Live Play Data

Sakura-Tribe Elder

· Creature — Snake Shaman · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

14%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1998

Decks Running

1079

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

74%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Sakura-Tribe Elder appears in 14% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, and 74% of drawn copies reach a cast before the game ends, with a median first-cast turn of 4.

Sakura-Tribe Elder is one of Commander's most reliable two-mana ramp pieces. Across 1834 tracked multiplayer games on Playgroup Live, it sits in 1079 of 7548 distinct decks, an inclusion rate of 14%. That number reflects play-based data rather than decklist scrapes, so it speaks to the card's real-table presence.

The action happens fast. Median first cast lands on turn 4, and 74% of drawn copies reach a cast before the game ends. The Elder's sacrifice ability means it almost never lingers: after resolving, it moves to the graveyard, which is exactly the design. Battlefield stickiness of 11% is low by intent, not by interaction. Many green commanders, especially those that care about creatures entering or leaving the battlefield, treat the graveyard destination as a feature rather than a cost.

The dataset is well-spread across 854 unique players, with no single contributor responsible for more than a small fraction of tracked games. That breadth makes the directional signals here more robust than a dataset concentrated in a few playgroups.

At a glance

14% of tracked Commander decks include Sakura-Tribe Elder
74% of drawn copies were cast before the game ended
T4 median first-cast turn
28% draw rate per game, typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck
854 unique players have brought it to a tracked game, showing broad adoption
28% normalized win rate in games where the Elder was cast

First-cast turn

n=409

23%

14%

10%

32%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 17

On curve 31% (93 / 409 cast on T2) Cast same turn as drawn 44%

The "good card" funnel

2000 brought · 854 players

Brought to game

2000

Ever drawn

556

Reached battlefield

409

Still on board at game end

74%

Of 2000 copies brought to games, 556 were drawn, 409 of those were cast, and nearly all resolved copies proceeded directly to the graveyard after fetching a land.

≥ -0.4pp

Players who cast this card win 28% of the time (n=369) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=1174).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 34% (n=125) — 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 +4.4pp; 95% confidence interval -0.4pp to +9.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

629 instances

2.5%

Library

7.2%

Battlefield

63.9%

Graveyard

10.3%

Exile

The graveyard is the dominant final zone for Sakura-Tribe Elder, which reflects the card working exactly as intended: sacrifice for a land, move on. Most copies that never left the library simply were not drawn.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Dina, Essence Brewer leads by a wide margin in raw deck count, but the list spans at least ten distinct commanders across multiple color combinations, showing the Elder's reach well beyond any single archetype.

Card text

Sakura-Tribe Elder

Creature — Snake Shaman

Sacrifice this creature: Search your library for a basic land card, put that card onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.

1 / 1

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC) · Common · Illustrated by Anastasia Ovchinnikova

Frequently Asked

How often is Sakura-Tribe Elder drawn in a Commander game?

In 1834 tracked multiplayer games where Sakura-Tribe Elder was in the deck, it was drawn 28% of the time. That is consistent with what a singleton in a 100-card deck typically sees. Of 556 instances that reached a player's hand, 74% were cast before the game concluded.

What turn does Sakura-Tribe Elder usually get cast?

Median first cast is turn 4 in multiplayer games. The 25th percentile sits at turn 2, meaning a meaningful cluster of players cast it right out of the opening hand. The distribution trails out to turn 17 at the far end, reflecting games where it was drawn very late. The same-turn cast rate of 44% shows that roughly half of players cast it the same turn they draw it, while others hold it a turn to sequence their mana correctly.

Why is Sakura-Tribe Elder's battlefield stickiness so low?

A 11% stickiness rate is expected and intentional. The card's entire purpose is to sacrifice itself to fetch a basic land. It enters the battlefield and immediately leaves for the graveyard. Low stickiness here is a sign the card is working as designed, not a sign it is being countered or removed. Do not read it as a weakness.

Does casting Sakura-Tribe Elder correlate with winning?

Games where Sakura-Tribe Elder was cast show a normalized win rate of 28%, compared to 24% in games where it stayed in the library. That is a +4.4 percentage-point gap across 369 cast observations and 1174 library observations. Both sample sizes are large enough to treat this as a directional signal. The Elder is not a win condition, but ramping on turn 2-3 gives decks a meaningful structural advantage.

Is Sakura-Tribe Elder legal in Commander?

Yes, Sakura-Tribe Elder is legal and unrestricted in Commander, Duel Commander, Oathbreaker, Legacy, Modern, Pauper, and Pauper Commander. It is not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Alchemy, Historic, Brawl, or most rotating formats. Its common rarity means it is also a staple in Pauper Commander specifically.

Which commanders most commonly run Sakura-Tribe Elder?

Across tracked decks on Playgroup Live, the most common pairing is Dina, Essence Brewer, which rewards sacrifice outlets and life-drain loops that the Elder feeds naturally. Teval, the Balanced Scale, Bello, Bard of the Brambles, and Meren of Clan Nel Toth also rank high. The spread across Golgari, Jund, Sultai, and mono-green commanders confirms the Elder's role as a format-wide ramp staple rather than a narrow archetype piece.