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Game Changer
on the MTG Commander Game Changers list
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Part of Tales of Middle-earth
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Creature — Human Rogue
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Zendikar Rising Commander (ZNC)
Live Play Data
Notion Thief
5%
Live Inclusion
Times Brought
1108
Decks Running
512
Median Cast Turn
6.0
Drawn → Played
63%
Format
First-cast turn
n=168
1%
T1
2%
T2
7%
T3
13%
T4
14%
T5
49%
T6-9
15%
T10+
Median
6.0
P25
5
· P75
8
· max
25
On curve
22%
(21 / 168 cast on T4)
Cast same turn as drawn
26%
The "good card" funnel
1108 brought · 462 playersBrought to game
1108
Ever drawn
267
Reached battlefield
168
Still on board at game end
69
Once cast, 41% of this card is still on the battlefield at game end. This reflects how often it survives removal, not just whether it's a permanent.
≥ -3.4pp
Players who cast this card win 25% of the time (n=152) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=661).
When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 24% (n=91).
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 +3.6pp; 95% confidence interval -3.4pp to +10.6pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.
Final zone distribution
311 instances2.6%
Library
22.2%
Battlefield
38.6%
Graveyard
12.9%
Exile
Commanders that played this card
in tracked games-
1
Sauron, Lord of the Rings
73 decks
-
2
Sauron, the Dark Lord
52 decks
-
3
Anowon, the Ruin Thief
19 decks
-
4
Saruman, the White Hand
17 decks
-
5
Fire Lord Azula
14 decks
-
6
Kefka, Court Mage // Kefka, Ruler of Ruin
14 decks
-
7
Queza, Augur of Agonies
14 decks
-
8
Sen Triplets
14 decks
-
9
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed
12 decks
-
10
Alela, Cunning Conqueror
11 decks
Card text
Notion Thief
Creature — Human Rogue
Flash
If an opponent would draw a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, instead that player skips that draw and you draw a card.
3 / 1
Zendikar Rising Commander (ZNC)
·
Rare
·
Illustrated by Clint Cearley
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 720,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live seats playing virtual cards, a subset of that corpus.