Live Play Data

Verdant Catacombs

Land · Modern Horizons 2 (MH2)

Live Inclusion

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Times Brought

1621

Decks Running

852

Median Cast Turn

Drawn → Played

72%

Format

Multiplayer 1v1

9% of tracked Commander decks run Verdant Catacombs. When drawn, 72% of copies are activated before the game ends, with a median activation turn of 4.

Verdant Catacombs lands in 9% of the 9883 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, and when a copy reaches a player's hand, 72% of those copies are cracked before the game ends.

As a fetch land, Verdant Catacombs resolves and immediately moves to the graveyard. The activation turn distribution tells the real story: the mode is turn 1, meaning the single most common scenario is a player fetching in their opening sequence. The median lands on turn 4, pulled later by copies drawn mid-game. Data across 528 distinct players with a single-player concentration of just 3% gives this dataset meaningful spread.

The card's colorless identity lets it slot into any deck that can search for a Swamp or Forest, which is why the top-commander list spans five-color piles, Sultai builds, and Jund shells alike. It is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and several other formats, and banned in Historic.

At a glance

9% of tracked Commander decks include Verdant Catacombs
24% draw rate across tracked game participations
72% of drawn copies are activated before the game ends
T4 median first-activation turn, with turn 1 as the single most common
528 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
1623 total instances brought to tracked games

First-cast turn

n=285

26%

14%

10%

26%

T6-9

T10+

Median 4 P25 1 · P75 6 · max 16

Cast same turn as drawn 67%

The "good card" funnel

1623 brought · 528 players

Brought to game

1623

Ever drawn

397

Reached battlefield

285

Still on board at game end

72%

Of 1623 copies brought to tracked games, 397 were drawn and 285 of those were activated, with the overwhelming majority ending up in the graveyard as expected for a fetch land.

≥ -3.7pp

Players who cast this card win 27% of the time (n=276) , vs 26% when it never left the library (n=1094).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 40% (n=109) — 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 +1.6pp; 95% confidence interval -3.7pp to +6.9pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

458 instances

4.1%

Library

3.7%

Battlefield

66.2%

Graveyard

11.1%

Exile

Most Verdant Catacombs instances end in the graveyard, exactly as intended. The fetch land sacrifices itself on activation, so graveyard is the success state, not a sign of disruption.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

1 The Ur-Dragon 42 decks
2 Teval, the Balanced Scale 14 decks
3 Jodah, the Unifier 13 decks
4 Kotis, the Fangkeeper 12 decks
5 Betor, Ancestor's Voice 11 decks
6 Hearthhull, the Worldseed 11 decks
7 Henzie "Toolbox" Torre 11 decks
8 Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge 10 decks
9 Witherbloom, the Balancer 10 decks
10 Indominus Rex, Alpha 9 decks

The Ur-Dragon leads by a clear margin, but the rest of the list spans a wide range of color identities and strategies, consistent with a fixing land that serves any deck touching black or green.

Frequently Asked

How often is Verdant Catacombs drawn in a Commander game?

Across 1301 tracked games where Verdant Catacombs was in a deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is expected for a singleton in a 100-card deck. Of 397 drawn instances, 72% were activated before the game ended. The remainder were mostly drawn late in games that concluded before the fetch could be used.

What turn does Verdant Catacombs typically get activated?

The median first-activation turn is 4, but the distribution is bimodal. Turn 1 is the mode, reflecting copies in opening hands that get cracked immediately for a dual land. Activations then spread across turns 2 through 9, as copies drawn mid-game get used on the same turn they arrive. 67% of drawn-and-activated instances were cracked the same turn they were drawn.

Is Verdant Catacombs legal in Commander?

Yes. Verdant Catacombs is legal and unrestricted in Commander, as well as in Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Duel Commander, Oathbreaker, and several other formats. It is banned in Historic and not legal in Standard, Pioneer, Pauper, or Penny Dreadful. Its colorless identity means it fits into any Commander deck that runs Swamps or Forests.

Why does Verdant Catacombs have such low battlefield stickiness?

Verdant Catacombs is a fetch land. Activating it requires sacrificing it, so the card moves directly to the graveyard when used. The final-zone distribution reflects this: the graveyard is by far the most common destination. A stickiness figure near zero is the expected outcome for a functional fetch land, not a weakness.

Which commanders run Verdant Catacombs most often?

The Ur-Dragon leads the tracked commander list by a wide margin. Below that, the field spreads across Sultai, Jund, and five-color builds, all of which run enough Swamps and Forests to make Verdant Catacombs useful. The spread across 528 unique players, with no single player accounting for more than 3% of instances, suggests these numbers reflect genuine format usage rather than one highly active user.

Does casting Verdant Catacombs correlate with winning?

Win rate when activated sits at 27% across 276 participations. Win rate when the card stayed in the library is 26% across 1094 participations. The delta is +1.6 percentage points. Both sample sizes are large enough to treat this as a directional signal, though fetch lands are infrastructure rather than engines, so a modest lift is the expected shape of the data.