Live Play Data

Cavern of Souls

Land · The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

3608

Decks Running

1755

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

81%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

81% of drawn Cavern of Souls copies reach the battlefield, and once they do, 93% stay there through end of game, making it one of the stickiest lands tracked on Playgroup Live.

Cavern of Souls earns its mythic rarity in live play. Across 3037 tracked Commander games, 81% of drawn copies were played before the game ended, and the land was in 1755 of the 20720 distinct decks in the dataset.

The card's strength is structural: it produces colored mana specifically for a chosen creature type, and that mana makes the spell uncounterable. That ability is most valuable in tribal decks that expect counter-heavy opposition, which explains why the top commanders running it are almost entirely creature-type lords. The median first-play turn is 3, with a strong cluster on turn 1, reflecting players who keep opening hands with Cavern already in grip.

Cavern of Souls is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and most other major formats, but is banned in Duel Commander. Its colorless identity means it fits into any deck regardless of commander color requirements.

At a glance

8% of tracked Commander decks include Cavern of Souls
81% of drawn copies are played before the game ends
T3 median first-play turn, with a strong turn-1 cluster
93% battlefield stickiness once the land enters play
1102 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, spread well across the dataset
29% win rate in games where Cavern of Souls resolved

First-cast turn

n=719

25%

12%

14%

10%

25%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3 P25 2 · P75 6 · max 16

Cast same turn as drawn 62%

The "good card" funnel

3608 brought · 1102 players

Brought to game

3608

Ever drawn

883

Reached battlefield

719

Still on board at game end

671

81%

Of 3608 Cavern of Souls copies brought to tracked games, 883 were drawn, 719 of those were played, and the overwhelming majority remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ +0.1pp

Players who cast this card win 29% of the time (n=642) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=2231).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 41% (n=140) — 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 +3.6pp; 95% confidence interval +0.1pp to +7.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

988 instances

2.9%

Library

67.9%

Battlefield

11.0%

Graveyard

5.7%

Exile

Most Cavern of Souls copies in the dataset finish on the battlefield, a sharp contrast to the typical singleton land that never leaves the library. When you draw it, you play it, and it stays.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 The Ur-Dragon 84 decks
2 Gishath, Sun's Avatar 41 decks
3 Pantlaza, Sun-Favored 40 decks
4 Krenko, Mob Boss 38 decks
5 Edgar Markov 34 decks
6 Giada, Font of Hope 33 decks
7 Zhulodok, Void Gorger 29 decks
8 The First Sliver 28 decks
9 Ulalek, Fused Atrocity 26 decks
10 Ashling, the Limitless 25 decks

Tribal commanders dominate the list from five-color Dragon decks to mono-red Goblins, a direct reflection of Cavern's design as a tribal payoff land. The spread across creature types is wide.

Card text

Cavern of Souls

Land

As this land enters, choose a creature type. {T}

: Add

: Add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to cast a creature spell of the chosen type, and that spell can't be countered.

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI) · Mythic · Illustrated by Alayna Danner

Frequently Asked

How often is Cavern of Souls drawn in a Commander game?

In 3037 tracked games where Cavern of Souls was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is consistent with what you expect for a singleton land in a 100-card deck. Of 883 instances that reached a player's hand, 81% were played before the game ended. The remainder is largely a game-length effect: copies drawn very late often have no opportunity to be played before the table closes out.

What turn does Cavern of Souls usually hit the battlefield?

The median first-play turn is 3. The distribution is skewed early: the single most common turn is turn 1, representing hands where Cavern was kept in the opening seven. The interquartile range runs from turn 1 to turn 6, so a significant portion of casts happen well into the midgame, likely drawn off the top after a slow start.

Is Cavern of Souls banned anywhere?

Yes. Cavern of Souls is banned in Duel Commander, where its ability to make creature spells uncounterable is considered too powerful in a 1-on-1, 20-life format with a more curated ban list. It is legal and unrestricted in multiplayer Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and most other major formats. It is not legal in Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Old School.

Which commanders run Cavern of Souls most often?

The top commander by raw deck count in tracked games is The Ur-Dragon, followed by Giada, Font of Hope, Krenko, Mob Boss, Gishath, and Pantlaza. The pattern is consistent: Cavern overwhelmingly appears in tribal creature decks. Its color-identity is empty, so it slots into any color combination without restriction. The distribution is healthy: 1102 distinct players have brought it to tracked games, and no single player accounts for more than a small fraction of the data.

Does playing Cavern of Souls actually improve your win rate?

In games where Cavern of Souls resolved, the win rate was 29%. In games where it never left the library, the rate was 25%, a difference of +3.6 percentage points. The confidence interval for that delta crosses zero at the lower bound, so treat this as a directional early signal rather than a confirmed effect. Both sample sizes are large enough that the positive direction is consistent, but not yet conclusive.

How quickly do players play Cavern of Souls after drawing it?

Of instances that were both drawn and played, 62% were played on the same turn they were drawn. That is the highest-conviction signal in the data: players almost never sit on Cavern of Souls once they draw it. The median turns held before playing is 0, and the average is 0.65, reflecting a small number of cases where players delay for strategic reasons or simply cannot afford to use their land drop that turn.