Soldevi Excavations

Land

If Soldevi Excavations would come into play, sacrifice an untapped Island instead. If you do, put Soldevi Excavations into play. If you don't, put it into its owner's graveyard.

Tap: Add (1)(Blue) to your mana pool.

(1), Tap: Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom of your library.

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
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

SufferFromEDHD on Scryfall

2 weeks ago

Mystic Speculation scry forever.

Soldevi Excavations a better Castle Vantress.

Dust Bowl might be useful with all that extra land.

Natural Order would speed up your wincon.

SufferFromEDHD on Elven Scrying

9 months ago

Soldevi Excavations the best scry land.

Wirewood Lodge elf utility.

In Search of Greatness similar value as Sylvan Anthem.

Artificer's Assistant you have a few legendaries and artifacts. Might be a valuable 1 drop.

Curator of Mysteries not a lot of discard in the deck but it is another potential scry engine.

Kashai on I Sphinx You'll Find That's Mine

1 year ago

Treachery is pretty cool and on theme, plus you can do some neat mana tricks with multiple mana producing lands

In the same vein Cloud of Faeries for more mana tricks

For some Scry support Retreat to Coralhelm

And for synergy with both a multi-mana land that also scys, Soldevi Excavations

Some Multi-Mana Lands Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Coral Atoll, Lotus Vale, Lotus Field, Ancient Tomb

ILuvMtg on Urza Lord High Combomaster

1 year ago

Would you mind listing the combos?

My suggestions are Tolaria West, Soldevi Excavations, Otawara, Soaring City, Tolarian Academy, (it's banned, so keep that in mind), Darksteel Forge, Staff of Domination (works well with infinite mana),Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant, Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh, Foundry Inspector, Lightning Greaves,Silver Myr, Tezzeret the Seeker, and Darksteel Citadel.

SufferFromEDHD on Scry, Scry Again

1 year ago

I just looked thru my collection. You are missing a playset of scry lands

Castle Vantress, Isolated Watchtower, Study Hall and Soldevi Excavations.

Ector on Galea, the Equipmonger

2 years ago

The Ramp, the Lands and Topdeck Manipulation

The major goal of every good Galea deck is the right method of ramp and topdeck manipulation. Every time you see a card that Galea cannot play, you should have a way to change the situation somehow. And there are two primary ways to achieve that:

1. Direct manipulation. Scroll Rack , Sylvan Library , Soldevi Excavations , Vantress Gargoyle and Jace, the Mind Sculptor directly manipulate with your topdeck, allowing you to gain card advantage. Let's look at Scroll Rack for example. If you have say three Auras/Enchantments in your hand that you can play this turn, and your topdeck isn't Aura or Equipment. You just draw three cards, put your Auras/Equipments on topdeck and play all them, actually drawing three cards for 1 mana!

2. Fetching lands. As long as Galea cannot play lands from top of your library, you should fetch lands as much as you can. This reduces the number of lands in your library (and the chance to see a land on your topdeck), and allows you to shuffle your library. We have six lands that fetch the other lands, and one of them ( Thawing Glaciers ) can fetch multiple times. We also have Sword of the Animist and Elvish Reclaimer that fetch lands repeatedly, and Expedition Map .

The Ramp strategy of this deck uses "the best of all worlds" principle: the best creatures, the best artifacts and the best Aura ( Wild Growth ). Most of the Ramp cards cost 1 mana, but there are few 0-cost and 2-cost cards. Why don't I use more Auras? Because creatures and artifacts are more efficient, and I need Ramp prior to playing Galea. Why do I use mana dorks? There are two reasons: I need early targets for my Equipment, and I want to sacrifice them later to Skullclamp .

This deck has three ways of fetching NON-basic lands: Elvish Reclaimer , Expedition Map and Tolaria West - and if you have Academy Ruins , you can recycle Expedition Map to fetch more lands. One of the best targets for the fetching is Urza's Saga , which can create a giant token and fetch Skullclamp or Expedition Map . Another very important target is Glacial Chasm , which can allow you to survive and grab victory even in a grave sutuation. Of course, Academy Ruins and Hall of Heliod's Generosity are also the popular fetch targets.

