Excava drives a Boros graveyard-reanimation aggro deck. Each Excava attack returns a cheap artifact, creature or enchantment from the graveyard as a 1/1 flying Spirit with a finality counter. A large suite of discard outlets and loot effects stocks the graveyard with three-drops worth recurring. A wide set of "whenever cards leave your graveyard" payoffs turns every reanimation, flashback or exile-from-graveyard into counters, damage, Treasure and cards. Flicker effects reset the reanimated value creatures for repeat enter-the-battlefield triggers, and a Spirit tribal thread rewards the Spirits Excava keeps making. How it wins: It builds a wide board of evasive, counter-stacked flyers and Spirits through repeated recursion and attacks, with graveyard-leave damage from Advanced Reconstruction and Joshua's saga chip damage helping to finish opponents. Key roles: - Discard and loot engine: These cards fill the graveyard with cheap targets for Excava and other reanimators while filtering for gas. Some, like Inti, Seneschal of the Sun, also turn each discard into card advantage or attack bonuses. (Faithless Looting, Seasoned Pyromancer, Inti, Seneschal of the Sun) - Repeated reanimation: Excava plus other attack-triggered and cast-triggered recursion pieces return creatures and permanents from the graveyard every turn. Some of them, like Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle on historic casts, can chain into each other. (Guardian Scalelord, Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, Venerable Warsinger) - Graveyard-leave payoffs: Every card that leaves the graveyard, through recursion, flashback or exile effects, grows creatures, makes Treasure, draws cards or deals 2 damage to each opponent. This makes the recursion engine snowball. (Advanced Reconstruction, Hardened Academic, Relic Retriever) - Flicker for value and resets: Blinking reanimated creatures reuses their enter triggers, like Skyclave Apparition's removal or Seasoned Pyromancer's card draw. Blinking also strips the finality counter and the Spirit 1/1 overlay, so the creature returns at full power. (Ephemerate, Flickering Hound, Quantum Entanglement) - Spirit tribe and anthem: Excava turns returned cards into Spirits, and other cards also make Spirit tokens. Vanguard of the Restless rides those Spirit entries back from the graveyard and pumps the team as Excava is recast. (Vanguard of the Restless, Quintorius, Loremaster, Patchwork Banner) - Counters and combat pump: The deck stacks +1/+1 counters on the evasive attackers and grants them trample or extra attack steps, so the small reanimated flyers become real threats. (Mabel, Valley Hero, Stirring Hopesinger, Plargg, Dean of Chaos)

Excava, the Risen Past decklist

• Abrade
• Advanced Reconstruction
• Anger
• Ao, the Dawn Sky
• Arcane Signet
• Archaeomancer's Map
• Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
• Augusta, Order Returned
• Battlefield Forge
• Boros Signet
• Ceaseless Conflict
• Claim Jumper
• Clifftop Retreat
• Command Tower
• Conspiracy Theorist
• Daydream
• Desert of the True
• Drumbellower
• Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• Ephemerate
• Fabled Passage
• Faithless Looting
• Fateful Tempest
• Fields of Strife
• Fire Diamond
• Flickering Hound
• Furycalm Snarl
• Glittering Massif
• Guardian of Faith
• Guardian Scalelord
• Hardened Academic
• Harsh Annotation
• Inti, Seneschal of the Sun
• Joshua, Phoenix's Dominant
• Kirol, History Buff
• Laelia, the Blade Reforged
• Lorehold Campus
• Lorehold Charm
• Mabel, Valley Hero
• Marble Diamond
• Mind Stone
• Monologue Tax
• 8× Mountain
• Nesting Grounds
• Oliphaunt
• Patchwork Banner
• 11× Plains
• Plargg, Dean of Chaos
• Power Conduit
• Primary Research
• Prismatic Lens
• Pursue the Past
• Quantum Entanglement
• Quintorius, Loremaster
• Radiant Summit
• Relic Retriever
• Repel Calamity
• Requisition Raid
• Rugged Prairie
• Rustvale Bridge
• Scrollshift
• Seasoned Pyromancer
• Seize the Spoils
• Skyclave Apparition
• Sol Ring
• Solitary Cell
• Spirit of Resilience
• Staff of the Storyteller
• Stirring Hopesinger
• Study Hall
• Sunscorched Divide
• Talisman of Conviction
• Temple of Triumph
• Terramorphic Expanse
• Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
• Thrilling Discovery
• Tocasia's Welcome
• Turbulent Steppe
• Vanguard of the Restless
• Venerable Warsinger
• Wave of Reckoning
• White Orchid Phantom