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Ornithopter of Paradise card art
Live Play Data

Ornithopter of Paradise

{2} · Artifact Creature — Thopter · Commander Masters (CMM)
4%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
620
Decks Running
347
Median Cast Turn
4.0
Drawn → Played
75%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

75% of drawn Ornithopter of Paradise copies are cast before the game ends, and decks that resolve it win at 27%, a +5.1 percentage-point lift over tables where it stays in the library.

Ornithopter of Paradise shows up in 347 of the 8540 distinct decks tracked on Playgroup Live, a modest 4% inclusion rate that reflects its niche role as a colorless mana dork rather than a universal staple. When it does land in hand, players cast it 75% of the time before the game concludes.

The cast win rate sits at 27%, against 22% for tables where the card never moved. That +5.1 pp gap is a directional positive signal across 124 cast observations and 423 library observations. The sample is real but not large enough to treat as conclusive. Median first cast lands on turn 4.0, consistent with its role as an early mana accelerant that sometimes shows up later when drawn off the top.

As a 0-colored artifact creature, Ornithopter of Paradise slots into any Commander deck that wants a flying body, any-color mana fixing, and artifact synergies. The commander spread reflects that flexibility: Zinnia, Zinnia leads with the most-tracked decks, but artifact-focused commanders like Urza, Breya, and Tony Stark also feature prominently in the data.

At a glance
  • 4% of tracked Commander decks include Ornithopter of Paradise
  • 75% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
  • T4.0 median first-cast turn
  • 56% battlefield stickiness once cast
  • 275 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, well spread across the dataset
  • +5.1pp directional win-rate lift when cast versus when it stays in the library

First-cast turn

n=124
15%
T1
21%
T2
10%
T3
7%
T4
15%
T5
27%
T6-9
5%
T10+
Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 17
On curve 35% (26 / 124 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 51%

The "good card" funnel

629 brought · 275 players
Brought to game
629
Ever drawn
166
Reached battlefield
124
Still on board at game end
70
75%

Of 629 copies brought to tracked games, 166 were drawn, 124 of those were cast, and 56% of resolved copies survived to end of game.

≥ -2.6pp

Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=124) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=423).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 27% (n=41) — 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 +5.1pp; 95% confidence interval -2.6pp to +12.8pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

176 instances
2.8%
Library
39.8%
Battlefield
34.7%
Graveyard
5.1%
Exile

Most Ornithopter of Paradise copies never leave the library, a structural reality of 100-card singleton. Among observed copies, battlefield and graveyard are the two dominant final zones, reflecting how often it resolves cleanly versus how often it is answered.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans artifact synergy builds, token strategies, and colorless goodstuff decks, consistent with Ornithopter's colorless identity fitting almost any shell that wants a cheap flying mana fixer.

Frequently Asked

How often is Ornithopter of Paradise drawn in a Commander game?
Across 595 tracked multiplayer games where Ornithopter of Paradise was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That is expected for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 166 instances that reached a hand, 75% were cast before the game ended. The remainder were largely game-length effects: cards drawn in the final turns of a game often never reach the battlefield.
What turn does Ornithopter of Paradise usually get cast?
Median first cast is turn 4.0. The distribution clusters heavily at turns 1 and 2, when it is drawn in the opening hand and played as early ramp, but a long tail stretches out to turn 17 in the data. The mode is turn 2, matching its 2-mana cost. Of 124 casts tracked, a meaningful share arrived well before the mid-game, consistent with its intended role as acceleration.
Does casting Ornithopter of Paradise actually improve your win rate?
The directional signal is positive. Games where Ornithopter of Paradise was cast show a 27% normalized win rate versus 22% when it stayed in the library, a +5.1 percentage-point gap. The cast bucket has 124 observations and the library bucket has 423. That is enough to call it an early signal, but not enough to claim statistical certainty. The win-rate lift likely reflects deck quality as much as the card itself.
Is Ornithopter of Paradise legal in Commander?
Yes. Ornithopter of Paradise is legal in Commander and has no color identity, so it fits in any deck regardless of commander color. It is also legal in Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Pauper, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, or Alchemy.
Which commanders most commonly run Ornithopter of Paradise?
Zinnia, Valley's Voice leads the tracked dataset with the most decks. Artifact-focused commanders including Urza, Chief Artificer, Tony Stark, and Saheeli, Radiant Creator also appear near the top. The spread is wide: 275 distinct players have brought the card to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 26% of all instances, indicating this is not a one-player outlier.
How sticky is Ornithopter of Paradise once it resolves?
56% of cast copies remain on the battlefield at end of game. That is lower than many mana rocks but expected for a creature, which faces removal that artifacts do not. Of the copies that leave, graveyard is by far the most common final zone, consistent with destruction and sacrifice effects common in Commander.