UB Exploit

During the spoiler season for Dragons of Tarkir, I wrote several posts regarding the new mechanic Exploit for the set. Now, with all the cards at my disposal on Magic Online, a Blue/Black Exploit deck is definitely the first build I want to experiment with. UB Control was already a pretty strong deck in the metagame, although it relied more on the synergy built around Black Devotion, and particularly Gray Merchant of Asphodel, to power out its wins. With the Exploit Commons fairly evenly split between Black and Blue, it turns out that utilizing that same synergy will be much more difficult.

Here's the current build that I am testing:

UB Exploit

by gwyned

Creatures 4 Palace Familiar 4 Pharika's Chosen 4 Vulturous Aven 3 Jeskai Sage 3 Sultai Scavenger 2 Gurmag Drowner 2 Silumgar Butcher 1 Benthic Giant 1 Servant of Tymaret 24 cards Other Spells 4 Anticipate 4 Treasure Cruise 3 Whisk Away 1 Eternal Thirst 1 Font of Return 13 cards

Lands 4 Dismal Backwater 4 Evolving Wilds 7 Swamp 8 Island 23 cards Sideboard 3 Duress 3 Festergloom 3 Pharika's Cure 2 Negate 2 Returned Phalanx 1 Benthic Giant 1 Flesh to Dust 15 cards

Essentially I am running cheap creatures to sacrifice with Exploit, including the excellent Pharika's Chosen for early defense, and both Palace Familiar and Jeskai Sage, which draw you a card when they die. Additionally, between Exploit in general and Gurmag Drowner in particular, you should be quickly filling up your Graveyard, creating easy fuel for Treasure Cruise and Sultai Scavenger. This also allows the deck to quickly draw through its cards, especially utilizing Anticipate and the excellent Vulturous Aven. This build is definitely light on removal, with only three Whisk Away in the main deck, supplemented with two copies of Silumgar Butcher. Finally, I added a few "silver-bullets" with Benthic Giant, Eternal Thirst, Font of Return, and Servant of Tyramet.

I have a few questions I'm still trying to answer:

1. Is this the right mix of Exploit creatures to play?
2. Is it a mistake to not run enough Black creatures to make Gray Merchant viable?
3. Can the deck get away with so little removal?

If you've got some feedback, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

More Exploits in Dragons of Tarkir

As I continue the process of working through the entire collection of Dragons of Tarkir Commons, I have been writing all week about what impact these new cards will have on the format. As I mentioned last time, by far my favorite new mechanic in this set is Exploit. While I don't think all five of these Commons will see widespread play in the format, I don't think it's premature to state that this mechanic will probably make the biggest impact as a whole.

Let's take a look at two more of them:

Gurmog Drowner harkens back to one of my favorite cards, Forbidden Alchemy. While it costs an extra mana, and is Sorcery speed as well, this is still a powerful effect, especially given the extra synergy you get from placing the other cards in your Graveyard with Delve. A 2/4 for 3U is decent, but not that exciting; such cards typically only see play with a relevant ability. In a dedicated Delve deck, this probably slots right in, giving you the spell ability most of the time, but also a 2/4 when you need it. Or, if you have tokens or other abilities that trigger on death, this is also well worth considering.

At 4, Silumgar Butcher is both a 3/3 creature and dealing -3/-3 is overcosted by one mana, so you're definitely paying extra for the flexibility here. Lash of the Whip has not seen much play in Standard Pauper, since if you're paying that much for removal you want less conditional removal like Flesh to Dust, even if it is a bit more expensive. However, if Black can find enough creatures with relevant 'enters the graveyard' abilities, it shouldn't be too difficult to get both sides of this card. And in that scenario, this card is quite strong. As such, this should see play in decks with these type of effects.

Given how strong the Dimir Control deck already was, these Exploit cards may be enough to push that deck to dominate the metagame going forward. We shall see.

In other news, the Standard Pauper Sealed League came to an end this week, with  _ShipIt_ taking home the trophy with his Boros build. Congrats to him, and thanks to everyone who participated! I've had several people ask if I plan on running it again, and I would love to do it again in the future.

Exploit in Dragons of Tarkir

Of all the mechanics in Dragons of Tarkir, Exploit is probably my favorite. This mechanic  essentially ask you to make a choice between getting either get a vanilla creature or a Sorcery speed spell effect. The flexibility of this choice is quite valuable. And even better, if you have a creature with an ability that triggers on dying, or just one that has been rendered irrelevant, you can sacrifice it instead and get both halves of the Exploit card.

Allow me to illustrate the design simplicity with one of the new Commons:

 Sidisi's Faithful is the perfect example of the flexibility of Exploit. Against an aggressive archetype, the ability to drop an 0/4 on the first turn provides some great early defense. Or, later in the game, it instead can be used as a Sorcery speed Unsummon, perhaps getting your opponent's best creature out of play. While you can't use it to dodge most forms of removal, it does allow you to get rid of pesky Auras or get a blocker out of the way. While neither the creature nor the ability are amazing, at worst this is a great Sideboard option against aggressive decks. In that spot, it might even be better than Voyage's End against hyper-aggressive decks.

With Sidisi's Faithful, most of the time you're quite happy getting either effect without needing to sacrifice another creature. But sometimes, you really want the ability to get both the creature and the spell. Let's take a look at my favorite of these Exploit creatures:

Both halves of Vulturous Aven are quite good, giving you either a 2/3 Flyer in Black or a Sign in Blood effect, although you're paying a considerable premium on the spell-effect. Black rarely sees high Toughness in Flying creatures, so even without the Exploit ability, this card is already borderline playable. As such, you will almost never want to Exploit itself to trigger the Sign in Blood ability. But in combination with cheap creatures like Typhoid Rats or enters the graveyard effects like Black Cat (or the newly released Dutiful Attendant), you have the potential to get some phenomenal value out of this card. If you're playing Black, you should probably be playing this card.

I am definitely excited to get my hands on these cards in the near future. What do you think of Exploit?