 drawn instances, 70% were cast before the game ended. The remainder largely reflects copies drawn late when mana was committed elsewhere or the game ended before another opportunity arose.

What turn does Mystical Tutor usually get cast?

Median first cast lands on turn 5 in multiplayer Commander. The distribution is spread: a cluster of early casts in turns 1-3, likely off an opening hand, and a long tail running into the double digits. The interquartile range runs from turn 4 to turn 7, which means most copies are cast in the mid-game when players know exactly what spell they need to fetch.

Does casting Mystical Tutor actually improve your odds of winning?

The data is directional and well-sampled. Decks that cast Mystical Tutor win at 35% (149 observations). Decks where it never left the library win at 25% (529 observations). That is a +9.5 percentage-point gap, and unlike many cards in the dataset, the lower bound of the confidence interval is positive. Treat it as a strong directional signal rather than a proven causal claim.

Is Mystical Tutor banned anywhere?

Yes, in several formats. It is banned in Legacy, Duel Commander, Historic, and Premodern. It is restricted to one copy in Vintage. It is legal and unrestricted in Commander, Brawl, Timeless, Oathbreaker, and Gladiator. The bans reflect how powerful unconditional instant-speed library access is in formats with strong spell packages.

How concentrated is the data across players?

300 distinct players have brought Mystical Tutor to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 4% of all instances. That spread is a genuine strength of this dataset. The pattern is not driven by one or two prolific players, which makes the win-rate signal more credible.

What commanders most often run Mystical Tutor?

Urza, Lord High Artificer and Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow each lead with 11 decks in the tracked dataset, followed by Fire Lord Azula at 10. The list spans mono-blue artifact strategies, Dimir ninjutsu builds, and multicolor spell-slinger decks. The common thread is a dense instant and sorcery suite where fetching the right answer or combo piece at the right moment is decisive.