Live Play Data

Thought Vessel

· Artifact · Mystery Booster Commander Edition (MBC)

18%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

7475

Decks Running

3824

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

76%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Thought Vessel sits in 18% of tracked Commander decks, and 76% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, with a median first cast on turn 4.

Thought Vessel earns its slot on two merits: it taps for colorless mana and it removes your maximum hand size. In 3824 of the 20720 distinct decks tracked on Playgroup Live, players decided both abilities were worth a two-mana artifact slot. That puts its inclusion rate at 18%, a solid figure for a card that competes against Arcane Signet, Sol Ring, and format staples at the same cost.

When the card hits a hand, 76% of copies are cast before the game ends. Median first cast lands on turn 4, though the distribution has a strong early cluster: the most common cast turn is turn 2, exactly on curve. The cast-vs-library win-rate delta is +5.7 percentage points, and the lower bound of that estimate is positive, so the directional signal that resolving Thought Vessel correlates with winning holds up across this dataset.

Colorless identity means Thought Vessel slots into every Commander deck without restriction. That universal splash is exactly why you see it distributed across commanders from Y'shtola to Nekusar to Zhulodok, a spread that confirms it is filling a generic ramp-and-hand-size role rather than serving one specific strategy.

At a glance

18% of tracked Commander decks include Thought Vessel
76% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
T4 median first-cast turn, with turn 2 as the single most common cast turn
82% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
+5.7pp win-rate lift over games where it stayed in the library

First-cast turn

n=1499

10%

21%

12%

10%

31%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 21

On curve 31% (315 / 1499 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 51%

The "good card" funnel

7483 brought · 2173 players

Brought to game

7483

Ever drawn

1962

Reached battlefield

1499

Still on board at game end

1230

76%

Of 7483 Thought Vessels brought to games, 1962 were drawn, 1499 of those were cast, and 82% stayed on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ +3.2pp

Players who cast this card win 28% of the time (n=1356) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=4595).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 33% (n=420) — 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 +5.7pp; 95% confidence interval +3.2pp to +8.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

2166 instances

2.6%

Library

56.8%

Battlefield

18.4%

Graveyard

4.6%

Exile

Most Thought Vessels that never leave the library simply were not drawn in 5836 tracked games, a structural reality of 100-card singleton rather than a signal about the card's power.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 172 decks
2 Captain America, Team Leader 126 decks
3 Ms. Bumbleflower 110 decks
4 Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls 85 decks
5 Bello, Bard of the Brambles 63 decks
6 Zhulodok, Void Gorger 59 decks
7 Szarekh, the Silent King 47 decks
8 Éowyn, Shieldmaiden 46 decks
9 Nekusar, the Mindrazer 37 decks
10 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse 32 decks

The commander list spans white-blue-black, Gruul, colorless, and Grixis commanders, consistent with Thought Vessel's colorless identity making it a viable inclusion in virtually any archetype.

Card text

Thought Vessel

Artifact

You have no maximum hand size. {T}

: Add

Mystery Booster Commander Edition (MBC) · Uncommon · Illustrated by rk post

Frequently Asked

How often is Thought Vessel drawn in a Commander game?

Across 5836 tracked games where Thought Vessel was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That is a normal draw rate for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 1962 instances that reached a hand, 76% were cast before the game concluded.

What turn does Thought Vessel usually get cast?

Median first cast is turn 4, with a mean of around turn 5. The single most common cast turn is turn 2, which is exactly on curve for a two-mana card. A meaningful cluster also arrives in turns 5 through 7, reflecting copies drawn during the mid-game. The interquartile range runs from turn 2 to turn 7, so expect to see it at very different points depending on when it was drawn.

Does casting Thought Vessel actually help you win?

The data shows a +5.7 percentage-point win-rate lift for games where Thought Vessel was cast compared to games where it stayed in the library. With over 1,100 cast observations and nearly 3,800 library observations, the lower confidence bound on that delta is positive. That is an early but consistent signal. Thought Vessel does not win games on its own, but players who cast it are winning more often in this dataset.

Why does Thought Vessel appear in so many different Commander decks?

Thought Vessel has a colorless color identity, so it fits into every Commander deck regardless of commander color. That alone explains much of its spread. Beyond legality, the card fills two generic needs at once: early ramp and removal of the hand-size limit. Commanders that draw many cards, such as Nekusar or Y'shtola, benefit especially from the hand-size clause, but any deck that wants a two-mana rock can include it.

Is Thought Vessel legal in formats outside Commander?

Thought Vessel is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Vintage, Oathbreaker, and Pauper Commander. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Historic, Brawl, or Alchemy. In Pauper it is available at common rarity from certain printings.

How concentrated is the Thought Vessel data among a small group of players?

The data is well-spread. 2173 distinct players have brought Thought Vessel to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 1% of all instances. That means the statistics reflect broad community play rather than one prolific player skewing the numbers.