Live Play Data

Saruman, the White Hand

· Legendary Creature — Avatar Wizard · Tales of Middle-earth Commander (LTC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

743

Decks Running

333

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

65%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

First-cast turn

n=225

21%

25%

16%

22%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4 P25 3 · P75 6 · max 16

On curve 54% (57 / 225 cast on T4) Cast same turn as drawn 26%

The "good card" funnel

744 brought · 291 players

Brought to game

744

Ever drawn

175

Reached battlefield

113

Still on board at game end

Once cast, 50% 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.

≥ +12.7pp

Players who cast this card win 36% of the time (n=106) , vs 15% when it never left the library (n=462).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 12% (n=52).

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 +21.5pp; 95% confidence interval +12.7pp to +30.3pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

201 instances

3.5%

Library

28.4%

Battlefield

37.3%

Graveyard

10.0%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Sauron, the Dark Lord 218 decks
2 Sauron, Lord of the Rings 102 decks
3 Anhelo, the Painter 2 decks
4 Cormela, Glamour Thief 1 decks
5 Fire Lord Azula 1 decks
6 Kess, Dissident Mage 1 decks
7 Marchesa, the Black Rose 1 decks
8 Morophon, the Boundless 1 decks
9 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen 1 decks
10 Norman Osborn // Green Goblin 1 decks

Card text

Saruman, the White Hand

Legendary Creature — Avatar Wizard

Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, amass Orcs X, where X is that spell's mana value. (Put X +1/+1 counters on an Army you control. It's also an Orc. If you don't control an Army, create a 0/0 black Orc Army creature token first.) Goblins and Orcs you control have ward {2}

2 / 5

Tales of Middle-earth Commander (LTC) · Mythic · Illustrated by Leonardo Borazio

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 740,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live seats playing virtual cards, a subset of that corpus.