Live Play Data

Propaganda

· Enchantment · Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander (OTC)

Deck Inclusion

Games Tracked

214

Decks Running

152

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

75%

Propaganda sits in 7.6% of tracked Commander decks and, when drawn, gets cast 75% of the time. Players who do draw it hold it a median of 1 turn before deploying it.

Propaganda appears in 138 of the 1,822 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, a 7.6% inclusion rate that reflects its strict blue identity in a format full of multicolor strategies. Within the decks that do run it, the card earns its slot: 75% of drawn copies hit the battlefield before the game ends.

Players treat it as a priority. The median hand-to-cast delay is just 1 turn, and 36% of observed copies are cast on the exact same turn they're drawn. The median first-cast turn is 5, landing after the early ramp window but well inside the threat window where taxing effects change combat math. 25.5% of casts land on or ahead of curve; the rest reflect late draws rather than deliberate holding.

Battlefield stickiness is 76%, meaning roughly three in four cast copies are still on the table when the game resolves. Enchantment removal is rare enough in most pods that Propaganda, once down, tends to stay down. The commander distribution is concentrated in blue-white and blue-black-white shells, where defensive permanents and long-game strategies reward a persistent tax effect.

At a glance

7.6% inclusion rate across 1,822 tracked Commander decks
75% of drawn Propagandas are cast before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn
76% battlefield stickiness once cast
36% of drawn copies are cast the same turn they're drawn
138 distinct decks running Propaganda in Playgroup Live

First-cast turn

n=54

13%

20%

11%

13%

30%

T6-9

11%

T10+

Median 5 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 12

On curve 20% (11 / 54 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 40%

The "good card" funnel

246 brought

Brought to game

246

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

75%

Of 219 Propagandas brought to games, 67 were drawn, 51 of those were cast, and 39 remained on the battlefield when the game ended, a clean illustration of a high-priority, sticky enchantment.

-1.9pp

Players who cast this card win 35% of the time (n=54) , vs 37% when it never left the library (n=167).

Final zone distribution

246 instances

67.9%

Library

17.1%

Battlefield

6.1%

Graveyard

2.0%

Exile

144 of 219 brought Propagandas never left the library, the expected outcome for any singleton in a 100-card deck. The 39 still on the battlefield at game-end confirm it sticks when it does resolve.

Top commanders running this card

by deck count

The top 10 commanders span 10 different decks each at most, with Y'shtola leading at 23. The spread signals that Propaganda fits a broad defensive archetype rather than a single commander's gameplan.

Frequently Asked

How often is Propaganda drawn in a Commander game? ▾

Across 219 deck-instances brought to tracked games, Propaganda was drawn 67 times, a 30.6% draw rate. That is meaningfully above the baseline for a singleton in a 100-card deck, which partly reflects that Propaganda decks tend to run blue draw engines that help find it. Of those 67 drawn copies, 51 were cast, giving a 75% draw-to-play rate.

What turn does Propaganda typically hit the battlefield? ▾

The median first-cast turn is 5, with the middle 50% of casts falling between turns 3 and 7. The earliest observed cast was turn 2. Only 25.5% of casts land on curve or earlier. That low on-curve rate is mostly a draw-timing issue: Propaganda is a keep card when in the opening hand, and the 36% same-turn cast rate confirms players slam it immediately when they do draw it early.

Does casting Propaganda actually help you win? ▾

The data gives an early but cautionary signal. Win rate in participations where Propaganda was cast is 31.4% (16 wins in 51 cases), while win rate in participations where it sat in the library the whole game is 34.7% (50 wins in 144 cases). The delta is -3.4 percentage points. With 51 cast observations and 144 library observations, this is directional rather than conclusive, but it is consistent with Propaganda being a defensive stabilizer in decks that are already in a position to run slow, long games rather than a card that actively generates wins.

How sticky is Propaganda once it resolves? ▾

76% of cast Propagandas are still on the battlefield at the final game state. That's a solid stickiness number for a three-mana enchantment. The 24% that leave do so primarily through graveyard (14 instances) and exile (5 instances) across 51 observed casts, indicating targeted removal is the main threat rather than mass bounce or sacrifice effects.

Which commanders most often run Propaganda on Playgroup Live? ▾

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads with 23 decks, followed by Shorikai, Genesis Engine (12 decks) and Krang, the All-Powerful (10 decks). The top 10 commanders are split between blue-white-black, blue-white, and mono-blue identities. That tracks with Propaganda's role in controlling, life-gain, and artifact-value shells that want to slow combat without committing to a board of their own.

Is Propaganda legal in Commander and other formats? ▾

Propaganda is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, Duel Commander, Oathbreaker, and Premodern. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Pauper, Historic, Alchemy, Brawl, or Gladiator. It is not banned in any format where it is legal. Commander is by far its most common competitive context, and the Playgroup Live dataset reflects that: nearly all tracked play comes from multiplayer Commander pods.