Forgotten Cave
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.
- 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=123The "good card" funnel
769 brought · 355 playersOf 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.
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 instancesMost 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-
1
Bello, Bard of the Brambles
42 decks
-
2
Krenko, Mob Boss
37 decks
-
3
Zada, Hedron Grinder
27 decks
-
4
Abaddon the Despoiler
23 decks
-
5
Kaalia of the Vast
12 decks
-
6
Quintorius, History Chaser
11 decks
-
7
Disa the Restless
10 decks
-
8
Doctor Doom, King of Latveria
7 decks
-
9
Gavi, Nest Warden
7 decks
-
10
Anje Falkenrath
6 decks
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.