Live Play Data

Shineshadow Snarl

Land · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

18%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

549

Decks Running

316

Median Cast Turn

3.0

Drawn → Played

78%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

Shineshadow Snarl appears in 18% of tracked Orzhov-accessible Commander decks on Playgroup Live. When drawn, 78% of copies reach play, with a median first-play turn of 3.0.

Shineshadow Snarl slots into any White-Black (or three-color) Commander deck as a conditional dual land: reveal a Plains or Swamp from hand and it enters untapped, otherwise it joins the battlefield tapped. Across 515 tracked multiplayer games on Playgroup Live, 18% of decks in the dataset include it, concentrated naturally in Orzhov and allied color identities.

The draw-to-play rate of 78% reflects how reliably players convert a drawn copy into a played land. Median first play lands on turn 3.0, and the mode of the distribution is turn 1, meaning a meaningful cluster of copies come down in the opening sequence when a player holds the right Plains or Swamp to reveal. 89% of cast copies finish the game on the battlefield, consistent with a land that sticks unless the board state specifically punishes it.

The data comes from 289 distinct players, with no single player accounting for more than a small share of observations. That spread gives the directional numbers here reasonable breadth across different playgroups and metas.

At a glance

18% of tracked decks in the dataset include Shineshadow Snarl
78% of drawn copies reach play before the game ends
T3.0 median turn of first play, with mode at turn 1
89% battlefield stickiness once the land enters play
289 distinct players contributed data, a well-spread sample

First-cast turn

n=116

35%

10%

26%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3.0 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 16

Cast same turn as drawn 65%

The "good card" funnel

552 brought · 289 players

Brought to game

552

Ever drawn

148

Reached battlefield

116

Still on board at game end

103

78%

Of 552 copies brought to multiplayer games, 148 were drawn, 116 of those were played, and 89% of played copies remained on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -11.6pp

Players who cast this card win 18% of the time (n=114) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=363).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 29% (n=31) — 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 -4.3pp; 95% confidence interval -11.6pp to +3.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

167 instances

2.4%

Library

61.7%

Battlefield

16.8%

Graveyard

7.8%

Exile

Most Shineshadow Snarls that are brought to games never leave the library, which is a structural feature of 100-card singleton. Of observed copies, the large majority finish on the battlefield, as expected for a land.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Killian, Decisive Mentor and Y'shtola, Night's Blessed lead the list by deck count, and the distribution across the top ten is spread enough to confirm Shineshadow Snarl's role as a general Orzhov mana-base piece rather than a commander-specific include.

Frequently Asked

How often is Shineshadow Snarl drawn in a Commander game?

Across 515 tracked multiplayer games where Shineshadow Snarl was in the deck, it was drawn 27% of the time. That is consistent with what you'd expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 148 instances that reached a player's hand, 78% were played before the game ended.

What turn does Shineshadow Snarl usually hit the battlefield?

The median first-play turn is 3.0, but the distribution skews early: the single most common turn is turn 1, when a player holds a Plains or Swamp in their opening hand and can reveal it to enter untapped. The p75 sits at turn 6, so the range is wide. Early entry is the goal, and the data shows players achieve it frequently.

Does Shineshadow Snarl entering untapped matter in practice?

The hand-to-cast data shows a same-turn play rate of 65%, meaning most copies are played the same turn they are drawn. That is consistent with players having the reveal condition satisfied when they pick up the land, or choosing to deploy it immediately when they do. A tapped land on turn 1 is a meaningful tempo loss in Commander, so the conditional matters early in the game.

Is Shineshadow Snarl legal in Commander?

Yes. Shineshadow Snarl is legal in Commander, as well as in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Duel Commander, Brawl, Gladiator, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. Its color identity is White and Black, so it fits any Commander deck whose commander's color identity includes both W and B.

Which commanders most often run Shineshadow Snarl?

In the multiplayer tracked data, the top commanders by raw deck count are Killian, Decisive Mentor and Y'shtola, Night's Blessed, both Orzhov or allied commanders that naturally fit the W/B mana base. The spread across the top-ten list is broad, with many commanders sitting in the single digits of decks. That reflects the land's role as a mana-base staple rather than a commander-specific engine piece.

How sticky is Shineshadow Snarl once it hits the battlefield?

89% of cast copies end the game on the battlefield. Lands are rarely interacted with directly in Commander, so this is expected. The final zone distribution shows a small number finishing in the graveyard or exile, which typically reflects land destruction or sacrifice effects rather than anything inherent to the card.