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auto_awesome #18 in Izzet Commander Staples
Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway card art
Live Play Data

Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway

Land // Land · Zendikar Rising (ZNR)
6%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
547
Decks Running
247
Median Cast Turn
4.0
Drawn → Played
72%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

6% of tracked Izzet-adjacent Commander decks on Playgroup Live run Riverglide Pathway. When drawn, 72% of copies are played before the game ends, with a median first-play turn of 4.0.

Riverglide Pathway is a modal dual-faced land from Zendikar Rising, giving Izzet (blue-red) decks a consistent, untapped source of either {U} or {R} on their schedule. Across 537 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, it sits in 247 of 4257 distinct tracked decks, an inclusion rate of 6%.

The draw-to-play rate of 72% is the most actionable signal here. Lands are almost always played immediately when drawn, and this card is no exception. Half of drawn copies land on the same turn they are drawn, with a median of turn 4.0 for first play. The hand-to-cast average of just under one turn confirms players rarely hold it back. Once it hits the battlefield, 90% stickiness reflects that lands are almost never removed in Commander.

The dataset is well-spread across 236 unique players, with no single contributor accounting for more than a small slice of the sample. That breadth gives the numbers modest confidence as a directional read on how Izzet players actually build and sequence their mana bases in live play.

At a glance
  • 6% of tracked Commander decks include Riverglide Pathway
  • 72% of drawn copies are played before the game ends
  • T4.0 median first-play turn
  • 90% battlefield stickiness once played
  • 236 unique players have brought this card to a tracked game
  • 112 total times played across all tracked games

First-cast turn

n=112
13%
T1
15%
T2
16%
T3
14%
T4
8%
T5
29%
T6-9
4%
T10+
Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 6 · max 13
Cast same turn as drawn 50%

The "good card" funnel

547 brought · 236 players
Brought to game
547
Ever drawn
155
Reached battlefield
112
Still on board at game end
101
72%

Of 547 copies brought to games, 155 were drawn, 112 of those were played, and 90% remained on the battlefield through the end of the game, consistent with the format's low land-removal rate.

≥ -8.5pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=107) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=333).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 40% (n=40) — 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 +0.2pp; 95% confidence interval -8.5pp to +9.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

174 instances
2.9%
Library
58.0%
Battlefield
18.4%
Graveyard
4.6%
Exile

Most of the library-zone count comes from copies that were shuffled in and never reached a hand, the structural reality of a singleton land in a 100-card deck rather than a signal about the card's value once drawn.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans a wide range of Izzet and Grixis strategies, with no single commander claiming a dominant share, reflecting broad mana-base adoption rather than narrow synergy play.

Card text
Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway card Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway back face

Riverglide Pathway

Land
{T}: Add {U}.

Lavaglide Pathway

Land
{T}: Add {R}.
Zendikar Rising (ZNR) · Rare · Illustrated by Kieran Yanner

Frequently Asked

How often is Riverglide Pathway drawn in a Commander game?
Across 537 tracked multiplayer games where it was in a deck, Riverglide Pathway was drawn 28% of the time. That rate is typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 155 instances that reached a player's hand, 72% were played before the game ended. The remainder largely reflects copies drawn late in games that concluded before they could be used.
What turn does Riverglide Pathway usually get played?
Median first-play turn is 4.0, with the middle 50% of plays falling between turns 2 and 6. The mode of the distribution is turn 3, and some copies surface as late as turn 13. Because it enters untapped and produces mana immediately, players tend to play it on the same turn they draw it about half the time, per the same-turn rate of 50%.
Is there a meaningful win-rate lift when this land is played versus when it stays in the library?
The cast-vs-library delta in this dataset is very small and the confidence interval crosses zero, meaning we cannot call it a directional effect with any confidence. This is expected for a land whose primary job is mana consistency rather than a direct power contribution. Both buckets have sample sizes above 15, which is enough to say the near-zero gap is a real read, not just noise.
Which commanders most often run Riverglide Pathway?
The top commanders by raw deck count are Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph and Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man, each appearing in double-digit decks in the tracked set. The full top-ten list spans a broad range of Izzet and Grixis strategies, suggesting the card is a general mana-base choice rather than a synergy pick for any one archetype.
Is Riverglide Pathway legal in Commander?
Yes. Riverglide Pathway is legal and unrestricted in Commander, as well as in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Old School.
Why play Riverglide Pathway over a basic Island or Mountain?
In Commander, color consistency across a two- or three-color deck is often more valuable than the small upside of basic land synergies. Riverglide Pathway enters untapped, guaranteeing either {U} or {R} on the turn you need it, with no life cost and no conditional text. The 72% play rate when drawn reflects how rarely players find a reason to hold it back, which is a practical endorsement of its role in Izzet mana bases.