Live Play Data

Sunlit Marsh

Land — Plains Swamp · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

Live Inclusion

Buy on TCGplayer

Times Brought

539

Decks Running

287

Median Cast Turn

3.0

Drawn → Played

77%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

8% of tracked Commander decks in Playgroup Live's White-Black color space run Sunlit Marsh. When drawn, 77% of copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 3.0.

Sunlit Marsh is a common dual land that taps for either White or Black mana, entering the battlefield tapped. It appears in 287 of the 3790 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, a 8% inclusion rate that reflects its role as a budget-friendly fixing option for Orzhov and allied color identities.

The draw-to-play rate sits at 77%: when a copy reaches a player's hand, the vast majority resolve onto the battlefield before the game ends. Median first cast lands on turn 3.0, consistent with a land played early to smooth out color fixing. 267 distinct players have brought the card to a tracked game, and no single player accounts for more than 93% of total stickiness, meaning the data is well spread across the player base.

As a Plains-Swamp dual, Sunlit Marsh is fetchable by basic-land search effects and slots cleanly into any Black-White or three-color Commander deck that touches those colors. It competes with pricier options like Godless Shrine and Isolated Chapel, but its zero-dollar price tag keeps it in consistent rotation among casual and budget builds alike.

At a glance

8% of tracked Commander decks in the dataset include Sunlit Marsh
28% draw rate across tracked games, typical for a singleton land
77% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T3.0 median turn of first cast, reflecting early color-fixing use
93% battlefield stickiness once played
267 distinct players have brought Sunlit Marsh to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=116

31%

10%

25%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3.0 P25 1 · P75 7 · max 16

Cast same turn as drawn 65%

The "good card" funnel

539 brought · 267 players

Brought to game

539

Ever drawn

151

Reached battlefield

116

Still on board at game end

108

77%

Of 539 copies brought to games, 151 were drawn, 116 of those were cast onto the battlefield, and the overwhelming majority stayed there through the end of the game.

≥ -6.2pp

Players who cast this card win 23% of the time (n=106) , vs 21% when it never left the library (n=324).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 20% (n=32) — 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 +2.1pp; 95% confidence interval -6.2pp to +10.5pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

167 instances

4.2%

Library

64.7%

Battlefield

14.4%

Graveyard

2.4%

Exile

Most observed Sunlit Marsh copies end the game on the battlefield, which makes sense for a land played early and rarely interacted with. The library bucket is small because lands generate move events as soon as they're played.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 96 decks
2 Killian, Decisive Mentor 67 decks
3 Terra, Herald of Hope 42 decks
4 Eriette of the Charmed Apple 5 decks
5 Teysa Karlov 4 decks
6 Killian, Ink Duelist 3 decks
7 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic 3 decks
8 Zoraline, Cosmos Caller 3 decks
9 Ardbert, Warrior of Darkness 2 decks
10 Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim 2 decks

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads by deck count, but the commander list spans White-Black, Esper, and Mardu color identities, showing Sunlit Marsh sees play across the full range of decks that touch White and Black.

Card text

Sunlit Marsh

Land — Plains Swamp

(

: Add

.) This land enters tapped.

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC) · Common · Illustrated by Marc Simonetti

Frequently Asked

How often is Sunlit Marsh drawn in a Commander game?

Across 511 tracked games where Sunlit Marsh was in the deck, it was drawn 28% of the time. That is consistent with what you'd expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 151 instances that reached a player's hand, 77% were played onto the battlefield before the game concluded.

What turn does Sunlit Marsh typically enter the battlefield?

The median first-cast turn is 3.0. The distribution clusters early: a large share of casts happen on turn 1, capturing opening hands that include the land. The spread extends into the mid-game for copies drawn later, which is normal for a fixing land that players play as soon as they draw it. 65% of drawn copies are played on the same turn they were drawn, confirming players don't hold it.

Is Sunlit Marsh legal in Commander and other formats?

Sunlit Marsh is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Pauper (including Pauper Commander), Vintage, Duel Commander, Historic, Timeless, Brawl, Gladiator, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard, Alchemy, or Premodern. Its common rarity makes it one of the few dual lands legal in Pauper Commander.

Which commanders most often run Sunlit Marsh in tracked games?

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads the list with the most decks bringing Sunlit Marsh to a tracked game, followed by Killian, Decisive Mentor and Terra, Herald of Hope. The distribution is fairly spread: 267 distinct players have brought the card, and no single player dominates the sample, which gives the data reasonable breadth for a card at this inclusion rate.

Does casting Sunlit Marsh actually improve your win rate?

The cast-vs-library delta is very close to zero on the current sample. That is expected for a basic dual land: it fixes mana but doesn't generate card advantage or board presence on its own. The win rate signal here is directional at best. Both observation buckets have solid sample sizes, and what we see so far suggests Sunlit Marsh is a mana-smoothing piece rather than a win condition. Its value is structural, not statistical.

How does Sunlit Marsh compare to other Black-White dual lands?

Sunlit Marsh enters tapped, which is the key trade-off versus lands like Godless Shrine or Concealed Courtyard that can enter untapped. In exchange, it costs nothing at the card-market level and has the Plains and Swamp subtypes, making it fetchable by spells that search for a basic Plains or Swamp. For budget Commander builds that cannot access shocklands or checklands, it fills the same color-fixing role at a significant cost reduction.