Live Play Data

Reliquary Tower

Land · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

29%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

9594

Decks Running

5053

Median Cast Turn

4.0

Drawn → Played

80%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Reliquary Tower lands in 29% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live. When drawn, 80% of copies are played before the game ends, with a median first-play turn of 4.0.

Reliquary Tower sits in 29% of the 17176 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, making it one of the most-included utility lands in the format. Its two-line text box does everything a greedy deck wants: colorless mana and an unlimited hand size, all on a land that costs nothing to deploy.

The draw-to-play rate of 80% is high for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Median first play lands on turn 4.0, and 92% of copies that hit the battlefield are still there when the game ends. That stickiness number reflects a structural reality: lands are among the hardest permanents to remove in Commander, and a colorless utility land attracts even less targeted hate than a mana rock.

Because Reliquary Tower produces only colorless mana, it fits into any color identity. That universality shows up across the commander distribution, which spans commanders from mono-red to five-color. The strongest pull comes from commanders that actively reward card accumulation, where keeping a full grip past the normal seven-card limit turns into a direct threat.

At a glance

29% of tracked Commander decks include Reliquary Tower
80% of drawn copies are played before the game ends
T4.0 median first-play turn
92% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
2406 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, a well-spread dataset
28% win rate in games where it reached the battlefield

First-cast turn

n=2110

14%

12%

13%

12%

11%

31%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 23

Cast same turn as drawn 53%

The "good card" funnel

9622 brought · 2406 players

Brought to game

9622

Ever drawn

2648

Reached battlefield

2110

Still on board at game end

1950

80%

Of 9622 copies brought to tracked games, 2648 were drawn, 2110 of those were played, and 92% of played copies remained on the battlefield at game end.

≥ +1.3pp

Players who cast this card win 28% of the time (n=1928) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=5846).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 31% (n=490) — 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 +3.4pp; 95% confidence interval +1.3pp to +5.5pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

2911 instances

3.1%

Library

67.0%

Battlefield

12.2%

Graveyard

3.6%

Exile

Most Reliquary Towers in the dataset end the game on the battlefield, which is structurally unusual and reflects how rarely lands are removed compared to other card types.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans mono-red, Simic, Bant, five-color, and everything in between, underscoring that colorless identity makes Reliquary Tower a format-wide inclusion rather than a tribal or archetype-specific pick.

Card text

Reliquary Tower

Land

You have no maximum hand size. {T}

: Add

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC) · Uncommon · Illustrated by Jesper Ejsing

Frequently Asked

How often is Reliquary Tower drawn in a Commander game?

Across 6499 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Reliquary Tower was in a deck, it was drawn 28% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 2648 instances that reached a hand, 80% were played before the game concluded. The remainder largely reflects games that ended before the player had a window to play it, not deliberate holds.

What turn does Reliquary Tower usually get played?

Median first-play turn is 4.0 in multiplayer pods. The distribution is notably flat: copies show up across turns 1 through 9 with no dramatic spike. That spread reflects when players draw it in the course of a game rather than any strong preference about timing. The hand-to-cast data shows a median delay of 0 turns, meaning players tend to drop it the same turn they draw it when they do play it.

Does casting Reliquary Tower correlate with winning?

In 1928 participations where Reliquary Tower reached the battlefield, the normalized win rate was 28%, compared to 24% in participations where it stayed in the library. The +3.4 percentage-point gap is a directional early signal that the card contributes positive value, though the delta is modest and the sample, while substantial, comes from a single play-tracking community.

Why is Reliquary Tower so popular in Commander specifically?

Commander games run long and reward card advantage engines. Commanders like Nekusar, Aesi, and Zimone routinely generate large hand sizes through draw triggers, and the normal seven-card hand limit turns surplus cards into wasted resources. Reliquary Tower removes that ceiling at zero mana cost. It also taps for colorless mana, so it never costs a slot in an otherwise dedicated color-producing land base. Those two traits together make it close to a free inclusion in any deck that expects to draw extra cards.

Is Reliquary Tower legal in Commander?

Yes. Reliquary Tower is legal in Commander and has no color identity restrictions, so it is eligible for any deck regardless of commander color. It is also legal in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and several other constructed formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander.

How concentrated is the Reliquary Tower data across players?

The dataset for Reliquary Tower is well-spread. 2406 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 1% of all instances. That low concentration strengthens the directional signals here: the numbers reflect broad play patterns rather than one player's preference inflating the counts.