Underground River
Underground River appears in 6.6% of tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live. When drawn, 68% of copies are cast before the game ends, with a median first-cast turn of 6.
Underground River sits in 6.6% of the 1,706 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, appearing in 112 distinct decklists. That figure reflects its color-identity constraint: the land is only eligible for decks running Blue and/or Black, which immediately narrows the eligible pool.
Of the 34 instances drawn across 146 tracked games, 68% were cast before the game ended. That draw-to-play rate is broadly typical for a dual land that players want to deploy as soon as possible. Median first-cast turn lands at 6, later than you might expect. The turn-1 spike in the distribution (6 of 24 casts) captures hands where it was kept as a turn-1 land drop; the rest cluster in the mid-game as players draw into it off-curve.
Underground River is legal in Commander and every major non-rotating format except Pauper, where rare cards are ineligible. It remains a budget-adjacent alternative to Underground Sea for Dimir and three-color Blue-Black shells.
- 6.6% inclusion rate across all tracked Commander decks
- 112 distinct tracked decks running Underground River
- 68% of drawn copies are cast before the game ends
- T6 median first-cast turn
- 88% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
- 65% of drawn-and-cast copies were played the same turn they were drawn
First-cast turn
n=37The "good card" funnel
227 brought158 copies were brought to games, 34 were drawn (22%), 24 of those were cast (68% draw-to-play), and 21 ended on the battlefield. That final-zone number slightly exceeds cast count because some copies may have entered via non-cast effects.
Players who cast this card win 30% of the time (n=37) , vs 38% when it never left the library (n=172).
Final zone distribution
227 instances121 of 158 brought copies ended the game in the library, which is expected for any singleton in a 100-card deck. Of the 21 that reached the battlefield, most stayed there: battlefield stickiness is 88%, consistent with lands rarely being removed.
Top commanders running this card
by deck count-
1
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed
31 decks
-
2
Sauron, the Dark Lord
15 decks
-
3
Sauron, Lord of the Rings
9 decks
-
4
Ulalek, Fused Atrocity
9 decks
-
5
Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver
8 decks
-
6
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
8 decks
-
7
Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima
7 decks
-
8
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
7 decks
-
9
Phenax, God of Deception
5 decks
-
10
Varina, Lich Queen
5 decks
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed dominates the top slot with 21 decks, nearly three times the count of the second-ranked commander. Below that the distribution flattens across Grixis, Dimir, and five-color shells, showing Underground River is a genuine multi-archetype include rather than a one-commander card.
How often is Underground River drawn in a Commander game? ▾
Across 157 deck-participations tracked on Playgroup Live, Underground River was drawn in 34 instances, giving a draw rate of 21.5%. That is consistent with what you'd expect from a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of those 34 drawn copies, 24 were cast before the game ended, a draw-to-play rate of 68%.
What turn does Underground River typically hit the battlefield? ▾
The median first-cast turn is 6, with the 25th percentile at turn 3 and the 75th at turn 8. The distribution has a notable early spike: 6 of 24 recorded casts happened on turn 1, capturing games where the land was in the opening hand. The remaining casts spread across turns 3 through 12, reflecting mid-to-late draws.
Does casting Underground River correlate with winning? ▾
In the current dataset, the win rate in games where Underground River was cast sits at 25% (6 wins in 24 participations), right at the baseline expectation for a 4-player pod. The win rate when it stayed in the library is higher at 41%, producing a cast-vs-library delta of -16 percentage points. Both sample sizes are below the threshold for strong conclusions, so treat this as an early directional signal rather than a settled finding. It more likely reflects deck-selection and game-state effects than a cost imposed by the card itself.
Is Underground River banned in any formats? ▾
Underground River is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Duel Commander, Brawl, Gladiator, Oathbreaker, Timeless, and Premodern. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper (rarity restriction), Alchemy, or Pauper Commander. It has no bans in formats where it is otherwise eligible.
Which commanders most commonly play Underground River? ▾
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leads with 21 tracked decks, reflecting her popularity as a Blue-Black-White commander. Sauron, Lord of the Rings and Sauron, the Dark Lord each appear in 7-8 decks, covering the Blue-Black-Red Grixis slice. The distribution is relatively spread across the top 10 commanders, none of which account for more than 19% of the 112 decks including the card.
Why does a land have a 'cast turn' statistic? ▾
On Playgroup Live, land plays are tracked as events when a land enters the battlefield from a player's hand. The 'first cast turn' for Underground River reflects the turn a player chose to tap it into play for the first time in a given game. This allows the same timing analysis applied to spells to be used for lands, capturing how early or late the land contributed colored mana to that deck's game plan.