The Cave of SkullsHow it works & interactions with other cards

Unlocking Potential from the Grave

While The Cave of Skulls is the active plane, every creature card in your graveyard gains the scavenge ability. The scavenge cost is equal to the mana cost of the creature card itself. Scavenge allows you to exile a creature card from your graveyard as a sorcery, paying its cost to place a number of +1/+1 counters on a target creature equal to the exiled card's power.

Resolution and Timing

When you activate a scavenge ability, it follows the standard rules for activated abilities. First, you announce the ability and choose a target creature on the battlefield. You then pay the mana cost and exile the creature card from your graveyard as a cost. The ability is put onto the stack, and once it resolves, the target creature receives the +1/+1 counters. Note that because it is a sorcery-speed ability, you cannot use scavenge during combat or in response to an opponent's spell.

The Chaos Effect

Planechase features a unique trigger when the chaos symbol is rolled on the planar die. Whenever chaos ensues at The Cave of Skulls, the plane rewards you by creating two 1/1 white Warrior creature tokens. These tokens provide immediate board presence and can serve as perfect targets for the scavenge abilities granted by the plane's static effect.

Common Pitfalls

It is important to remember that scavenge only works while The Cave of Skulls is the active plane; if the players planeswalk away, your graveyard creatures lose the ability immediately. Additionally, if the creature card in your graveyard has an 'X' in its mana cost, X is treated as zero for the purpose of paying the scavenge cost, though the power of the creature remains whatever is printed on the card.

Interaction examples

Fueling the Warriors

WarriorCommand Tower

If chaos ensues, you create two 1/1 white Warrior tokens. On your main phase, you can tap Command Tower to help pay the scavenge cost of a creature in your graveyard, exiling that card to put +1/+1 counters directly onto one of your new Warrior tokens.

Artifact Acceleration for Scavenge

Sol Ring

Scavenge costs can be expensive if you are trying to exile large creatures. You can tap Sol Ring to add {C}{C} to your mana pool, helping you pay the mana cost of a high-power creature card in your graveyard to significantly buff a creature you control.