The people who playtest this game are probably the average “hard stuck platinum” player. After the twist Arfus debacle, this has become clear to me.
It’s the only explanation I have for how things make it to release the way they are. It only took me 1 game with Arfus to realize just how it broken it is, and about 2 games to figure out that the optimal strategy is to treat your rune cards purely as excavate triggers. The only explanation for how this made it out of playtesting is the tester(s) was a noob who just used the passive as a side benefit, and didn’t go out of their way to excavate every card.