Deeproot Historian
Creature — Merfolk Druid
Merfolk and Druid cards in your graveyard have retrace. (You may cast cards with retrace from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying their other costs.)
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander
- Price
- $0.27
- EDHREC rank
- #6954
Deeproot Historian puts a +1/+1 counter on a Merfolk you control at the beginning of each end step — including your opponents' — which means Hakbal of the Surging Soul triggers explore on every single one of those counters, turning a two-mana 1/1 into a relentless card-selection and land-drop engine. The cost is that it does nothing by itself and demands a critical mass of Merfolk to be worth the slot, but in the right shell it overperforms its price tag by a wide margin, and Wanderwine Prophets makes the ceiling outright broken.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Hakbal of the Surging Soul
Hakbal of the Surging Soul is the premier home for Deeproot Historian because every counter the Historian places triggers Hakbal's explore ability, compounding card selection and land drops across all four end steps each turn cycle. At 64% inclusion across nearly 24,000 decks, the synergy is thoroughly established.
Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca
Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca wants as many tapped Merfolk as possible to fuel its draw and counter abilities, and Deeproot Historian quietly grows your board each turn cycle to keep that engine running. It shows up in roughly 29% of Kumena lists — solid, not obligatory, but the steady counter generation earns the slot.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Deeproot Historian is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is the only format where it does meaningful work. In Legacy and Vintage, a two-mana 1/1 with a delayed, end-step trigger is far too slow — those formats want Merfolk that generate immediate board impact like Lord of Atlantis effects, and Deeproot Historian doesn't survive contact with that pace. Oathbreaker could support it in a Merfolk-tribal shell, but the smaller game size reduces the payoff of slowly accumulating counters. Commander is where the card belongs: multiplayer end steps mean three to four triggers per full rotation, and synergy commanders like Hakbal of the Surging Soul convert each of those into compounding value.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Wanderwine ProphetsDeeproot HistorianAbundance
Near-infinite turns; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$0.27 bulk tier
At $0.27, Deeproot Historian is bulk — you're essentially getting it for free when ordering singles. Given its 64% inclusion rate in the most popular Merfolk commander, demand is stable enough that the price is unlikely to drop further, but there's no case for expecting it to climb either.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.