Live Play Data

Vandalblast

· Sorcery · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

16%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

2170

Decks Running

1145

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

57%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

16% of tracked Commander decks run Vandalblast, and when it reaches a hand it resolves 57% of the time, with a median first-cast turn of 7.

Vandalblast sits in 16% of the 7287 Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live. It has appeared in 1145 distinct decks across 1929 multiplayer games, making it one of red's most-reached-for answers to artifact strategies.

The card's two modes tell two different stories. Cast for a single {R}, it picks off one artifact on the spot. Cast for {4}{R} at overload, it sweeps every artifact your opponents control. That flexibility shows up in the timing data: median first cast falls on turn 7, with the distribution spread across a wide window from early targeted removal to a mid-to-late-game overload. Of drawn copies, 57% reached the battlefield, a rate that reflects how often the game ends before a situational answer finds its moment.

Data is spread across 873 distinct players, with no single contributor exceeding 1% of all tracked instances. That breadth makes the trends here a reasonable signal of how the broader playgroup meta handles the card, even within Playgroup Live's current dataset.

At a glance

16% of tracked Commander decks include Vandalblast
23% draw rate across tracked games
57% of drawn copies were cast before the game ended
T7 median first-cast turn, reflecting both early removal and late overload casts
873 distinct players have brought Vandalblast to a tracked game, a well-spread dataset

First-cast turn

n=281

14%

54%

T6-9

12%

T10+

Median 7 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 16

Cast same turn as drawn 35%

The "good card" funnel

2170 brought · 873 players

Brought to game

2170

Ever drawn

490

Reached battlefield

281

Still on board at game end

57%

Of 2170 Vandalblasts brought to games, 490 were drawn, 281 of those were cast, and the vast majority resolved straight to the graveyard as sorceries do, with only a small number exiled by interaction.

≥ -2.8pp

Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=265) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=1438).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 27% (n=191) — 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 +2.5pp; 95% confidence interval -2.8pp to +7.8pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

550 instances

3.3%

Library

2.5%

Battlefield

56.9%

Graveyard

9.5%

Exile

Most Vandalblasts that never moved from the library were simply never drawn, a structural reality of 100-card singleton rather than a signal that the card underperformed when it mattered.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Doctor Doom, King of Latveria 98 decks
2 Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER 74 decks
3 Krenko, Mob Boss 34 decks
4 Kibo, Uktabi Prince 28 decks
5 Zada, Hedron Grinder 22 decks
6 Deadpool, Trading Card 20 decks
7 Kratos, God of War 20 decks
8 Kuja, Genome Sorcerer // Trance Kuja, Fate Defied 19 decks
9 Jaws, Relentless Predator 14 decks
10 Atarka, World Render 13 decks

Doctor Doom, Cloud, and Krenko lead the count, but 1145 total decks span a wide variety of red-inclusive commanders, indicating broad format adoption rather than niche concentration.

Frequently Asked

How often is Vandalblast drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1929 tracked multiplayer games where Vandalblast was in the deck, it was drawn 23% of the time. That is consistent with what you expect for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 490 instances that reached a player's hand, 57% were cast before the game concluded.

What turn does Vandalblast typically get cast?

Median first cast lands on turn 7, with a mean of 6.69 based on the Scryfall metadata. The distribution runs from turn 1 all the way to turn 16, which reflects the card's dual nature: early targeted casts for 1 mana and late overload casts for 5. The p25 is turn 5 and the p75 is turn 8, so most casts cluster in that mid-game window.

Does casting Vandalblast improve your chances of winning?

In 265 participations where Vandalblast was cast, the normalized win rate was 27%. The delta versus the library baseline is small and the confidence interval crosses zero, so this is a directional read rather than a definitive conclusion. Vandalblast is an answer card, and its value is often felt through disruption rather than directly inflating win probability.

Is Vandalblast banned anywhere relevant?

Vandalblast is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Duel Commander. It is not legal in Standard, Brawl, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. No Commander format ban is in effect for this card, so it is freely playable in any red deck in the format.

Why is Vandalblast so popular in Commander specifically?

Commander tables frequently feature players with artifact-heavy strategies: mana rocks, equipment, combo pieces, and synergy artifacts. Vandalblast answers a single threatening artifact cheaply, and when the board state calls for it, overloading for {4}{R} can dismantle an opponent's entire artifact base in one shot. Red has limited access to mass removal outside combat, so Vandalblast fills a structural gap in the color's Commander toolkit.

Which commanders most commonly run Vandalblast?

In the Playgroup Live dataset, Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads with 90 tracked decks, followed by Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER at 64 and Krenko, Mob Boss at 34. The spread across 873 unique players, with no single contributor accounting for more than 1% of instances, suggests the commander distribution here is a genuine cross-section of red-inclusive strategies rather than a data artifact from a small cluster of players.