Since the dawn of Magic: The Gathering, Black Lotus has been the gold standard for mana generation. The ability to generate three mana of a single color with no real resources invested proved so good, in fact, that the card can now only be played as a single copy, in a single format. There are plenty of MTG cards that emulate its legendary power, however, including Dowsing Dagger from original Ixalan.
While this card doesn’t offer up said power freely, it is still remarkably potent for a modern design. Despite this, it remains underplayed in the Commander format, especially considering how many surprising synergies it brings to the table. With eyes flocking to Dowsing Dagger today following the release of an Instagram reel from Goblin_grounds discussing it, we thought it was the ideal time to talk about everything this nifty gadget can do in the 99.
Dowsing Dagger MTG
Dowsing Dagger is the perfect example of a top-down MTG card design. It’s a classic jungle-slashing machete, which brings its own jungle in the form of Plant tokens, and its own reward in the form of Lost Vale. Playing, equipping, and dealing damage with this card is essentially re-enacting an Indiana Jones movie in cardboard form.
This flavorful scenario is how the card was intended to be used in 1v1 games, which explains why it never really made any impact in constructed Magic. Playing and equipping the Dagger, then figuring out how to get around the Plants to flip it over, was far too slow even back in 2017. The card was extremely lackluster as a standalone Equipment, too, which didn’t help matters.
In Commander, however, it’s a different story. You only need to give Plants to a single player with Dagger, which means you’ll still have two other less-protected opponents to attack to flip it. The speed of the card is also less relevant due to the slower pace of the format, which makes playing, equipping, and attacking with the Dagger more feasible. As a result, it’s very much possible to access the absurd Lost Vale side of the card regularly.
This isn’t exactly a secret. Dowsing Dagger is reasonably popular in Commander, appearing in over 56,000 decks according to EDHRec. That said, that’s still less than 0.8% of the decks it could go in, being a colorless card. To me, that’s far less than the card deserves, considering its wide array of applications in different archetypes.
The Pride Of The Armory
One of the best homes for Dowsing Dagger in MTG Commander is in Voltron decks. These are decks that care about suiting up creatures with Auras and Equipment anyway, so Dagger gets a lot of incidental synergy right off the bat. You can tutor it up with Stoneforge Mystic, and even equip it for free with Commanders like Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER and Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist.
Once you’ve got your Dagger equipped ahead of schedule, Voltron decks are also very well-positioned to land a hit with it. Most Voltron Commanders either have evasion built-in, like Thrun, Breaker of Silence, or gain evasion through an Aura or Equipment. This means that, even if you do have to brave the jungle and attack the player with the Plants, you’ll likely still get to Lost Vale in good time.
Voltron decks are also great at spending the extra mana that Lost Vale gets you. Since they’re so Commander-focused by their nature, Voltron decks often end up paying a lot in Commander tax. Lost Vale covers one and a half increments of this, which is very handy. You can also use it to pay for any pesky equip costs that you can’t circumvent through other means, to help rebuild your position.
Cradle To Grave
Playing Dowsing Dagger in Voltron is powerful, but it’s also just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what this MTG card can do. Once you’ve got it flipped over into Lost Vale, it actually becomes a pretty potent combo piece in the right shell.
As any cEDH player will tell you, Gaea’s Cradle is a busted land. This is due to its absurd acceleration potential, of course, but also because any land that taps for a lot of mana is ripe for exploitation by untap effects. Lost Vale has a much lower ceiling than Cradle, but tapping for three mana still enables a number of loops.
For the most part, these combos all include Emiel the Blessed. For three generic mana this can blink any creature you own, with no tap requirement. Handily, this costs exactly as much mana as Lost Vale produces. If you can blink a creature with an untap-on-entry effect, like Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, then you can untap Vale and keep going infinitely. In the Derevi example, you’ll net infinite enters and leaves triggers. Use a creature that untaps multiple lands instead, like Cloud of Faeries, and you can generate infinite mana, too.
While it’s harder to set up than Cradle, Lost Vale is one of the few lands in the game that can enable combos like this. If your deck has the space, it’s well worth considering for the extra redundancy.
Industry Plants
The above examples all took advantage of the upsides of Dowsing Dagger. What’s really interesting, however, is that there are actually ways to capitalize on its downside, too. Turns out giving an opponent two Plants isn’t always a bad thing.
There are quite a lot of MTG cards that care about how many creatures your opponents have. Putting two Plants in play will give you a two-mana discount on Blasphemous Act, for example. This essentially makes it free if you play both in the same turn. You can also get some damage in with Suture Priest, or extend the life of your Sothera, the Supervoid, to give a couple more examples.
These are just the minor use cases, of course. You can go much bigger, for example with Defense of the Heart. You won’t always have an opponent with three creatures in play, but an opponent with one in play is pretty much guaranteed. This allows Dagger to push you over the edge, letting you tutor up two creatures on your next turn. You can also lock a player out of playing creatures entirely by giving them Plants while you have Ward of Bones in play, or use it to get two extra 4/4s out of Ezuri’s Predation. These are pretty significant upsides for what’s meant to be the card’s biggest drawback.
Overall, Dowsing Dagger is an MTG card with a ton of play to it. It’s not for every deck, certainly, but it is for a lot more decks than it sees play in currently. Consider giving it a spin next time you’re putting a new Commander list together.
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