Live Play Data

Undercity Sewers

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

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

562

Decks Running

313

Median Cast Turn

3.0

Drawn → Played

81%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

9% of tracked Dimir-adjacent Commander decks on Playgroup Live run Undercity Sewers. When drawn, it reaches the battlefield 81% of the time, with a median first-play turn of 3.0.

Undercity Sewers is a dual land from Murders at Karlov Manor that taps for blue or black and surveys the top of your library the moment it enters. In the Playgroup Live dataset, it shows up in 9% of tracked decks with blue-black in their color identity, appearing in 313 of the 3490 distinct decks that have played a tracked game.

The draw-to-play rate of 81% is notably high for a tapped land. Players are not leaving it in hand. The median first-play turn of 3.0 reflects a bimodal pattern: 35 copies were played on turn 1 out of an opening hand, while the rest arrived steadily through the mid-game. That surveil trigger makes even a late copy worth playing, since it either cantrips a useful card to the top or clears a dead draw to the graveyard.

The commander spread is genuinely broad. 271 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 4% of all instances. That distribution lends credibility to the numbers across Dimir, Esper, Sultai, and Grixis shells alike.

At a glance

9% inclusion rate among tracked blue-black decks
81% of drawn copies reach the battlefield
T3.0 median first-play turn
91% battlefield stickiness once played
271 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
33% win rate in games where the card reached the battlefield

First-cast turn

n=162

33%

14%

22%

T6-9

T10+

Median 3.0 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 14

Cast same turn as drawn 65%

The "good card" funnel

562 brought · 271 players

Brought to game

562

Ever drawn

201

Reached battlefield

162

Still on board at game end

148

81%

Of 562 copies brought to games, 201 were drawn, 162 of those were cast, and the large majority of cast copies stayed on the battlefield through the end of the game.

≥ -1.5pp

Players who cast this card win 33% of the time (n=155) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=297).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 34% (n=33) — 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 +6.7pp; 95% confidence interval -1.5pp to +14.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

232 instances

2.6%

Library

63.8%

Battlefield

20.3%

Graveyard

5.2%

Exile

Nearly all Undercity Sewers copies that were never interacted with remained in the library, the expected outcome for a singleton in a 100-card deck. The 90 copies that finished on the battlefield represent the card doing its job.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The top commander list spans Esper, Sultai, Grixis, and straight Dimir, with Y'shtola at 11 decks leading a well-spread field. No single commander claims a dominant share of Undercity Sewers builds.

Frequently Asked

How often is Undercity Sewers drawn in a Commander game?

Across 543 tracked games where Undercity Sewers was in the deck, it was drawn 36% of the time. That is consistent with a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 201 copies that reached a hand, 81% were played before the game ended. The surveil trigger gives players an extra incentive to play it even when mana is not immediately needed.

What turn does Undercity Sewers typically hit the battlefield?

The median first-play turn is 3.0. The distribution has a strong early cluster: 35 of 100 cast instances landed on turn 1, drawn in the opening hand. The rest spread across turns 2 through 14, with the interquartile range running from turn 1 to turn 6. The surveil effect is equally useful at any point in the game, which helps explain why players play it rather than hold it.

Does casting Undercity Sewers actually improve your win rate?

In 155 tracked participations where the card reached the battlefield, the normalized win rate was 33%. In 297 participations where it stayed in the library, the rate was 26%. The +6.7 percentage-point gap is a directional early signal, not a definitive finding. Both sample sizes are meaningful but not large enough to rule out variance.

Is Undercity Sewers legal in Commander?

Yes. Undercity Sewers is legal in Commander, Duel Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Historic, Alchemy, Vintage, Brawl, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Pauper or Pauper Commander due to its rare rarity, and it is not legal in Old School or Premodern.

What commanders most commonly run Undercity Sewers?

On Playgroup Live, Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads with 11 decks, followed by Teval, the Balanced Scale at 9 and Indominus Rex, Alpha at 8. The spread across Esper, Sultai, Grixis, and straight Dimir commanders reflects how broadly the card fits any two-color shell that includes blue and black. No single commander dominates the list.

How concentrated is the Undercity Sewers data among players?

The data is well spread. 271 distinct players have brought Undercity Sewers to at least one tracked game. The single heaviest contributor accounts for just 4% of all instances. That makes this one of the more evenly distributed cards in the Playgroup Live dataset, which gives extra weight to the directional patterns we observe.