Live Play Data

Hedge Maze

Land — Forest Island · Murders at Karlov Manor (MKM)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

531

Decks Running

278

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

83%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

9% of tracked Commander decks in Simic or broader green-blue shells run Hedge Maze, and 83% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 3.

Hedge Maze is a dual land that pays an entry tax, tapping in tapped, but refunds part of it with a free surveil 1 on arrival. Across 509 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, 9% of decks in the dataset include it, and it sits in 278 of 3023 distinct tracked lists.

The play pattern is clean: the card enters, you look at the top of your library and decide whether to bin it, and the land then produces green or blue mana for the rest of the game. That simplicity shows up in the funnel. Of 202 drawn copies, 83% were cast before the game ended. Median first-cast turn lands on turn 3, reflecting that players who open it in hand drop it early and those who draw it later still tend to deploy it quickly. 67% of drawn-and-cast copies went down the same turn they were drawn.

The concentration picture is healthy. 242 distinct players have brought Hedge Maze to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 3% of all instances. The data is well-spread, which gives the directional signals here more weight than a lopsided sample would.

At a glance

9% of tracked Commander decks include Hedge Maze
83% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T3 median first-cast turn
67% of drawn-and-cast copies played the same turn they were drawn
89% battlefield stickiness once cast
242 distinct players have brought Hedge Maze to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=167

31%

17%

25%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 11

Cast same turn as drawn 67%

The "good card" funnel

531 brought · 242 players

Brought to game

531

Ever drawn

202

Reached battlefield

167

Still on board at game end

148

83%

Of 531 Hedge Mazes brought to games, 202 were drawn, 167 of those were cast, and 89% of cast copies remained on the battlefield at game's end.

≥ +1.7pp

Players who cast this card win 38% of the time (n=152) , vs 28% when it never left the library (n=277).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 33% (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 +10.4pp; 95% confidence interval +1.7pp to +19.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

216 instances

1.9%

Library

68.5%

Battlefield

14.8%

Graveyard

3.2%

Exile

Lands nearly never go back to the library once played, so the battlefield dominates Hedge Maze's final-zone split. The graveyard share reflects both surveil decisions that milled copies and cases where the land was destroyed or sacrificed.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans at least five distinct color identities, from straight Simic to Sultai to Temur, showing Hedge Maze earns its slot wherever green-blue mana is on the table rather than clustering in one archetype.

Frequently Asked

How often is Hedge Maze drawn in a Commander game?

In 509 tracked multiplayer games where Hedge Maze was in the deck, it was drawn 38% of the time. That is consistent with what you would expect from a singleton land in a 100-card deck. Of 202 instances that reached a hand, 83% were cast before the game ended. Most uncast copies are a game-length effect rather than a deliberate hold.

What turn does Hedge Maze typically hit the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 3. The distribution has a clear early cluster, with mode on turn 1, reflecting players who open it in the starting hand and drop it immediately. The spread extends out to turn 11 in the dataset, but the interquartile range runs from turn 1 to turn 6, so the bulk of casts land in the first half of the game.

Does casting Hedge Maze correlate with winning?

Win rate when cast is 38% across 152 participations, versus 28% when the card stayed in the library across 277 participations. The delta is a positive directional signal, but the confidence interval overlaps zero on this dataset size, so treat it as early directional evidence rather than a proven causal effect. The surveil 1 that Hedge Maze provides helps filter draws, which likely contributes to whatever lift exists.

Which commanders most commonly run Hedge Maze?

Teval, the Balanced Scale leads the tracked list with 9 decks, followed by Flubs the Fool, Indominus Rex Alpha, Ms. Bumbleflower, and Sin, Spira's Punishment at 7 each. The spread across Sultai, Simic, and Temur commanders reflects Hedge Maze's broad playability in any deck that can include green-blue dual lands. Pure Simic (GU) commanders like Zimone, Infinite Analyst and Quandrix, the Proof also appear prominently.

Is Hedge Maze legal in Commander?

Yes. Hedge Maze from Murders at Karlov Manor is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Standard, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Pauper or Pauper Commander because it is a rare. It is unrestricted in Commander, where it competes as a tapland that trades tempo for a free library filter effect on entry.

How reliable is the Hedge Maze data on Playgroup Live?

The multiplayer dataset covers 509 tracked games and 278 decks including the card. Crucially, 242 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, and the heaviest single contributor accounts for just 3% of all instances. That spread across a large player pool means the directional signals here are not driven by one prolific pilot's results, which adds credibility to the funnel and win-rate numbers even at this sample size.