Ramunap Excavator MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 6 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost3
RarityRare
TypeCreature — Naga Cleric
Power 2
Toughness 3

Key Takeaways

  1. Ramunap Excavator offers card advantage by turning graveyards into resource libraries for lands.
  2. It accelerates resource development, enabling dynamic play with its unique land retrieval ability.
  3. Synergies with instant-speed land abilities create strategic advantages during gameplay.

Text of card

You may play land cards from your graveyard.

"This world was once so much more than the confines of Naktamun."


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Ramunap Excavator gives players consistent access to land cards in their graveyard. This not only allows the retrieval of valuable lands but also enables a continuous flow of land drops to maintain a robust mana base, effectively providing a significant card advantage as the game progresses.

Resource Acceleration: With the ability to play lands from the graveyard, Ramunap Excavator accelerates your resource development by bypassing the one land per turn limit if a land is already present in your graveyard. This can lead to faster deployment of high-cost cards or enable powerful land combo plays.

Instant Speed: While Ramunap Excavator itself does not operate at instant speed, it synergizes well with lands that have abilities which can be activated at instant speed. This can create surprise blockers, generate mana in response to an opponent’s actions, or utilize lands with special abilities at the most opportune times without sacrificing the land play for the turn.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Even though Ramunap Excavator allows players to play lands from their graveyard, it doesn’t alleviate the sting of having to discard other potentially valuable cards. This aspect can be particularly cumbersome in strategies that don’t have ample draw power to refill the hand.

Specific Mana Cost: Ramunap Excavator’s mana cost (2G) demands a commitment to green mana, which could restrict deck-building options, especially for those wishing to incorporate this creature in a multi-color deck without sufficient mana fixing.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost of three mana, Ramunap Excavator competes with other three-drop creatures and spells that might provide more immediate impact on the game. In aggressive or fast-paced metagames, the mana investment can be significant without an immediate payoff.


Reasons to Include Ramunap Excavator in Your Collection

Versatility: This card shines in any deck that seeks to maximize land-use efficiency. Whether you’re advancing your mana base or aiming to recover valuable utility lands, Ramunap Excavator’s ability to play lands from your graveyard gives you a consistent edge in resource management.

Combo Potential: Paired with land-sacrifice mechanics or fetch lands, Ramunap Excavator allows for powerful recurring interactions. Its synergy with cards like Strip Mine or Wasteland can be particularly devastating, offering you the opportunity to lock opponents out of their mana.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta where graveyard strategies and land destruction are prevalent, Ramunap Excavator becomes an irreplaceable asset. Its presence on the board maintains your land drops and turns any milled or destroyed lands into ongoing resources, keeping your plays consistent and threatening.


How to beat

Ramunap Excavator is a powerhouse in Magic: The Gathering, offering players an unfettered access to land cards from their graveyard. Those familiar with Crucible of Worlds will recognize the ability, but this card aligns it with a body on the battlefield. Against such a card, a sound strategy involves disrupting the graveyard synergy. Graveyard hate cards such as Rest in Peace or Scavenging Ooze can nullify the Excavator’s ability by removing lands from the game or eating them up from the graveyard respectively.

Another effective tactic is to target the Excavator directly with removal spells. Using Path to Exile, Fatal Push, or similar instant-speed removal can deal with the creature before your opponent begins to gain advantage. Additionally, employing counter magic like Counterspell or Mana Leak can prevent Ramunap Excavator from hitting the table in the first place, providing a preemptive strike against graveyard strategies. Finally, land destruction or land damping effects can mitigate the benefits that Excavator provides. By removing key lands or restricting land plays, you can stifle your opponent’s game plan, ensuring the Excavator’s impact is minimal.


BurnMana Recommendations

Dive deep into the MTG realm with Ramunap Excavator, a versatile powerhouse that can reshape the battlefield’s terrain. Unlock advanced strategies of land recursion and gain an upper hand by maintaining a steady flow of land plays from your graveyard. The strategic depths and combo potentials with cards like Strip Mine add layers to your gameplay, inviting innovative tactics to outmaneuver opponents. Embrace the challenge and adapt to the evolving metagame by including Ramunap Excavator in your collection. Whether refining current decks or exploring new synergies, this card is an asset worth mastering. Join our community to elevate your MTG expertise.


Cards like Ramunap Excavator

Delving into the nuanced world of Magic: The Gathering, the Ramunap Excavator shines as a notable gem among mana-fixing cards. This card shares a kinship with the powerful Crucible of Worlds, with both allowing players to play lands from their graveyards. The key difference here is the Excavator’s advantage of being a creature, which adds flexibility and board presence over the noncreature artifact Crucible of Worlds.

Another comparable asset is the green card Life from the Loam, known for dredging lands back to hand rather than playing them directly from the graveyard. While Life from the Loam is cheaper and offers card selection, it lacks the straightforward repetitiveness the Ramunap Excavator provides. Then there’s World Shaper, which also brings lands back from the grave but in a bulk manner upon its demise, contrasting with the Excavator’s consistent, controlled land play turn after turn.

When pitted against its counterparts, the Ramunap Excavator maintains a solid position. Its creature-type synergy and repetitive utility make it a dependable choice for players looking to leverage their graveyards for land plays, ensuring a steady mana flow throughout the game.

Crucible of Worlds - MTG Card versions
Life from the Loam - MTG Card versions
World Shaper - MTG Card versions
Crucible of Worlds - World Championship Promos (PWOR)
Life from the Loam - Ravnica: City of Guilds (RAV)
World Shaper - Rivals of Ixalan Promos (PRIX)

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Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Ramunap Excavator MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Promos and Hour of Devastation, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Ramunap Excavator and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Ramunap Excavator Magic the Gathering card was released in 5 different sets between 2017-07-14 and 2020-11-20. Illustrated by 2 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 649912015normalblackJoe Slucher
22017-07-14Hour of DevastationHOU 1292015normalblackMark Behm
32017-07-15Hour of Devastation PromosPHOU 129s2015normalblackMark Behm
42017-07-15Hour of Devastation PromosPHOU 1292015normalblackJoe Slucher
52020-08-13Amonkhet RemasteredAKR 2112015normalblackMark Behm
62020-11-20Commander LegendsCMR 4332015normalblackMark Behm

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Ramunap Excavator has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
PennyLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Ramunap Excavator card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2017-07-14 Ramunap Excavator doesn't allow you to activate activated abilities (such as cycling) of land cards in your graveyard.
2017-07-14 Ramunap Excavator doesn't change the times when you can play those land cards. You can still play only one land per turn, and only during your main phase when you have priority and the stack is empty.

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