Live Play Data

Talon Gates of Madara

Land — Gate · Modern Horizons 3 Commander (M3C)

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

706

Decks Running

323

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

78%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

78% of drawn Talon Gates of Madara copies are cast before the game ends, with a median first-cast turn of 5 and 87% stickiness once it resolves.

Talon Gates of Madara is a colorless Gate land from Modern Horizons 3 Commander that does double duty: it produces mana in two modes and phases out a creature on entry. 78% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, a strong signal that players who find it tend to deploy it.

The card sits in 323 of the 14231 decks tracked on Playgroup Live, a low overall inclusion rate that reflects its niche role rather than any weakness. Most pilots run it in decks that can exploit the phasing effect, the colorless mana, or the built-in hand-to-battlefield deploy ability. Median first cast lands on turn 5, with a wide spread from turn 1 to turn 13, suggesting it is used both as early utility and as a mid-game tempo piece.

One concentration note: a single player accounts for 17% of all tracked instances, which is meaningful. The dataset spans 250 distinct players overall, so the directional trends hold, but that single contributor lifts the raw numbers slightly. Read the win-rate figures as early signal rather than settled benchmarks.

At a glance

2% of tracked Commander decks include Talon Gates of Madara
78% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn across all tracked games
87% battlefield stickiness once the land resolves
40% win rate in games where Talon Gates of Madara was cast
250 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=159

17%

11%

18%

33%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 15

Cast same turn as drawn 32%

The "good card" funnel

708 brought · 250 players

Brought to game

708

Ever drawn

203

Reached battlefield

159

Still on board at game end

138

78%

Of 708 copies brought to tracked games, 203 were drawn, 159 of those were cast, and 87% of cast copies stuck on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ +0.4pp

Players who cast this card win 40% of the time (n=145) , vs 32% when it never left the library (n=431).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 32% (n=39) — 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 +8.7pp; 95% confidence interval +0.4pp to +17.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

226 instances

4.9%

Library

61.1%

Battlefield

15.0%

Graveyard

7.1%

Exile

Most tracked Talon Gates of Madara copies end the game on the battlefield, a sharply different profile from the average singleton land, which usually stays buried in the library until game end.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Omo, Queen of Vesuva 16 decks
2 Zhulodok, Void Gorger 14 decks
3 Lumra, Bellow of the Woods 7 decks
4 Magda, Brazen Outlaw 7 decks
5 Molecule Man 7 decks
6 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth 6 decks
7 Teval, the Balanced Scale 6 decks
8 Ultron, Artificial Malevolence 6 decks
9 Child of Alara 5 decks
10 Ms. Bumbleflower 5 decks

Omo, Queen of Vesuva leads at 11 decks, but the list spans a wide range of color identities, from mono-green to five-color, consistent with a colorless Gate that fits anywhere.

Frequently Asked

How often is Talon Gates of Madara drawn in a Commander game?

Across 658 tracked multiplayer games where Talon Gates of Madara was in the deck, it was drawn 29% of the time. That is normal for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 203 drawn instances, 78% were cast before the game concluded.

What turn does Talon Gates of Madara usually hit the battlefield?

Median first cast is turn 5, with the 25th percentile at turn 3 and the 75th at turn 7. The distribution is fairly flat from turns 1 through 7, which reflects two distinct use patterns: early deployment via the hand-to-battlefield ability ({4} to put it directly into play), and later drops when drawn mid-game. The mean of 5.12 and the max of 13 confirm a long tail.

Does casting Talon Gates of Madara correlate with winning?

In 145 tracked participations where the card was cast, the win rate is 40%, compared to 32% in the 431 participations where it stayed in the library. That is a +8.7 percentage-point gap. Because one player accounts for 17% of instances, treat this as a directional early signal rather than a definitive claim.

How quickly do players cast Talon Gates of Madara after drawing it?

Of the 32% same-turn cast rate, roughly a third of drawn copies are played immediately. The median delay after drawing is 1 turn, and the average is about 1.86 turns before casting. The maximum observed hold was 7 turns, suggesting players occasionally wait for the right target for the phasing trigger or the right mana situation.

Which commanders most often run Talon Gates of Madara?

Omo, Queen of Vesuva leads with 11 tracked decks on Playgroup Live, likely because Omo cares about land types and Gate synergies. Lumra, Bellow of the Woods, Molecule Man, Ms. Bumbleflower, Teval the Balanced Scale, Ultron Artificial Malevolence, and Zhulodok Void Gorger each appear with 5 decks. The spread across colorless and multicolor commanders reflects the card's colorless identity, which lets it slot into any deck.

Is Talon Gates of Madara legal in Commander?

Yes. Talon Gates of Madara is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker as of the most recent legality update. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Pauper, Historic, or Brawl. Its colorless color identity means it can slot into any Commander deck regardless of the commander's colors.