Live Play Data

Tangled Islet

Land — Forest Island · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

511

Decks Running

266

Median Cast Turn

3.0

Drawn → Played

79%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

79% of drawn Tangled Islets reach the battlefield, and the card lands on the table by turn 3.0 at the median across 502 tracked multiplayer games on Playgroup Live.

Tangled Islet is a common Forest Island dual land that enters tapped, fitting cleanly into any Simic (green-blue) or wider-identity Commander deck. Across 502 tracked multiplayer games, it appears in 266 of 4369 distinct tracked decks, an 6% inclusion rate that reflects its narrow color-identity constraint rather than any weakness.

The most telling number is draw-to-play: 79% of copies that reach a player's hand are played before the game ends. Median first play lands on turn 3.0, with the mode at turn 1, meaning a meaningful cluster of copies come down in the very first land drop of the game. Once it hits the battlefield, 93% of copies remain there through the end of the game. Lands are rarely removed, so that number is structurally high across the format.

Tangled Islet earns its slot as reliable color-fixing for Simic commanders. It does not produce colorless mana and it enters tapped, so it costs a tempo point relative to a basic. In decks that need both green and blue mana consistently, that tradeoff is routine and accepted. The data bears that out: the concentration of this card among 245 distinct players, with no single player exceeding 3% of all tracked instances, suggests widespread adoption rather than one enthusiast skewing the numbers.

At a glance

6% of tracked Commander decks include Tangled Islet
79% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T3.0 median turn of first play, with a mode of turn 1
93% battlefield stickiness once played
245 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game

First-cast turn

n=120

28%

14%

13%

10%

20%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3.0 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 14

Cast same turn as drawn 63%

The "good card" funnel

511 brought · 245 players

Brought to game

511

Ever drawn

151

Reached battlefield

120

Still on board at game end

112

79%

Of 511 Tangled Islets brought to games, 151 were drawn, 120 of those were played, and the overwhelming majority remained on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ -0.5pp

Players who cast this card win 32% of the time (n=113) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=304).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 19% (n=29) — 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 +8.3pp; 95% confidence interval -0.5pp to +17.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

170 instances

2.9%

Library

65.9%

Battlefield

14.1%

Graveyard

2.9%

Exile

The vast majority of Tangled Islets end the game on the battlefield, reflecting the format reality that lands are almost never removed once played. The small graveyard count comes from discard and mill effects rather than targeted destruction.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Zimone, Infinite Analyst accounts for the largest single block of tracked decks, but the list spans a dozen distinct commanders across Simic and Bant identities, showing Tangled Islet is not tied to a single strategy.

Card text

Tangled Islet

Land — Forest Island

(

: Add

.) This land enters tapped.

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC) · Common · Illustrated by Randy Gallegos

Frequently Asked

How often is Tangled Islet drawn in a Commander game?

Across 502 tracked multiplayer games, Tangled Islet was drawn 30% of the time when it was in the deck. That is a normal draw rate for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 151 copies that reached a hand, 79% were played before the game ended.

What turn does Tangled Islet usually hit the battlefield?

Median first-play turn is 3.0, and the most common single turn is turn 1. The distribution is front-loaded: a large cluster of copies appear in opening-hand land drops, with the rest spread across the early and mid game. The p75 sits at turn 6, so three quarters of casts land in the first six turns.

Does casting Tangled Islet correlate with winning?

32% of participations where Tangled Islet reached the battlefield ended in a win for that player, compared to 24% when the card stayed in the library. The delta is a directional early signal, not a conclusive finding. Both sample sizes are large enough to be worth noting, but treat this as a trend rather than proof of causation. Lands that fix colors may simply correlate with better-built decks.

Is Tangled Islet legal in Commander?

Yes. Tangled Islet is legal in Commander and in most other major formats including Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Pauper, Vintage, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard or Alchemy. There are no bans or restrictions on this card in any format where it is legal.

Which commanders most often run Tangled Islet?

Zimone, Infinite Analyst leads the tracked data by a wide margin, followed by Tidus, Yuna's Guardian and Zimone, Mystery Unraveler. The common thread is a green-blue or green-blue-white color identity, where Tangled Islet taps for either of the core colors. The spread across 245 unique players and no single player exceeding 3% of all instances suggests the pattern is organic.

Why run Tangled Islet over a basic Forest or Island?

Tangled Islet taps for either green or blue, giving mana flexibility that a basic cannot. The cost is that it enters the battlefield tapped, costing one tempo on the turn it is played. That trade is most acceptable in the early turns of a slower game or when holding both colors in the opening hand. In Simic and Bant builds that lean on color consistency, the flexibility tends to outweigh the one-turn delay.