collections_bookmark Part of Foundations Commander Decks
Research Thief card art
Card Preview

Research Thief

{4} {U} · Artifact Creature — Moonfolk Wizard · Neon Dynasty Commander (NEC)
Times Brought
164
Decks Running
74
In Decks
—
Decklist Inclusion
—
Format

Showing 1v1 (duel) data only. 1v1 is a different format from multiplayer Commander, so these numbers are not comparable.

Card text
Research Thief card

Research Thief

{4} {U}
Artifact Creature — Moonfolk Wizard
Flash Flying Whenever an artifact creature you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
3 / 3
Neon Dynasty Commander (NEC) · Rare · Illustrated by Cristi Balanescu

Final zone distribution

35 instances
34.3%
Battlefield
37.1%
Graveyard
5.7%
Exile
22.9%
Hand

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The "good card" funnel

164 brought · 72 players
Brought to game
164
Ever drawn
32
Reached battlefield
22
Still on board at game end
12

Once cast, 55% of this card is still on the battlefield at game end. This reflects how often it survives removal, not just whether it's a permanent.

≥ -9.3pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=21) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=106).

Read this as correlation, not as the card's contribution. Casting a card means you lived long enough to cast it, so this gap widens with mana value across every card we track.

Observed gap +2.6pp; 95% confidence interval -9.3pp to +14.5pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=22
0%
T1
0%
T2
0%
T3
5%
T4
27%
T5
59%
T6-9
9%
T10+
Median 6.0 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 13
On curve 32% (6 / 22 cast on T5)

Frequently Asked

Why isn't there more data on this card?
Playgroup Live collects per-card gameplay data from real Commander games. Play counts appear once a card reaches 100 tracked games, and the full charts need a sample of at least 25 observed games that is not dominated by a single pilot. 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 700,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live seats playing virtual cards, a subset of that corpus.