Exodus, SS&B: Conclusion

Previously in Exodus, we've seen a series of potential problem cards, one of which (Survival of the Fittest) was even Green! For the first time, Red was the weakest color, and 1st turn kills are once again possible in at least two separate ways.

And now, the conclusion….

Exodus: Signed, Sealed & Broken Part 6 Artifacts and Lands

Coat of Arms, 5, All creatures get +1/+1 for each other creature of the same type Average The problem with this card is that it is too good for too many decks. That sounds like a contradiction, but you can't just throw this card out; you have to worry about Knights, Soldiers, Zombies, Pegasus, Goblins and Elfes. Oh, my! Obviously, this card is devestating with Pegasus Stampede, Pegasus Refuge, Sacred Mesa, Snake Basket and other token generating engines. If it cost any less mana, it would be even better. But let's give it a shot anyway, if only for fun:

That's the whole deck, yeah. The idea is to drop Coat of Arms, then load your opponent down with either Snakes or Pegasus tokens. Use Wrath of God and Gerrard's Wisdom to stay alive long enough to pull it off. Une Tithe/Diamond/Oath to gain mana and card advantage.

Erratic Portal, 4, 1T: Unsummon target creature unless its owner pays 1. Average Note that that's owner, not controller. Steal those creatures back! In addition, this is another manipulator of come-into-play creatures, and another way to devastate post-Armageddon. Wall of Blossoms comes in as always. However, a 4-cost artifact is a little too much for what it does. That's the same cost as Nevinyrral's Disk, for example. Also a very good idea with Winter Orb.

Medicine Bag, 3, 1T+Discard: Regenerate target creature Weak This card is two cards to regenerate the first creature, with a substantial mana investment. Avoid.

Memory Crystal, 3, All buyback costs are reduced by 2. Watch List Why? Why? WHY? I don't know about you, but I think that this is way too powerful. Just one of these turns most buyback spells into problem cards, especially the old standbys of Capsize and Whispers, and has potential to speed up Mind Games prisons, a deck that most people think about but no one builds. And then there's the TurboWarp deck, which may be viable again. This also allows 2-color buyback decks, letting Invulnerability, Searing Touch, Fanning the Flames to benefit. Of course, this spell is a 2-edged sword, but if you play no buyback it is devestating. Do you really want to face:

And that's the nice version. It will have trouble with other decks that like Memory Crystal, but it can Whisper for 3 or even 1 mana very quickly. It uses the old blue standbys to stall, lock and kill, along with the Kismet/Mind Games/Forbid/Winter Orb lock. Or it can just Capsize everything. Impulse insures you will always be able to kill before you run out of cards.

Mindless Automaton, 4, 0/0, 2 +1/+1 counters. 1,dicard:Put +1/+1 on. Put 2 -1/-1: Draw a card. Average This card is going to throw people into fits, but its cost keeps it from being better. It serves as a bad card filter, it can pump itself permanantly as a fast effect, and it's a cantrip. A good bargain.

Null Brooch, 4, 2T+Discard your hand: Counter target noncreature spell. Watch List If you empty or close to empty your hand on a regular basis this is amazing. It fits right into the 'Card Disadvantage' deck with Ensnaring Bridge and Cursed Scroll. Bottomless Pit and Null Brooch is amazing. Also, because you can't counter these types of effects (as far as I know), it just wins a counter war. Sometimes, you just have to win one at any cost.

Skyshaper, 2, Sac: All your creatures gain flying until end of turn. Weak Counters target Earthquake. Move along, nothing to see here.

Spellbook, 0, Skip your discard phase Weak Works with the most reliable 1st turn kill in the game: Swamp, Ritual, Necro, Spellbook. Hey, I didn't say kill your opponent! Someone thought that Library of Lang should be weakened. Change the cost to 1 or 2 and slap 'Draw a card when this comes into play' on it, and we'll talk.

Sphere of Resistance, 2, All spells cost 1 more to cast Average This spell is a lock finisher, by shutting off one-mana removal (Firestorm, Shock) and mana creatures. A mini-Nether Void. Excellent in Winter Orb decks. And even cumulative. Every Tradewind deck might want to pack 1 or 2, just to be able to finish the job. It is amazing how many different ways you can flat out lose the game if you let yourself get Abeyanced nowadays.

Thopter Squadon, 5, 0/0, 3 +1/+1s, can move them on or off (become 1/1s) for 1 mana as sorceries. Weak 5 mana for a 3/3, even a cute 3/3, isn't good enough.

Transmogrifying Licid, 3, 2/2, 1T: Becomes 'Target gets +1/+1 and counts as an artifact'. 1: End effect. Weak Licids are nice, but only Dominating Licid is a serious constructed card. This one should be relegated to theme players packing Alladin and Magus of the Unseen.

Workhorse, 6, 0/0, 4 +1/+1s, Put -1/-1 on or remove +1/+1: Add 1 to your mana pool. Weak This is not exactly a Rasputin Dreamweaver, but as 6-cost artifact creatures go this one isn't that bad. Still, Triskelion is much better. I can't think of a good reason to play this.

City of Traitors, Land, T: Add 2 to your mana pool. If you play a land, sacrifice City of Traitors Weak This is the next Sorrow's Path. With Ainchent Tomb and Crystal Vein already out there, I can't see why anyone would use this. Well, I can, but the explanations are all pretty silly, and I wouldn't worry about them. Someone could write a top ten list, though.

And that ends the series. I hope everyone was stimulated by the deck ideas and card evaluations. If you liked one of the decks, modify and test it, then E-mail me a better version. If you didn't, you can still E-mail me if you think I rated a card wrong. I'll end with early predictions for the new enviornments, and then go off to start testing decks.

Rath Cycle: With Cursed Scroll banned, Memory Crystal, Static Orb, Mind Games, Mind over Matter will combine to make monoblue the dominant deck, with U/B being the only possible competition. Chill just fits in that deck too well. The red deck is (arguably) weaker now than it was in Tempest only, because it lose Cursed Scroll. Creatureless decks are once again a viable strategy, and either pure counter decks, Static Orb decks or Tradewind decks will dominate the qualifiers.

Type II: WotC has been extreamly lucky with Standard, since only during the Black Summer did one deck really dominate. We still won't see one deck dominate, but Nohand, W/B necro, Suicide Black, WW and neo-Sligh will be up against a wide variaty of lock and card economy decks, and I think the lock decks will win that war more often than not. Cards that will see much more play than they ever did include Phyrexian Furnace, Abeyance and Firestorm.

Extended: Land Tax was banned, which means that Thawing Glaciers and Tithe will be even more important than before. Force of Will makes Extended a slower enviornment than Type II, because you can't just empty your hand early with 100% safety. Here, the war will be between the Borg control decks (Gaia's Blessing, Gerrard's Wisdom, Counters, Wraths, Disenchants, Whispers, no permanents) and its creature based variants, against W/B and monoblack Necro decks, siezing on a Land Tax-free enviornment to rise again and Hymn forever. This one is about even.

Type I: Just thought I'd point out that with every new expansion, Type I becomes more and more about Ancestral Recall. Reclaim is the most important Type I card in the set, but there are others that combine with the old cards in new ways. One change may be that people finally start using a lot of Phyrexian Furnace. There are a lot of neat things you can do with the old cards, and I'll be sharing these in a more humorous way, since as we all know this is Type Fun.

Remember, Think Degenerate!

Zvi Mowshowitz