Benthic Explorers
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Magic: The Gathering
Mana cost
- Card type
- Creature — Merfolk Scout
- Rarity
- Common
- Indicative price
- 0.15 € · 0.16 $
- Mana value
- 4
- Power
- 2
- Toughness
- 4
- Colour
- Blue
Card text
, Untap a tapped land an opponent controls: Add one mana of any type that land could produce.
Format legality
- CommanderLegal
- DuelLegal
- LegacyLegal
- OathbreakerLegal
- PauperLegal
- PaupercommanderLegal
- PredhLegal
- PremodernLegal
- VintageLegal
Legalities follow the imported catalogue; check format rules before a tournament.
Data imported on 2026-10-06 (UTC).
Indicative Scryfall prices, updated daily. ★: foil; ★ E: etched foil. EUR and USD represent different markets.
Printing information
- Illustrator
- Greg Simanson
- Card language
- English
- Release date
- 1996-06-10
Flavour text
The rising oceans brought new lakes—and new terrors—to Terisiare. The Explorers found their ancient enemies spawning everywhere.
Rulings
This ability is not targeted any more.
Benthic Explorers checks the effects of all mana-producing abilities of the land untapped to pay its cost, but it doesn't check the costs of those abilities. For example, Vivid Crag has the ability ", Remove a charge counter from Vivid Crag: Add one mana of any color." If you untap a tapped Vivid Crag an opponent controls while paying for Benthic Explorers's ability, you can add one mana of any color. It doesn't matter whether that Vivid Crag has a charge counter on it.
Benthic Explorers doesn't care about any restrictions or riders an opponent's land (such as Ancient Ziggurat or Hall of the Bandit Lord) puts on the mana it produces. It just cares about types of mana.
The types of mana are white, blue, black, red, green, and colorless.
Untapping a tapped land an opponent controls is part of the cost of Benthic Explorers's ability. If no opponent controls a tapped land, the ability can't be activated.
When determining what types of mana an opponent's land could produce, take into account any applicable replacement effects that would apply to that land's mana abilities (such as Contamination's effect, for example). If there is more than one, consider them in any possible order.