Zuran Orb
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Artifact
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Modern Horizons 2 (MH2)
86% of drawn Zuran Orbs are cast before the game ends, and decks that resolve it win 40% of the time compared to 21% when it stays in the library.
Zuran Orb is a zero-mana artifact that turns surplus lands into life, and in Commander it finds a clear home: land-matters decks that generate excess lands and want a safety valve against aggression or burn-out. Across 493 tracked multiplayer games on Playgroup Live, 259 of 18757 distinct decks have brought it to the table, a 1% inclusion rate that reflects its deliberately narrow fit.
The play pattern is deliberate. Median first cast lands on turn 5.0, well past the early ramp window, which makes sense for a card that needs a critical mass of lands in play before sacrificing them pays off. Of the copies that reach a player's hand, 86% reach the battlefield. That high conversion rate is an early signal that when the card is relevant, players execute it quickly: 65% of drawn-and-cast copies hit the table on the same turn they were drawn.
The commander distribution is telling. Hearthhull, the Worldseed leads the top-commanders list by a significant margin, followed by Toph, the First Metalbender and Lumra, Bellow of the Woods. Almost every commander in that list has a land-recursion or land-sacrifice theme, confirming that Zuran Orb is not a generalist staple but a targeted slot in decks that can reload lands after sacrificing them. The data is well-spread across 232 distinct players, with the single heaviest contributor accounting for just 4% of all tracked instances, so the picture is not skewed by one prolific user.
- 1% of tracked Commander decks include Zuran Orb, reflecting its narrow but deliberate fit
- 86% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
- T5.0 median first-cast turn, consistent with a land-mass-dependent payoff
- 65% of drawn-and-cast copies are played the same turn they're drawn
- 81% battlefield stickiness once cast
- 232 distinct players have brought Zuran Orb to a tracked game, keeping the sample well-spread
First-cast turn
n=102The "good card" funnel
504 brought · 232 playersOf 504 Zuran Orbs brought to tracked games, 119 were drawn and 102 of those were cast, with 81% stickiness once on the battlefield.
Players who cast this card win 40% of the time (n=98) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=321).
When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 42% (n=16) — 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 +18.6pp; 95% confidence interval +8.9pp to +28.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.
Final zone distribution
150 instancesMost tracked Zuran Orbs end the game on the battlefield or in the graveyard after being sacrificed, with only a handful remaining in the library, consistent with how aggressively players execute the sacrifice loop once the card resolves.
Commanders that played this card
in tracked games-
1
Hearthhull, the Worldseed
49 decks
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2
Toph, the First Metalbender
31 decks
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3
Lumra, Bellow of the Woods
16 decks
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4
Flubs, the Fool
13 decks
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5
The Necrobloom
11 decks
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6
Hazezon, Shaper of Sand
8 decks
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7
The Wandering Minstrel
8 decks
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8
Lord Windgrace
6 decks
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9
Szarel, Genesis Shepherd
6 decks
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10
Teval, the Balanced Scale
6 decks
The top-commanders list skews heavily toward land-sacrifice and land-recursion strategies, with Hearthhull, the Worldseed and Toph, the First Metalbender leading a list where almost every entry shares a lands-matter theme.
Zuran Orb