Raise the Past
Sorcery
Return all creature cards with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Foundations
- Price
- $0.97
- EDHREC rank
- #2995
Raise the Past returns a creature and a non-creature permanent from your graveyard simultaneously — that's two cards for three mana, which is already a strong rate before you factor in enters-the-battlefield triggers. Delney, Streetwise Lookout doubles those triggers, turning a solid recovery spell into a full-blown value engine.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Delney, Streetwise Lookout
Delney, Streetwise Lookout's entire gameplan is stacking enters-the-battlefield triggers from low-power creatures, and Raise the Past returns two permanents at once — meaning a single cast can fire off four or more triggers with Delney on board.
Polukranos Reborn
Polukranos Reborn operates in a graveyard-heavy Golgari shell that regularly has creatures and enchantments hitting the bin together, making Raise the Past a clean two-for-one that reloads exactly the permanent types the deck wants back.
Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Amalia Benavides Aguirre decks cycle creatures and life-gain permanents through the graveyard constantly, and Raise the Past gets a creature back alongside an enchantment or artifact that can immediately trigger Amalia's explore ability again.
Finneas, Ace Archer
Finneas, Ace Archer decks lean on a dense Rabbit creature base, and Raise the Past doubles as creature recovery and an engine piece retrieval spell in a single slot — efficient for a tribal list that doesn't want to spend multiple cards reloading.
Arabella, Abandoned Doll
Arabella, Abandoned Doll wants artifacts and creatures working together, and Raise the Past recurs both in one shot — restoring a combo piece and a threat simultaneously without spending two separate recursion spells.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Raise the Past earns its slot in any deck that regularly puts both creatures and non-creature permanents into the graveyard — the two-for-one at three mana is clean, and the instant speed means you can hold up interaction and still recover on an opponent's end step. In competitive 60-card formats like Modern and Pioneer, it's too slow and too situational; those formats want targeted recursion or reanimation that doesn't require a matching pair in the bin. Legacy and Vintage have access to strictly faster graveyard engines, so Raise the Past doesn't compete there either. Standard is its most realistic non-Commander home, where graveyard synergy decks occasionally want flexible recursion at a low price point.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.97 bulk tier
At $0.97, Raise the Past sits at the top of bulk pricing — inexpensive enough to slot in without second-guessing, but not so cheap that casual demand won't keep it near a dollar. It's not a card that's going to spike, but for what it does in the right Commander shell, the price is already as low as it reasonably gets.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.