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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
Times Brought
556
Decks Running
317
Median Cast Turn
4.0
Drawn → Played
75%
Format

75% of drawn Ornithopter of Paradise copies are cast before the game ends, and decks that resolve it win at 28%, a +7.4 percentage-point lift over tables where it stays in the library.

Ornithopter of Paradise shows up in 317 of the 7698 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 28%, against 21% for tables where the card never moved. That +7.4 pp gap is a directional positive signal across 112 cast observations and 379 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
  • 57% battlefield stickiness once cast
  • 254 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, well spread across the dataset
  • +7.4pp directional win-rate lift when cast versus when it stays in the library

First-cast turn

n=112
13%
T1
22%
T2
12%
T3
6%
T4
16%
T5
25%
T6-9
5%
T10+
Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 6 · max 17
On curve 36% (25 / 112 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 50%

The "good card" funnel

565 brought · 254 players
Brought to game
565
Ever drawn
149
Reached battlefield
112
Still on board at game end
64
75%

Of 565 copies brought to tracked games, 149 were drawn, 112 of those were cast, and 57% of resolved copies survived to end of game.

≥ -0.8pp

Players who cast this card win 28% of the time (n=112) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=379).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 27% (n=37) — 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 +7.4pp; 95% confidence interval -0.8pp to +15.6pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

159 instances
3.1%
Library
40.3%
Battlefield
35.2%
Graveyard
5.7%
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 538 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 149 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 112 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 28% normalized win rate versus 21% when it stayed in the library, a +7.4 percentage-point gap. The cast bucket has 112 observations and the library bucket has 379. 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: 254 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?
57% 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.