Live Play Data

Thundering Falls

Land — Island Mountain · Murders at Karlov Manor (MKM)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

419

Decks Running

210

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

75%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

6% of tracked Izzet-accessible Commander decks run Thundering Falls, and 75% of drawn copies reach the battlefield, with a median first-cast turn of 3.

Thundering Falls is a Rare dual land from Murders at Karlov Manor that taps for blue or red, enters tapped, and immediately lets you surveil 1. In 405 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, it appears in 210 of 3329 distinct decks, an inclusion rate of 6%.

The surveil trigger on entry makes this more than a simple dual. 75% of drawn copies are played before the game ends, and the median first land-drop falls on turn 3. 66% of drawn-and-played copies hit the table the same turn they were drawn, consistent with players treating it as a near-automatic play whenever it is in hand. Once on the battlefield, it stays there: 92% stickiness reflects how rarely lands are removed in Commander.

The data is well-spread across 191 unique players, with the single heaviest contributor accounting for just 5% of all tracked instances, which adds credibility to the directional patterns we see here.

At a glance

6% of tracked Commander decks include Thundering Falls
75% of drawn copies are played before the game ends
T3 median first-cast turn
66% of drawn copies are played the same turn they are drawn
92% battlefield stickiness once played
191 unique players in the dataset, indicating a well-spread sample

First-cast turn

n=125

35%

13%

11%

10%

22%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3 P25 1 · P75 5 · max 14

Cast same turn as drawn 66%

The "good card" funnel

420 brought · 191 players

Brought to game

420

Ever drawn

167

Reached battlefield

125

Still on board at game end

115

75%

Of 420 Thundering Falls brought to games, 167 were drawn, 125 of those were played, and the vast majority remained on the battlefield through end of game.

≥ -5.8pp

Players who cast this card win 31% of the time (n=122) , vs 28% when it never left the library (n=202).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 44% (n=40) — 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 +3.8pp; 95% confidence interval -5.8pp to +13.3pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

182 instances

2.2%

Library

63.2%

Battlefield

17.6%

Graveyard

4.4%

Exile

Most Thundering Falls copies end the game on the battlefield, consistent with lands being nearly impossible to permanently remove in Commander. The library bucket is small because lands enter play rather than being cast from hand in the traditional sense.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Vivi Ornitier 13 decks
2 Flubs, the Fool 10 decks
3 Prismari, the Inspiration 10 decks
4 Alania, Divergent Storm 8 decks
5 Tony Stark // The Invincible Iron Man 8 decks
6 Nekusar, the Mindrazer 7 decks
7 Fire Lord Azula 6 decks
8 Iron Man, Titan of Innovation 6 decks
9 Kefka, Court Mage // Kefka, Ruler of Ruin 5 decks
10 The Emperor of Palamecia // The Lord Master of Hell 5 decks

The commander list skews heavily toward Izzet two-color commanders, with Alania, Divergent Storm and Flubs, the Fool tied at the top. No single commander dominates, suggesting the land slots into a wide range of Izzet and Grixis strategies rather than one niche build.

Frequently Asked

How often is Thundering Falls drawn in a Commander game?

In 405 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Thundering Falls was in the deck, it was drawn 40% of the time. That figure reflects singleton variance in a 100-card deck. Of 167 instances that reached a player's hand, 75% were played before the game ended.

What turn does Thundering Falls usually hit the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 3, with the mode sitting at turn 1, meaning a notable cluster of copies came down from opening hands. The 25th percentile is turn 1 and the 75th is turn 6, so there is a wide spread. The distribution reflects both early-hand draws and later topdecks. 66% of copies are played the same turn they are drawn, a strong signal that players rarely hold this land back once they have it.

Does casting Thundering Falls correlate with winning?

There is a directional positive signal. Win rate in participations where Thundering Falls was cast is 31%, versus 28% in participations where it stayed in the library. That is a delta of +3.8 percentage points. Both buckets have reasonable sample sizes, but the confidence interval on this dataset still crosses zero, so treat it as an early directional signal rather than a firm conclusion.

Is Thundering Falls banned anywhere?

Thundering Falls is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, and most other sanctioned formats as of its release in Murders at Karlov Manor. It is not legal in Pauper or Pauper Commander due to its Rare printing.

Which commanders most often run Thundering Falls?

The top commanders in the dataset are concentrated in Izzet (blue-red) color identities, with Alania, Divergent Storm and Flubs, the Fool each leading at 8 decks. Prismari, the Inspiration and Tony Stark round out the next tier. Grixis commanders such as Nekusar, the Mindrazer also appear, showing the card slots cleanly into any deck with both blue and red in its identity.

How reliable is the Playgroup Live sample for this card?

Thundering Falls has been observed in 182 meaningful instances across 405 tracked games, contributed by 191 unique players. The heaviest single contributor accounts for just 5% of all instances, so the data is well-distributed. These are directional numbers from a growing live-play dataset, not large-scale decklist aggregation, but the spread across players strengthens confidence in the patterns shown here.