Spelunking

Enchantment

When Spelunking enters the battlefield, draw a card, then you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield. If you put a Cave onto the battlefield this way, you gain 4 life.

Lands you control enter the battlefield untapped.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (20)

FadingReality on building

4 days ago

CREATURES:

I like every single creature with the sole exception of the Ancient Adamantoise. Glacial ChasmGC does the same thing but way better and is more on theme for the deck. Also, swapping an 8 drop for a 0 drop MASSIVELY reduces the deck's average cmc. I'd simply cut this. You need to cut two cards regardless AND you'll probably want to make more cuts so that you can add in some of my other upcoming suggestions. These suggestions will be different than my "swap" recommendations in my previous comment.

LANDS:

You are running two of the three karoo lands (Golgari RotFarm, Selesnya Sanctuary) in your colors. I'd reduce this to one. Normally I'd never run any of these cards except in VERY specific decks. That said, necrobloom is one such deck that I would run these in, but I would only run one. These are even slower than a normal tap land and are brutal to have destroyed by a strip mine or something. But in a deck that can recur lands and play more than one per turn, they are worth including one of. Pick one of these and cut the other. You are running 11 basics in a 3 color deck which is pretty high. In order to justify running things like Cultivate and Kodama's Reach you'll only need about 6-7 basics. I speak from experience. Even if you wanna run more than 7, 11 is really high. And again, I will be suggesting a bunch of lands to include, so you'll wanna cut some basics and a karoo anyway.

Last thing regarding lands: your land count of 40 is actually a good number. Normally 40 is way to high, but this is a "lands matter" deck so 40 is a good call here. You could probably get away with 38 or 39 too, but don't worry about that unless you are desperate for cuts.

SORCERIES:

These are all very good except for two. I'd cut Regrowth. If you still want this effect (you already have Eternal Witness) then run Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip. It's an MDFC land so it's awesome and synergies further with your deck. I'd also cut Dread Return. This card is actually VERY good and even saw some cEDH play when Flash/Hulk was still around. The flashback cost is also really good fro your deck. However, the initial cost of 4 is too slow. Consider Reanimate. This is the best reanimation spell in the game and this card is the reason reanimator decks are called reanimator. Also, with reanimate, you lower your deck's CMC more AND you can grab opponents' creatures with it.

INSTANTS:

I already recommended swapping Overkill for Swords to Plowshares. Other than that, I'd cut Reprieve. It's not terribly great (I know you want a pseudo counterspell, but this is meh). Cut it for NecropotenceGC and that way you still preserve and actually upgrade the card draw in the deck.

ARTIFACTS:

As mentioned before, you should still try to keep world map if you can. Endstone should be cut. It's VERY powerful, but it's both expensive and risky. NecropotenceGC is much better for drawing cards.

ENCHANTMENTS:

I like every single one of these with the sole exception of Spelunking. Sure it ramps you once (can wiff although VERY unlikely in your deck) but its 3 mana and theres a ton of two mana ramp you can run that's land based. Also you run 0 caves. The entering untapped IS nice, but swapping this card entirely for another card that let's you play more than one land per turn is going to be much stronger and also kinda negates the tapped lands as you're gonna be able to get more out which negates the slowness to an extent.

Idoneity on Anikthea's Enchanting Recycling Plant [Primer]

1 month ago

RufusTheGrufus - I always love thorough reviews. Greatly appreciated!

I'll admit for Spelunking, I'm typically more meticulous when suggesting a card. It was one of the few that doesn't appear on you're maybeboard, so I thought I'd leastwise bring it up.

As for the Overlord of the Balemurk, it's just fantastic. But you're right that whenever I cast it for its impending cost, I give up on it ever being relevant past that point. I include it because it's a self-milling cantrip that is both a creature and enchantment in other zones, giving it more value. It just happens to synergize with a lot.

One last point: Familiar Ground is a very cool consideration. Never heard of the card. I tend away from alpha strike inclusions as well, but it also just lets your commander attack with impunity. You should put it back in. It's old, niche, and sweet.

RufusTheGrufus on Anikthea's Enchanting Recycling Plant [Primer]

1 month ago

Idoneity, hi, thank you! I appreciate your suggestions and that you checked out the list!

Ripples of Undeath is great! It’s been in most of the different builds of Anikthea that I’ve tinkered with and is arguably just better Cemetery Tampering; I’ve wanted to slot it back into this list for a bit now. I think my main card advantage flex spots that I’d consider swapping would be: Palantir of Orthanc (even though I love this card), Commune with the Gods (flavor win), and Grisly Salvage (instant speed goodness). But, these cards are all in this list over Ripples of Undeath primarily because they offer card advantage immediately, rather than having to wait until the beginning of my next precombat mainphase... This deck’s gameplans are already inherently fragile and easily interacted with, so I wanted to reduce the number of plays that could end up just doing nothing; such as Ripples of Undeath getting blown up before I get any card advantage out of it (which had happened multiple times!). Interestingly enough, Cemetery Tampering has taken way less heat and oftentimes only gets removed when an enchantment-inclusive boardwipe gets used; so it ended up making the cut over Ripples of Undeath. That being said, I’m thinking it may just be time to swap out Cemetery Tampering for Ripples of Undeath because the flexibility of grabbing any non-enchantments milled is pretty invaluable for this deck.

