Live Play Data

Skullclamp

· Artifact — Equipment · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

13%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1790

Decks Running

1021

Median Cast Turn

4.0

Drawn → Played

76%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Skullclamp is in 13% of Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live. When drawn, 76% of copies reach the battlefield, and decks that cast it win at 32%, a +6.0 percentage-point lift over the baseline.

Skullclamp shows up in 13% of the 8080 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live. That share reflects a card with a well-earned reputation: a 1-mana equipment that converts creature deaths into card draw, and that reputation earned it a ban in Legacy, Modern, and the Two-Player Commander variant.

The play pattern is direct. Equip a small creature, watch it die to the -1 toughness trigger or in combat, draw two cards immediately. The data reflects this: median first cast lands on turn 4.0, and 59% of drawn copies are cast on the same turn they are drawn. Players do not sit on this card. Of 418 drawn copies in tracked games, 76% were cast before the game ended.

The commander distribution tells the archetype story clearly. Token and creature-flood strategies top the list: Edgar Markov, Krenko Mob Boss, and Chatterfang Squirrel General all feature heavily. Skullclamp is colour-identity free, so it slots into any deck that produces cheap creatures willing to die. That breadth explains how it reaches 13% inclusion across a dataset of 8080 decks spanning 1504 tracked games.

At a glance

13% of tracked Commander decks include Skullclamp
76% of drawn Skullclamps are cast before the game ends
T4.0 median first-cast turn
59% of drawn copies cast on the same turn they were drawn
76% battlefield stickiness once cast
708 distinct players have brought Skullclamp to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=316

24%

11%

10%

30%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 15

On curve 24% (75 / 316 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 59%

The "good card" funnel

1798 brought · 708 players

Brought to game

1798

Ever drawn

418

Reached battlefield

316

Still on board at game end

241

76%

Of 1798 Skullclamps brought to games, 418 were drawn, 316 of those were cast, and 76% of cast copies remained on the battlefield at game's end.

≥ +0.8pp

Players who cast this card win 32% of the time (n=311) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=1227).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 26% (n=99) — 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 +6.0pp; 95% confidence interval +0.8pp to +11.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

465 instances

2.6%

Library

51.8%

Battlefield

23.4%

Graveyard

6.2%

Exile

Most Skullclamps end games on the battlefield, a sharp contrast with the library-heavy final-zone distributions typical of singleton cards that rarely get drawn.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Doctor Doom, King of Latveria 37 decks
2 Edgar Markov 30 decks
3 Krenko, Mob Boss 30 decks
4 Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER 25 decks
5 Chatterfang, Squirrel General 20 decks
6 Hazel of the Rootbloom 20 decks
7 Caesar, Legion's Emperor 18 decks
8 Teysa Karlov 17 decks
9 Rin and Seri, Inseparable 16 decks
10 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 16 decks

Token and creature-flood commanders dominate the list, from Edgar Markov to Krenko and Chatterfang, confirming that Skullclamp flows toward any strategy that produces cheap, expendable creatures.

Frequently Asked

How often is Skullclamp drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1504 tracked games where Skullclamp was in the deck, it was drawn 23% of the time. That is consistent with what you expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 418 instances that reached a player's hand, 76% were cast before the game concluded.

What turn does Skullclamp typically get cast?

Median first-cast turn is 4.0, with a mode of turn 1. The distribution has a clear early cluster: players who draw it in the opening hand cast it immediately, while the remaining casts spread across the mid-game. The p25 is turn 1 and the p75 is turn 6, showing a wide spread that reflects how randomly it is drawn across varying game lengths.

Does casting Skullclamp actually improve your win rate?

In 311 tracked participations where Skullclamp reached the battlefield, the normalized win rate was 32%. Participations where it stayed in the library show 26%. That is a +6.0 percentage-point gap. Both sample sizes are large enough to treat this as a directional signal, though Playgroup Live's dataset is still growing and the effect should not be read as statistically definitive.

Is Skullclamp banned in Commander?

No. Skullclamp is legal and unrestricted in Commander (including multiplayer) and in Oathbreaker and Vintage. It is banned in Legacy, Modern, and the Two-Player Commander (Duel Commander) format. Duel Commander's banned list is stricter than the multiplayer rules committee list, and Skullclamp's raw efficiency makes it too oppressive in the faster 1v1 environment.

Which commanders most often run Skullclamp?

The top commanders in the Playgroup Live dataset are creature-token and go-wide strategies: Edgar Markov, Silverquill the Disputant, Cloud Ex-SOLDIER, and Zurgo Stormrender lead the multiplayer list. Krenko Mob Boss and Edgar Markov top the Duel Commander list. The pattern is consistent: any commander that produces small, expendable creatures benefits from turning those deaths into two cards at 1 mana.

How spread is the Skullclamp data across players?

708 distinct players have brought Skullclamp to a tracked game on Playgroup Live, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for only 2% of all instances. That is well under the 15% threshold where concentration becomes a concern, so the data reflects a genuinely broad sample of how real Commander players use this card rather than one prolific player's habits.