Live Play Data

Terminate

· Instant · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

20%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1326

Decks Running

748

Median Cast Turn

7.0

Drawn → Played

69%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Terminate shows up in 20% of Playgroup Live Commander decks and, when drawn, reaches the stack 69% of the time, with a median first-cast turn of 7.0.

Terminate sits in 20% of the 3798 Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live, appearing in 748 distinct lists across 1254 tracked games.

As an instant, its job is reactive: hold up two mana, wait for the right creature, fire. The median first-cast turn of 7.0 reflects that pattern. Players are not jamming it early; they are casting it when the target presents itself. Of 326 drawn copies, 69% were cast before the game ended. The remainder mostly reflects games that closed before the right moment arrived, not a card held by choice.

Terminate is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pauper, Vintage, and several other formats. Its color identity of Black and Red limits it to decks that run both colors, which partly explains a lower overall inclusion rate than format-agnostic staples. Within Rakdos and Grixis shells, it remains a compact, unconditional answer that dodges regeneration.

At a glance

20% of tracked Commander decks include Terminate
25% draw rate across tracked participations
69% of drawn copies were cast before the game ended
T7.0 median first-cast turn, reflecting reactive hold-up play
609 distinct players have brought Terminate to a tracked game
28% win rate in games where Terminate resolved

First-cast turn

n=224

16%

55%

T6-9

17%

T10+

Median 7.0 P25 5 · P75 9 · max 17

On curve 1% (2 / 224 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 25%

The "good card" funnel

1327 brought · 609 players

Brought to game

1327

Ever drawn

326

Reached battlefield

224

Still on board at game end

69%

Of 1327 Terminates brought to tracked games, 326 were drawn, 224 of those were cast, and the instant resolved to the graveyard in the overwhelming majority of cases, as expected for a removal spell.

≥ +1.4pp

Players who cast this card win 28% of the time (n=206) , vs 20% when it never left the library (n=828).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 26% (n=87) — 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 +7.5pp; 95% confidence interval +1.4pp to +13.6pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

361 instances

2.2%

Library

3.6%

Battlefield

64.8%

Graveyard

6.1%

Exile

The vast majority of Terminate copies finish in the graveyard after resolving, which is exactly right for a two-mana instant. The small library remainder represents copies that were never drawn across the game.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Doctor Doom, King of Latveria 111 decks
2 Auntie Ool, Cursewretch 45 decks
3 Kaalia of the Vast 24 decks
4 Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied 24 decks
5 Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls 23 decks
6 Nekusar, the Mindrazer 21 decks
7 Kardur, Doomscourge 19 decks
8 Edgar Markov 15 decks
9 Ezio Auditore da Firenze 15 decks
10 Fire Lord Azula 14 decks

Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads with 43 decks, but the list spans more than ten different commanders across Rakdos, Grixis, and Jund color identities, showing Terminate is a broadly adopted answer rather than a single-commander staple.

Frequently Asked

How often is Terminate drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1254 tracked games where Terminate was in the deck, it was drawn 25% of the time. That is consistent with what you expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 326 drawn copies, 224 were cast, giving a draw-to-play rate of 69%.

What turn does Terminate usually get cast?

Median first-cast turn is 7.0, with the distribution running from turn 2 at the earliest out to turn 17 at the latest. The interquartile range sits between turns 5 and 9, which reflects Terminate's reactive role: players hold mana open rather than casting it at the first opportunity. The on-curve rate of 1% is extremely low, but that is structurally expected for an instant used as a reaction rather than a proactive play.

Does casting Terminate correlate with winning?

In 206 participations where Terminate was cast, the normalized win rate was 28%, compared to 20% across 828 participations where it stayed in the library. The delta is +7.5 percentage points. Both buckets have solid sample sizes, so this is a consistent early signal that resolving Terminate associates with better game outcomes. That said, Playgroup Live's dataset is still growing and this should be read as directional rather than conclusive.

Is Terminate banned anywhere?

Terminate is not banned in any tracked format. It is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pauper, Vintage, Timeless, Historic, Duel Commander, and several others. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, or Alchemy, primarily because of rotation rather than a targeted ban.

Which commanders most often run Terminate?

Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads the Playgroup Live data with 43 decks, followed by Auntie Ool, Cursewretch at 30 and Kaalia of the Vast at 14. The spread across 609 distinct players, with the single heaviest contributor accounting for only 1% of all instances, suggests the data is not skewed by one prolific player.

How well-spread is Terminate's data across the player base?

609 distinct players have brought Terminate to at least one tracked game on Playgroup Live. The most active single contributor accounts for 1% of all instances, well below the 15% threshold where concentration becomes a concern. That spread gives the dataset meaningful breadth and reduces the risk that one player's preferences are driving the headline numbers.