Somehow I don’t think I’ve considered Overlord of the Balemurk for this build yet! It’s definitely an interesting option, but I do have some mixed feelings; primarily because I’m assuming that most of the time It’ll either be a reanimation target for Anikthea, or get cast for it’s Impending 5 cost which I’m not super jazzed about (because it takes forever to come online, only mills 4 once in the meantime, and recurs creatures to hand rather than the battlefield). Similar to Ripples of Undeath, my potential swap candidates would be listed above. I think I’m going to have to just rip off the bandaid and remove the flavor option in Commune with the Gods; at least for now because I think you’re on to something, and I want to playtest with Overlord of the Balemurk!

Spelunking is a fun option, I just don’t think it’s the right fit for this build of Anikthea though. Sure, it replaces itself when cast or nets a card if reanimated, but that’s kinda where it falls off for this build. I’m only running 6 lands that have to ETB tapped, so the last ability is not as helpful as it could be. To be fair, I’m able to play with whatever lands I want since my playgroup proxies, and I think Spelunking would feel much more synergistic and strong in a deck with more tapped lands (especially MDFC lands, which I’ve been lazy about finding space for). Any further synergy Spelunking has with the rest of the deck is solely based on the fact that it’s an enchantment, so I would primarily be looking critically at the main effect it provides (card advantage) relative to similar cards in my list for potential cards to swap it with; and ultimately I think I’d much rather swap in either Ripples of Undeath or Overlord of the Balemurk first!

Regardless, thank you again for your time and suggestions, I’m always happy to have new cards to mull over and consider for this deck!

Idoneity on Anikthea's Enchanting Recycling Plant [Primer]

1 month ago

Love the list! Excellent elaboration, dynamic gameplan, easy +1.

I would highly recommend an Overlord of the Balemurk. It has been creeping into more of my lists and always feels fantastic.

Spelunking is one that I deliberate whenever I consider its inclusion, but its simply far more explosive than its cost suggests. It at least replaces itself and at most synergizes wildly with cards you are already playing.

I see that Ripples of Undeath. You know its potential. If you're contentedly casting Cemetery Tampering, you'll like this one.

Welp, that's all from me! Happy casting!

Bookrook on Ingenuitive deck

5 months ago

I was at a pioneer fnm yesterday. There was a deck I played against that was really cool that I hadn’t seen before. It was a dimir control shell that splashed green for two cards: 4x Spelunking and 4x The Gitrog Monster. The one other thing with the deck was the manabase. It was 4 Evolving Wilds, 4x Terramorphic Expanse, 4x Escape Tunnel, 4x undercity sewers, and a bunch of basics. All of the fetch lands triggered the gitrog monster to get massive card advantage. Another cool interaction was all of the fetches triggering Fatal Push. I went 1-2 against it with Esper greasefang, and it went 3-0 for the tournament. I was wondering if any modern players knew if it would be better in modern, since the fetch lands there are way better.

Bakterius on Ur....Dragons?

7 months ago

You seem to have Ganax, Astral Hunter and Fellwar Stone both in your main AND maybe board :) Otherwise, seems like a simple yet effective and straightforward deck. Your Spelunking is an interesting idea for my own version of the Ur-Dragon, since it features all the triomes...

capwner on Titania, Aggro-Combo-Control-Stax

8 months ago

This list looks super sweet, I've never built Titania but I ran her in my Captain Sisay deck for years. That deck was optimized for competitive 1v1 and "Titania-Aggro-Stax" (which some might call Ponza) was my #1 go-to line. It's a lot harder to leverage this at a multiplayer table which is why my build shifted away from the Titania/Crucible stuff. But your build looks brilliant and the tech with Natural Balance is so sweet. The only things I can think to add would be classic stax card Root Maze which you can also use with Amulet of Vigor/Spelunking to break parity. Winter Moon is another G-Stax card that comes to mind but I trust you know whether or not it could be supported. Also I might choose something like Perilous Vault over the disk in a big mana list like this, just for the ability to use it fast. Anyways +1 from me this looks like a solid execution

Foxigami on Earthquake

1 year ago

Scapeshift, Primeval Titan, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Explore, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, Arboreal Grazer, Spelunking, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove would be some cards that are fun.

Springheart Nantuko is such a fun card to build around. there are some many combos i can think of that would be fun with it assuming you trigger the landfall trigger and play for the bestow cost. bestowing it on Arboreal Grazer would make you empty your hand of all lands, bestowing it on Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Dryad of the Ilysian Grove allows you to play an infinite amount of lands, and Golos, Tireless Pilgrim or Primeval Titan as it would allow you to automatically play all the lands in your library... though you would need Spelunking or Amulet of Vigor to make the lands enter untapped. if you really wanna some jank infinite combo, bestow it on Scute Swarm and have Ashaya, Soul of the Wild for infinite scute swarms and landfall triggers. i think the most janky combo i can think of with this card would be Life and Limb, Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and Mind Bend. if valakut and yavimaya are on the battlefield and you mind bend valakut to replace the mountain text with forest. you can bestow any of your lands and have valakut ping an infinite number of times.

anyways, Springheart Nantuko combo tangent aside, i highly recommend adding either Crucible of Worlds, Conduit of Worlds, Ramunap Excavator, Perennial Behemoth, and/or Walk-In Closet / Forgotten Cellar as it would allow you to recast your fetch lands from your graveyard every turn.