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collections_bookmark Part of Lorwyn Eclipsed
Steam Vents card art
Live Play Data

Steam Vents

Land — Island Mountain · Lorwyn Eclipsed (ECL)
33%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
857
Decks Running
480
Median Cast Turn
3.0
Drawn → Played
77%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

Steam Vents appears in 33% of tracked multiplayer Commander decks and, once drawn, reaches the battlefield 77% of the time, with a median first-cast turn of 3.0.

Steam Vents is the Izzet dual land of choice across Playgroup Live's tracked pods. 33% of the 1452 distinct Commander decks in our dataset run it, making it one of the most-played non-basic lands in the red-blue slice of the format.

The play pattern is clean: players cast it on turn 3.0 at the median, and 77% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends. That high conversion rate reflects both the card's low opportunity cost and how eagerly mana-hungry Commander decks deploy every land they can. 93% of cast copies survive to end of game, consistent with lands being among the hardest permanents to remove.

The data comes from 378 distinct players, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 3% of all instances. That spread gives the numbers reasonable breadth for a dataset of this size, though Playgroup Live's overall game count means all figures are best read as directional signals rather than statistically definitive conclusions.

At a glance
  • 33% of tracked Commander decks include Steam Vents
  • T3.0 median first-cast turn, with the mode at turn 1
  • 77% of drawn copies reach the battlefield
  • 93% battlefield stickiness once cast
  • 378 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game
  • 31% draw rate per game where it's in the deck

First-cast turn

n=206
27%
T1
17%
T2
11%
T3
14%
T4
10%
T5
17%
T6-9
4%
T10+
Median 3.0 P25 1 · P75 5 · max 13
Cast same turn as drawn 58%

The "good card" funnel

862 brought · 378 players
Brought to game
862
Ever drawn
266
Reached battlefield
206
Still on board at game end
191
77%

Of 862 Steam Vents brought to games, 266 were drawn, 206 of those were cast, and nearly all of them remained on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -6.7pp

Players who cast this card win 26% of the time (n=205) , vs 27% when it never left the library (n=553).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 25% (n=60) — 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 -0.4pp; 95% confidence interval -6.7pp to +5.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

288 instances
2.4%
Library
66.3%
Battlefield
12.5%
Graveyard
5.2%
Exile

The vast majority of Steam Vents copies finish on the battlefield, a pattern driven by lands being nearly immune to removal and by players deploying them early and keeping them all game.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans two-color Izzet builds up to five-color piles, reflecting that any deck touching blue and red has a reason to run Steam Vents.

Frequently Asked

How often is Steam Vents drawn in a Commander game?
In 737 tracked multiplayer games where Steam Vents was in the deck, it was drawn 31% of the time. That is roughly in line with what you would expect for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 266 drawn instances, 77% were cast before the game ended.
What turn does Steam Vents typically enter the battlefield?
Median first cast is turn 3.0, with the most common single turn being turn 1. The interquartile range runs from turn 1 to turn 5, so many copies land in the opening sequence of the game. Players who draw it later tend to cast it promptly: the hand-to-cast same-turn rate is 58%, meaning more than half of drawn-and-cast copies are played on the very turn they were drawn.
Does casting Steam Vents correlate with winning?
In 205 participations where Steam Vents reached the battlefield, the normalized win rate is 26%. In 553 participations where it stayed in the library the whole game, that rate is 27%. The raw delta is -0.4 percentage points. With the lower bound of the confidence interval near zero on this sample size, treat this as a directional early signal rather than a proven causal effect. Lands smooth mana; smoother mana correlates with more consistent game plans.
Is Steam Vents legal in Commander?
Yes. Steam Vents is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Alchemy, Standard, and most other major formats. It is not legal in Pauper or Pauper Commander due to its rare rarity, and it is not legal in Old School or Premodern due to print date restrictions.
Which commanders run Steam Vents most often?
Among tracked decks, The Ur-Dragon leads the list by raw deck count, followed by Ashling, the Limitless and a cluster of Izzet (UR) commanders including Prismari, the Inspiration and Vivi Ornitier. The presence of five-color commanders at the top reflects how broadly useful an untapped Island Mountain is across any deck touching blue and red. Pure Izzet commanders dominate the proportion-based list, where Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man shows the highest inclusion rate among decks with meaningful sample counts.
How concentrated is the Steam Vents data across players?
378 distinct players have brought Steam Vents to a tracked game on Playgroup Live, and the single most active contributor accounts for just 3% of all instances. That is well below the threshold where one player could meaningfully skew the aggregate numbers, and it is one of the stronger signals that this card's data reflects broad community behavior rather than a single pilot's preferences.