The Aura Selection

Most Auras in this deck steal or spoil enemy creatures (especially Commanders). It's hard to win when your Commander is stolen or converted to Insect :) There are only two Auras that should be played on your creatures: Mantle of the Ancients and Unquestioned Authority . Most of the time they are played via Sovereigns of Lost Alara : you attack, then fetch one of them from your deck, and, in case of the Mantle, also play all Equips from your graveyard.

The Hidden Gems

Conqueror's Flail prohibits opponents from playing spells during your turn. This allows you to play all your stuff without pesky counterspells and attack safely. It's very important for this deck.

Moonsilver Spear and Seraphic Greatsword create 4/4 flying Angels. If you have both, you can create enough blockers that can eventually kill somebody.

Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip should be transformed into a land that provides three mana of any color. It's a great Ramp, especially if you consider that Sword of Feast and Famine and Treachery untap your lands. With a bit of luck, you can even create two Construct tokens with Urza's Saga !

Fractal Harness is the easiest way of creating an enormous creature. It will grow very fast, and Belt of Giant Strength may give it +10/+10! If you get both in play, follow the "Trident Punch" path and look for Surestrike Trident .

Umbral Mantle doesn't have a lot of good targets in this deck: there are no creatures with powerful "Tap:" abilities. But you can steal them! :) Talking seriously, the Mantle is used to untap our Ultron after attacking. I am not a big fan of using Galea for this purpose: it's better not to put all the eggs into one basket. Plus, the Mantle makes a great combo with Surestrike Trident .

Shimmer Dragon is really great for this deck. It flies and almost always has Hexproof. It provides insane amount of cards. And it is much better material for Ultron than Galea IMHO. Most of the time you would need just one Scytheclaw or Kaldra Compleat on it to deal very serious damage.

Fierce Guardianship means that you always might have a counterspell :)

Thassa, God of the Sea is very helpful for two reasons: it can make your creature unblockable (even a tiny Elf with the Scytheclaw becomes a very dangerous threat!) and it provides a free Scry 1 every turn (see above on topdeck manipulation). Still, you have a chance of turning her into creature, since there are several permanents with UU in their casting cost. Having an indestructible creature is always nice!

Tropical_December on Land Interaction

3 years ago

Halls of Mist is fun, Maze of Ith, Mystifying Maze, Labyrinth of Skophos all deal with attackers. Another way to deal with creatures is with removal: enter Quicksand and Mouth of Ronom. When protecting your own creatures Yavimaya Hollow is the best. With your general being a 6/6 Arena will kill quite a few unfortunate souls.

Petrified Field is great for recursion of valuable lands, Tolaria West will find the valuable lands and when paired with the field you get two tutors.

Soldevi Excavations is good filtering on a land, Search for Azcanta  ^Flip is great for finding noncreature spells; however, note that it also cannot get lands. Halimar Depths is a one time top deck filter, you have to decide whether entering tapped is small enough to ignore. Castle Vantress is going to be the best land for this, four mana plus a tap is expensive though.

All creature lands are great, but given enough mana Urza's Factory is even better, just pumping out creatures. Hostile Desert takes advantage of all the lands that will undoubtedly be entering your graveyard. Of course the aforementioned Field of the Dead is the best at generating blockers and possibly attackers.

Grind on Shuffle land

3 years ago

I agree with you all (except tonystark because oracle of mul daya is a great card), but i agree that shuffling takes too long. However scry 1 is a powerful ability: the only lands with unconditional repeatable scry are Soldevi Excavations and Castle Vantress and these abilities cost 3 and 5 mana respectively.
Also, scry is unconditionally useful. Whereas shuffling is conditionally useful. So how about this version:

Bottomless Rift
Land
: Add .
, pay 1 life: Put the top card of your library on the bottom of your library.