Live Play Data

Vanquisher's Banner

· Artifact · The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander (LCC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1150

Decks Running

650

Median Cast Turn

6.0

Drawn → Played

56%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Vanquisher's Banner appears in 3% of tracked multiplayer Commander decks and, when drawn, reaches the battlefield 56% of the time, with a median first cast on turn 6.0.

Vanquisher's Banner is a tribal staple that earns its slot by doing two things at once: pumping every creature of the chosen type and converting each future cast of that type into a free card draw. Across 1103 tracked multiplayer Commander games, 650 of 19725 distinct decks bring it to the table, for an inclusion rate of 3%.

The draw-to-play rate sits at 56%, meaning that roughly four in seven drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends. Median first cast is turn 6.0, one full turn after the card's mana cost of five, which reflects how often players need a sixth land or a piece of ramp before they can fire it off. Of the 122 casts on record, 75% of resolved copies were still in play at the game's end, consistent with what you'd expect from a non-threatening artifact that opponents rarely prioritize removing.

The commander list tells the real story. Éowyn, Shieldmaiden, The First Sliver, Rin and Seri, Edgar Markov, and Admiral Brass lead the field, spanning humans, slivers, cats and dogs, vampires, and pirates. That breadth confirms Vanquisher's Banner as a format-wide tribal tool rather than a card tied to one archetype.

At a glance

3% of tracked multiplayer Commander decks include Vanquisher's Banner
19% draw rate across all games where the card was in the deck
56% of drawn copies reached the battlefield before the game ended
T6.0 median first-cast turn, one step behind the five-mana curve
75% battlefield stickiness once the Banner resolved
553 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game, with no single player exceeding 19% of all instances

First-cast turn

n=122

11%

56%

T6-9

15%

T10+

Median 6.0 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 13

On curve 30% (14 / 122 cast on T5) Cast same turn as drawn 28%

The "good card" funnel

1150 brought · 553 players

Brought to game

1150

Ever drawn

217

Reached battlefield

122

Still on board at game end

56%

Of 1150 Banners brought to multiplayer games, 217 were drawn, 122 of those were cast, and 75% of resolved copies remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ -6.9pp

Players who cast this card win 25% of the time (n=111) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=740).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 19% (n=80) — 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 +1.0pp; 95% confidence interval -6.9pp to +8.8pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

259 instances

2.7%

Library

35.1%

Battlefield

18.9%

Graveyard

8.5%

Exile

Most Vanquisher's Banners that were brought to a game but never interacted with stayed in the library, which is the expected outcome for any singleton in a 100-card deck. Of observed copies, a strong majority that resolved were still on the battlefield at game end.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The top ten commanders span at least seven distinct creature types across mono-color, two-color, and five-color builds, showing Vanquisher's Banner is a format-wide tribal staple rather than a card concentrated in any single archetype.

Card text

Vanquisher's Banner

Artifact

As this artifact enters, choose a creature type. Creatures you control of the chosen type get +1/+1. Whenever you cast a creature spell of the chosen type, draw a card.

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander (LCC) · Rare · Illustrated by Milivoj Ćeran

Frequently Asked

How often is Vanquisher's Banner drawn and cast in a typical Commander game?

Across 1103 tracked multiplayer games, Vanquisher's Banner was drawn 19% of the time when it was in the deck, landing in hand 217 times total. Of those, 56% resulted in a cast before the game ended, producing 122 observed casts on record. The remainder largely reflects copies drawn late, after the game's outcome was already determined.

What turn does Vanquisher's Banner typically hit the battlefield?

The median first-cast turn is 6.0, one turn later than the card's mana value of five. The interquartile range runs from turn five to turn eight, so most casts cluster in the mid-game. A small number of casts appear as early as turn two or three, almost certainly enabled by ramp or cost-reduction effects. Players who draw it in the opening hand still tend to hold it for roughly two turns before casting, with a same-turn cast rate of 28%.

Does casting Vanquisher's Banner actually improve your win rate?

The multiplayer win rate when the card was cast is 25% across 111 participations, compared to 24% when it stayed in the library. The delta is small and the confidence interval crosses zero, so this is early directional signal rather than a conclusive finding. What is clearer is that the Banner resolves and sticks: 75% of resolved copies were still on the battlefield at game end, suggesting opponents rarely target it directly.

Which commanders pair most often with Vanquisher's Banner?

In Playgroup Live's multiplayer data, Éowyn, Shieldmaiden leads the list, followed by The First Sliver, Rin and Seri, Edgar Markov, and Admiral Brass, Unsinkable. That covers humans, slivers, cats and dogs, vampires, and pirates. The spread across ten or more distinct commander archetypes confirms the card is a broadly adopted tribal tool rather than a single-deck piece.

Is Vanquisher's Banner legal in the formats I play?

Vanquisher's Banner is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Gladiator, Brawl, Oathbreaker, and Competitive Brawl. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Premodern. It is not legal in preHH either. For most players the relevant format is Commander, where it is completely unrestricted.

How concentrated is the Vanquisher's Banner data across players?

The dataset is well spread. 553 distinct players have brought Vanquisher's Banner to at least one tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 19% of all instances. That low concentration is a strength of the data: the stats reflect a wide range of playgroups and commander choices rather than one prolific player skewing the numbers.