Sacred Foundry
34% of tracked Red-White decks run Sacred Foundry, and 82% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-play turn of 4.0.
Sacred Foundry sits in 34% of the 988 tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, appearing across 339 distinct lists. For a dual land gated to Red-White color identities, that is a strong signal of format adoption.
The draw-to-play rate of 82% is one of the highest figures we see for any land. Players who find Sacred Foundry in hand put it onto the battlefield quickly: median first play lands on turn 4.0, and the distribution clusters heavily in turns 1 through 2, reflecting how often it shows up in opening hands. The 2-life payment to enter untapped is clearly treated as a routine cost rather than a deterrent.
Battlefield stickiness of 93% confirms what you would expect from a basic land type dual: once Sacred Foundry hits play, it almost never leaves. Across 264 distinct players in the dataset, no single contributor dominates the sample, lending the data reasonable breadth for a card of this color-pair focus.
- 34% of tracked Commander decks include Sacred Foundry
- 82% of drawn copies reach the battlefield
- T4.0 median first-play turn
- 93% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
- 264 distinct players have brought Sacred Foundry to a tracked game
- 604 times brought to a tracked game across all decks
First-cast turn
n=138The "good card" funnel
604 brought · 264 playersOf 604 Sacred Foundrys brought to games, 169 were drawn, 138 of those reached the battlefield, and nearly all of them remained in play through the end of the game.
Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=138) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=401).
When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 30% (n=30) — 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.
95% confidence interval -4.5pp to +10.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.
Final zone distribution
183 instancesThe vast majority of Sacred Foundry copies that enter play stay on the battlefield through end of game, with only a small share reaching the graveyard via land destruction or sacrifice effects.
Commanders that played this card
in tracked games-
1
Lightning, Army of One
11 decks
-
2
Lorehold, the Historian
10 decks
-
3
Mr. House, President and CEO
10 decks
-
4
The Ur-Dragon
9 decks
-
5
Baylen, the Haymaker
8 decks
-
6
Edgar Markov
7 decks
-
7
Kaalia of the Vast
7 decks
-
8
Aragorn, the Uniter
6 decks
-
9
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
6 decks
-
10
Queen Marchesa
6 decks
The commander list spans pure Boros (R/W) leaders like Lorehold, the Historian and Aziza, Mage Tower Captain through five-color decks like The Ur-Dragon, showing Sacred Foundry earns its slot across the full range of color identities that contain Red and White.
How often is Sacred Foundry drawn in a Commander game? ▾
Across 505 tracked games where Sacred Foundry was in the deck, it was drawn 28% of the time. That is consistent with what you would expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 169 instances that reached a player's hand, 82% were played before the game ended.
What turn does Sacred Foundry typically enter the battlefield? ▾
Median first-play turn is 4.0. The distribution is front-loaded, with the largest clusters in turns 1 and 2, reflecting opening-hand frequency. About 58% of drawn copies are played on the same turn they are drawn, which tracks with lands being played as soon as they are available.
Does casting Sacred Foundry correlate with winning? ▾
Win rate in games where Sacred Foundry reached the battlefield is 27%, compared to 23% in games where it stayed in the library. The raw delta is directional but should be treated with caution on this sample size. As a land, Sacred Foundry is also a proxy for the broader quality of a Boros-range mana base rather than a standalone win condition.
Is Sacred Foundry legal in Commander? ▾
Yes. Sacred Foundry is legal in Commander and has no restrictions. It is also legal in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Historic, and most other constructed formats. It is not legal in Pauper or Pauper Commander because it is a rare.
Why is Sacred Foundry played so widely in Commander? ▾
Sacred Foundry is a Shock land that counts as both a Mountain and a Plains. That means it is fetchable with cards like Bloodstained Mire or Windswept Heath, and it fixes Red-White mana reliably from turn 1 at the cost of 2 life. In a format where 40 life makes that payment comfortable and consistent mana matters more than incremental life loss, it is a near-automatic inclusion in any deck with both colors.
How spread is the data across players? ▾
The dataset covers 264 distinct players who have brought Sacred Foundry to a tracked game. No single player accounts for more than a small fraction of instances, which means the observed patterns are not driven by one prolific contributor. That breadth is a genuine strength of the dataset for a card of this color scope.