Excavation
Enchantment
, Sacrifice a land: Draw a card. Any player may activate this ability.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Prophecy
- Price
- $0.33
- EDHREC rank
- #16747
Excavation turns any land into a repeatable looting engine — pay one mana, sacrifice a land, draw a card, then put a land from your hand back into play. The cost is real: you're spending mana and a land drop each activation, so this only pulls weight in decks built to abuse land recursion or sacrifice loops.
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 |
Excavation is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, and that's exactly where it lives — nowhere else. In Commander it finds a narrow but genuine home in landfall and land-recursion strategies where the sacrifice-and-replay loop generates repeated triggers rather than just a slow cantrip. Legacy and Vintage have faster, cleaner ways to filter cards, so Excavation doesn't compete there. Oathbreaker mirrors the Commander calculus: it only earns a slot if your gameplan is specifically built around bouncing lands.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.33 bulk tier
At $0.33, Excavation is firmly bulk — the price reflects its narrow application rather than any lack of power in the right shell. Expect it to stay in this range; demand is too niche to push it higher, but the effect is unique enough that it won't disappear into true zero-value territory.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.