Delve MTG: How It Works, All 28 Cards, the Graveyard Math and an $84 Tasigur Deck (2026)

Delve is the Magic: The Gathering keyword that lets your graveyard pay for your spells. “Delve” means “For each generic mana in this spell’s total cost, you may exile a card from your graveyard rather than pay that mana.” Each card you exile pays for {1}, you can exile as many as the generic part of the cost allows, and any leftover cost is paid with mana as usual.

It sounds like a small discount, but it has one of the highest ban rates of any keyword: 28 cards have delve, and 3 of them are banned in Modern. The reason is in the costs. Across the 26 delve cards with a fixed cost, 78% of the printed mana is generic, and 15 of them can be cast for a single mana. The real question is how quickly your graveyard fills up. We ran our own deck through 100,000 test games to find out, with and without self-mill.

This guide covers the delve rules, the graveyard math, all 28 delve cards, why Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time got banned, what to exile first, the best delve commanders, legality in every format, how to beat it and a $84 Tasigur, the Golden Fang Commander deck.

What is delve in MTG?

Delve is rule 702.66 of the Comprehensive Rules. Rule 702.66a gives the definition above. Rule 702.66b says it isn’t an additional or alternative cost and applies only after the spell’s total cost is determined. Rule 702.66c says multiple instances on one spell are redundant. Four things follow from that:

• It only pays generic mana. Treasure Cruise costs {7}{U}. You can exile up to seven cards, but the {U} always has to be paid. That colored part is the spell’s floor.
• It works while the spell is on the stack. It isn’t a static discount on a card in your hand, and it does nothing once the spell has been cast.
• It happens as you pay. Exiling is part of paying for the spell, so nobody can respond to the exile. Once you start casting, an opponent’s graveyard removal is too late for that spell.
• It doesn’t change mana value. Treasure Cruise is mana value 8 on the stack whether you paid one mana or eight. That matters more often than players expect.

Delve rules: 14 common situations

The delve math: what your graveyard is worth

Every card you exile is worth exactly one mana. The table below shows what seven notable delve cards cost at each graveyard size. Each one stops at its floor, which is the colored part of its cost.

Across the 26 cards with a fixed cost, the average mana value is 7.12, the average generic portion is 5.58 and the average floor is 1.54. Most of them are built to be cast for very little:

Compare that to other alternative ways to pay. Convoke can tap creatures for colored mana, and improvise is generic-only like delve, but both spend something on the battlefield that comes back next turn. Delve spends cards that stay gone. A graveyard refills slowly, so a second delve spell in the same game usually costs far more than the first. That’s why delve is at its best on one or two big spells, not on ten small ones.

How fast does a graveyard fill up?

This is what decides whether a delve card is a bargain or a dead draw, and most guides skip it. We goldfished our Tasigur list below 100,000 times. The test has a 7-card hand with no mulligan, one land a turn, no opponents and nothing dying. Each turn it spends its mana on ramp and self-mill, cheapest first, and never exiles anything. Then we ran it again with every self-mill effect switched off, so only spells it had cast went to the graveyard.

The gap is very large. With self-mill in the deck, the graveyard holds seven cards 52% of the time by turn 5 and 77% by turn 8, which means Treasure Cruise for one mana. Without it, the same deck reaches seven just 2% of the time by turn 8. This is a goldfish, so treat it as a guide: it ignores tapped lands, which flatters both columns a little, and it leaves out dead creatures and removal spells, which would add to both columns. A real game of Commander fills a graveyard faster than the second column, but nowhere near as fast as the first without help.

So self-mill isn’t an optional extra in a delve deck. If you just add Treasure Cruise to an ordinary Commander list, expect to pay most of its cost in mana for much of the game. For more ways to fill a graveyard, see our guides to surveil, dredge and the best mill cards.

All 28 delve cards

Here is every card with the delve keyword, sorted by how many Commander decks play it on EDHREC (pulled 6 November 2026). Delve debuted with three cards in Future Sight in 2007. Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged added 19 more, about two thirds of the total, and the last six came from Modern Horizons and Commander products. Prices are the cheapest ordinary printing on Scryfall on the same date.

Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise hold 67% of all delve deck slots (434,404 of 646,311). Each one is in a little over 4% of the blue decks EDHREC tracks. After those two, the numbers fall away quickly. 24 of the 28 cost under a dollar, and only Temporal Trespass and Murktide Regent cost more than $2, so this is one of the cheapest keywords to build around.

