Live Play Data

Sunken Hollow

Land — Island Swamp · Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Eternal (TMC)

Deck Inclusion

Games Tracked

241

Decks Running

184

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

69%

Sunken Hollow lands on the battlefield in 47% of participations where it's cast, and decks that play it win 47% of games when it hits the table — 16.6 points above the win rate when it stays buried in the library.

Sunken Hollow appears in 9.3% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live, a figure that reflects its strict color-identity gate: only Blue-Black and Blue-Black-X commanders can run it. Within that pool, it is a reliable dual land that produces either {U} or {B} and counts as both an Island and a Swamp for synergy purposes.

The win-rate split is the most striking signal in the data. Participations where Sunken Hollow was cast closed with a win 47% of the time (18 of 38), versus 31% when it sat in the library all game. That +16.6-point delta is consistent with what you'd expect from a land that smooths your mana on the turns that matter most. Both sample buckets are large enough to treat the gap as a meaningful directional finding, though Playgroup Live's overall dataset is still growing. The 58% same-turn play rate suggests players cast it promptly when it arrives — the median hand-delay is zero turns.

The entry condition (enters tapped unless you control two or more basic lands) makes Sunken Hollow slightly weaker in greedy non-basic-heavy builds, but across the Dimir and Grixis pods tracked here it lands untapped often enough to stay attractive.

At a glance

9.3% inclusion rate across all tracked Commander decks
167 distinct decks running Sunken Hollow in tracked games
22% draw rate, in line with singleton expectations
65% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
+16.6pp win-rate lift when cast versus when it stays in the library
T4 median first-cast turn across 38 observed casts

First-cast turn

n=46

20%

15%

13%

11%

28%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4 P25 2 · P75 6 · max 10

Cast same turn as drawn 57%

The "good card" funnel

268 brought

Brought to game

268

Ever drawn

Reached battlefield

Still on board at game end

69%

Of 233 Sunken Hollows brought to games, 52 were drawn, 38 of those were cast, and all 38 were still on the battlefield when the game ended — a clean zero-attrition exit for a land that opponents have little incentive to remove.

+11.8pp

Players who cast this card win 46% of the time (n=46) , vs 34% when it never left the library (n=198).

Final zone distribution

268 instances

73.9%

Library

16.4%

Battlefield

4.1%

Graveyard

0.4%

Exile

172 of 233 brought copies never left the library, which is normal for a singleton land in a 100-card deck and says nothing negative about the card's power level.

Top commanders running this card

by deck count

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed accounts for 19 decks — more than twice any other commander — but the remaining nine commanders span Dimir, Grixis, and five-color builds, showing broad Blue-Black reach rather than a narrow metagame pocket.

Frequently Asked

How often is Sunken Hollow actually drawn in a Commander game? ▾

Across 232 deck-participations tracked on Playgroup Live, Sunken Hollow was drawn 52 times — a draw rate of 22%. That is typical for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 52 drawn instances, 38 were cast before the game ended, giving a draw-to-play rate of 65%.

What does the win-rate delta mean for Sunken Hollow? ▾

Decks that cast Sunken Hollow won 47% of their games (18 of 38 participations). Decks where it sat in the library all game won 31% of the time (53 of 172). The +16.6-point gap is a directional signal that playing this land correlates with better outcomes, most likely because it smooths early mana in Blue-Black shells that need both colors reliably. It is not proof of causation, but the sample sizes on both sides are healthy enough to treat it seriously.

Does Sunken Hollow enter tapped very often? ▾

The stats don't directly track enters-tapped events, so we can't give a precise percentage. The oracle text says it enters tapped unless you control two or more basic lands. Most Blue-Black Commander decks run enough basics to trigger the condition regularly, but heavily optimized non-basic mana bases may find it tapped more often. The 58% same-turn play rate and median zero-turn hand delay suggest players aren't holding it back — they play it the turn they draw it.

Which commanders most commonly run Sunken Hollow? ▾

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads with 19 decks in the tracked sample, roughly double the next tier. Abaddon the Despoiler, Captain N'ghathrod, Heroes in a Half Shell, and Sauron, Lord of the Rings each appear in 8 decks. The spread across Dimir, Grixis, and five-color commanders confirms Sunken Hollow is a general Blue-Black staple rather than a build-around for any single archetype.

Is Sunken Hollow legal in the formats I care about? ▾

Sunken Hollow is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Duel Commander, Brawl, Gladiator, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. It is not legal in PreDH, which cuts off at a set-legality horizon that predates Sunken Hollow's original printing.

How sticky is Sunken Hollow once it hits the battlefield? ▾

Of the 38 cast instances in the tracked data, all 38 ended the game on the battlefield — a stickiness rate of 100%. That is what you'd expect from a basic-land-type dual: there is almost no reason for an opponent to target it with removal, and it generates no triggered effects that would move it elsewhere. This number may normalize as the sample grows, but lands routinely show very high stickiness in Commander.