Daring Archaeologist
Creature — Human Artificer
When this creature enters, you may return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand.
Whenever you cast a historic spell, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic.)
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Dominaria
- Price
- $0.13
- EDHREC rank
- #18807
Daring Archaeologist enters, recurs an artifact from your graveyard, and grows every time you cast another one — that's three relevant effects on a single body. Four mana for a 3/3 is fine, not exciting, but the enter trigger plus the counter accumulation make it worth the slot in artifact-heavy Commander lists.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Daring Archaeologist is a Commander card through and through — the 100-card singleton format gives it maximum graveyard targets, and artifact synergy commanders reward every dimension of what it does. In Modern and Pioneer it's too slow and too low-impact to compete with dedicated artifact recursion at lower mana costs. Legacy and Vintage have access to broken artifact engines where a four-mana 3/3 with incremental upside simply doesn't register. Stick to Commander, where the recursion trigger alone justifies inclusion in the right shell.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.13 bulk tier
At $0.13, Daring Archaeologist is deep bulk — you're paying for cardboard and postage, not the card. Bulk rares rarely appreciate unless a format shift or new commander breaks them out, and nothing on the horizon pushes this one up the price curve.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.