Live Play Data

Strionic Resonator

· Artifact · March of the Machine Commander (MOC)

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

735

Decks Running

374

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

71%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

71% of drawn Strionic Resonators are cast before the game ends, and the median first cast lands on turn 5, well past the curve for a 2-mana artifact.

Strionic Resonator sits in 374 of the 17176 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, an 2% inclusion rate that reflects its niche status: powerful in the right shell, invisible in the wrong one.

When players do draw it, 71% of copies reach the battlefield before the game ends. That figure is neutral on player intent: some uncast copies are simply a timing artifact of games that close before the mana or a trigger target presents itself. Median first cast is turn 5, two to three turns later than its 2-mana cost would suggest, which is consistent with a card that needs an active trigger engine on board before it earns its slot.

The commander distribution tells the clearest story. Toph, the First Metalbender and Brago, King Eternal lead the table. Both commanders generate repeated triggered abilities, which is exactly what Strionic Resonator needs to justify its activation cost. The card is not a generic good-stuff inclusion. It is a deliberate synergy piece.

At a glance

2% of tracked Commander decks include Strionic Resonator
71% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn, late relative to its 2-mana cost
71% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
326 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, a well-spread sample
24% win rate in participations where it was cast

First-cast turn

n=127

12%

13%

16%

11%

33%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 15

On curve 20% (15 / 127 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 37%

The "good card" funnel

736 brought · 326 players

Brought to game

736

Ever drawn

178

Reached battlefield

127

Still on board at game end

71%

Of 736 Strionic Resonators brought to games, 178 were drawn, 127 of those were cast, and the majority of resolved copies stayed on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -5.4pp

Players who cast this card win 24% of the time (n=121) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=473).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 18% (n=45) — 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 +2.3pp; 95% confidence interval -5.4pp to +10.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

207 instances

2.4%

Library

43.5%

Battlefield

25.1%

Graveyard

9.2%

Exile

Most Strionic Resonators that stay in the library never move at all, which is structural for a singleton in a 100-card deck and not a commentary on the card's power in the right list.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Toph, the First Metalbender 15 decks
2 Kaalia of the Vast 11 decks
3 Brago, King Eternal 10 decks
4 Mishra, Eminent One 9 decks
5 Tom Bombadil 9 decks
6 Chiss-Goria, Forge Tyrant 7 decks
7 Jon Irenicus, Shattered One 7 decks
8 Zur the Enchanter 6 decks
9 Captain N'ghathrod 5 decks
10 Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge 5 decks

The top of the list clusters around trigger-heavy commanders like Toph, the First Metalbender and Brago, King Eternal, confirming that Strionic Resonator is a synergy include rather than a generic staple.

Card text

Strionic Resonator

Artifact

: Copy target triggered ability you control. You may choose new targets for the copy. (A triggered ability uses the words "when," "whenever," or "at.")

March of the Machine Commander (MOC) · Rare · Illustrated by Sam White

Frequently Asked

How often is Strionic Resonator drawn in a Commander game?

Across 718 tracked games where Strionic Resonator was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is a normal draw rate for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 178 instances that reached a hand, 71% were cast before the game concluded.

What turn does Strionic Resonator usually get cast?

Median first cast is turn 5, with the 25th percentile at turn 3 and the 75th percentile at turn 7. The mode in the distribution is turn 4. That late landing reflects how the card plays: you generally want another triggered ability already on board before you commit mana to the Resonator, so it trails its mana cost by several turns.

Does casting Strionic Resonator correlate with winning?

In 121 participations where Strionic Resonator was cast, the normalized win rate is 24%, compared to 22% in participations where it stayed in the library. The delta is +2.4 percentage points. Both sample sizes are reasonable, but the difference is within the margin of error given the dataset size. Treat this as an early directional signal rather than a firm conclusion.

Is Strionic Resonator legal in Commander?

Yes. Strionic Resonator is legal and unrestricted in Commander, as well as in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Duel Commander. It is not legal in Standard, Brawl, Pauper, or Pauper Commander.

Which commanders use Strionic Resonator most?

Toph, the First Metalbender leads with the most decks in the tracked dataset, followed by Brago, King Eternal and Kaalia of the Vast. All three commanders share a common thread: they generate powerful triggered abilities that reward copying. Brago's blink trigger in particular turns each Resonator activation into a repeatable bounce loop with the right board state.

How concentrated is this card's data among players?

The data is well spread. 326 distinct players have brought Strionic Resonator to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 3% of all instances. That breadth is a meaningful strength of the dataset: the numbers reflect a genuinely diverse cross-section of Commander players rather than one person's repeated games.