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Cavern of Souls card art
Live Play Data

Cavern of Souls

Land · The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI)
7%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
1095
Decks Running
585
Median Cast Turn
3
Drawn → Played
82%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

82% of drawn Cavern of Souls copies reach the battlefield, and once they do, 92% 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 951 tracked Commander games, 82% of drawn copies were played before the game ended, and the land was in 585 of the 8378 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
  • 7% of tracked Commander decks include Cavern of Souls
  • 82% of drawn copies are played before the game ends
  • T3 median first-play turn, with a strong turn-1 cluster
  • 92% battlefield stickiness once the land enters play
  • 406 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=233
27%
T1
11%
T2
15%
T3
11%
T4
9%
T5
25%
T6-9
3%
T10+
Median 3 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 16
Cast same turn as drawn 63%

The "good card" funnel

1095 brought · 406 players
Brought to game
1095
Ever drawn
284
Reached battlefield
233
Still on board at game end
215
82%

Of 1095 Cavern of Souls copies brought to tracked games, 284 were drawn, 233 of those were played, and the overwhelming majority remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ -2.3pp

Players who cast this card win 29% of the time (n=226) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=733).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 36% (n=49) — 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 +3.5pp; 95% confidence interval -2.3pp to +9.3pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

314 instances
3.5%
Library
68.5%
Battlefield
11.1%
Graveyard
5.4%
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

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.

Frequently Asked

How often is Cavern of Souls drawn in a Commander game?
In 951 tracked games where Cavern of Souls was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That is consistent with what you expect for a singleton land in a 100-card deck. Of 284 instances that reached a player's hand, 82% 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: 406 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 +3.5 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, 63% 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.