Live Play Data

Sheltered Thicket

Land — Mountain Forest · Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander (ECC)

12%

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

772

Decks Running

402

Median Cast Turn

4.0

Drawn → Played

81%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

12% of tracked Commander decks with green and red include Sheltered Thicket. When drawn, it reaches play 81% of the time, with a median first-play turn of 4.0.

Sheltered Thicket sits in 12% of the 3410 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live. That makes it a consistent, if not ubiquitous, fixture in Gruul and three-color red-green shells, backed by 402 distinct decks bringing it to a tracked game.

The card's appeal is its flexibility. It counts as both a Mountain and a Forest for fetch-land and basic-land-matters effects, and its cycling clause means a late drawn copy can be traded away for a fresh card rather than sitting as a tapped do-nothing. That flexibility shows up in the draw-to-play number: 81% of drawn copies reached the battlefield before the game ended. The remainder were either cycled away or drawn too late to matter.

Across 743 tracked multiplayer games, the card was brought 774 times, drawn 214 times, and played 174 times. Data covers 361 unique players, with no single player accounting for more than a small fraction of instances, which gives the numbers reasonable spread for an early-data set.

At a glance

12% of tracked Commander decks include Sheltered Thicket
28% draw rate, typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck
81% of drawn copies reached the battlefield before the game ended
T4.0 median first-play turn
86% battlefield stickiness once played
361 unique players represented in the dataset, indicating good spread

First-cast turn

n=174

25%

11%

24%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4.0 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 13

Cast same turn as drawn 65%

The "good card" funnel

774 brought · 361 players

Brought to game

774

Ever drawn

214

Reached battlefield

174

Still on board at game end

149

81%

Of 774 Sheltered Thickets brought to games, 214 were drawn, 174 of those were played as a land, and the majority stayed on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ -1.4pp

Players who cast this card win 24% of the time (n=159) , vs 19% when it never left the library (n=469).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 30% (n=34) — 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 +5.4pp; 95% confidence interval -1.4pp to +12.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

234 instances

4.3%

Library

63.7%

Battlefield

17.9%

Graveyard

3.4%

Exile

Most Sheltered Thickets end on the battlefield or in the graveyard after being cycled away, with very few remaining in the library at game end. That reflects active use of both the land and cycling modes.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans Jund, Gruul, and Temur shells, confirming Sheltered Thicket earns its slot across any strategy that runs both red and green rather than clustering in one specific archetype.

Frequently Asked

How often is Sheltered Thicket drawn in a Commander game?

In 743 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Sheltered Thicket 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 214 drawn instances, 81% were played before the game concluded.

What turn does Sheltered Thicket usually hit the battlefield?

The median first-play turn is 4.0, but the distribution is notably front-loaded. A large cluster of plays lands on turn 1, reflecting copies kept in opening hands and played immediately as a tapped land. The mean is higher because some copies are played much later in the game, or cycled instead of played as a land.

Does playing Sheltered Thicket correlate with winning?

Directionally, yes, though the sample is still growing. Games where Sheltered Thicket was played show a 24% normalized win rate, compared to 19% in games where it stayed in the library. That is a +5.4 percentage-point gap across 159 cast observations and 469 library observations. The gap is consistent with the card pulling its weight, but treat it as an early signal rather than a settled conclusion.

Why run Sheltered Thicket over a basic Mountain or Forest?

Sheltered Thicket counts as both a Mountain and a Forest simultaneously, making it fetchable with cards like Wooded Foothills and triggering basic-land-matters effects in both colors. The enters-tapped drawback is real, but the cycling clause turns dead late-game land draws into fresh cards for just two mana. That optionality is the entire argument for the slot.

Is Sheltered Thicket legal in competitive formats?

Sheltered Thicket is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. It sees Modern and Legacy play primarily in cycling-heavy decks and as a fetchable dual land in aggressive or midrange shells.

Which commanders most commonly pair with Sheltered Thicket?

On Playgroup Live, the heaviest concentration is in Jund (black-green-red) and straight Gruul (green-red) commander decks. Hearthhull, the Worldseed and Auntie Ool, Cursewretch each appear in the top of the commander distribution, both running red and green. Bello, Bard of the Brambles is the leading pure Gruul commander pairing. The spread across multiple commanders suggests the card earns its slot on land-quality merits rather than synergy with any single strategy.