Live Play Data

Entomb

· Instant · Dominaria Remastered (DMR)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

970

Decks Running

514

Median Cast Turn

5.0

Drawn → Played

67%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Entomb appears in 6% of tracked Commander decks and resolves to the graveyard in the vast majority of observed casts. When drawn, 67% of copies reach resolution, with a median first-cast turn of 5.0.

Entomb is a one-mana black instant that tutors any card straight to the graveyard. It sits in 6% of Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, appearing across 514 of the 9318 distinct decks that have played a tracked game. The card's narrow color identity (mono-black) keeps raw inclusion moderate, but within black-inclusive pods it is a genuine staple for graveyard strategies.

The draw-to-play figure of 67% reflects how often a drawn copy reaches resolution before the game ends. Being a one-mana instant helps: players can hold it and cast it reactively at any point in the game. Median first cast lands on turn 5.0, though the distribution is deliberately wide. Players frequently hold Entomb until the moment the reanimation piece is ready, not the moment they draw it.

The commander spread is a genuine strength of this dataset. 427 distinct players have brought Entomb to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 4% of all instances. That spread gives the directional signals here meaningful breadth across real playgroups.

At a glance

6% of tracked Commander decks include Entomb
67% of drawn copies reach resolution before the game ends
T5.0 median first-cast turn across observed games
21% draw rate, typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck
427 distinct players have brought Entomb to a tracked game
27% win rate in games where Entomb was cast (normalized, 4-player baseline)

First-cast turn

n=138

14%

10%

12%

17%

36%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5.0 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 12

On curve 14% (19 / 138 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 43%

The "good card" funnel

970 brought · 427 players

Brought to game

970

Ever drawn

207

Reached battlefield

138

Still on board at game end

67%

Of 970 Entombs brought to games, 207 were drawn, and 138 of those were cast, with the overwhelming majority resolving directly to the graveyard as the spell intends.

≥ -3.5pp

Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=118) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=620).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 31% (n=62) — 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 +4.6pp; 95% confidence interval -3.5pp to +12.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

279 instances

3.2%

Library

1.8%

Battlefield

69.2%

Graveyard

10.8%

Exile

Entomb is an instant that resolves to the graveyard the moment it is cast, so graveyard dominates the final-zone chart. Most copies that were never interacted with simply stayed in the library for the full game, which is the structural baseline for any singleton in a 100-card deck.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The top-commanders list spans a range of color identities and archetypes, from Sauron reanimator to K'rrik storm and Wilhelt zombie tribal, reflecting that any black deck with a graveyard plan has a reason to run Entomb.

Card text

Entomb

Instant

Search your library for a card, put that card into your graveyard, then shuffle.

Dominaria Remastered (DMR) · Rare · Illustrated by Seb McKinnon

Frequently Asked

How often is Entomb drawn in a Commander game?

Across 914 tracked games where Entomb was in the deck, it was drawn 21% of the time. That is consistent with what you expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 207 instances that reached a player's hand, 67% were cast before the game ended.

What turn does Entomb usually get cast?

Median first-cast turn is 5.0. The mode in the first-cast distribution sits early, but a significant cluster of casts lands between turns 5 and 7. That spread makes sense for a tutor players often hold until their reanimation engine is primed. The same-turn cast rate is 43%, meaning roughly half of all cast copies are held at least one full turn before being played.

Is Entomb banned anywhere?

Yes. Entomb is banned in Legacy, Duel Commander, Historic, and Premodern. It is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Pauper, or Penny Dreadful. It is legal and unrestricted in Commander (multiplayer), Vintage, Oathbreaker, Gladiator, and Brawl. The Legacy and Duel Commander bans reflect how degenerate a one-mana unrestricted tutor-to-graveyard effect can be in faster, higher-power formats.

Does casting Entomb actually improve your win rate?

In 118 participations where Entomb was cast, the normalized win rate was 27%, compared to 23% in 620 participations where it stayed in the library. That is a directional positive gap, but the confidence interval for the difference crosses zero at this sample size. Treat it as an early signal rather than a conclusive finding.

What commanders run Entomb most often in live tracked games?

Sauron, the Dark Lord leads the top-commanders list, followed by graveyard-centric commanders like K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth and Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver. The list spans Grixis, mono-black, and Sultai color identities, which reflects Entomb's versatility: it tutors any card type, so it slots into reanimator, combo, and value graveyard builds equally well.

Where does Entomb end up by the end of a game?

Because Entomb is an instant, it resolves to the graveyard immediately. The final-zone chart will show graveyard as the dominant destination for the card itself after it resolves. That is expected behavior. The more interesting signal is what Entomb enables: it puts any card in the deck directly into the graveyard as part of its resolution, setting up reanimation, flashback, or threshold payoffs on subsequent turns.