Live Play Data

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Legendary Land · Time Spiral Remastered (TSR)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1327

Decks Running

777

Median Cast Turn

4.0

Drawn → Played

82%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

7% of tracked Commander decks run Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. When drawn, 82% of copies reach the battlefield, and once it lands, 86% survive through end of game.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth earns its slot in 7% of the 10408 tracked Commander decks on Playgroup Live. Its colorless identity makes it a free inclusion in any black-adjacent build, and the data reflects that broad appeal: 496 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, with no single player accounting for more than 3% of all instances.

The play pattern is straightforward but telling. Median first cast lands on turn 4.0, consistent with a land played early when drawn. Of drawn copies, 82% reach the battlefield before the game ends. Once it resolves, 86% stickiness tells you that Urborg very rarely gets answered. It does not generate mana on its own, but as a force multiplier for every other Swamp-matters piece in a deck, its staying power is a meaningful edge.

The commander distribution is wide. The top commander slots are contested by multi-color black builds ranging from Edgar Markov to Marrow-Gnawer to Y'shtola, Night's Blessed, confirming that Urborg functions as a colorless fixer and synergy piece across the full breadth of black strategies rather than as a card belonging to any single archetype.

At a glance

7% of tracked Commander decks include Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
82% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before game end
T4.0 median first-cast turn across tracked games
86% battlefield stickiness once it resolves
496 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, showing broad spread
30% normalized win rate in games where Urborg was cast

First-cast turn

n=286

10%

19%

13%

12%

25%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4.0 P25 2 · P75 6 · max 16

Cast same turn as drawn 48%

The "good card" funnel

1331 brought · 496 players

Brought to game

1331

Ever drawn

350

Reached battlefield

286

Still on board at game end

247

82%

Of 1331 Urborg copies brought to tracked games, 350 were drawn, 286 of those were cast onto the battlefield, and 86% of resolved copies survived through the end of the game.

≥ -0.2pp

Players who cast this card win 30% of the time (n=278) , vs 24% when it never left the library (n=856).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 35% (n=63) — 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 +5.4pp; 95% confidence interval -0.2pp to +11.0pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

400 instances

2.8%

Library

61.8%

Battlefield

16.3%

Graveyard

6.8%

Exile

The vast majority of Urborg copies never leave the library in any given game, a structural reality of 100-card singleton. Of copies that were observed on the battlefield, almost none were removed before the game ended, which is the real story.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 Edgar Markov 16 decks
2 Marrow-Gnawer 14 decks
3 Witherbloom, the Balancer 11 decks
4 Y'shtola, Night's Blessed 11 decks
5 Silverquill, the Disputant 10 decks
6 Deadpool, Trading Card 9 decks
7 The Serpent Society 9 decks
8 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel 8 decks
9 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse 8 decks
10 Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls 8 decks

The top commander slots are tightly contested with 13 decks apiece at the peak, and the list spans mono-black through Mardu and Sultai builds, confirming Urborg's role as a format-wide utility land rather than a card tied to any single strategy.

Frequently Asked

How often is Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1142 tracked games where Urborg was in the deck, it was drawn 26% of the time. That draw rate is typical for a singleton land in a 100-card deck. Of the 350 instances that reached a player's hand, 82% were played onto the battlefield before the game concluded.

What turn does Urborg typically hit the battlefield?

Median first-cast turn is 4.0. The distribution clusters heavily in turns 1 through 4, which makes sense for a zero-mana-cost land. Players who open with Urborg play it immediately. The long tail extends out to turn 16 in the dataset, reflecting games where it was drawn much later. The p25 sits at turn 2 and p75 at turn 6, so most casts happen in the early game.

Does casting Urborg actually improve your win rate?

There is an early directional signal. The normalized win rate when Urborg was cast is 30%, compared to 24% when it stayed in the library all game. That gap of +5.4 percentage points is consistent with a helpful card, but the confidence interval crosses zero on this sample size, so treat it as directional rather than conclusive. It is more likely a signal that decks built around Urborg's synergies perform slightly better when they access their key piece.

How sticky is Urborg once it enters the battlefield?

Very. 86% of cast Urborgs remain on the battlefield through end of game. Land removal is rare in Commander, and Urborg offers no aggressive threat to incentivize targeted exile, so most opponents simply leave it alone. This stickiness is one reason it sees such high play: the investment is essentially permanent once it resolves.

Is Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth legal in Commander?

Yes. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, and several other formats. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. Its colorless color identity means it can slot into any Commander deck regardless of the command zone's colors, which is a key reason its inclusion rate reaches across such a wide range of commander pairings.

Which commanders most commonly run Urborg in tracked games?

Edgar Markov and Marrow-Gnawer lead the top-commander list with 13 decks each in the multiplayer dataset. Witherbloom, the Balancer (11 decks) and several Dimir and Esper commanders follow closely. The spread is wide: the top slot is only 13 decks in a pool of 777 total decks running the card, confirming that Urborg is not the property of a single archetype but a broadly adopted staple across black strategies.