Live Play Data

Crumbling Necropolis

Land · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

31%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1229

Decks Running

668

Median Cast Turn

3.0

Drawn → Played

72%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

31% of Playgroup Live's tracked Grixis Commander decks run Crumbling Necropolis. When it reaches a player's hand, 72% of copies are played before the game ends, with a median first-play turn of 3.0.

Crumbling Necropolis is a steady fixture in Grixis Commander decks on Playgroup Live. Across 1164 tracked multiplayer games, 31% of tracked Grixis builds include it, and it has shown up in 668 of the 2131 distinct decks with at least one tracked game.

As a land, Crumbling Necropolis enters tapped and produces one of blue, black, or red. It costs nothing beyond a deck slot, which explains its presence in the format. The core play pattern is straightforward: 72% of drawn copies are played before the game ends, and the median turn it hits the battlefield is turn 3.0. The mode is turn 1, reflecting copies kept in the opening hand. Once it resolves, stickiness is near-total at 91%. Lands are almost never removed.

Every commander at the top of the distribution shares the same Grixis color identity (blue, black, red), which is structurally expected for a fixing land. The spread across 573 unique players, with no single player accounting for more than a small slice of the data, gives this dataset reasonable breadth for a card of its profile.

At a glance

31% of tracked Grixis Commander decks include Crumbling Necropolis
26% draw rate per game, typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck
72% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T3.0 median turn the land first enters play
91% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
573 distinct players contributing data, spread evenly across the dataset

First-cast turn

n=230

37%

10%

20%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3.0 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 17

Cast same turn as drawn 72%

The "good card" funnel

1230 brought · 573 players

Brought to game

1230

Ever drawn

320

Reached battlefield

230

Still on board at game end

209

72%

Of 1230 copies brought to games, 320 were drawn, 230 of those were played, and the vast majority remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ +2.0pp

Players who cast this card win 29% of the time (n=208) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=752).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 30% (n=80) — 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 +8.2pp; 95% confidence interval +2.0pp to +14.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

360 instances

2.2%

Library

58.1%

Battlefield

21.7%

Graveyard

5.6%

Exile

Most tracked copies of Crumbling Necropolis finish on the battlefield, which makes sense for a land: it enters and stays. The small graveyard count reflects mill or sacrifice effects rather than removal, and the handful left in hand shows games that ended before the land could be deployed.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Doctor Doom, King of Latveria 110 decks
2 Sauron, the Dark Lord 51 decks
3 Sauron, Lord of the Rings 38 decks
4 Nekusar, the Mindrazer 37 decks
5 Fire Lord Azula 32 decks
6 Abaddon the Despoiler 23 decks
7 Be'lakor, the Dark Master 23 decks
8 Edward Kenway 21 decks
9 Admiral Brass, Unsinkable 18 decks
10 The Ur-Dragon 17 decks

All ten commanders in this chart share Grixis color identity, so the distribution is less about strategic affinity and more about which Grixis commanders are most popular in the tracked player pool. Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads by a wide margin in raw deck count.

Frequently Asked

How often is Crumbling Necropolis drawn in a Commander game?

In 1164 tracked multiplayer games where Crumbling Necropolis was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That rate is consistent with any singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 320 instances that reached a player's hand, 72% were played before the game ended. The remainder reflects games that ended while the land was still in hand, not deliberate choice to withhold it.

What turn does Crumbling Necropolis typically enter the battlefield?

The median first-play turn is 3.0, with a mode of turn 1 driven by opening-hand keeps. The distribution stretches into the late game, with the 90th percentile landing around turn 9. That spread is normal for a land that sees play whenever it's drawn rather than when a player specifically chooses to develop their mana.

Does playing Crumbling Necropolis correlate with winning?

Games where Crumbling Necropolis resolved show a 29% normalized win rate across 208 observations, compared to 21% in games where it stayed in the library across 752 observations. The gap is a directional positive signal, but Crumbling Necropolis is a mana-fixing tool rather than a win condition. Higher win rates when it's cast likely reflect better deck construction overall rather than the land itself deciding games.

Is Crumbling Necropolis legal in Commander?

Yes. Crumbling Necropolis is legal in Commander, as well as Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Duel Commander, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Alchemy, Brawl, or Pauper. In Commander it is unrestricted and fits into any deck with blue, black, and red in its color identity.

Which commanders most commonly run Crumbling Necropolis?

Every commander in the top ten shares Grixis identity (blue, black, red), which is expected for a three-color fixing land. Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads the list by raw deck count, followed by the two Sauron commanders and Fire Lord Azula. The spread across many different commanders rather than one dominant pairing suggests Crumbling Necropolis functions as a generic Grixis staple rather than a build-around piece.

How concentrated is the data behind these stats?

The 1164 tracked multiplayer games involve 573 distinct players who brought Crumbling Necropolis to a game. No single player accounts for more than a small fraction of those appearances. That spread makes the dataset more representative than one dominated by a single heavily active player, though Playgroup Live's sample is still directional rather than exhaustive.