Live Play Data

Castle Locthwain

Land · Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate (CLB)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

581

Decks Running

314

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

73%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

4% of tracked Commander decks run Castle Locthwain, and when it's drawn, 73% of copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 4.

Castle Locthwain slots into 4% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, spread across 314 distinct builds out of 8560 in the dataset. That figure reflects its hard constraint: the card belongs only in black decks, and its activated card-draw ability demands a healthy hand-size management plan.

The funnel tells a consistent story. Of 582 instances brought to games, 144 were drawn and 105 reached the battlefield. Draw-to-play rate sits at 73%, meaning most copies that enter a player's hand eventually land on the table. Median first activation as a land lands on turn 4, though the distribution stretches into the late game, reflecting that players often wait for the right life-total window before tapping for cards.

Castle Locthwain is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Pauper Commander, where its rare printing disqualifies it. Its niche in Commander is as a repeatable, budget-friendly card-advantage engine for mono-black and black-heavy decks that can absorb the life payment.

At a glance

4% of tracked Commander decks include Castle Locthwain
73% of drawn copies reach the battlefield
T4 median first-cast turn
93% battlefield stickiness once cast
273 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
37% win rate in games where Castle Locthwain was cast

First-cast turn

n=105

13%

18%

12%

10%

24%

T6-9

13%

T10+

Median 4 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 16

Cast same turn as drawn 48%

The "good card" funnel

582 brought · 273 players

Brought to game

582

Ever drawn

144

Reached battlefield

105

Still on board at game end

73%

Of 582 Castle Locthwains brought to games, 144 were drawn, 105 of those were cast, and 93% of cast copies remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ +3.3pp

Players who cast this card win 37% of the time (n=96) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=367).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 34% (n=34) — 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 +13.4pp; 95% confidence interval +3.3pp to +23.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

160 instances

1.3%

Library

61.3%

Battlefield

16.9%

Graveyard

3.8%

Exile

Nearly all Castle Locthwains that were observed end the game on the battlefield, which is expected for a land: once played, it rarely moves to another zone unless exiled or bounced.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 14 decks
2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse 10 decks
3 Edgar Markov 8 decks
4 Marrow-Gnawer 8 decks
5 Teysa Karlov 8 decks
6 Ayara, First of Locthwain 6 decks
7 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth 6 decks
8 Nalia de'Arnise 6 decks
9 Rivaz of the Claw 6 decks
10 Silverquill, the Disputant 6 decks

The commander list is spread broadly across black-identity strategies, from mono-black staples like Sheoldred and Sephiroth to multicolor builds like Edgar Markov, with no single commander dominating the distribution.

Card text

Castle Locthwain

Land

This land enters tapped unless you control a Swamp. {T}

: Add

: Draw a card, then you lose life equal to the number of cards in your hand.

Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate (CLB) · Rare · Illustrated by Titus Lunter

Frequently Asked

How often is Castle Locthwain drawn in a Commander game?

Across 573 tracked games where Castle Locthwain was in a deck, it was drawn 25% of the time. That is a typical draw rate for a singleton land in a 100-card Commander deck. Of 144 copies that reached a player's hand, 73% were cast before the game ended.

What turn does Castle Locthwain usually hit the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 4, with the interquartile range running from turn 3 to turn 7. Because it enters tapped unless you control a Swamp, players running mono-black or heavily black mana bases tend to play it out early. Players in two- or three-color decks sometimes hold it longer to sequence their other lands first.

Is Castle Locthwain banned anywhere relevant to Commander players?

Castle Locthwain is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Gladiator, Duel Commander, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Pauper or Pauper Commander due to its rare rarity. It has never appeared on the Commander banned list.

Does casting Castle Locthwain actually help you win?

In 96 participations where Castle Locthwain was cast, the win rate is 37%, compared to 24% in 367 participations where it stayed in the library. That is a +13.4 percentage-point gap. The sample is meaningful in size but the dataset is still growing, so treat this as a directional positive signal rather than a definitive conclusion.

Which commanders most often run Castle Locthwain?

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER leads the tracked commander list, followed by Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Edgar Markov, Marrow-Gnawer, and Teysa Karlov. The spread is wide across black-identity commanders, from mono-black aggro to aristocrats to vampire tribal, which reflects the card's general utility as a repeatable draw engine rather than synergy with any single strategy.

How concentrated is this card's data among individual players?

Castle Locthwain is well-spread across 273 unique players in the dataset, with the single heaviest contributor accounting for only 3% of all tracked instances. That low concentration is a meaningful strength of the data: the numbers are not skewed by one prolific player, and the inclusion and win-rate signals reflect a genuinely broad cross-section of the Commander community on Playgroup Live.