Excavated Wall MTG Card
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 1 |
| Rarity | Common |
| Type | Artifact Creature — Wall |
| Abilities | Defender,Mill |
| Released | 2021-04-23 |
| Set symbol | |
| Set name | Strixhaven: School of Mages |
| Set code | STX |
| Power | 0 |
| Toughness | 4 |
| Number | 255 |
| Frame | 2015 |
| Layout | Normal |
| Border | Black |
| Illustred by | Zezhou Chen |
Key Takeaways
- Provides consistent card filtering and graveyard synergy, enhancing draw and strategic options.
- Demanding discard and colorless mana cost may restrict its inclusion in some decks.
- Fulfills multiple roles, proving valuable in graveyard-centric and defensive strategies.
Text of card
Defender , : Mill a card. (Put the top card of your library into your graveyard.)
"Don't be fooled by the quiet. These old stones are trying to talk to you." —Augusta, Lorehold dean
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Excavated Wall provides repeatable deck filtering, allowing you to manage your draws more effectively throughout the game. This facilitates a consistent flow of resources into your hand while potentially stocking your graveyard for synergistic strategies.
Resource Acceleration: By discarding land cards with Excavated Wall’s ability, you essentially turn excess lands into strategic tools rather than dead draws. This can indirectly accelerate your resource utilization by enabling more impactful plays or by synergizing with land-retrieval mechanics.
Instant Speed: The excavate ability of Excavated Wall can be used at instant speed, giving you the flexibility to react to your opponent’s actions. This feature allows you to keep mana open for responses while still being able to sift through your deck on your opponent’s end step if no immediate threats need to be addressed.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Playing Excavated Wall requires you to discard a card to activate its ability. This could play against you, especially in tight situations where each card in hand is critical for your strategy or if you’re facing an opponent applying hand disruption tactics.
Specific Mana Cost: With a mana cost that necessitates colorless mana, Excavated Wall’s inclusion in your deck demands careful mana base planning. It may not fit seamlessly into mana-hungry multicolor decks that prioritize color-specific spells over generic costs.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: For its defensive capabilities, Excavated Wall may seem like a hefty investment with a two-mana cost, especially when other low-cost creatures can also provide solid defense early on. Plus, the inability to attack means it’s solely a defensive asset, which may not justify its place in fast-paced, aggressive decks where every mana spent needs to contribute to the offensive.
Reasons to Include Excavated Wall in Your Collection
Versatility: Excavated Wall offers a widely applicable defender card that can be a staple in any deck looking for an early blocker. With its ability to cycle from the graveyard, it ensures that it’s never a dead draw.
Combo Potential: This card has inherent synergy with strategies that capitalize on the graveyard, such as dredge or delirium decks, as it can help fulfill the graveyard card count requirements.
Meta-Relevance: In environments where aggressive strategies are prevalent, Excavated Wall can help stabilize the early game. Its ability to be recurred from the graveyard also means it retains value throughout the course of a longer game.
How to beat
Excavated Wall presents itself as a robust defender in the Magic: The Gathering landscape. It stands out with its mana-fixing ability by allowing players to tap for a colorless mana. This kind of versatility is reminiscent of mana rocks, serving as both a reliable blocker and a mana source. But this is not a card without its weaknesses.
One approach to overcome the Excavated Wall is employing removal spells that can bypass its defensive stature, such as Shatter or Naturalize, which are effective due to Excavated Wall being an artifact. Another strategy includes flying creatures, as Excavated Wall can only block ground assaults. Flying affords you the ability to soar over the Wall, making your attacks difficult to intercept. Additionally, cards that allow you to bypass defenders altogether, such as Rogue’s Passage or spells that can tap the Wall without it retaliating, will render its defensive capabilities irrelevant.
To surmount the impenetrability of Excavated Wall, it’s essential to integrate these tactics into your game plan. By doing so, you can adapt to the challenges it poses and turn the tide in your favor.
Cards like Excavated Wall
Excavated Wall joins the ranks of defender cards in Magic: The Gathering with its unique function as a mana source. Similar to other defender cards like Wall of Omens, which provides a card draw upon entering the battlefield, Excavated Wall offers a different kind of advantage. Its ability to mill the top card of a library into the graveyard by tapping serves as a useful tool for self-mill strategies, contrasting with Wall of Omens which focuses on immediate value gain.
Comparatively, Hedron Crab is another card that falls into the milling strategy category. Though not a defender, it shares Excavated Wall’s mill capacity, activating whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control. Alternatively, Mnemonic Wall stands out with its ability to return an instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand when it enters the battlefield. Despite their varying benefits, both Hedron Crab and Mnemonic Wall contribute to the strategic depth of library manipulation.
Assessing these cards together, Excavated Wall holds a unique position in Magic: The Gathering. Its persistent milling ability, coupled with defender status, gives players a durable and consistent way to fill the graveyard, complementing various deck designs focused on graveyard synergies.
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Excavated Wall MTG card by a specific set like Strixhaven: School of Mages, 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 Excavated Wall and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Excavated Wall has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Historicbrawl | Legal |
| Historic | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Paupercommander | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Gladiator | Legal |
| Pioneer | Legal |
| Commander | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Explorer | Legal |
| Timeless | Legal |
