Live Play Data

Temple of the False God

Land · Secrets of Strixhaven Commander (SOC)

11%

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

3157

Decks Running

1757

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

81%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

11% of tracked Commander decks run Temple of the False God, and 81% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 5.

Temple of the False God sits in 11% of the 16624 distinct Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, a consistent signal for a colorless land whose only job is to produce two mana at once. The external deckbuilding dataset places it at roughly 11.7% of all tracked decklists, tightly in line with what we see in live play.

The defining number is draw-to-play: 81% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends. That is high for a land with a meaningful restriction. The card does nothing until you control five lands, which means players who draw it early sometimes sit on it for a turn or two. The median hand-to-cast delay is one turn, and 47% of casts happen the same turn the card is drawn, suggesting that by the time most players see it, the threshold is already met. Median first-cast turn is 5, squarely in the mid-game window when that double colorless starts mattering most.

The commander spread is broad. 1181 distinct players have brought Temple of the False God to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 1% of all instances. That breadth reflects the land's colorless identity: it slots into any deck willing to wait for land number five.

At a glance

11% of tracked Commander decks include Temple of the False God
81% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
T5 median first-cast turn, right when the five-land threshold typically clicks
91% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
1181 distinct players have contributed data, one of the widest spreads in the dataset
47% of casts happen the same turn the land is drawn

First-cast turn

n=645

18%

21%

41%

T6-9

T10+

Median 5 P25 4 · P75 7 · max 21

Cast same turn as drawn 47%

The "good card" funnel

3167 brought · 1181 players

Brought to game

3167

Ever drawn

799

Reached battlefield

645

Still on board at game end

586

81%

Of 3167 copies brought to tracked games, 799 were drawn, 645 of those resolved onto the battlefield, and 91% of resolved copies stayed there through end of game.

≥ +2.7pp

Players who cast this card win 28% of the time (n=597) , vs 22% when it never left the library (n=1968).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 20% (n=132) — 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 +6.4pp; 95% confidence interval +2.7pp to +10.1pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

896 instances

3.9%

Library

65.4%

Battlefield

13.2%

Graveyard

3.9%

Exile

The vast majority of Temple of the False God copies never leave the library in any given game, a structural result of 100-card singleton rather than a reflection of the card's quality. Of those that do surface, most finish on the battlefield.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The top commanders span four distinct color combinations, a direct consequence of the card's colorless identity. No single commander archetype dominates the list, which mirrors how evenly the land is distributed across the broader metagame.

Frequently Asked

How often is Temple of the False God drawn in a Commander game?

Across 2730 tracked multiplayer games where the card was in the deck, Temple of the False God was drawn 25% of the time. That is close to the expected rate for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 799 instances that reached a hand, 81% were played before the game concluded.

What turn does Temple of the False God usually enter the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 5. The interquartile range runs from turn 4 to turn 7, meaning half of all casts land in that window. The mode is also turn 5, which is the earliest most players can reliably have five lands in play. A small cluster of turn-1 and turn-2 casts almost certainly reflects games with heavy ramp or a lucky opening hand that still counted toward the distribution.

Does casting Temple of the False God actually improve your odds of winning?

In the current dataset, games where the card was cast show a 28% win rate against a 22% baseline for games where it sat in the library. The difference is a positive directional signal, but the confidence interval just touches zero on the lower bound, so treat it as early signal rather than a firm conclusion. Both sample sizes are well above 15, which makes the trend worth watching as more games are tracked.

Why does Temple of the False God see play across so many different commanders?

The card is colorless and costs nothing to add to a land slot, so any deck willing to accept the five-land restriction can run it. On Playgroup Live the top commanders range from midrange value decks to eldrazi ramp strategies, spanning every color combination. That breadth is reflected in the concentration stat: 1181 unique players have contributed instances, and no single player accounts for more than a small fraction of the dataset.

How long do players hold Temple of the False God before playing it?

Among instances that were both drawn and cast, the median wait is one turn and the mean is 1.24 turns. 47% of those casts happened on the same turn the land was drawn. The maximum observed delay was five turns. The pattern suggests most players who draw it are already at or near five lands and play it immediately.

Is Temple of the False God legal in Commander?

Yes. Temple of the False God is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Vintage, Premodern, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Pauper, Brawl, or Historic. It has never been banned in Commander despite long-running community debate about its reliability.