Magic: The Gathering

Magical Thinking: Exodus

Welcome back to Magical Thinking, a look back at the art and cards of Magic: the Gathering, from the beginning. I’m putting up this edition a little early because I have work tomorrow, and I didn’t want to miss my deadline. So this week we are looking at the final expansion of the Tempest block: Exodus.

Released in June of 1998, Exodus details the escape of the Weatherlight crew from Rath, having recovered the legacy artifacts and their lost teammates. In order to escape, they will run afoul of numerous threats, not the least of which is the evil Greven Il Vec. To make matters worse, Crovax is about to have his big heel turn, so you know they gotta deal with that. It’s also worth noting this is the first set which changed the color of the expansion symbol on the card to indicate the card’s rarity.

So without further ado, let’s get onto the cards.

Uh-oh. I guess none of these Moggs ever saw Revenge of the Sith (probably because it hadn’t come out yet), because you know you never attack someone who has the high ground. Of course these guys don’t have lightsabers so it will probably be fine.

Welcome to another edition of “creatures featured on Magic cards which don’t actually show up in the game as creatures.” I mean, what is this person? A Demon? A Draenai from Wow? A Tiefling? What’s up with their lips? Those are some of the weirdest lips I’ve ever seen on anyone. Also, those are some pretty wild candles in the background I just noticed. The Bed Bath and Beyond store in Rath must be amazing.

Eeesh, you okay buddy? You look like you maybe sat in the tanning booth for too long. I think I’ve put action figures under a magnifying glass and they come out looking like that.

Heh, that’s what if feels like when you play WoW and you have the quest markers on in your mini map. More seriously I like the flavor of this guy finding treasures in your graveyard. It kind of harkens back to Antiquities.

Didn’t this thing show up in Pink Floyd’s The Wall? I mean, probably not but it looks like it could.

This is the unofficial sequel to Free Willy where Willy comes back and takes his revenge for the hubris of man. I mean, Killer Whales are already kind of intimidating animals, so giving one scales and fangs is probably overkill (I know Orcas have big teeth, but not like that they don’t).

I feel like a Robe of Mirrors is just asking for trouble. The Mirror pieces would come off, you’d end up cutting yourself, some of those look jagged. Plus on a sunny day you’d blind everyone within ten feet of you.

Not gonna lie, I really love the art here. This feels like one of the iconic bits of Zombie artwork from Magic, for a card that’s relatively obscure (Of course that might just be because it was featured prominently in Inquest, which I read at the time). Also, a 2/2 for 1 is pretty good for the time it was released.

Man, is it just that gaining the Shadow ability messes you up? Between that and the melty guy earlier it looks like creatures with Shadow just get a raw deal all around. Also, does it have to destroy a creature blocking it, or any creature that is engaged in blocking another creature? That kind of makes the difference between this being meh and being kinda good.

….did that little Pixie just fart in their faces? I feel like maybe that little guy wandered in from a Monty Python sketch or something.

Yeah, that’s me after not brushing my teeth for a few days. Creatures with double X casting costs always confuse me. Do I have to pay double the cost to cast them? I don’t get it.

And that’s why you always make sure to pack extra pudding cups. I’ve seen this kind of fight happen plenty of times. It’s sad really.

Yeah, this guy doesn’t really scream “anarchist” to me. He looks like Mad-Eye Mooney after he lost his job. I’m also not sure how getting a sorcery back fits with “Anarchy”. Overall this feels like wasted potential.

When you and the crew all agree on the same pizza topping.

Hey look, it’s another Portal Alumni. I gotta say I still really dig the Mogg design and their weird-ass forehead ridges.

Fun fact: this is a reference to the old belief that Salamanders were born of fire, a myth brought about when people would burn logs in the wood and cause the salamanders sleeping inside to wake up and run out to escape the burning. Of course, this is Magic, so they really are fiery magical creatures here. Sadly, Salamanders are not a popular creature archetype, with there being only two other Salamanders in all of Magic. So my dream of a Salamander deck will go unfulfilled.

I kind of dig these guys. I think the flavor they are going for is even though they are tough, they are still skittish bunnies. If you startle them by casting a spell they go hide in your hand. Still, you could use this to bounce them to avoid dangerous spell effects. Kind of a mixed blessing effect.

Honestly surprised they didn’t bring this back for any of the Theros blocks. Would be very handy in the present standard meta.

Exodus produced more than a few cards that were overpowered, and this was one of them. So much so it’s banned in Legacy. Pretty easy to see why, since you can use it to grab combo piece creatures or other stuff from your deck and eject dead cards. I imagine it would be absurdly strong in Golgari decks.

First of all, love the flavor text. Secondly, this is pretty much the iconic tribal card. Any tribal deck worth its salt needs at least one of these (With Standard currently hosting the much more balanced Icon of Ancestry). I just really love this card overall.

Null Brooch. When your entire hand is pretty much crap except for that one card you really REALLY want to get out, so you don’t mind discarding the hand to counter your opponents counter. Also, I’m amazed they are still using interrupt at this point. I figured that had been phased out by now.

I’m actually surprised it took WOTC this long to come out with a card that was just a generic spell book. Of course the benefit is now you can hold infinite cards. I think there are cards similar to this in Standard right now, so this card has pedigree if nothing else.

And finally the last of the Licids, at least for now. It’s actually a really neat effect. I love transformation effects so this is right up my alley. I kind of wish they would revisit Licids some day, or at the very least something similar.

Well, it’s a city of traitors, but at least the heating bills are super-low. Also no need to plow the roads.

And that’s it for Exodus! I hope you all enjoyed the Tempest Block as much as I did. Next time, we go back to basics, because it’s time for Portal’s second age. I’ll see you next week, and until next time, stay Magical.