Playgroup.gg logo
Playgroup.gg EDH Tracker
collections_bookmark Part of Dominaria United
Foreboding Ruins card art
Live Play Data

Foreboding Ruins

Land · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)
19%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
657
Decks Running
364
Median Cast Turn
3.0
Drawn → Played
75%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

Foreboding Ruins appears in 19% of tracked Black-Red decks on Playgroup Live. When drawn, 75% of copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-play turn of 3.0.

Foreboding Ruins is a reliable dual land for any Black-Red or Grixis Commander deck. Across 612 tracked multiplayer games, it sits in 19% of decks in the dataset, appearing in 364 of the 1928 distinct tracked lists.

The key operational number is draw-to-play: 75% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends. That figure reflects how little friction the land faces once it's in hand. Mode first-play turn is 1, meaning the single most common outcome is playing it straight from the opening hand. Median lands on turn 3.0, pulled later by copies drawn mid-game.

Foreboding Ruins enters untapped for free whenever a player can reveal a Swamp or Mountain. In Black-Red and three-color Grixis builds loaded with basic lands, that condition is easy to satisfy, making this functionally a dual land that costs nothing to run on curve. The data is well-distributed: 308 unique players have brought it to tracked games, and no single player accounts for more than a small fraction of the sample, which adds credibility to the directional patterns we observe.

At a glance
  • 19% of tracked decks include Foreboding Ruins
  • 75% of drawn copies reach the battlefield
  • T3.0 median first-play turn
  • 95% battlefield stickiness once played
  • 62% of drawn-then-cast copies played the same turn they were drawn
  • 308 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=130
29%
T1
16%
T2
6%
T3
9%
T4
7%
T5
23%
T6-9
9%
T10+
Median 3.0 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 17
Cast same turn as drawn 62%

The "good card" funnel

659 brought · 308 players
Brought to game
659
Ever drawn
174
Reached battlefield
130
Still on board at game end
123
75%

Of 659 copies brought to games, 174 were drawn, 130 of those were played, and nearly all stayed on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -2.2pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=126) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=423).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 32% (n=40) — 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 +5.3pp; 95% confidence interval -2.2pp to +12.8pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

200 instances
2.0%
Library
61.5%
Battlefield
17.0%
Graveyard
5.0%
Exile

The vast majority of Foreboding Ruins copies finish on the battlefield rather than the library, which is unusual for a singleton in a 100-card deck and reflects how readily this land gets played once drawn.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads by a wide margin, but the top-ten list spans both strict Rakdos and three-color Grixis builds, showing broad adoption rather than concentration in a single archetype.

Frequently Asked

How often is Foreboding Ruins drawn in a Commander game?
In 612 tracked multiplayer games where Foreboding Ruins was in a deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That is broadly normal for a singleton land in a 100-card deck. Of 174 instances that reached a player's hand, 75% were played before the game ended.
What turn does Foreboding Ruins typically hit the battlefield?
Median first-play turn is 3.0. The distribution clusters heavily at turn 1, which is the mode: players who start with it in their opening hand drop it immediately. The rest of the distribution is spread across turns 2 through the mid-game, reflecting copies drawn progressively later. The p25 sits at turn 1 and p75 at turn 6, so the spread is wide.
Does playing Foreboding Ruins correlate with winning?
There is an early directional signal. Win rate when cast is 26% across 126 observations, compared to 21% in games where the card stayed in the library. The gap is +5.3 percentage points. However, the confidence interval on that delta currently spans zero, so treat this as a directional observation rather than a confirmed effect. More games will sharpen the picture.
Is Foreboding Ruins legal in Commander?
Yes. Foreboding Ruins is legal in Commander, as well as Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Duel Commander, Brawl, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander, and it has no Commander ban. Its color identity of Black and Red means it fits in any deck whose commander includes at least one of those colors.
Which commanders run Foreboding Ruins most often?
Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads the tracked sample by a significant margin, followed by Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls and Sauron, Lord of the Rings. The spread across the top ten includes both strict Rakdos (Black-Red) and three-color Grixis commanders, which makes sense given the land produces both Black and Red mana. The breadth of commanders represented is a signal that the card is treated as a generic dual rather than a synergy piece.
How does Foreboding Ruins compare to other Rakdos dual lands?
Foreboding Ruins belongs to a cycle of rare dual lands that enter untapped when you reveal a basic land of either relevant type. In Black-Red decks running a healthy count of Swamps and Mountains, the condition is met frequently enough that it behaves like an untapped dual most of the time. The 62% same-turn play rate we observe is consistent with that: when players draw it, they tend to play it right away rather than hold it, which is the behavior you'd expect from a land with low entry friction.