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Stubborn Denial

· Instant · Khans of Tarkir (KTK)

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Times Brought

605

Decks Running

267

In Decks

—

Decklist Inclusion

—

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

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

Card text

Stubborn Denial

Instant

Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays {1}

. Ferocious — If you control a creature with power 4 or greater, counter that spell instead.

Khans of Tarkir (KTK) · Uncommon · Illustrated by James Ryman

Final zone distribution

133 instances

4.5%

Library

2.3%

Battlefield

36.1%

Graveyard

7.5%

Exile

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 The Ur-Dragon 57 decks
2 Fire Lord Azula 16 decks
3 Eshki, Temur's Roar 15 decks
4 Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm 11 decks
5 Vivi Ornitier 8 decks
6 The Mindskinner 7 decks
7 Ureni of the Unwritten 7 decks
8 Ulalek, Fused Atrocity 5 decks
9 Animar, Soul of Elements 4 decks
10 Eshki Dragonclaw 4 decks

The "good card" funnel

605 brought · 244 players

Brought to game

605

Ever drawn

126

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

≥ -12.8pp

Players who cast this card win 22% of the time (n=39) , vs 27% when it never left the library (n=335).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 25% (n=51).

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 -4.6pp; 95% confidence interval -12.8pp to +3.6pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

First-cast turn

n=50

14%

20%

44%

T6-9

12%

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 14

On curve 0% (0 / 50 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 13%

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 680,000+ Commander games overall, and this card-level play data comes from the Playgroup Live subset of that corpus.