Live Play Data

Shineshadow Snarl

Land · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

17%

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

1253

Decks Running

636

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

76%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

17% of tracked Commander decks running White and Black include Shineshadow Snarl, and 76% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 3.

Shineshadow Snarl earns its slot in the Orzhov mana base. Playgroup Live tracks 17% inclusion across 636 of the 3790 distinct decks that have played a recorded game, and when players draw it, 76% of the time it makes it onto the battlefield.

The card's core mechanic rewards hand density. Revealing a Plains or Swamp on entry lets it enter untapped, so how quickly it resolves depends partly on your opening grip. Median first cast lands on turn 3, and the most common single turn is turn 1, suggesting many players do catch it in their opening hand. Once it resolves, it stays: battlefield stickiness sits at 92%, which is expected for a basic-producing dual land with no inherent sacrifice clause.

The commander spread is wide and dominated by White-Black pairings, exactly the color identities that can include this land. Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads the deck count, followed by Killian, Decisive Mentor. The data comes from 569 distinct players, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for under 2% of instances, so the sample is well-distributed across the community.

At a glance

17% of tracked Commander decks include Shineshadow Snarl
76% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T3 median first-cast turn, with turn 1 as the single most common cast turn
92% battlefield stickiness once the land enters play
569 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
26% draw rate, consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck

First-cast turn

n=249

31%

15%

24%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 18

Cast same turn as drawn 61%

The "good card" funnel

1256 brought · 569 players

Brought to game

1256

Ever drawn

328

Reached battlefield

249

Still on board at game end

228

76%

Of 1256 Shineshadow Snarls brought to games, 328 were drawn, 249 of those were cast, and the vast majority remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ -10.0pp

Players who cast this card win 19% of the time (n=224) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=781).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 35% (n=71) — 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 -4.6pp; 95% confidence interval -10.0pp to +0.7pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

364 instances

2.5%

Library

62.6%

Battlefield

16.8%

Graveyard

5.2%

Exile

Most of the final-zone mass sits on the battlefield, reflecting that Shineshadow Snarl almost never leaves play once it enters. The small library slice represents decks that simply never drew it.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 111 decks
2 Killian, Decisive Mentor 76 decks
3 Terra, Herald of Hope 50 decks
4 Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit 37 decks
5 Eriette of the Charmed Apple 17 decks
6 Teysa Karlov 17 decks
7 Silverquill, the Disputant 15 decks
8 Liesa, Shroud of Dusk 14 decks
9 Clavileño, First of the Blessed 13 decks
10 Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir 13 decks

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads the commander list by a clear margin, but the spread across ten or more distinct commanders confirms the card is a format-wide Orzhov staple rather than a one-deck card.

Card text

Shineshadow Snarl

Land

As this land enters, you may reveal a Plains or Swamp card from your hand. If you don't, this land enters tapped. {T}

: Add

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC) · Rare · Illustrated by Sam Burley

Frequently Asked

How often is Shineshadow Snarl drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1195 tracked games where the card was in a deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That is a typical draw rate for a singleton land in a 100-card deck. Of 328 instances that reached a hand, 76% were played before the game concluded.

What turn does Shineshadow Snarl usually enter the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 3, and the mean sits at roughly turn 4. The mode is turn 1, which reflects the subset of players who catch it in their opening hand and slam it immediately. The distribution then thins out through the mid-game, with a secondary cluster around turns 5-7 for copies drawn later.

Does Shineshadow Snarl usually enter untapped?

The card enters untapped only when you reveal a Plains or Swamp from your hand. We do not directly track enter-tapped versus enter-untapped events, but the same-turn cast rate of 61% shows that when players draw it, most play it immediately rather than holding it. That suggests players often have the reveal condition in hand, though the mechanic will fail in lean or non-basic-heavy builds.

Is Shineshadow Snarl legal in Commander?

Yes. Shineshadow Snarl is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. In Commander it can only slot into decks whose color identity includes both White and Black.

Which commanders use Shineshadow Snarl most often?

Among tracked decks, Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads with the highest deck count, followed by Killian, Decisive Mentor and Terra, Herald of Hope. The list skews heavily toward Orzhov (White-Black) commanders, with a few Mardu and Esper commanders that also cover both colors. The spread is wide: 569 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game, and no single player dominates the sample.

How reliable is this data?

The multiplayer stats draw from 1195 tracked games and 1256 instances brought to a game, with 364 observed participations providing direct evidence of the card being seen or moved. The data comes from 569 unique players, with the top contributor accounting for well under 5% of instances. That breadth makes the directional signals here more robust than a small concentrated sample would be. Still, treat win-rate comparisons as early signals rather than definitive conclusions.