Delve has produced some of the most efficient cards ever printed in Magic: The Gathering, a fact best proven by just how many delve cards ended up as competitive staples across multiple formats. Turning a graveyard full of played cards into free mana is a powerful enough idea that even a modest card design becomes dangerous with the right support.
Not every delve card reached the same heights, though. Some became format-defining threats, others became quiet workhorses that show up in deck after deck without ever making headlines.
This guide runs through the delve cards every collector and player should recognize, starting with the two that reshaped competitive Magic entirely and working down to the reliable role-players.
Whether you're building a Legacy deck or just want to know what to look for in a binder, these are the delve cards worth knowing by name.
Treasure Cruise is a sorcery that draws three cards for seven mana, or as little as one mana once delve pays for the rest through graveyard exile. In practice, it was routinely cast for a single blue mana in competitive decks, refilling a hand at a rate no other card draw spell could match.
That efficiency got it banned in both Modern and Legacy in January 2015, and restricted to one copy in Vintage. It remains one of the clearest examples in Magic's history of a card whose real-world cost bore almost no resemblance to its printed cost.
Dig Through Time lets a player look at the top seven cards of their library and take any two, for a base cost of six generic and two blue mana that delve can shrink dramatically. Its selectivity made it slightly less explosive than Treasure Cruise turn over turn, but no less dangerous in the hands of a well-tuned deck.
Dig Through Time was banned in Modern alongside Treasure Cruise but, notably, was never banned in Legacy or restricted in Vintage, since its marginally higher effective cost in those formats kept it in check.
Gurmag Angler is a 5/5 creature for six generic and one black mana, a cost that collapses to as little as one black mana with a full graveyard. Unlike the two banned card-draw spells, Gurmag Angler still has to attack and survive combat to do anything, which kept it fair enough to stay legal everywhere.
It remains a staple in Legacy and Modern black aggro and tempo decks today, prized for how much stats it puts on the board relative to actual mana spent.
Hooting Mandrills is a 4/4 trample creature for five generic and one green mana, following the same delve-discount pattern as Gurmag Angler but in green instead of black. Trample makes it a genuinely threatening clock rather than just a big body that can be chump-blocked away.
It sees less play than Gurmag Angler simply because green has more competition for its aggressive creature slots, but it remains a reliable, efficient option wherever delve support exists.
Murderous Cut destroys target creature for a base cost of four generic and one black mana, reducible to a single black mana through delve. Unconditional removal that can cost one mana is an enormous tempo swing, which is exactly why Murderous Cut has stuck around in cheap black removal suites for years.
Its flexibility across formats comes from not needing any dedicated graveyard-filling package; ordinary deck operation is usually enough to make it cheap by the time it's needed.
Become Immense gives a creature plus 6/6 for a base cost of five generic and one green mana, again collapsible through delve. As a combat trick, it turns almost any creature into a game-ending attacker out of nowhere, making it a defining card in aggressive green delve shells.
Its all-or-nothing nature means it rewards players who track their graveyard size carefully before committing to an attack.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang is a legendary creature from Fate Reforged that costs five generic and one black mana before delve, dropping to a single black mana in the right situation. Beyond being a strong early threat, its activated ability turns it into a recurring source of card advantage, which is why it became a defining face for delve in Commander specifically.
Its full story as a commander deserves its own dedicated look, covered elsewhere in this series.
Treasure Cruise, banned in Modern and Legacy, restricted in Vintage.
No, it remains legal in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage.
Fate Reforged, the second set in the Khans of Tarkir block.
No, ordinary deck operation usually fills the graveyard enough to use it.
If you're chasing any of these cards for a Legacy or Commander deck, protecting them from day one matters, since most see real play rather than sitting in a binder. EVORETRO Toploaders are a simple way to keep singles safe between trades and tournaments.
Matte sleeves are a good pairing for any delve staple you plan on actually shuffling into a deck.
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