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Land Tax card art
Live Play Data

Land Tax

{W} · Enchantment · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)
8%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
502
Decks Running
291
Median Cast Turn
4.0
Drawn → Played
82%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

82% of drawn Land Taxes are cast before the game ends, and the mode first-cast turn is turn 1, signaling players who open it rarely wait.

Land Tax appears in 291 of 3596 tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, an 8% inclusion rate that reflects its white-only color identity and mythic price tag rather than any lack of demand. When it does reach a hand, players act fast: 82% of drawn copies are cast.

The cast-turn distribution tells the real story. Turn 1 is the single most common cast turn, driven by players who kept it in their opening hand and deployed it immediately. The median first-cast turn lands on turn 4.0, pulled upward by copies drawn later in the game. 71% of cast copies remain on the battlefield at game's end, consistent with what you'd expect from a low-threat enchantment that opponents often can't justify spending removal on early.

Across 256 distinct players who have brought Land Tax to a tracked game, no single contributor accounts for more than 26% of observations, suggesting the data is well spread. White-heavy and mono-white commanders dominate the top-commander list, which matches Land Tax's core identity as a mana-smoothing engine for a color that struggles to ramp through spells.

At a glance
  • 8% of tracked Commander decks include Land Tax
  • 82% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
  • T4.0 median first-cast turn, with turn 1 as the single most common cast turn
  • 71% battlefield stickiness once cast
  • 256 distinct players have brought Land Tax to a tracked game, spreading the sample broadly

First-cast turn

n=106
30%
T1
11%
T2
7%
T3
8%
T4
16%
T5
24%
T6-9
5%
T10+
Median 4.0 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 14
On curve 30% (32 / 106 cast on T1) Cast same turn as drawn 74%

The "good card" funnel

503 brought · 256 players
Brought to game
503
Ever drawn
130
Reached battlefield
106
Still on board at game end
75
82%

Of 503 Land Taxes brought to tracked games, 130 were drawn, 106 of those were cast, and 71% of resolved copies remained on the battlefield at game's end.

≥ -10.7pp

Players who cast this card win 22% of the time (n=106) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=337).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 9% (n=24) — 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 -2.2pp; 95% confidence interval -10.7pp to +6.3pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

139 instances
2.2%
Library
54.0%
Battlefield
25.2%
Graveyard
6.5%
Exile

Most Land Taxes end games on the battlefield or in the graveyard after being destroyed, with very few stranded in the library. That matches a card players prioritize casting once drawn.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Killian, Decisive Mentor leads by a wide margin, followed by mono-white and white-adjacent commanders. The spread reflects Land Tax's near-universal appeal across white strategies rather than a single dominant archetype.

Frequently Asked

How often is Land Tax drawn in a Commander game?
In 475 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Land Tax was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That is in line with expectations for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 130 instances that reached a player's hand, 82% were cast before the game ended.
What turn does Land Tax usually get cast?
The median first-cast turn is 4.0, but that number is skewed by copies drawn late. Turn 1 is the mode: the single most common cast turn in our dataset, driven by players who opened with it. The p25 is turn 1 and the p75 is turn 6, so the distribution is wide. 74% of instances that were both drawn and cast were played on the same turn they were drawn, confirming that players rarely sit on it once they see it.
Does casting Land Tax actually help you win?
This is the hardest question the data can answer honestly. In 106 participations where Land Tax was cast, the normalized win rate was 22%. In 337 participations where it stayed in the library, the rate was 24%. The delta is small and the standard error overlaps zero, so treat this as a directional early signal rather than a firm conclusion. The card's value is in hand sculpting and land consistency, benefits that are hard to isolate in a win-rate slice.
Is Land Tax banned anywhere relevant?
Land Tax is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, Duel Commander, and Oathbreaker. It is banned in Historic and Premodern. It is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, or Pauper. For Commander players, there are no restrictions to worry about.
Why does Land Tax see so much play in white Commander decks?
White is the color most penalized by Commander's mana system. It historically lacks the efficient mana ramp that green and blue enjoy. Land Tax fills that gap for one mana: as long as any opponent controls more lands, it searches up to three basic lands per turn cycle. Over several turns it can rebuild a hand stripped by discard, smooth out a mana-light draw, or set up shuffle effects. At a single white mana, it is one of the most mana-efficient draw-adjacent effects available in the color.
How concentrated is the Land Tax data among players?
256 distinct players have brought Land Tax to a tracked game on Playgroup Live. The single heaviest contributor accounts for just 26% of all instances, well below the threshold where we would flag concentration as a concern. The dataset is spread across a range of commanders and archetypes, which strengthens the directional signals we can draw from it.