Subject: Some Exodus thoughts Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 12:49:18 -0400 From: Chad Ellis To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Well, everyone else is putting in their thoughts on Exodus, so now it's my turn... 1. Oath of Druids. Why is everyone dismissing this card so quickly? Most comments seem to run, "If you're playing green you should have more creatures out than your opponent, so this just sucks." Well, sure, you're not going to put this in Stompy or some other mono-green deck, but this could be an amazing splash card in a control deck. How about a U/W/g deck where the only green cards are Oath of Druids and Gaea's Blessing. Throw in two or three (you always want two in play/graveyard) Warrior Angels. Now, every turn you can cycle through to an Angel, block, gain life, etc. Eventually you will be able to attack, gaining 3 per turn. In the current creature-happy environment there isn't much chance that this will be a dead card, and it could completely shut down Sligh or even Suicide Black (gaining 3 per turn from turn four on is pretty good, so even if shadow/pro white keeps you from blocking...oh, wait, is that an Erg Raider?). If you're not feeling subtle, use whatever monstrous fat thing you want instead -- anything from ComerZilla (except Verdant Force -- VF and Oath of Druids is NOT a combo) should do well. This approach may not work, but something with this big an effect for just two mana is at least worth a serious look. 2. Michelle Bush is the bomb. I forgot to mention that in my tourney report, a terrible oversight for which the fact that we never played is no excuse. Darwin must be even cooler than we already knew him to be. To the guy at the prerelease who hovered around her and asked if she needed help figuring out what cards were good, I wish she'd used my suggested reply: "Yes, you can help me. You can help me by playing me for money. A LOT of money." Michelle is cool and very friendly, but don't think for a moment that this bomb won't go off if you get paired against her. How many times have YOU qualified at regionals? She chose med school over the much happier MBA experience, true, but so what? Still da bomb. 3. Reaping the Rewards is just weak. I can't believe how excited some people are about this card. I just wish it was rare so I could sell all of mine. Giving up land for two life is OK, but if you have to spend W to do it, it's just NOT a Zuran Orb. Exodus has some very good life-gainers, this one is one of the worst. Get over it. 4. Green mages need to make friends. Strong mono-chromatic decks are now possible in every color except, it would seem, green (OK, Stompy is cool, too). That doesn't mean that green sucks, it just means that we need to team up. Green still has great sideboard cards, library manipulation only rivaled by blue...heck, we even have the best legends. Green needs to take a union approach..."Sorry, buddy, but you can't play U/W without splashing green. We can let you off with just a few Blessings, but if you want to avoid a strike in the long run you're better off with Urangutans or some Walls." With so many green support/sideboard cards about to leave, we need to do an extensive marketing campaign on the merits of what we have. Hey, Reclaim + Wall of Blossoms = Demonic Tutor! Reclaim + Whispers = Demonic Tutor! Ancestral Recall + Reclaim is so strong you don't actually need any threats in your deck, you can just force your opponent to concede through sheer card advantage! All you Bloom players, make it count while you've still got your combo...throw in Reclaim and you'll always keep drawing the card engines...or that Lotus petal you need 'caust you accidentally Natural Balanced away all your Islands! Keep saying stuff like that and it won't matter that WoTC seems to think that Green should only be viable in Limited formats. 5. WoTC has accomplished the mission of making the graveyard a full participant in the game. There are now so many ways to discard cards and so many ways to take advantage of library conditions that it is a foregone conclusion that competitive decks will have to be able to deal with the graveyard. Some, to be sure, may do so by trying to be so fast that a graveyard user doesn't have time to get going, but only the fastest decks will be able to ignore graveyards -- others must find ways to use theirs and to frustrate their opponents' attempts to do the same. Phyrexian Furnace looks better every time you look at it. But what will replace it? 6. Reclaim is REALLY good. A year ago it would have been an interesting card with some definite potential. Now, with all the graveyard stuff, it's Michelle. (See comment number 2 if you already forgot what "Michelle" means.) 7. There are going to be things coming out of Exodus that we haven't even imagined yet. MoMa combos are pretty straightforward, but Exodus has a lot of spells that do strange and wondrous things for small amounts of mana. Some will be chaff, some will be amazing, but the odds are good that we won't know for sure which are which for some time. Some may take a later card to show their true power (Firestorm w/Living Death), some will fit very well with existing cards (Intuition w/Living Death), but even Reaping the Rewards may prove strong someday. 8. I need a raise. Magic just isn't going away. Damn.