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Protection Magic

· Instant · Final Fantasy Commander (FIC)

Decklist Inclusion

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Times Brought

275

Decks Running

148

In Decks

901

Decklist Inclusion

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Card text

Protection Magic

Instant

Put a shield counter on each of up to three target creatures. (If a creature with a shield counter would be dealt damage or destroyed, remove a shield counter from it instead.)

Final Fantasy Commander (FIC) · Rare · Illustrated by Mikio Masuda

Final zone distribution

72 instances

8.3%

Library

45.8%

Graveyard

2.8%

Exile

43.1%

Hand

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Tidus, Yuna's Guardian 81 decks
2 Yuna, Grand Summoner 30 decks
3 Storm, Windrider 4 decks
4 Atraxa, Praetors' Voice 2 decks
5 Kros, Defense Contractor 2 decks
6 Ms. Bumbleflower 2 decks
7 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 2 decks
8 Yuna, Hope of Spira 2 decks
9 Aang, Airbending Master 1 decks
10 Arcee, Sharpshooter // Arcee, Acrobatic Coupe 1 decks

The "good card" funnel

275 brought · 140 players

Brought to game

275

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

≥ -10.6pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=33) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=182).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 11% (n=29) — 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 +4.1pp; 95% confidence interval -10.6pp to +18.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=35

69%

T6-9

17%

T10+

Median 7 P25 6 · P75 9 · max 14

On curve 0% (0 / 35 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 21%

35 of 100 times cast 35%

Full analysis unlocks as more games are tracked. Stats refresh nightly.

Frequently Asked

Why isn't there more data on this card?

Playgroup Live collects per-card gameplay data from real Commander games. Basic play counts appear once a card reaches 100 tracked games; the full deep-dive page needs a larger, more diverse sample (at least 300 tracked games played by 10 or more different pilots, with no single pilot over 40 percent of the copies). 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 660,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.