Live Play Data

Forgotten Cave

Land · Commander 2021 (C21)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

768

Decks Running

394

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

64%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

4% of tracked multiplayer Commander decks run Forgotten Cave, and when it reaches a player's hand, 64% of copies are played before the game ends, with a median first-play turn of 3.

Forgotten Cave is a red cycling land that pulls double duty: it can tap for {R} in a pinch, or trade itself for a fresh draw at the cost of one mana. Across Playgroup Live's multiplayer Commander dataset, 4% of tracked decks run it, showing up in 394 of the 10538 distinct deck lists that have played a recorded game.

The card's practical value lives in its flexibility. 64% of drawn copies are played before the game concludes. The median first-play turn is 3, but the distribution clusters hard at turn 1, reflecting players who keep it in the opening hand and cycle it immediately rather than hold it as a land drop. 67% of drawn-and-played instances resolve on the same turn the card was drawn.

Because Forgotten Cave is a land with a cycling outlet, "played" here covers both landing it as a tapped red source and discarding it to cycle. The graveyard shows up as a meaningful final zone, consistent with players choosing the cycle line rather than the land line.

At a glance

4% of tracked multiplayer Commander decks include Forgotten Cave
T3 median first-play turn across observed games
64% of drawn copies reach play before the game ends
67% of drawn copies played on the same turn they were drawn
355 distinct players represented in the multiplayer dataset, with no single player exceeding 74% of instances
74% battlefield stickiness once a copy resolves as a land

First-cast turn

n=123

31%

11%

12%

11%

19%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 13

Cast same turn as drawn 67%

The "good card" funnel

769 brought · 355 players

Brought to game

769

Ever drawn

192

Reached battlefield

123

Still on board at game end

64%

Of 769 copies brought to multiplayer games, 192 were drawn, 123 of those were played as either a land or a cycled card, and the split between battlefield and graveyard as final zones reflects players choosing between the two modes in real time.

≥ -4.0pp

Players who cast this card win 28% of the time (n=111) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=490).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 27% (n=63) — 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 +4.2pp; 95% confidence interval -4.0pp to +12.4pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

217 instances

3.7%

Library

41.9%

Battlefield

33.2%

Graveyard

10.1%

Exile

Most Forgotten Caves that go unobserved stay in the library for the full game, a structural feature of 100-card singleton rather than a mark against the card. The meaningful split is between copies that land on the battlefield as a tapped land and copies that end in the graveyard after being cycled.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander spread is broad and skewed toward mono-red and red-heavy strategies, with Bello, Krenko, and Zada leading. No single commander accounts for an outsized share of the data, suggesting Forgotten Cave is a general red staple rather than a synergy pick for one archetype.

Card text

Forgotten Cave

Land

This land enters tapped. {T}

: Add

. Cycling

(

, Discard this card: Draw a card.)

Commander 2021 (C21) · Common · Illustrated by Tony Szczudlo

Frequently Asked

How often is Forgotten Cave drawn in a Commander game?

In the multiplayer Commander dataset, Forgotten Cave is drawn 25% of the time when it is in the deck. That is typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 192 instances that reached a player's hand, 64% were played before the game concluded. The remainder reflects copies that arrived late in games that ended before they could be used.

What turn does Forgotten Cave typically hit play?

The median first-play turn is 3, with the single most common turn being turn 1. That turn-1 spike is almost entirely cycling: players who draw it in the opening hand spend one red mana to replace it with a fresh card rather than keeping a tapped land. The distribution has a secondary cluster around turns 4-5, representing players who draw it mid-game and either land it or cycle it on the spot. 67% of played copies were used on the same turn they were drawn.

Is Forgotten Cave banned anywhere relevant to Commander players?

Forgotten Cave is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Pauper Commander, Oathbreaker, Brawl, Legacy, Modern, Pauper, Vintage, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, or Alchemy. No Commander-adjacent format currently bans it.

Which commanders most commonly run Forgotten Cave?

In the multiplayer data, Bello, Bard of the Brambles leads with the most decks, followed by Krenko, Mob Boss and Zada, Hedron Grinder. The concentration across commanders is fairly broad: the top commanders skew mono-red or red-heavy, consistent with Forgotten Cave being a red-identity land. No single commander dominates the sample.

Does playing Forgotten Cave actually help you win?

The multiplayer data shows a +4.2 percentage-point gap between the win rate in games where the card was played and games where it sat unobserved in the library. With 111 observations in the cast bucket and 490 in the library bucket, the sample is large enough to treat this as a directional signal rather than noise, though the effect is modest. Forgotten Cave is more of a consistency tool than a win driver.

Why is Forgotten Cave included in so many red Commander decks?

Red decks in Commander historically struggle with card draw and mana smoothing. Forgotten Cave offers a safety valve: it can enter as a land when you need the mana, or cycle away for a new card when you are flooded or do not need an additional land drop. That dual-mode flexibility at effectively zero opportunity cost, compared to running a blank basic land, is why it appears across a wide range of red commanders from aggro to midrange.