Ancient Excavation

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Ancient Excavation

Instant

Draw cards equal to the number of cards in your hand, then discard a card for each card drawn this way.

Basic landcycling (, Discard this card: Search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.)

Daedalus19876 on To Drown the World in Death: Araumi EDH [PRIMER]

3 years ago

Squirrel_of_War: I DO love those effects. Ancient Excavation in particular should be in there. The reason I went for more looting effects is because 1) they interact well with my untapping creatures, 2) they let me refill my graveyard after a Bojuka Bog, and 3) they come down early when I'm setting up! But yes, I might cut one or two to swap for more one-shot effects.

Squirrel_of_War on To Drown the World in Death: Araumi EDH [PRIMER]

3 years ago

Have you thought about running Ancient Excavation, Thirst for Knowledge, Monastery Siege, Mirrodin Besieged, and similar cards? I personally prefer them over the single card looting creatures.

Optimator on Gisa and Geralf EDH V.2.2

3 years ago

I have a guide/repository for card-draw cards if you want to peruse it. You may find some cards with more synergies that you like. Weight of Memory can be decent for self-mill strategies, etc. EDH Card-Draw Master List


As for cuts... let's see...

I don't love Forgotten Creation, personally. I always felt like I had non-creatures I wanted to keep in my hand all the time. Your deck is a bit more creature-heavy than mine, so perhaps it's pulling its weight.

You have the necessary components for Gravecrawler combos, but not a ton of tutors to make them reliable to get out. As such, perhaps one of the weaker payoffs for that can go, such as Vengeful Dead or Plague Belcher. If you're using Buried Alive to find the pieces then you'll only ever need one, and Diregraf Captain is an excellent choice. That said, your deck is fairly token-heavy so perhaps the incidental groupslug is being underappreciated by me.

I don't really love Ancient Excavation or Compelling Deterrence.

Personally I think Endless Ranks of the Dead is a bit of a trap unless you're all-in on the token strategy, such as a Ghoulcaller Gisa or Sidisi, Brood Tyrant zombie deck. Very fun, but a bit win-more unless you can really make it pop off. I've never been satisfied with it's performance in my deck, but you're going wider than I do so perhaps it's fine. Something to think about though.

It all kind of depends on how much you're self-milling. You have a decent amount, but you aren't exactly going all-in. As such, Grimoire of the Dead may be a liability. I have played around with that card in some of my decks and it just seems to get removed before it works. When it did I usually won the game, though. It's fun, but unreliable. Rise of the Dark Realms is obviously more reliable but it's very pricey.

I never found the self-mill in my deck as useful as regular card-draw. There's not a ton of point to have 15 zombies in the graveyard if you only want to cast one or two of them over and over. There are payoffs, of course, but to me it feels like being in the middle-ground is way worse than being all-in or having minimal self-mill. I just hate milling over answers or Rooftop Storm!

I don't think you're running enough to make Nightscape Familiar worth it.

Honestly, I don't love Havengul Lich a ton. The color restriction makes it hard to use and you have lots of ways to bring out your own zombies already. He's better in a more mill-your-opponents strategy IMO.

Tymaret Calls the Dead is a bit of a weaker card. Exiling your own zombies is a bit of a non-bo (unless your self-mill strategy is really rolling). The lifegain can be nice but I'd rather run Whip of Erebos if that's the goal, or a better card-draw card if that's the goal.

thymecop on Zombie Tribal Scarab God

4 years ago

I like the idea of having the plan B of milling your opponents. This way your commander has more targets and Rise of the Dark Realms becomes so much spicier.

For this I’d suggest running cards that fill your opponent’s hands and graves using cards like Font of Mythos/Howling Mine, Fascination, and Anvil of Bogardan. This sets up explosive combos with cards like: Psychic Corrosion, Dreamborn Muse, and Windfall/Jace's Archivist.

Another suggestion I have is to run Phyrexian Altar. It’s 1. a sac outlet 2. Ramp 3. a whole lot of fun with Gravecrawler. He combos with the altar giving you infinite 2/2s with Diregraf Colossus and infinite Altar of the Brood triggers.

Big finishers cost a lot so Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers got you covered. Running the two I believe always calls for a handy Expedition Map. Cut some basics, easy.

Things I’d cut for the 9 cards I mentioned would be: Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet (see above), Liliana's Mastery (too much for too little)), Dark Salvation (same reason), Sinister Sabotage (same reason), Expropriate (cut for something that synergies with your general. Take a cooler Rise over some stolen permanents), Ancient Excavation (Dreamborn Muse tho), Liliana, Untouched By Death (the best part about her Gisa and Geralf do already), Entomb (not sure about this one actually), and a land.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

P.S. Traumatize

wegnerdevin on Death, Taxes, and Thopters

4 years ago

I'd run Preordain over Impulse, Gamble over Fabricate, and Ancient Excavation over Dark Deal. Thought Scour seems kinda weak overall, and if you could fit a Codex Shredder and a Scrap Mastery to play off each other while dumping into Krark-Clan Ironworks between iterations, I'm sure you'll have a great time.

Epicurus on Niv's Misfits

4 years ago

TolarianScientist, your concern is real. At the moment, I'm running 16 spells which deal with that concern:

For a hot second, I also had Atzocan Seer on the list, but dropped it in favor of including more offense as a tradeoff for losing mana production (I removed it for Knight of New Alara).

The problem with mana dorks is that none of the best ones are color pairs. With any other 5-color commander, this decklist would look totally different.

I like your suggestion of borderposts. Right now, the Spells I'd most consider removing are Merfolk Skydiver, Rise of the Hobgoblins, Deathbringer Liege, Terminate and Dovin, Grand Arbiter. Of those spells, how many and which would you replace with borderposts of the same colors?

Sorry for the long response.

Mrbeans4700 on Cycle deck mtg

4 years ago

I added the cycle lands to the deck which aids its speed. The cycling takes care of enough of the card draw to make Ancient Excavation not needed. Decree of Pain is a powerful tool but I am trying to keep the deck budget and that is slightly out of my range. I added some others to the sideboard. Thank you for your help.

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