Live Play Data

Otawara, Soaring City

Legendary Land · Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty (NEO)

13%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

949

Decks Running

522

Median Cast Turn

5.0

Drawn → Played

71%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

13% of tracked Commander decks run Otawara, Soaring City. When drawn, 71% of copies are channeled or played before the game ends, with a median first activation on turn 5.0.

Otawara, Soaring City sits in 13% of the 4080 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live. That number reflects a card players trust as both a blue mana source and an on-demand bounce effect, at zero opportunity cost to the land slot it occupies.

The draw-to-play rate of 71% captures how often a drawn Otawara actually gets used before the game ends. Median first use lands on turn 5.0, reflecting the Channel cost of {3}{U} reduced by legendary creatures in play. Players hold it a median of one turn before activating, suggesting they wait for a high-value target rather than snap-firing it.

Otawara is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Historic. Its Channel ability bypasses counterspells and cannot be responded to with land removal, which is much of why mono-blue and blue-heavy strategies treat it as a near-automatic inclusion rather than a flex slot.

At a glance

13% of tracked Commander decks include Otawara
28% draw rate across tracked games
71% of drawn Otawaras are used before the game ends
T5.0 median turn of first Channel or land activation
70% battlefield stickiness once the Channel resolves
363 distinct players have brought Otawara to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=190

12%

14%

38%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5.0 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 13

Cast same turn as drawn 49%

The "good card" funnel

949 brought · 363 players

Brought to game

949

Ever drawn

268

Reached battlefield

190

Still on board at game end

133

71%

Of 949 Otawaras brought to tracked games, 268 were drawn, 190 of those were channeled or played, and 70% of resolved permanents stuck through end of game.

≥ -2.1pp

Players who cast this card win 31% of the time (n=183) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=597).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 37% (n=75) — 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 +4.8pp; 95% confidence interval -2.1pp to +11.6pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

304 instances

3.9%

Library

43.8%

Battlefield

25.3%

Graveyard

6.6%

Exile

Most Otawaras in a deck never leave the library, which is expected for any singleton in a 100-card deck. The key story is the fraction that reach the battlefield or graveyard via Channel, confirming the card is used when drawn.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Ms. Bumbleflower 11 decks
2 Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima 10 decks
3 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 10 decks
4 Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow 10 decks
5 Captain N'ghathrod 7 decks
6 Hope Estheim 6 decks
7 Kefka, Court Mage // Kefka, Ruler of Ruin 6 decks
8 Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy 6 decks
9 Norman Osborn // Green Goblin 6 decks
10 Teval, the Balanced Scale 6 decks

The top commanders are spread across Simic, Dimir, Esper, and mono-blue strategies, reflecting how broadly any blue-inclusive legend can unlock Otawara's Channel cost reduction.

Frequently Asked

How often is Otawara drawn in a Commander game?

Across 802 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Otawara was in the deck, it was drawn 28% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 268 instances that reached a player's hand, 71% were used before the game concluded.

What turn does Otawara's Channel ability usually fire?

Median first use lands on turn 5.0, with the middle 50% of activations falling between turns 5.0 and later in the game. Players hold it a median of one turn after drawing it before activating, which is directional evidence of deliberate timing rather than a snap activation. The early-turn cluster likely represents games where a legendary creature was already in play, reducing the Channel cost to as little as {2}{U}.

Does casting or channeling Otawara correlate with winning?

In 183 observed participations where Otawara was used, the normalized win rate was 31%, compared to 26% in 597 participations where it stayed in the library. That is a +4.8 percentage-point gap. Both sample sizes are meaningful, but the confidence interval does cross zero on this dataset, so treat it as a consistent directional signal rather than a definitive conclusion.

Is Otawara banned anywhere?

Otawara, Soaring City is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or PauperCommander. It has not been banned in any format in which it is currently legal, despite being one of the most-played Channel lands from the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty cycle.

Why does Otawara see play across so many different commanders?

Any blue or blue-inclusive Commander deck can run Otawara because it enters untapped and produces {U} with no downside. The Channel bounce is a free roll: if you never need it, it was just a land. If you do need it, it answers an artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker at instant speed without being counterable by conventional countermagic. That flexibility explains the spread across 363 distinct players in the dataset, with no single player accounting for an outsized share of the tracked games.

How concentrated is Otawara data across players?

The concentration data shows 363 unique players have brought Otawara to a tracked game on Playgroup Live, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for 28% of instances. That spread is healthy for a card of this sample size and suggests the numbers reflect a real cross-section of the player base rather than one prolific player skewing the results.