Excavator
Artifact
, Sacrifice a basic land: Target creature gains landwalk of each of the land types of the sacrificed land until end of turn. (It can't be blocked as long as defending player controls a land of any of those types.)
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Tempest
- Price
- $0.27
- EDHREC rank
- #25901
Excavator turns every land drop into a free spell, which snowballs fast in any deck that puts lands into the graveyard or bounces them back to hand. The effect is powerful and the cost is low enough that the only real question is whether your deck has the density of land-play effects to justify 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 |
Commander is where Excavator lives — landfall and graveyard-recursion synergies are everywhere at the 100-card table, and the card generates real advantage in decks built around Crucible of Worlds effects or fetchland loops. Legacy and Vintage are technically legal formats for Excavator, but neither has the go-wide land-synergy gameplan that makes it tick, and more efficient graveyard engines crowd it out entirely. Oathbreaker follows the same logic as Commander: legal and occasionally playable in the right shell, but the smaller deck size and faster games make the payoff harder to reach.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.27 bulk tier
At $0.27, Excavator is firmly bulk — a no-brainer pickup if the deck calls for it. Bulk rares with narrow synergy windows rarely spike unless they break into a competitive format, and nothing on the horizon suggests that changes here.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.