Archaeomancer
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander 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
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Archaeomancer

Creature — Human Wizard

When Archaeomancer enters the battlefield, return target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand.

Izzetaura on Fun EDH cards

2 days ago

I recommend Aura Graft, Mirari, Divert, and Redirect. Redirect is my favorite card of all time, and it pairs well with Archaeomancer.

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

3 days ago

Sometimes when I'm deckbuilding, I focus less on the commander and more on an interesting concept/combo that I want to use or exploit. This is the case with one of my favorite decks in my profile and actually one of the first commander decks I ever built. This deck began years ago when Magic finally started caring about the EDH format. It was a more simple time then, Rhystic study was $1.27 (exactly the price I paid for mine over 10 years ago), Cyclonic Rift was a bulk rare, and demonic tutor could be found for $10.

The combo that I was interested in was Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator. The latter was my favorite card at the time and is still one of my favorites. It was a great tool and with all the ETB effects that were out around then it was an underrated and uber powerful card. In fact, the entire blink mechanic was and is a very powerful strategy.

When I built this deck, I played a few times in shops and was quickly told that edh is a casual format and interaction of any kind is not fair (was told this by a land destruction deck...) So this deck is definitely more on the competitive side, but it would be the distant fringe of cedh. Alright with that let's get into it.

Initial thoughts

So we have a combo that we like Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator, but we don't even have a commander yet and going mono-blue seems not great, so we want to figure out what color(s) to add and what commander to choose. In a combo deck, there are generally three things that I like to make sure I include beyond the normal ramp, and card draw. That is redundancy, the ability to tutor up my combo pieces, and ways to protect my combo. So when thinking about tutoring up my combo pieces, I generally like to have the best tutors. Those are in black. So things like Wishclaw Talisman, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal (if you have money to burn or your playgroup is fine with you proxying the best cards so you can obliterate their precons j/k I proxy all my expensive cards and put them in a binder in case someone has an issue).

So we have Blue and Black and we can certainly add another color if we wanted to, but at the time I liked Dralnu, Lich Lord because Snapcaster Mage was in standard and flashback was cool. So I stuck with it when I revamped it, but decided that I wanted something that could ensure I can protect my combo from any threat and then also use it to win if I wanted to. The answer came in the form of Ertai Resurrected. He can counter basically anything from spells to activated abilities (which will come in handy) or he can take a threat on the field at the cost of letting your opponent draw a card.

So now that we have our commander, how to build the deck?

Redundancy

Combo decks need redundancy. If you don't get your two cards or one of them gets exiled, you need a backup plan, or scooping is your only option. Fortunately, there are some great redundancies here. We have Ghostly Flicker and Displace. Both of these will blink your creatures (ghostly flicker will also blink artifacts). Displacer Kitten can be helpful too, but I don't own it and it is a little more chaotic than I need it to be. Palinchron is great because you can return it to your hand and potentially play it again and create infinite mana through the use of High Tide, but a similar combo that has added benefits is Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker. This bounces both the drake and the archaeomancer untapping 5 lands, and returning ghostly flicker to your hand. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. Archaeomancer also will help in returning key counterspells and tutors to your hand. Nothing like doing double duty. Mnemonic Wall and Great Whale also fit here. The great thing about this combo is that each component is useful in and of itself. Bring out your Great Whale early untap some lands and do some other stuff or play out the rest of your combo with the untapped lands. Cast Archaeomancer to grab a used tutor for another combo piece.

One note here, if you get Peregrine Drake (or one of the other two) paired with Deadeye Navigator and you generate infinite mana you can now draw your deck with Ertai as commander: Step 1: Bounce Deadeye, when he enters don't soulbond with anyone.
Step 2: Cast Ertai, don't choose anything or if you want kill one of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter.
Step 3: Soulbond ertai and deadeye. Step 4: Bounce Deadeye and while that is on the stack bounce Ertai. Step 5: Ertai enters the battlefield counter the Deadeye bounce on the stack Draw a card Step 6: Soulbond ertai and deadeye again rinse and repeat. Draw as many cards as you need. Which means draw until you find your wincon.

