Live Play Data

Glacial Fortress

Land · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

37%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

763

Decks Running

456

Median Cast Turn

4.0

Drawn → Played

82%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Glacial Fortress sits in 37% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, entering the battlefield in 82% of games where it was drawn, with a median first-cast turn of 4.0.

Glacial Fortress is the go-to Blue-White dual for any commander that can support it. Across 681 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, it appears in 456 of 1225 distinct decks, an inclusion rate of 37%.

The card's strength is straightforwardness. When drawn, 82% of copies reach the battlefield before the game ends. Median first cast lands on turn 4.0, consistent with early hand presence or natural land-drop sequencing in the first few turns. Stickiness once played is 97%: lands rarely leave the battlefield, and Glacial Fortress is no exception.

The commander distribution is notably wide. 374 distinct players have brought this card to tracked games, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for only 4% of all instances. That breadth reinforces the read: this is a format staple for any deck in White-Blue or adjacent color identities, not a card carried by one pilot or one archetype.

At a glance

37% of tracked Commander decks include Glacial Fortress
82% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T4.0 median first-cast turn
97% battlefield stickiness once played
374 distinct players have contributed data, spreading signal across the dataset
24% draw rate, in line with singleton expectations in a 100-card deck

First-cast turn

n=150

11%

17%

13%

17%

27%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 13

Cast same turn as drawn 53%

The "good card" funnel

766 brought · 374 players

Brought to game

766

Ever drawn

183

Reached battlefield

150

Still on board at game end

145

82%

Of 766 copies brought to multiplayer games, 183 were drawn and 150 were played, with the vast majority finishing the game on the battlefield as expected for a utility land.

≥ -7.0pp

Players who cast this card win 24% of the time (n=149) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=538).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 46% (n=31) — 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 +0.0pp; 95% confidence interval -7.0pp to +7.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

201 instances

2.5%

Library

72.1%

Battlefield

11.9%

Graveyard

2.0%

Exile

Most Glacial Fortresses never leave the library, a structural feature of 100-card singleton decks where any single land has limited odds of being drawn. The copies that do surface stay on the battlefield at a 97% rate.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The top commanders span Blue-White, Blue-Black-White, Blue-Red-White, and Blue-Green-White color identities. Glacial Fortress fits any of them, and the spread across 374 unique players confirms this is a broadly adopted staple rather than a niche pick.

Frequently Asked

How often is Glacial Fortress drawn in a Commander game?

In 681 tracked multiplayer games where Glacial Fortress was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is consistent with singleton expectations in a 100-card deck. Of the 183 instances that reached a player's hand, 82% were played before the game concluded.

What turn does Glacial Fortress typically hit the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 4.0 across multiplayer games. The distribution shows early clustering: many copies land in turns 1 through 3 when kept in an opening hand, with a secondary spread through the mid-game as players draw into it off natural card draw. Mean first-cast turn is somewhat higher, reflecting occasional late-game appearances.

Does casting Glacial Fortress improve your win rate?

In multiplayer games, the cast-vs-library delta is slightly negative at this sample size, meaning we cannot cleanly attribute a win-rate lift to playing the card. Both the cast bucket (149 observations) and the library bucket (538 observations) are available, but the delta sits within the margin of error for this dataset. Read it as directional rather than conclusive. Glacial Fortress is a mana-fixing tool, not a threat, so win-rate attribution is always muddied by deck composition.

Is Glacial Fortress banned anywhere?

Glacial Fortress is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Alchemy, Brawl, and Duel Commander, among others. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. No major format bans apply.

Which commanders most commonly run Glacial Fortress?

The top commanders by raw deck count in the multiplayer dataset are Y'shtola, Night's Blessed (Blue-Black-White), Ms. Bumbleflower (Green-Blue-White), Éowyn, Shieldmaiden (Red-Blue-White), Zinnia, Valley's Voice (Red-Blue-White), and Captain America, Team Leader (Red-Blue-White). Every top commander shares White and Blue in their color identity, which is simply required to run this land legally.

How reliable is the Playgroup Live data for this card?

The multiplayer dataset covers 681 tracked games with 766 instances brought, 183 drawn, and 150 cast. 374 distinct players contributed data, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for only 4% of all instances. That spread is a genuine strength of this dataset. Still, treat all win-rate and delta figures as early-signal directional reads rather than statistically conclusive results.