Live Play Data

Swords to Plowshares

· Instant · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

27%

Deck Inclusion

Games Tracked

642

Decks Running

547

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

69%

Swords to Plowshares appears in 27% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live. When drawn, players cast it 70% of the time, with a median first-cast turn of 6.

Swords to Plowshares sits in 27% of the 1,783 distinct decks tracked on Playgroup Live, a number that reflects its hard color restriction to white rather than any shortage of demand. Among the 478 decks that include it, it has participated in 729 tracked games, generating 118 casts across that sample.

The key behavioral number is draw-to-play: 70% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends. That is a healthy rate for a reactive spell. Instants do not get slammed the turn they are drawn the way mana rocks do. The median gap between drawing and casting is 1 turn, but the average stretches to 2.1 turns, reflecting players who bank it for the right moment. The median first-cast turn is 6, squarely in the mid-game window when threatening creatures are most likely to be on the board.

As pure single-target removal, Swords to Plowshares leaves the battlefield almost immediately after it resolves. Its battlefield stickiness is 4%, which is expected: the spell exiles a creature and goes to the graveyard. The relevant persistence question is whether it changes game outcomes, and the delta data gives an early signal worth watching.

At a glance

27% inclusion rate across all tracked Commander decks
70% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T6 median first-cast turn
118 total casts recorded across 729 deck participations
2.1 average turns held in hand before being cast
4% battlefield stickiness, expected for a one-shot instant

First-cast turn

n=129

10%

17%

54%

T6-9

11%

T10+

Median 6 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 13

On curve 2% (3 / 129 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 32%

The "good card" funnel

850 brought

Brought to game

850

Ever drawn

173

Reached battlefield

129

Still on board at game end

69%

Of 729 copies brought to games, 158 were drawn, 118 of those were cast, and just 5 remained on the battlefield at game end, exactly what you expect from a one-shot exile instant.

-10.6pp

Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=129) , vs 38% when it never left the library (n=650).

Final zone distribution

850 instances

76.5%

Library

0.6%

Battlefield

15.6%

Graveyard

2.4%

Exile

549 of 729 copies never left the library, the expected outcome for a reactive singleton in a 100-card deck where the right threat may simply never appear.

Top commanders running this card

by deck count

Ten different commanders each host at least 9 Swords to Plowshares decks in our data, with Quintorius leading at 30. The spread confirms it is a format-wide white staple rather than a commander-specific include.

Frequently Asked

How often is Swords to Plowshares drawn in a Commander game? ▾

In games where the card was in the deck, it was drawn in roughly 22% of deck-participations. That is consistent with typical singleton draw rates in a 100-card deck. Of the 158 instances that reached a player's hand, 118 were cast, putting the draw-to-play rate at 70%.

What turn does Swords to Plowshares usually get cast? ▾

The median first-cast turn is 6, with the middle 50% of casts falling between turns 5 and 8. That mid-game clustering makes sense. One-mana removal is cheap enough to hold, and players tend to save it for a high-value target rather than firing it on the first threatening creature they see. The average cast turn of 6.45 aligns closely with the median, so the distribution is not heavily skewed by outliers.

Does casting Swords to Plowshares actually improve win rate? ▾

The data shows a negative delta of -7.1 percentage points. Participations where it was cast show a 29.7% win rate, versus 36.8% for participations where it sat in the library. Both buckets have large sample sizes (118 and 549 respectively), so this is a consistent early signal worth taking seriously. The most likely explanation is selection bias: players tend to cast Swords to Plowshares when a threatening creature is already dominating the board, meaning the card is drawn more often in games where one opponent is already pulling ahead. It does not mean the spell is bad.

Why do players hold Swords to Plowshares in hand for multiple turns? ▾

The same_turn_rate is 31%, meaning fewer than a third of casts happen the same turn the card is drawn. Unlike a mana rock or a cantrip, Swords to Plowshares rewards patience. Casting it on a small utility creature wastes its exile effect. Players in a four-player pod also have incentive to hold interaction for the right political moment. The median hold time of 1 turn and average of 2.1 turns reflect that deliberate decision-making.

Is Swords to Plowshares banned anywhere relevant? ▾

Swords to Plowshares is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, Duel Commander, Premodern, Oathbreaker, and several other formats. It is banned in Historic and not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, or Pauper. In Commander it is unrestricted, and its white color identity limits it naturally to decks running white.

Which commanders most commonly pair with Swords to Plowshares on Playgroup Live? ▾

The top slot belongs to Quintorius, History Chaser, appearing in 30 tracked decks that include Swords to Plowshares. Shorikai, Genesis Engine and Y'shtola, Night's Blessed each appear in 18 such decks. The spread across ten commanders with different color identities and strategies confirms the card is not a build-around but a general white staple included wherever the color allows.