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Meticulous Excavation

Enchantment

{2}{W}: Return target permanent you control to its owner's hand. If it has unearth, instead exile it, then return that card to its owner's hand. Activate only during your turn.

CMC
1
Mana cost
{W}
Color identity
W
Rarity
uncommon
Set
The Brothers' War
Price
$0.13
EDHREC rank
#13058
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Meticulous Excavation card art
Meticulous Excavation lets you rebuy your entire board of enchantments at instant speed — the payoff is enormous when you're running Sanctum Weaver and a full enchantment package. The setup cost is real, but in the right shell this is a one-card recovery from a wrath.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Meticulous Excavation is a Commander card through and through — the effect scales with the density of enchantments on the battlefield, and only enchantress-style Commander decks run enough to make the bounce worthwhile. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it's legally playable but practically invisible; competitive enchantment decks in those formats don't want a five-mana instant that bounces their own permanents. Oathbreaker shares Commander's singleton, high-enchantment-density context, so the card has a narrow but real home there too.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.13 bulk tier

At $0.13, Meticulous Excavation is firmly bulk — no barrier to picking up a copy. Bulk rares with narrow applications tend to stay at this floor unless a breakout Commander deck pulls them up, so treat it as a cheap include rather than a spec.

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Sources

Mentioned

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