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Excava, the Risen Past

Legendary Creature — Spirit Horse

Flying, haste
Whenever Excava attacks, return up to one target artifact, creature, or non-Aura enchantment card with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter on it. It's a 1/1 Spirit creature with flying in addition to its other types. (If a creature with a finality counter on it would die, exile it instead.)

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{R}{W}
Color identity
RW
Rarity
mythic
Set
Secrets of Strixhaven Commander
Price
$1.14
EDHREC rank
#14471
Buy on TCGplayer
Excava, the Risen Past card art
Excava, the Risen Past turns every excavate trigger into a free spell from the graveyard, and the only cost is building around a mechanic your deck already wants. The Solemnity interaction — locking off the age counters to keep Excava's ability firing repeatedly — is the breakout combo, but even without it, Quintorius, History Chaser decks treat Excava as an engine piece rather than a support card.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Quintorius, History Chaser

Quintorius, History Chaser

79.2% of decks · synergy 0.71

Quintorius, History Chaser cares deeply about spells cast from exile and cards leaving the graveyard, and Excava, the Risen Past feeds both halves of that engine — excavate fills the graveyard while Excava's triggered ability casts those cards, generating the spell-from-exile events Quintorius rewards with damage and card advantage.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern not legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Excava, the Risen Past is a Commander card through and through — the excavate synergies, graveyard recursion, and multi-trigger value it generates are tailor-made for the 100-card singleton format where you can build a whole deck around a mechanic. Legacy and Vintage are technically legal territories, but those formats have no excavate infrastructure and far better graveyard engines, so Excava won't show up there outside of a novelty build. Oathbreaker is worth a mention as a potential commander slot if the format's faster pace suits your playgroup. Everywhere else — Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Pauper — it's simply not legal.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

1 decks
Excava, the Risen PastSolemnityBreath of FuryAnger

Excava, the Risen PastSolemnityBreath of FuryAnger

Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite combat damage; Infinite combat phases; Infinite death triggers; Infinite mana creatures you control can produce; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite untap of creatures you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗
1 decks
Excava, the Risen PastSolemnityBreath of Fury

Excava, the Risen PastSolemnityBreath of Fury

Infinite mana creatures you control can produce; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite untap of creatures you control; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite combat damage; Infinite combat phases; Infinite death triggers

View on Commander Spellbook ↗
0 decks
Excava, the Risen PastSolemnityBreath of FuryFervor

Excava, the Risen PastSolemnityBreath of FuryFervor

Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite combat damage; Infinite combat phases; Infinite death triggers; Infinite mana creatures you control can produce; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite untap of creatures you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$1.14 cheap tier

At $1.14, Excava, the Risen Past sits in the budget-staple tier — cheap enough to slot into any excavate build without deliberation. It sees genuine inclusion in Quintorius decks at a high rate, so the price reflects real demand rather than bulk-bin obscurity, and it's unlikely to crater further.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.