One more card matters: Teval, Arbiter of Virtue doesn’t have delve itself, but its text says “Spells you cast have delve.” It’s a 6/6 flying lifelinker for five mana, and it costs you life equal to each spell’s mana value, so an expensive spell paid for with your graveyard still costs the full amount of life. Lifelink helps pay that back.

The cards worth building around

• Dig Through Time ({6}{U}{U}, instant): Look at seven cards, keep any two. Being an instant, it answers threats and finds combo pieces at the end of an opponent’s turn.
• Treasure Cruise ({7}{U}, sorcery): Draw three. The lowest floor of the big card-draw spells.
• Temporal Trespass ({8}{U}{U}{U}, sorcery): An extra turn, and the only delve card that exiles itself. It needs {U}{U}{U} even with eight cards exiled.
• Afterlife from the Loam ({5}{B}{B}{B}, sorcery): Takes one creature from every player’s graveyard, which makes it one of the strongest reanimation spells in Commander. Keep your best creature out of the delve pile.
• Murktide Regent ({5}{U}{U}): A 3/3 flyer with a +1/+1 counter for each instant or sorcery card exiled with it, plus another counter whenever an instant or sorcery leaves your graveyard later. It’s the main reason to count which types you exile.
• Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis ({5}{B/G}{B/G}): You can’t spend mana on it at all. Delve pays the generic part and convoke pays the rest, so you need two untapped black or green creatures plus cards in the graveyard. It can be cast from your graveyard, too.

Why Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time were banned

When delve returned in Khans of Tarkir, cheap spells and fetch lands in the older formats made it easy to have a full graveyard early. A one-mana “draw three” was far above the rate those formats had been balanced around. Wizards acted quickly. In the 19 January 2015 announcement, Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise were banned in Modern, Treasure Cruise was banned in Legacy, and it was restricted in Vintage. Treasure Cruise followed in Pauper that March. Dig Through Time is now banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage as well.

Hogaak was the third. Modern Horizons printed it in 2019, and graveyard decks had such an effect on Modern that Wizards banned it on 26 August 2019, weeks after already banning Bridge from Below to try to slow those decks down. That’s 3 banned cards out of 28, or 10.7%, which makes delve one of the most banned keywords in the game.

Both blue spells remain legal in Pioneer, which starts at Return to Ravnica, and in Commander, where four-player games and 100-card singleton decks slow the engine down. Murktide Regent arrived in 2021, became a staple of blue tempo decks and hasn’t been banned anywhere.

What to exile first

The cards you exile are often more valuable than the mana you save. In Commander, 521 legal cards mention exiling cards from your graveyard, 215 have flashback, 32 have escape and 14 have dredge. If you’re playing a graveyard deck, delve is competing for its own resource. A simple order works in most games:

1. Used instants and sorceries with no further use, unless you’re casting Murktide Regent, in which case these are exactly what you want to exile.
2. Lands, unless you have Life from the Loam, Aftermath Analyst or another way to bring them back.
3. Weak creatures and spent permanents. Creature cards also trigger Syr Konrad, so they may be the better exile with it in play.
4. Dredge cards and flashback spells, only if you won’t use them this game.
5. Never your best reanimation target unless the delve spell wins you the game right now.

Exiling your commander from your graveyard is a legal trick as well: rule 903.9a lets you move it to the command zone right after. You’ll rarely need it, because you usually move your commander there as soon as it dies, but it’s useful if you left it in the graveyard for a reanimation spell.

Two payoffs reward the exile itself. Tormod, the Desecrator makes a tapped 2/2 Zombie whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard. Magic rules manager Matt Tabak has confirmed that delve exiles its cards at the same time, so each casting makes one Zombie however many cards you exile. Syr Konrad, the Grim pings each opponent when a creature card leaves your graveyard, so it fires once per creature card. Both triggers go on the stack above the delve spell and resolve first.

Best delve commanders

Only three commanders have or grant delve, and each one plays differently. Two other popular commanders work well alongside delve cards in the 99. Deck counts are from EDHREC on 6 November 2026.

Tasigur’s tax is the best trick here. His first cast is {5}{B}, his second is {7}{B} and his third is {9}{B}. All of that generic mana can come from the graveyard, so the floor stays at {B} no matter how many times he has died. Hogaak needs no tax from the graveyard, because tax only applies when you cast a commander from the command zone (rule 903.8).

Is delve legal in Standard, Modern and Commander?

All counts are for cards with the delve keyword, checked on Scryfall on 6 November 2026. No delve card is legal in Standard, though Teval, Arbiter of Virtue is, so you can still get delve there through Teval.