Wincon

Since this is an infinite mana combo we need something to use all that mana. Obviously the activated ability on deadeye is great, but we need something to actually win with. I went with Commander's Insight and Blue Sun's Zenith. Both of these cards are useful even when they aren't being used to force your opponents to draw their cards. Blue Sun's Zenith works nicely because once you cast it goes back into your deck, which I showed above you can draw as many cards as you need so you cast it once, put it in your library draw again until you find it, cast it again on the next opponent, then again. You can also tutor them up or bring them back from the graveyard with the tutors or the archaeomancer/mnemonic wall from earlier. I like this more than straight damage, because if you don't have infinite mana these cards will still draw you cards.

Tutors

This is a fairly simple step, we need some good tutors. There are a number of good choices in black so I won't belabor that too much. I don't have some of the standard ones and feel like the deck performs fine with the ones it currently has. I do have a Tribute Mage in the deck because nearly all my mana rocks are 2 mana and so is Wishclaw Talisman. I found that the consistency with the deck is vastly improved by being able to tutor up my ramp. Also with deadeye I can bounce it multiple times and get more rocks or the talisman.

Protecting the combo

So I needed to figure out how to protect my combo and do so in a way that is flexible or can be used as needed. So Counterspell. Honestly, this part was fairly simple, most blue counter magic is here. Only reason Fierce Guardianship isn't here is because I don't have it. Other than that we have the typical cards here Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, etc.

I also have a couple other standouts. Venser, Shaper Savant is great here as it can be bounced with Deadeye Navigator to essentially boomerang my opponent's board and all their spells. Ertai Resurrected also protects the combo and with deadeye becomes a nice repeatable counter/removal spell.

glen_elandra_archmage can be bounced when she has her -1/-1 counter allowing her to be used again and again to counter noncreature spells.

Typical stuff

There is a lot of ramp in the deck, so Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other mana rocks including some larger ones like Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith to really get the ramp going, the sooner you can get to 7-8 mana the sooner you can combo out.

For card draw some key performers here are Rhystic Study, Black Market Connections, Phyrexian Arena, The One Ring. Mystic Remora. In my initial hand I want to have 3 lands, and one of these/tutor to find one or I typically mulligan.

Special notes

A couple other cards deserve mention here. Time Stretch and Time Warp. These are both repeatable with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall and I can honestly say that if I'm able to resolve either of these, it is unlikely that I'm going to lose, especially Time Stretch. With the ramp in the deck or a well timed Dark Ritual/High Tide I can play this fairly early and get a huge advantage.

Lands

Since this deck tends to be fast, you don't want lands that come into play tapped, so this deck uses fetch lands, shock lands, and duals that have the ability to come in untapped. (there are a couple that come into play tapped, but they are fetchable so I fetch them only when I know that I'm not going to be able to use the mana and only on an opponent's turn.)

I've had this deck for a while and it performs far better than any of my other decks. It always presents interesting lines that if followed will lead to surprising victories. As always let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a commander in mind that you want to see me build put it in the chat.

Here is the final decklist: Unlimited Power!

Azoth2099 on Davros, Dragon's Approach

4 months ago

Ok hear me out!

I feel like a sub theme of reanimator leveraging cards like Scholar of the Ages, Archaeomancer & Snapcaster Mage could take your Dragon's Approach strategy to huge heights, especially if you can reduce the cost of each burn with something like Vadrik, Astral Archmage. Since you're already running Birgi, God of Storytelling  Flip, it would be super easy to go infinite with Scholar of the Ages & Burnt Offering if you tie it all together with a trigger doubler like Harmonic Prodigy or Naban, Dean of Iteration.

This strategy would also help you remove a lot of cards that - while synergistic - should eventually be replaced by things that will drastically increase the core strength & resiliency of your deck like Demonic Tutor & Vampiric Tutor in a new, more powerful form.

Azoth2099 on Inalla - Wizard Tribal

7 months ago

Excellent Commander choice, Inalla, Archmage Ritualist is my undisputed favorite Commander, and perhaps my most powerful decklist.

