Pursue the Past
Sorcery
You gain 2 life. You may discard a card. If you do, draw two cards.
Flashback 
(You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- RW
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Secrets of Strixhaven
- Price
- $0.24
- EDHREC rank
- #14931
Pursue the Past returns two multicolored cards from your graveyard to hand — card advantage stapled to recursion, all for two mana. It's a slam-dunk in any deck where multicolored spells are the engine, and General Ferrous Rokiric decks in particular treat it as a refueling station that costs almost nothing.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
General Ferrous Rokiric
General Ferrous Rokiric demands a high density of multicolored spells to keep churning out Golem tokens, and Pursue the Past recovers two of them at once — turning a late-game graveyard into a second hand's worth of triggers.
Quintorius, History Chaser
Quintorius, History Chaser triggers off spells cast from graveyards, so Pursue the Past does double duty: it refills the hand with multicolored cards and sets up future cast-from-graveyard payoffs in the same line.
Joshua, Phoenix's Dominant
Joshua, Phoenix's Dominant rewards casting multicolored spells at instant speed, and Pursue the Past at two mana slots cleanly into that gameplan while returning the multicolored spells that fuel Joshua's engine back from the bin.
Firesong and Sunspeaker
Firesong and Sunspeaker wants a steady stream of red and white instants and sorceries, and Pursue the Past recovers two multicolored pieces at once — keeping the burn-and-lifegain loop alive through the mid-game.
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death runs enough multicolored creatures and spells that Pursue the Past earns its slot as a clean two-card recovery spell, even without a dedicated graveyard-cast synergy to exploit.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Pursue the Past is a role-player in multicolored-heavy builds — two-mana sorceries that return two cards are efficient by the format's standards, and the multicolored restriction is barely a restriction in three-plus-color decks. Competitive Pioneer and Modern have faster engines and rarely need a sorcery-speed graveyard refill without a triggered payoff attached, so it doesn't crack those formats. Standard is the exception where Pursue the Past sees actual play, since multicolored synergies are pushed in current sets and the two-mana price tag is legitimately cheap. Legacy and Vintage have better graveyard tools at every price point, so Pursue the Past is purely a Commander and rotating-format card.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.24 bulk tier
At $0.24, Pursue the Past is bulk — buy a playset without thinking about it. Bulk rares with narrow synergy conditions rarely spike, so don't expect the price to move unless a future set pushes multicolored graveyard recursion into a competitive shell.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- General Ferrous Rokiric
- Quintorius, History Chaser
- Joshua, Phoenix's Dominant
- Firesong and Sunspeaker
- Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.