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Foreboding Ruins card art
Live Play Data

Foreboding Ruins

Land · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)
20%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
1243
Decks Running
663
Median Cast Turn
4.0
Drawn → Played
74%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

Foreboding Ruins appears in 20% of tracked Commander decks that share its Black-Red color identity, with 74% of drawn copies reaching the battlefield and a median first-cast turn of 4.0.

Foreboding Ruins is the go-to untapped dual land for Black-Red and Black-Red-X Commander decks. Across 1135 tracked multiplayer games on Playgroup Live, 20% of decks in the dataset include it, with 663 distinct decks bringing it to a game out of 3391 tracked.

The mechanics reward hand composition. Reveal a Swamp or Mountain and Foreboding Ruins enters untapped, making it a functional dual land in any deck that runs a reasonable basic count. That condition is nearly always satisfied in dedicated Rakdos builds, which explains why the draw-to-play rate sits at 74%. Of drawn copies, nearly three in four resolve before the game ends. The median first play lands on turn 4.0, with a strong early cluster: the mode across all tracked games is turn 1, driven by opening-hand keeps.

The commander distribution is broad. Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads by raw deck count, but Foreboding Ruins appears across Rakdos, Grixis, and Mardu commanders alike. Any deck that can reveal a basic Swamp or Mountain gets full value from this land, and the data reflects exactly that spread.

At a glance
  • 20% of tracked Commander decks include Foreboding Ruins
  • 74% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
  • T4.0 median first-cast turn, with mode at turn 1 in opening hands
  • 91% battlefield stickiness once this land enters play
  • 557 distinct players have brought Foreboding Ruins to a tracked game
  • 26% draw rate, consistent with a singleton land in a 100-card deck

First-cast turn

n=240
25%
T1
14%
T2
9%
T3
10%
T4
6%
T5
28%
T6-9
8%
T10+
Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 19
Cast same turn as drawn 60%

The "good card" funnel

1245 brought · 557 players
Brought to game
1245
Ever drawn
326
Reached battlefield
240
Still on board at game end
218
74%

Of 1245 copies brought to tracked games, 326 were drawn, 240 of those were cast, and the vast majority stayed on the battlefield through the end of game.

≥ -1.9pp

Players who cast this card win 24% of the time (n=221) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=766).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 25% (n=68) — 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 +3.7pp; 95% confidence interval -1.9pp to +9.3pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

372 instances
3.0%
Library
58.6%
Battlefield
16.9%
Graveyard
6.2%
Exile

Most Foreboding Ruins copies that were never drawn simply stayed in the library throughout the game, the expected fate for any singleton land in a 100-card deck. The battlefield is the dominant final zone among observed instances.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads by raw count, but the list spans Rakdos, Grixis, and Mardu commanders, showing that Foreboding Ruins is a format-wide staple rather than a build-specific pickup.

Frequently Asked

How often is Foreboding Ruins drawn in a Commander game?
In 1135 tracked multiplayer games where Foreboding Ruins was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That figure is typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 326 drawn instances, 74% were played before the game concluded. The remainder were mostly held in hand as games ended, not consciously withheld.
Does Foreboding Ruins usually enter untapped?
The card's enter-untapped condition requires revealing a Swamp or Mountain from hand. In Rakdos and Grixis builds running a healthy basic count, that condition is reliably met. The same-turn play rate of 60% shows that players deploy it immediately upon drawing it in the vast majority of cases, which is consistent with an untapped entry rather than a deliberate hold.
What turn does Foreboding Ruins typically hit the battlefield?
Median first-cast turn is 4.0 across tracked multiplayer games. The distribution skews early: turn 1 is the mode, reflecting opening-hand keeps where a player can reveal a basic and drop the land on their very first turn. The interquartile range runs from turn 1 to turn 7, so early game deployment is the norm.
Is Foreboding Ruins legal in Commander?
Yes. Foreboding Ruins is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Old School. Its color identity is Black-Red, so it can only appear in Commander decks whose identity includes both Black and Red.
Which commanders use Foreboding Ruins most?
Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads by raw deck count in the Playgroup Live dataset, followed by Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls and Terra, Herald of Hope. The spread is wide: the top commander accounts for only 26% of instances in the broader dataset, and 557 distinct players have contributed data. Any Rakdos, Grixis, or Mardu commander that can reveal a Swamp or Mountain shows up in this list.
Does casting Foreboding Ruins correlate with winning?
Win rate when cast is 24% against a normalized 4-player baseline of 25%. Win rate when the card sat in the library unplayed is 21%. The delta is directional but the confidence interval crosses zero at current sample sizes, so treat this as an early signal rather than a conclusive lift. The sample for cast instances is 221, which is a reasonable but still modest base.