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Adarkar Wastes card art
Live Play Data

Adarkar Wastes

Land · Edge of Eternities Commander (EOC)
25%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
965
Decks Running
530
Median Cast Turn
4.0
Drawn → Played
75%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

25% of tracked Commander decks run Adarkar Wastes. When drawn, 75% of copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 4.0.

Adarkar Wastes sits in 25% of the 2132 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, appearing in 530 distinct lists. That share reflects the land's narrow color requirement: it is only eligible in White-Blue decks and those with overlapping five-color identities, so the raw inclusion number understates how frequently it shows up in the decks that can actually play it.

The funnel tells a clean story. Of 968 instances brought to games, 265 were drawn, and 75% of those reached the battlefield. Lands tend to hit the battlefield at a higher rate than spells because there is rarely a reason to hold one in hand. Median first play lands on turn 4.0, consistent with early-game fixing rather than a mid-game utility land.

Battlefield stickiness is 94%. Once Adarkar Wastes enters play it almost never leaves, which is exactly what you want from a mana base piece. The data across 432 unique players is well-spread: the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 2% of all tracked instances, giving the numbers reasonable breadth for a card at this inclusion level.

At a glance
  • 25% of tracked Commander decks include Adarkar Wastes
  • 75% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
  • T4.0 median first-play turn, consistent with early mana fixing
  • 94% battlefield stickiness once the land enters play
  • 432 unique players contributing data, indicating a well-spread sample

First-cast turn

n=198
19%
T1
13%
T2
11%
T3
15%
T4
12%
T5
21%
T6-9
10%
T10+
Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 6 · max 14
Cast same turn as drawn 52%

The "good card" funnel

968 brought · 432 players
Brought to game
968
Ever drawn
265
Reached battlefield
198
Still on board at game end
186
75%

Of 968 Adarkar Wastes brought to games, 265 were drawn and 198 of those were played, with nearly all played copies remaining on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -0.9pp

Players who cast this card win 30% of the time (n=191) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=625).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 31% (n=60) — 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 +5.8pp; 95% confidence interval -0.9pp to +12.5pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

290 instances
1.0%
Library
64.1%
Battlefield
17.2%
Graveyard
4.5%
Exile

The vast majority of Adarkar Wastes copies end the game on the battlefield. The handful in the graveyard reflect land destruction or sacrifice effects rather than any inherent fragility.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander spread is wide, anchored by multi-color identities that include both White and Blue. No single commander dominates the list, reflecting how broadly eligible the card is across the format.

Frequently Asked

How often is Adarkar Wastes drawn in a Commander game?
In 885 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Adarkar Wastes was in the deck, it was drawn 27% of the time. That is on the higher end for a singleton land in a 100-card deck, partly because players actively seek early land drops. Of 265 instances that reached a player's hand, 75% were played before the game ended.
What turn does Adarkar Wastes typically enter the battlefield?
Median first-play turn is 4.0. The distribution skews early: there is a notable cluster of turn-1 plays from opening hands, and the interquartile range runs from turn 2 to turn 6. This is consistent with a dual land being deployed as soon as a player needs White or Blue mana rather than being held strategically.
Does casting Adarkar Wastes correlate with winning?
Win rate when the land resolves is 30% across 191 observations, compared to 24% when it stayed in the library across 625 observations. The delta is a modest early signal. The confidence interval for this dataset crosses zero, so treat the lift as directional rather than conclusive. Both sample sizes are large enough to be worth watching as more games are tracked.
Is Adarkar Wastes legal in Commander?
Yes. Adarkar Wastes is legal in Commander with no restrictions. It is also legal in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. The 1 damage per colored mana activation is a real cost in Commander's 40-life context, though it rarely determines game outcomes.
Which commanders most commonly run Adarkar Wastes?
Among multiplayer Commander decks on Playgroup Live, Ms. Bumbleflower leads the top-commanders list with 530 total tracked decks running the card spread across a wide range of Azelios, Esper, and five-color identities. The commander distribution is fairly broad, which is expected: any deck with both White and Blue in its color identity is a candidate, and that covers a large slice of the Commander format.
Why does Adarkar Wastes deal damage to you?
Adarkar Wastes is a Pain Land, a cycle of dual lands from Ice Age and later reprints. The 1 damage is the original design's cost for accessing off-color mana in a pre-fetch-land era. In Commander, where starting life is 40, the damage is rarely impactful enough to deter play, but it can matter in games featuring life-payment synergies, infect, or when a player is being pressured from multiple angles. The untapped, no-cost colorless activation means the land is still strictly better than a basic when you need White or Blue mana.