Soldevi Excavations MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Soldevi Excavations not only offers the potential for card filtration but also a repeatable mechanism to improve the quality of the cards you draw. Over time, this subtle edge can significantly outpace your opponents by ensuring your draws align with your strategic needs.

Resource Acceleration: As a land card capable of providing colorless mana, Soldevi Excavations serves as a reliable source of mana production without occupying valuable slots in your deck dedicated to spells. Its secondary ability, albeit at a cost, can also ensure consistent land drops by sifting unwanted cards to the bottom of your library, indirectly helping in mana smoothing.

Instant Speed: The utility to scry during any player’s turn at instant speed offers flexibility not found in many land cards. This allows players to respond to dynamic game states, setting up draws on an opponent’s end step or even after revealing a crucial piece of information. The control it provides can be a considerable tactical advantage.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: In order to activate the draw ability of Soldevi Excavations, a player has to first discard a card from their hand. This can sometimes become a hefty price, especially when a player is seeking to maintain a certain hand size to avoid falling behind in the resource game.

Specific Mana Cost: Unlocking the full potential of Soldevi Excavations demands a specific mana combination, as its activation requires both blue mana and generic mana. This could be restrictive for non-blue decks and might not fit harmoniously into multicolor mana bases that cannot consistently provide blue mana.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With its initial setup cost involving both the sacrifice of an untapped Island and one generic mana, the card presents a higher investment compared to other land options. Although the ability to scry is beneficial, the comparative cost efficiency must be considered against other lands or cards providing similar or greater value with lower investment demands.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Soldevi Excavations offers a unique utility in providing both mana fixing and card selection. This makes it a suitable addition to decks that prize consistency, as well as in control strategies that desire to fine-tune their draws over the course of a game.

Combo Potential: Its ability to scry before drawing adds value to setups focused on assembling specific combinations. It harmonizes with strategies that are centered around the top of the library or need to filter through cards to acquire key pieces.

Meta-Relevance: In formats where nonbasic lands are not heavily penalized and the pace is more deliberate, Soldevi Excavations may prove to be a powerhouse. Its inclusion could help your deck stay resilient against a variety of threats by smoothing out your draws and maintaining a stable mana base.

How to beat

Soldevi Excavations is an intriguing land card in Magic: The Gathering. It shines by offering both mana fixing and deck manipulation, enabling players to sift through their decks to find the cards they need. Unlike basic lands, it can set up your draws, offering a strategic advantage. However, its benefits come with a downside. It enters the battlefield tapped and demands an initial sacrifice of an untapped Island. This can slightly delay your momentum, a drawback savvy players can exploit.

Countering Soldevi Excavations is about understanding tempo and resource management. Land destruction effects can outright remove the card from play, while faster aggro decks can pressure opponents before they fully utilize its abilities. For those looking to outpace the card, consider adding cards like Ghost Quarter or Field of Ruin to disrupt your opponent’s mana base effectively. Alternatively, strategies that benefit from the opponent having tapped lands, such as those utilizing the card Price of Progress, may find that Soldevi Excavations plays right into their hands. By anticipating the slow start it imposes, one can craft a game plan to outmaneuver the advantages this card provides to its controller.