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Paleontologist's Pick-Axe // Dinosaur Headdress

Artifact — Equipment // Artifact — Equipment

Whenever equipped creature attacks, draw a card, then discard a card.
Equip {1}
Craft with one or more creatures {5} ({5}, Exile this artifact, Exile one or more creatures you control and/or creature cards from your graveyard: Return this card transformed under its owner's control. Craft only as a sorcery.)

CMC
2
Mana cost
{2}
Color identity
C
Rarity
mythic
Set
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander
Price
$0.39
EDHREC rank
#17397
Buy on TCGplayer
Paleontologist's Pick-Axe // Dinosaur Headdress card art
Paleontologist's Pick-Axe // Dinosaur Headdress does something few equipment can claim: it generates extra combat steps on its own, which makes it an immediate engine piece in any deck that cares about attacking repeatedly. Commanders like Medomai the Ageless and Tetzin, Gnome Champion treat it as a core piece rather than a flex slot — the extra turns and treasure triggers compound fast enough that the equip cost pays for itself in one swing.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Tetzin, Gnome Champion

16.0% of decks · synergy 0.16

Tetzin, Gnome Champion's treasure-making scales directly with how many combats you take, and Paleontologist's Pick-Axe // Dinosaur Headdress adds combats — the loop is obvious and brutal, turning each equipped attack into a flood of artifacts that fuel Tetzin's damage triggers all over again.

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

Paleontologist's Pick-Axe // Dinosaur Headdress is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker — and Commander is the only format where it's actually relevant. Legacy and Vintage move too fast for a three-mana equipment that needs to connect in combat to do anything; the card would never resolve in a meaningful gamestate. In Commander, extra combat steps on an equipment are genuinely powerful, especially in decks built around attack triggers, since the card does the work of an extra-combat spell every turn it stays on the board.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.39 bulk tier

At $0.39, Paleontologist's Pick-Axe // Dinosaur Headdress is deep bulk — easy to pick up in any collection trade or $1 bin. The price is appropriate for a card with narrow commander homes, so don't expect it to climb unless a future commander pushes extra-combat equipment into the mainstream.

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Sources

Mentioned

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