Playgroup.gg logo
Playgroup.gg EDH Tracker
collections_bookmark Part of Commander Masters
Toxic Deluge card art
Live Play Data

Toxic Deluge

{2} {B} · Sorcery · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)
20%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
3243
Decks Running
1710
Median Cast Turn
7
Drawn → Played
55%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

20% of tracked Commander decks run Toxic Deluge, and it resolves in 439 observed games with a median first cast on turn 7, making it one of black's most reliably deployed sweepers in the format.

Toxic Deluge sits in 20% of the 8560 tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, appearing across 1710 distinct lists. That reach is broad for a card that demands a life payment on top of its mana cost, and it signals genuine format-wide respect for what the card does.

The cast data fills in the picture. Of 3249 instances brought to games, 795 reached a hand, and 439 resolved. The draw-to-play rate of 55% reflects a mix of deliberate timing and games that end before a player finds the right moment to pull the trigger. Median first cast lands on turn 7, squarely in the mid-game window where board states are developed enough to make a sweeper worth its life cost. The data is well-spread across 1152 distinct players, and no single contributor accounts for more than a small slice of the sample, which strengthens its reliability as a signal.

Toxic Deluge is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and several other formats. Its flexibility, bypassing indestructibility and hitting toughness directly, keeps it competitive in a singleton format where predictable board wipes get played around. The top commander pairings skew toward Grixis and mono-black strategies that can absorb the life loss most comfortably.

At a glance
  • 20% of tracked Commander decks include Toxic Deluge
  • 24% draw rate per game where the card is in the deck
  • 55% of drawn copies reached the stack before game end
  • T7 median first-cast turn across observed games
  • 1152 distinct players contributing to the dataset, indicating broad spread

First-cast turn

n=439
0%
T1
0%
T2
5%
T3
10%
T4
16%
T5
56%
T6-9
13%
T10+
Median 7 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 19
On curve 5% (20 / 439 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 31%

The "good card" funnel

3249 brought · 1152 players
Brought to game
3249
Ever drawn
795
Reached battlefield
439
Still on board at game end
25
55%

Of 3249 copies brought to games, 795 were drawn, 439 resolved as spells, and the data reflects a card that gets cast roughly half the time it reaches a hand.

≥ -3.7pp

Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=398) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=1997).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 33% (n=325) — 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 +0.7pp; 95% confidence interval -3.7pp to +5.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

924 instances
2.2%
Library
2.7%
Battlefield
55.5%
Graveyard
10.9%
Exile

The vast majority of Toxic Deluge copies finish in the graveyard, exactly as expected for a sorcery that resolves and moves on. The library figure is small because most tracked instances were meaningfully observed during play.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans Grixis, Sultai, Esper, Orzhov, and mono-black, confirming that Toxic Deluge is spread broadly across black strategies rather than concentrated in any single archetype.

Card text
Toxic Deluge card

Toxic Deluge

{2} {B}
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast this spell, pay X life. All creatures get -X/-X until end of turn.
Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC) · Rare · Illustrated by Anthony Devine

Frequently Asked

How often is Toxic Deluge drawn in a Commander game?
Across 2805 tracked multiplayer games where Toxic Deluge was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is a typical rate for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 795 copies that reached a hand, 55% were cast before the game ended. The remainder reflects games that concluded before an opportune cast window arrived, or hands where the life payment was too costly given the board state.
What turn does Toxic Deluge usually get cast?
The median first-cast turn is 7, with the 25th percentile at turn 5 and the 75th at turn 8. That range makes sense for a reactive sweeper: players generally wait for a threatening board before spending both mana and life. The distribution has a small early cluster (a handful of casts on turns 1-3) likely representing aggressive ramp games, with the bulk of casts concentrated in turns 5-8.
Does casting Toxic Deluge actually improve your chances of winning?
The win rate when Toxic Deluge is cast is 27% across 398 participations. The win rate when it stays in the library is 26% across 1997 participations. The difference between these two numbers is small and, given sample sizes and the standard error of the measurement, should be read as directional rather than conclusive. What we can say is that decks running Toxic Deluge are competitive regardless of whether the card resolves in a given game.
Is Toxic Deluge banned in Commander?
No. Toxic Deluge is legal in Commander, as well as Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. Despite its power level, the Commander Rules Committee has not restricted it, in part because its life-payment cost creates a genuine trade-off that slows abuse.
Why is Toxic Deluge so popular in Commander specifically?
Three properties make it stand out in a 40-life format. First, the life cost is less punishing when you start at 40 rather than 20. Second, the -X/-X effect bypasses indestructible creatures, which many Commander staples and commanders carry. Third, the scalable X lets you tailor the sweep to exactly the board state you face, preserving your own creatures if you size carefully. Those three factors together make it a staple in any black deck that wants reliable, unconditional removal.
Which commanders most commonly run Toxic Deluge?
Across the tracked dataset, Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads by raw deck count, followed by Dina, Essence Brewer and Y'shtola, Night's Blessed. The spread covers Grixis, Sultai, Esper, and mono-black identities, reflecting that any strategy with black access treats Toxic Deluge as a format-staple sweeper rather than a niche pick. The breadth of the commander list, ten distinct commanders in the top ten, confirms this is not a card propped up by a single archetype.