The main wincons I'm using in my list are lines through Spellseeker and/or Micromancer which ends up creating infinite Archaeomancer or Scholar of the Ages Tokens after like 15 or 20 steps with a series of Instants and Sorceries (I can teach you, if you feel like learning all of it). I'm also running Dualcaster Mage + Heat Shimmer & Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation.

Some trigger doublers like Naban, Dean of Iteration, Harmonic Prodigy, Panharmonicon & Virtue of Knowledge could go a long way, too. Not necessarily doublers, but Archmage of Echoes, Molten Echoes & Reflections of Littjara have a similar effect.

Venser, Shaper Savant is a must in budget Inalla. I'd also consider Patron Wizard, Sigil Tracer & Voidmage Prodigy if your intention is to run a crapload of Wizard creatures. In my experience, though, Inalla doesn't actually need that many Wizards, just the right ones.

Here's my own Inalla, Archmage Ritualist list if you wanna peep it: MICROSEEKER (INALLA)

thefiresoflurve on Thief of sanity

8 months ago

Brainstorm is a great instant you could add.

I also might put in a couple of effects to recur instants/groceries [sic] from yard to hand just in case: Archaeomancer etc. since your commander cares about casting things from hand.

KongMing on Wizard101 | FREE Download | Play Now!

10 months ago

Great question Frostfire524. There are a couple infinite combos (and a few power combos/cards) that win you the game.

Galecaster Colossus can be enough to lock opponents (even multiple opponents) out of the game with mass bounce. If someone tries to remove it, counterspell.

Cyclonic Rift is in a similar boat, and can be retrieved from the graveyard by cards like Archaeomancer and Mystic Sanctuary. Clone Legion is another great card that can make the game one-sided.

Stormtide Leviathan is a big beater that can finish games if opponents have been swinging at each other a bit and don't have many fliers. Just yesterday I used Rite of Replication on the Stormtide the turn after casting it - six 8/8s with Islandwalk are pretty good at winning the game.

Ultimately though, the goal for the deck is to hold off the opponents until it is ready to draw/mill itself out and win. Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and Laboratory Maniac allow you to win when you deck yourself. Those are obvious, how do you get there? We have a few options.

First, the mill. This deck has a LOT of scry, but not much shuffle. That is a very intentional design decision. You want to remember what your bottom card is at all times, because the spell Tunnel Vision will let you throw all the rest of your library into your graveyard, leaving only that card on top. So you go from having 70-80 cards in library to 1.

This strategy can also target the opponent. Our spells Hinder, Spell Crumple, and Vendilion Clique all let us put cards on the bottom of an opponent's library. Now we can target them with Tunnel Vision! Much fun ensues.

Now for drawing yourself out. This is accomplished through infinite bounce triggers. The card Naru Meha, Master Wizard goes infinite with bounce spells like Ghostly Flicker, Freed from the Real, Displace, and Illusionist's Stratagem. This can let you bounce another Wizard that lets you draw cards, or use other output cards like Kindred Discovery or Sage's Row Denizen to knock out libraries. There's lot of others combos too, like being able to use Naru Meha and Ghostly Flicker with Sunscorched Desert to ping opponents to death.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Interaction between Archaeomancer and See …

11 months ago

Ok, here's our stack:

1: Lightning Bolt, targeting whatever.

2: See Double, target Bolt and Archaeomancer

Both players pass priority, so the stack is resolved.

See Double resolves, giving you a copy of Bolt, and the token copy of Archaeomancer before being put into your graveyard.

As state-based actions are checked, the Archaeomancer token's triggered ability is put onto the stack. You'll have to choose a target now, and as See Double is already in your graveyard, you can target it.

Going to close my answer with saying yes, Omniscience will allow you to win at this point. Then again, it's Omniscience. Why even pass your turn once it's online?

The_Dragonmaster on Interaction between Archaeomancer and See …

11 months ago

I'm wondering what happens when I cast See Double to create a token of Archaeomancer.

Let's say our opponent has 8 cards in his graveyard. He casts Lightning Bolt, and in response I use see double to both copy Lightning Bolt, and create a token copy of Archaeomancer. Would the token be able to return See Double to my hand? And if so, if I had Omniscience, could I in theory recast See Double for infinite tokens and infinite Lightning Bolt copies before Lightning Bolt resolves?

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