collections_bookmark Part of Commander Masters
Scavenger Grounds card art
Live Play Data

Scavenger Grounds

Land — Desert · Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC)
6%
Live Inclusion
Times Brought
2651
Decks Running
1314
Median Cast Turn
5.0
Drawn → Played
72%
Format

Scavenger Grounds lands in 6% of tracked Commander decks and, when drawn, reaches the battlefield 72% of the time. Median first activation falls on turn 5.0, making it a mid-game graveyard answer that arrives well before most combos go off.

Scavenger Grounds sits in 6% of the 20720 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live. It is a zero-color-identity land, meaning it slots into any 100-card deck, and it doubles as a colorless mana source plus a repeatable exile effect for every graveyard at once.

When a copy reaches a player's hand, it is cast 72% of the time before the game ends. Players who draw it tend to hold it a turn before playing it: median hand-to-cast delay is 1 turn, and 43% of drawn copies are activated the same turn they are drawn. The median first activation lands on turn 5.0, which is later than most fast mana but well within the window where graveyard decks typically come online.

Because it costs no colored mana and enters untapped, Scavenger Grounds is a low-friction include for any archetype that wants a land-slot answer to reanimator, dredge, or recursion strategies. The data show it spread across a wide commander pool. The top commander pairing in the dataset accounts for 985 unique players overall, and the single heaviest individual contributor represents 25% of tracked instances, a sign the data is not dominated by one player's games.

At a glance
  • 6% of tracked Commander decks include Scavenger Grounds
  • 72% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
  • T5.0 median turn of first activation
  • 79% battlefield stickiness once played
  • 985 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
  • 25% draw rate per game, typical for a singleton land

First-cast turn

n=472
8%
T1
9%
T2
13%
T3
14%
T4
11%
T5
36%
T6-9
9%
T10+
Median 5.0 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 18
Cast same turn as drawn 43%

The "good card" funnel

2651 brought · 985 players
Brought to game
2651
Ever drawn
660
Reached battlefield
472
Still on board at game end
374
72%

Of 2651 copies brought to tracked games, 660 were drawn, 472 of those were cast, and a strong majority remained on the battlefield at game's end.

≥ -2.6pp

Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=440) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=1659).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 36% (n=170) — 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 +1.7pp; 95% confidence interval -2.6pp to +6.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

737 instances
2.2%
Library
50.7%
Battlefield
17.0%
Graveyard
11.0%
Exile

Most copies end the game on the battlefield or in the graveyard after activation, with relatively few stranded in the library. That split reflects how naturally Scavenger Grounds enters play as a mana land even when its exile ability never triggers.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander distribution is broad. Y'shtola, Doctor Doom, and Captain America lead in raw deck count, but the list spans five different color identities, showing that colorless utility lands attract builders across every archetype.

Card text
Scavenger Grounds card

Scavenger Grounds

Land — Desert
{T}: Add {C}. {2}, {T}, Sacrifice a Desert: Exile all graveyards.
Marvel Super Heroes Commander (MSC) · Rare · Illustrated by Bastien Grivet

Frequently Asked

How often is Scavenger Grounds drawn in a Commander game?
Across 2339 tracked games where Scavenger Grounds was in the deck, it was drawn 25% of the time. That figure is expected for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 660 instances that reached a player's hand, 72% were cast before the game concluded.
What turn does Scavenger Grounds typically hit the battlefield?
The median first-cast turn is 5.0, with the interquartile range spanning turns 3 through 7. Players rarely slam it on turn 1 or 2 even when they could. The hand-to-cast data show a median delay of 1 turn after drawing it, and 43% of drawn copies are played on the same turn they are drawn. The pattern is consistent with players holding the land until they read the table and decide graveyard hate is needed.
Does casting Scavenger Grounds correlate with winning?
In 440 observed participations where Scavenger Grounds was cast, the normalized win rate is 27%. When it sits in the library the entire game, the win rate is 25% across 1659 observations. The delta is +1.7 percentage points. Both sample sizes are large enough to treat this as a directional signal, but the confidence interval crosses zero, so interpret the lift as suggestive rather than conclusive.
Is Scavenger Grounds legal in Commander?
Yes. Scavenger Grounds is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Brawl, Gladiator, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Old School formats.
Why does Scavenger Grounds appear in so many different commanders' decks?
Scavenger Grounds has no color identity, so it is castable in every Commander deck regardless of color restrictions. It also enters untapped and produces colorless mana, meaning it is rarely a pure tempo loss. Any deck that faces graveyard-based strategies gets a free slot of hate without warping its mana base. That universality is why the card is spread across 985 distinct players in the tracked data and pairs with commanders of every color combination.
How concentrated is the Scavenger Grounds data among a few players?
The dataset covers 985 unique players who have brought Scavenger Grounds to a tracked game. The single heaviest contributor accounts for a small share of total instances. That spread means the numbers are not an artifact of one or two prolific grinders. The data come from the Playgroup Live sample of 2339 multiplayer Commander games, which is a real-play dataset rather than a decklist scrape, so inclusion rates here reflect what people actually sleeve up and play.