Live Play Data

Windfall

· Sorcery · Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander (OTC)

10%

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1098

Decks Running

570

Median Cast Turn

7.0

Drawn → Played

53%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Windfall appears in 10% of tracked Commander decks and, when drawn, reaches the stack 53% of the time, with a median first cast on turn 7.0.

Windfall sits in 10% of the 5920 distinct Commander decks that have played a tracked game on Playgroup Live, appearing across 570 decklists. That places it firmly in the role of a format staple for blue decks that want to refuel the table at the right moment.

The draw-to-play figure is 53%: just over half of drawn copies reach the stack before the game ends. That gap is worth reading carefully. Windfall is a sorcery that typically wins a timing contest with the rest of the hand, and players often hold it until opponents are running low on cards. The median first cast lands on turn 7.0, well past the early ramp window, which reflects that patient strategy. Of 1109 instances brought to games, 308 were drawn and 162 were cast.

The commander distribution is broad: 441 distinct players have brought Windfall to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 3% of all instances. The card is spread across wheel-synergy commanders, artifact strategies, and mill builds alike. Nekusar, the Mindrazer leads the top-commander list, but the spread across archetypes signals a card valued for raw card advantage as much as for any specific combo.

At a glance

10% of tracked Commander decks include Windfall
53% of drawn copies reached the stack before the game ended
T7.0 median first-cast turn, reflecting a deliberate mid-game hold
441 distinct players have brought Windfall to a tracked game, indicating a well-spread sample
28% draw rate, consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck
162 total casts recorded across all tracked games

First-cast turn

n=162

13%

59%

T6-9

10%

T10+

Median 7.0 P25 5 · P75 8 · max 20

On curve 10% (11 / 162 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 35%

The "good card" funnel

1109 brought · 441 players

Brought to game

1109

Ever drawn

308

Reached battlefield

162

Still on board at game end

53%

Of 1109 Windfalls brought to games, 308 were drawn and 162 were cast, a draw-to-play rate of 53% that reflects a card players hold deliberately rather than cast on sight.

≥ -2.1pp

Players who cast this card win 31% of the time (n=157) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=688).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 39% (n=136) — 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 +5.3pp; 95% confidence interval -2.1pp to +12.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

346 instances

4.3%

Library

4.3%

Battlefield

48.6%

Graveyard

9.2%

Exile

Most Windfall instances end the game in the graveyard, which is expected for a sorcery that resolves and goes directly to the bin. A small cluster finish in hand, representing copies drawn too late to cast.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Nekusar, the Mindrazer 27 decks
2 Xyris, the Writhing Storm 21 decks
3 Admiral Brass, Unsinkable 16 decks
4 Vivi Ornitier 14 decks
5 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 14 decks
6 Vnwxt, Verbose Host 13 decks
7 Doctor Doom, King of Latveria 12 decks
8 Kefka, Court Mage // Kefka, Ruler of Ruin 11 decks
9 Kwain, Itinerant Meddler 10 decks
10 Norman Osborn // Green Goblin 9 decks

Nekusar leads with 15 decks, but the top-10 spans wheel synergy, artifact, and mill archetypes, reflecting how broadly Windfall is adopted rather than a single dominant home.

Frequently Asked

How often is Windfall drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1003 tracked games where Windfall was in a deck, it was drawn 28% of the time. That is typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 308 copies that reached a player's hand, 53% were cast before the game ended. The remainder is mostly a game-length effect: copies drawn very late in a game do not always find a cast window.

What turn does Windfall typically get cast?

The median first-cast turn is 7.0. The distribution is weighted toward turns 5 through 8, which aligns with the card's strategic role: players tend to hold it until opponents have depleted their hands. The p25 sits at turn 6 and the p75 at turn 8, so a large majority of casts cluster in that mid-game band. Only a small number of casts happen in the first three turns.

Does casting Windfall correlate with winning?

In the Playgroup Live dataset, the win rate when Windfall was cast is 31% (normalized to a 4-player baseline of 25%), compared to 26% for games where it stayed in the library. The observed lift is +5.3 percentage points, but the sample size and confidence interval mean this should be treated as a directional signal rather than a firm conclusion. Both buckets have enough observations to be interesting, but not enough to be conclusive.

Is Windfall legal in Commander?

Yes. Windfall is legal and unrestricted in Commander. It is banned in Legacy and Premodern, and restricted to one copy in Vintage. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, or Pauper. For Commander purposes there are no restrictions: one copy per deck, blue color identity required.

Which commanders most often run Windfall?

Nekusar, the Mindrazer leads the list on Playgroup Live, followed by Xyris, the Writhing Storm and Admiral Brass, Unsinkable. All three reward opponents drawing cards or generate value from wheel effects. The spread across 441 unique players suggests the data is not skewed by a single pilot, making the commander distribution a meaningful early signal of where Windfall fits in the meta.

How quickly do players cast Windfall after drawing it?

Of the instances where Windfall was both drawn and cast, the median hand-to-cast delay is 1 turn and the average is 2.14 turns. About 35% of those instances were cast on the same turn they were drawn, meaning most players hold the card at least one turn before firing it. That patience is consistent with Windfall's design: it rewards waiting until your hand is smaller than opponents'.