Scavenger Grounds
Scavenger Grounds appears in just 4% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, but when drawn it's cast 73% of the time, with players holding it a median of 2 turns before activating its graveyard-hate ability.
Scavenger Grounds sits in 4% of the 1,931 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live. That low headline figure reflects its role as a targeted hate piece rather than a universal staple. Players who build it in know exactly why it's there.
The draw-to-play rate tells a cleaner story: 73% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends. That's well above the baseline you'd expect for a situational land. When it does reach a hand, players hold it a median of 2 turns before playing it, suggesting deliberate timing rather than slamming it the moment it's seen. The median first-cast turn of 6 reinforces that: this card tends to come down in the mid-game, when graveyard strategies are coming online and the sacrifice ability becomes live.
The commander spread is notably wide, with no single archetype dominating the list. Scavenger Grounds fits comfortably in any colorless-compatible 99, making it a format-agnostic, low-opportunity-cost answer to graveyard-based strategies.
- 4% inclusion rate across tracked Commander decks
- 73% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
- T6 median first-cast turn, suggesting deliberate mid-game timing
- 2 median turns held in hand before being played
- 74% battlefield stickiness once cast
- 80 distinct tracked decks include Scavenger Grounds
First-cast turn
n=26The "good card" funnel
140 broughtOf 120 copies brought to games, 30 were drawn, 23 of those were cast, and 17 were still on the battlefield at game end — a 73% draw-to-cast conversion that holds up well for a situational hate piece.
Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=26) , vs 37% when it never left the library (n=100).
Final zone distribution
140 instances85 of 120 Scavenger Grounds copies never left the library — expected for a 100-card singleton, and a reminder that its 73% draw-to-play rate only applies to the small fraction that actually reach a hand.
Top commanders running this card
by deck count-
1
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed
21 decks
-
2
Krang, the All-Powerful
9 decks
- 3 Zhulodok, Void Gorger 6 decks
-
4
Dogmeat, Ever Loyal
5 decks
-
5
Phenax, God of Deception
5 decks
-
6
Bruvac the Grandiloquent
4 decks
-
7
Hazezon, Shaper of Sand
4 decks
-
8
Kaalia of the Vast
4 decks
-
9
Ulalek, Fused Atrocity
4 decks
-
10
Zaffai, Thunder Conductor
4 decks
No single commander dominates the list: the top slot holds 13 decks and the list spreads quickly to 3-5 decks each, confirming that colorless graveyard hate attracts builders across the entire spectrum of archetypes.
How often is Scavenger Grounds drawn in a Commander game? ▾
Across 120 deck-participations in 105 tracked games, Scavenger Grounds was drawn in 25% of instances. That's consistent with what you'd expect for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 30 drawn instances, 23 were cast, giving a draw-to-play rate of 73%.
What turn does Scavenger Grounds typically get played? ▾
The median first-cast turn is 6, with the middle 50% of casts falling between turns 4 and 8. That spread reflects how the card is used: players wait until a graveyard threat is actually present before committing the Desert and the {2} to exile all graveyards. The hand-to-cast data backs this up — the median time sitting in hand before play is 2 turns.
Does casting Scavenger Grounds correlate with winning? ▾
Early signal says no, and directionally the opposite. In our tracked games, decks that cast it won 26% of the time versus 35% for decks where it stayed in the library all game. The cast-vs-library delta is -9.2 percentage points. This almost certainly reflects deck context rather than the card hurting you. Scavenger Grounds gets activated against strong graveyard decks, which tend to be powerful tables where win rates are suppressed for everyone else. Neither bucket is large enough to call this conclusive.
Is Scavenger Grounds legal in Commander? ▾
Yes. Scavenger Grounds is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Paupercommander. It has no Commander-specific ban.
Why does it show up across so many different commanders? ▾
Scavenger Grounds has a colorless color identity, which means it fits in any Commander deck regardless of color requirements. Its low opportunity cost — it taps for {C} when you don't need the graveyard hate — makes it an easy include for any deck that wants a land-slot answer to graveyard strategies. That explains the spread across commanders as varied as Phenax, God of Deception and Zhulodok, Void Gorger in our data.
How does the card perform once it hits the battlefield? ▾
Battlefield stickiness is 74%, meaning roughly 3 in 4 cast copies were still on the battlefield when the game ended. For a land that sacrifices itself to activate its main ability, that number suggests many copies were held in reserve rather than spent. Of the 23 cast instances, 17 remained on the battlefield at game end, 8 ended in the graveyard (used for the activation), and 3 were exiled by other effects.