Live Play Data

Prairie Stream

Land — Plains Island · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)

36%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

755

Decks Running

446

Median Cast Turn

4.0

Drawn → Played

76%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Prairie Stream appears in 36% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, and 76% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 4.0.

Prairie Stream sits in 36% of the 1225 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live. That puts it comfortably in the upper tier of blue-white dual lands available to the format, appearing in 446 distinct tracked decks.

As a land, Prairie Stream is never "cast" in the traditional sense, but the numbers behave much like a utility land would. 76% of drawn copies are played before the game ends, a strong rate that reflects how reliably players want to develop their mana base early. Median first-play lands on turn 4.0, and 61% of the time it is played on the same turn it is drawn. The data spread is healthy: 378 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game, and no single player accounts for more than a small fraction of the observations.

Prairie Stream is part of the "Battle for Zendikar" cycle of dual lands sometimes called "tango lands" or "BFZ duals." They enter untapped only when you already control two or more basics, making them stronger in decks that run a higher basic land count or that deliberately curve out through their basics first. In Commander, where slower pacing is common and basic counts vary widely, that condition is easier to meet than in faster 60-card formats. The card is legal in Commander, Legacy, Pioneer, Modern, Vintage, and several other formats.

At a glance

36% of tracked Commander decks include Prairie Stream
76% of drawn copies are played before the game ends
T4.0 median first-play turn
61% of the time it is played the same turn it is drawn
93% battlefield stickiness once it enters play
378 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=168

18%

11%

17%

11%

26%

T6-9

10%

T10+

Median 4.0 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 14

Cast same turn as drawn 61%

The "good card" funnel

758 brought · 378 players

Brought to game

758

Ever drawn

220

Reached battlefield

168

Still on board at game end

157

76%

Of 758 Prairie Streams brought to tracked games, 220 were drawn and 168 of those were played onto the battlefield, capturing the full brought-to-drawn-to-played pipeline for this dual land.

≥ -4.7pp

Players who cast this card win 25% of the time (n=166) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=500).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 21% (n=51) — 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 +2.1pp; 95% confidence interval -4.7pp to +8.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

236 instances

2.5%

Library

66.5%

Battlefield

11.4%

Graveyard

5.5%

Exile

The vast majority of Prairie Stream copies never leave the library, which is expected for a singleton land in a 100-card deck. The battlefield share represents copies that were drawn, kept, and played out before the game ended.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Prairie Stream's commander distribution is spread across blue-white and multicolor commanders, with Y'shtola leading the list. No single commander dominates, which is consistent with the card being a general mana-fixing staple rather than a build-around.

Frequently Asked

How often is Prairie Stream drawn in a Commander game?

Across 672 tracked Commander games where Prairie Stream was in a deck, it was drawn 29% of the time. That is consistent with what you would expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 220 copies that reached a player's hand, 76% were played before the game concluded.

What turn does Prairie Stream typically hit the battlefield?

Median first-play turn is 4.0 across 168 observed casts. The distribution has a mode of turn 1, reflecting opening-hand keeps where a player leads with Prairie Stream into early basics. The interquartile range runs from turn 2 to turn 7, so there is a wide spread depending on when it is drawn during the game.

Does playing Prairie Stream correlate with winning?

The cast-vs-library win-rate delta is small at +2.1 percentage points, and the confidence interval crosses zero, so there is no meaningful directional signal here. Prairie Stream is a mana-fixing land: its value lies in enabling the rest of the deck rather than producing a detectable win-rate lift on its own. Both the cast and library buckets have solid sample sizes, which makes the near-zero delta a trustworthy finding rather than noise.

Which commanders most commonly run Prairie Stream?

The top commanders pairing with Prairie Stream in tracked games are concentrated in blue-white and three-color combinations that include blue and white. Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads the list, followed by Éowyn, Shieldmaiden and Ms. Bumbleflower. The spread across 378 unique players and many different commanders suggests Prairie Stream is a broad format staple rather than a card tied to one specific strategy.

Is Prairie Stream legal in Commander?

Yes. Prairie Stream is legal and unrestricted in Commander, as well as in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Duel Commander, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander.

How does Prairie Stream compare to a basic land in terms of reliability?

Prairie Stream enters tapped unless you control two or more basic lands, so in the early turns of a game it may cost you a tempo point. In Commander, where most games slow down naturally and basic counts in decks often exceed ten, meeting the two-basics threshold by turn three or four is common. The 76% play rate and median turn 4.0 suggest players are not holding it in hand waiting for the right moment. They play it as soon as they draw it in the majority of cases.