Live Play Data

The Ozolith

· Legendary Artifact · Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (IKO)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1219

Decks Running

655

Median Cast Turn

4.0

Drawn → Played

86%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

3% of tracked Commander decks run The Ozolith, and when it lands in a player's hand, 86% of those copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 4.0.

The Ozolith sits in 655 of the 19169 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, an 3% inclusion rate that reflects its narrow but committed niche: counter-centric strategies that need insurance against board wipes and removal.

The most telling number is draw-to-play. When a copy of The Ozolith enters a player's hand, it is cast 86% of the time before the game ends. That is a strong signal that players who run it are building around it, not hedging. Median first cast lands on turn 4.0, though the distribution is notably wide: 19 of the tracked casts happened on turn 1 (drawn in the opening hand), and the tail extends all the way to turn 12. Once on the battlefield, 77% of copies stay there through end of game, which is expected for a 1-mana artifact with no immediate target on the board.

The commander spread is wide and colorless identity is the reason. As a colorless card, The Ozolith fits any deck that builds around +1/+1 counters, -1/-1 counters, or loyalty counters on permanents. Wolverine, Toph, Kibo, Giada, and Zaxara all appear near the top of the commander list, spanning green, white, and three-color shells. No single archetype owns the card.

At a glance

3% of tracked Commander decks include The Ozolith
86% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T4.0 median first-cast turn across tracked games
77% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
533 distinct players have brought The Ozolith to a tracked game
23% draw rate, consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck

First-cast turn

n=244

25%

11%

10%

36%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 12

On curve 25% (61 / 244 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 66%

The "good card" funnel

1219 brought · 533 players

Brought to game

1219

Ever drawn

283

Reached battlefield

244

Still on board at game end

187

86%

Of 1219 Ozoloths brought to games, 283 were drawn, 244 of those were cast, and 77% of resolved copies stayed on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ +1.2pp

Players who cast this card win 30% of the time (n=230) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=801).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 29% (n=36) — 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 +7.3pp; 95% confidence interval +1.2pp to +13.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

310 instances

1.9%

Library

60.3%

Battlefield

21.9%

Graveyard

4.8%

Exile

The majority of The Ozolith copies tracked on Playgroup Live never leave the library, a structural result of 100-card singleton rather than a statement about the card's power. Of the copies that did surface, most finished on the battlefield.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Wolverine, Best There Is 23 decks
2 Sauron, the Dark Lord 20 decks
3 Toph, the First Metalbender 20 decks
4 Kibo, Uktabi Prince 15 decks
5 The Astonishing Ant-Man 14 decks
6 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower 12 decks
7 Zaxara, the Exemplary 12 decks
8 Zimone, Infinite Analyst 12 decks
9 Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer 11 decks
10 Animar, Soul of Elements 10 decks

No single commander dominates the list. Wolverine, Toph, and Kibo lead by raw deck count, but the spread across mono-white, mono-green, and multicolor shells shows The Ozolith serving counter strategies of every stripe.

Card text

The Ozolith

Legendary Artifact

Whenever a creature you control leaves the battlefield, if it had counters on it, put those counters on The Ozolith. At the beginning of combat on your turn, if The Ozolith has counters on it, you may move all counters from The Ozolith onto target creature.

Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (IKO) · Rare · Illustrated by Sam Burley

Frequently Asked

How often is The Ozolith drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1153 tracked multiplayer games where The Ozolith was in a deck, it was drawn 23% of the time. That is consistent with the expected frequency for any singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 283 copies that reached a hand, 86% were cast before the game ended, a notably high rate that indicates players build their decks to deploy it quickly.

What turn does The Ozolith typically hit the battlefield?

The median first-cast turn is 4.0, but the distribution is bimodal. A cluster of 19 casts landed on turn 1, pulled in the opening hand and slammed immediately. The bulk of the remaining casts spread across turns 5 through 8, reflecting copies drawn mid-game into counter-heavy boards that can immediately put the artifact to work. The same-turn cast rate across drawn-and-cast instances is 66%, meaning most players cast it the same turn they draw it.

Does casting The Ozolith actually improve your win rate?

The cast-vs-library win-rate delta is a directional early signal only. The Ozolith shows 30% win rate across 230 participations where it was cast, versus 23% for participations where it sat unplayed in the library. Both sample sizes are in a range where you should treat the gap as a trend to watch rather than a confident conclusion.

Is The Ozolith legal in Commander?

Yes. The Ozolith is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. In Commander it is unrestricted, and its colorless identity means it can slot into any deck regardless of commander color.

Why does The Ozolith appear across so many different commanders?

The Ozolith has a colorless color identity, so it is technically available to every Commander deck. In practice, it only earns its slot in strategies that generate counters at scale. Because +1/+1 counter synergies exist across green, white, black, and even some red shells, the card shows up under a wide range of commanders. The top commanders on Playgroup Live span mono-green, mono-white, Gruul, Sultai, and multicolor strategies, none dominating the list.

How concentrated is The Ozolith's data across players?

The data is well-spread. 533 distinct players have brought The Ozolith to a tracked game on Playgroup Live, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for only 1% of all tracked instances. That broad base makes the directional trends more reliable than they would be if the card were carried by one or two prolific players.