Budget Tasigur delve deck ($84)

This is a Sultai self-mill list that exists to make every delve card as cheap as possible. It runs 16 delve cards including Tasigur himself, plus Teval, about 20 cards that fill the graveyard, and 35 lands. It totals $83.53 at the cheapest ordinary printing of each card on Scryfall on 6 November 2026, and it passed our check for legality and color identity. The average nonland mana value is 3.55, which is high on paper but much lower in play because of delve.

How it plays. Spend the first three turns on ramp and self-mill: Stitcher’s Supplier, Hedron Crab, Satyr Wayfinder, Grisly Salvage. Then cast big spells cheaply. Tasigur comes down early as a body and returns cards through his activated ability, which also adds to the graveyard. Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time refill your hand, and Afterlife from the Loam takes the best creature from each graveyard. Keep one reanimation target in the graveyard when you delve, and run Eternal Witness or Nyx Weaver to retrieve what you need.

Where it wins. Hedron Crab pointed at yourself fills the graveyard by the mid-game, Murktide Regent grows as you exile spells, and Tormod and Syr Konrad turn each delve cast into pressure. Empty the Pits at instant speed is a late-game finisher: with twenty cards in the graveyard, you can make ten tapped 2/2 Zombies for {B}{B}{B}{B}. Reliquary Tower keeps your hand safe after a big Treasure Cruise.

Want to compare it to other lists? Try our free deck analyzer, look up any card with our card finder, browse community decks, or read our guide to the best reanimator cards for more ways to use this graveyard.

The ten priciest cards

If you want to cut more: Reanimate and Animate Dead are the most expensive cards here, and Birds of Paradise can be replaced by any other one-mana elf at no real loss. That gets the deck close to $60 before you buy the replacements.

How to beat delve

Delve exiles as a payment, so you can’t respond to it. Graveyard removal has to happen before your opponent starts casting the spell. Use it during their upkeep or draw step, or in response to a self-mill spell, not after you see the delve card on the stack. Once it’s on the stack, your options are counterspells and answers to the result.

Mana value helps you here too. Since delve doesn’t change it, a Tombstalker cast for two mana is still mana value 8, and so cheap conditional removal misses: Abrupt Decay only hits mana value 3 or less, and Fatal Push only 4 or less even with revolt. Plan on a removal spell that doesn’t care about mana value.

Delve FAQ

What does delve do in MTG?

For each generic mana in a spell’s total cost, you may exile a card from your graveyard instead of paying that mana. Each exiled card pays for {1}, and colored mana still has to be paid normally.

Does delve reduce mana value?

No. Treasure Cruise is mana value 8 even if you exiled seven cards to cast it. Effects that check mana value, such as Abrupt Decay or Teval’s life loss, see the full number.

Can you use delve to pay colored mana?

No. Rule 702.66a says it only applies to generic mana. Treasure Cruise always needs {U}, and Temporal Trespass always needs {U}{U}{U}.

Can you respond to delve?

Not to the exile. It’s part of paying the cost, so the cards are gone before anyone gets priority. You can respond to the spell once it’s on the stack, but you can’t take away the graveyard it already spent.

Does delve work with commander tax?

Yes. The tax is part of the spell’s total cost and it’s generic, so delve can pay it. Tasigur, the Golden Fang’s minimum is always {B}, as long as you have enough cards to exile.

Does delve work with flashback?

Yes. Delve isn’t an alternative cost, so it can pay the generic part of a flashback cost. Snapcaster Mage giving Treasure Cruise flashback is a classic example: the flashback cost equals its mana cost, and delve pays seven of it.

Can a spell exile itself with delve?

No. The spell moves to the stack before you pay (rule 601.2a), so it isn’t in your graveyard any more. That’s why Hogaak can’t pay for itself when you cast it from the graveyard.

Does delve use cards from an opponent’s graveyard?

No. Delve only exiles cards from your own graveyard, though cards like Hedron Crab can target any player, and Sorcerous Squall mills an opponent to find a spell to cast.

Why was Treasure Cruise banned?

It could draw three cards for one mana in formats full of cheap spells and fetch lands. It was banned in Modern and Legacy and restricted in Vintage on 19 January 2015, then banned in Pauper in March 2015. It’s still legal in Pioneer and Commander.

What is the best delve card?

By play in Commander, Dig Through Time (219,944 decks on EDHREC on 6 November 2026), just ahead of Treasure Cruise at 214,460. On a budget, both cost about $0.25.