Live Play Data

Strip Mine

Land · Vintage Masters (VMA)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

770

Decks Running

424

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

73%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

73% of drawn Strip Mines are activated before the game ends, with a median first-cast turn of 5 across 697 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live.

Strip Mine sits in 2% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, a modest share that reflects its niche role rather than any lack of power. The card is zero mana to play and costs nothing to include in any color identity, yet players reserve it for specific strategies rather than running it as a blanket staple.

When Strip Mine does reach a hand, 73% of copies are activated before the game concludes. Median activation lands on turn 5, which is later than you might expect for a free land. That delay is consistent with the card being held for the right target rather than fired the moment it appears. The hand-to-cast data reinforces this: the median wait in hand before activation is 1 turn, and only 43% of copies are used the same turn they are drawn.

Strip Mine is legal in Commander and Oathbreaker but banned in Legacy, Duel Commander, Premodern, and Historic, and restricted to a single copy in Vintage. Its Commander legality keeps it in circulation for land-destruction builds, Stax shells, and "silver bullet" slots targeting problematic utility lands.

At a glance

2% of tracked Commander decks include Strip Mine
73% of drawn copies are activated before the game ends
T5 median turn of first activation
43% of copies activated the same turn they are drawn
60% of activated Strip Mines remain on the battlefield at game end (sacrificed copies go to graveyard)
322 distinct players have brought Strip Mine to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=169

15%

19%

14%

30%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 3 · P75 7 · max 16

Cast same turn as drawn 43%

The "good card" funnel

770 brought · 322 players

Brought to game

770

Ever drawn

230

Reached battlefield

169

Still on board at game end

102

73%

Of 770 Strip Mines brought to tracked games, 230 were drawn and 169 were activated, with the remainder never leaving the library or hand before the game concluded.

≥ -1.7pp

Players who cast this card win 29% of the time (n=158) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=444).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 39% (n=51) — 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 +5.8pp; 95% confidence interval -1.7pp to +13.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

254 instances

3.9%

Library

40.2%

Battlefield

33.1%

Graveyard

5.5%

Exile

Strip Mine is a sacrifice-to-activate land, so the majority of activated copies end up in the graveyard rather than staying on the battlefield. The large library bucket represents the many copies that were never drawn or interacted with, a structural reality of 100-card singleton decks.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The top-commander list is spread across a wide range of color identities and strategies, from Jund land-matters builds like Hearthhull to colorless shells like Zhulodok. No single archetype dominates, suggesting Strip Mine is slotted as a utility piece across many playstyles rather than being the centerpiece of one strategy.

Card text

Strip Mine

Land

: Add

, Sacrifice this land: Destroy target land.

Vintage Masters (VMA) · Rare · Illustrated by John Avon

Frequently Asked

How often is Strip Mine drawn in a Commander game?

Across 697 tracked multiplayer games where Strip Mine was in the deck, it was drawn 30% of the time. That is on the higher end for a singleton in a 100-card deck, partly because Strip Mine counts as a land and players who include it typically build their mana base around finding it. Of 230 instances that reached a hand, 73% were activated before the game ended.

What turn does Strip Mine usually get activated?

The median first-activation turn is 5, with the interquartile range spanning turns 3 through 6. The distribution shows a spread from as early as turn 1 through turn 12, which is consistent with players holding the card until they identify a high-value land target rather than deploying it immediately. The same-turn activation rate is 43%, confirming that most players sit on it for at least one turn after drawing it.

Does casting Strip Mine actually improve your win rate?

Games where Strip Mine was activated show a 29% normalized win rate across 158 observations, compared to 24% when it stayed in the library across 444 observations. That is a directional positive signal, but the 95% confidence interval on the delta crosses zero given the current sample size. Read it as an early trend rather than a confirmed edge.

Is Strip Mine banned anywhere?

Yes. Strip Mine is banned in Legacy, Duel Commander, Historic, Premodern, Gladiator, and Brawl. It is restricted to one copy in Vintage. It is legal and unrestricted in Commander, which is the format where it sees the most play. Its absence from Pauper Commander reflects its rare printing, not a specific ban.

Which commanders pair most often with Strip Mine?

Hearthhull, the Worldseed leads the top-commanders list with the most Strip Mine decks in the tracked dataset, followed by Zhulodok, Void Gorger and Molecule Man. The spread across commanders is broad: the single heaviest individual player accounts for only 2% of all tracked instances, and 322 distinct players have brought the card to a game, which is a healthy distribution for a niche inclusion.

Why is Strip Mine only in 2% of tracked decks if it is legal in Commander?

Strip Mine's low inclusion rate reflects two things. First, its ability is a one-shot land destruction effect. In most Commander metas, blowing up a single land is a high-tempo play that can generate significant table hostility, so many players omit it unless their deck specifically rewards that interaction. Second, the Playgroup Live dataset skews toward casual and mid-power tables where land destruction is considered politically costly. The card's overall reputation as a powerful tool is not in dispute; its inclusion rate here is a signal about where and how it gets used rather than a verdict on its strength.